Empowering students to take ownership of their learning defines me as an educator.

My instructional practice is geared toward equipping students with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that they need to be successful lifelong learners. I believe that teachers need to provide students with an enthusiastic, safe, warm, and caring environment, built on a foundation of trust and respect. In my personal commitment to fostering the development of the whole child, I intentionally focus on students developing their social-emotional, physical, cognitive, and language skills through varied and differentiated learning environments. In addition, I believe that our 21st century learners need to develop 21st century skills to be successful. As a result, I have intentionally developed my skill-set to design and execute programs that seamlessly and successfully meet these needs. I firmly believe that we all have an innate desire to learn and are born with innate intrinsic motivation. However, as teachers, being able to recognize that learning is a process, and students experiencing success while on this journey, is crucial to their learning, and functions as an extremely pivotal motivational tool in them being successful learners. Therefore, while I am committed to delivering a program that is strongly rooted in an established curriculum with defined goals and outcomes, I do believe that setting flexible goals for students that are attainable is imperative if we want our students to be successful. To build a successful learning environment, I partner with every student as they develop an understanding of where they are now, where they want to go, and how they plan to get there. Building an environment of mutual trust and respect creates a safe place for shared learning experiences between teacher and student, and between students. As a result, my students are introduced to an amazing environment of collaborative learning. Within this safe space my students are also equipped with the skills that they need to be effective self and peer assessors where they identify good practice, areas for improvement, and suggest strategies to modify practice, both for themselves, and their peers. Setting future goals is part and parcel of the everyday learning experience for my students, and the sense of ownership is really what motivates them to set personal goals and become more effective stewards of their own learning. I truly believe that my responsibility as a physical education educator is to groom my students to appreciate the art of movement, develop lifelong health habits, and be effective 21st century learners.