5 Ws About Me as a Teaching Professional Kelsey Joyce

Who Am I? My name is Kelsey Joyce and I am currently a Senior at URI studying Secondary Education and English. I started my college experience as a Marine Biology major, but the English classes and department at URI stole my heart. I have been a URI Cheerleader for the past four years, so I come with lots of school spirit….GO RHODY!!!!. Cheerleading is a large part of my life because I work as an instructor for the Universal Cheerleading Association, so you will always catch me smiling!!! I have an extremely positive outlook on every situation, and have noticed that my continuous positivity tends to rub off on people once the spend enough time around me. I hope to use that quality to my advantage when working with my own students!!!

Why do I want to be a teacher? My work with the Universal Cheerleaders Association is the reason why I decided to pursue a career in education. As an instructor I have been able to help many children learn not only cheerleading, but self confidence and determination as well. I taught as many as 800 cheerleaders all at once, as well as small groups and individuals, which made me fall in love with the process of learning. It’s the greatest feeling in the world to me to watch someone succeed because I helped them. Before I got my job with UCA I was just an English major, but my experience with the cheerleaders that I taught inspired me to want to do more with the skills of teaching that felt so natural to me.

My Philosophy of Teaching Humanistic Behavioral Managerial My philosophy of teaching comes from a blend of approaches and techniques. I am a strong believer of the Humanistic approach because I know from personal experience that when a teacher gets to know the student, it creates a positive social and learning environment. The students will feel more encouraged to learn when they have someone positive supporting them. Along with the Humanistic approach I would use the Behavioral approach to control the classroom. If the students learn quickly to understand and follow the classroom rules with positive reinforcement, mutual respect will be gained between the students and myself. To prevent an misbehavior I can see myself using the Managerial approach. Simple tasks such as assigning seats and stopping students from entering the classroom with something they are not supposed to have will prevent possible misbehavior from happening once I get to know my students.

My Classroom Rules Be on time! Follow directions. This includes classroom behavior, and well as assignments. Respect others the same way you respect yourself. Work hard and NEVER give up!!! “Nothing that’s worthwhile is ever easy. Remember that.” –Nicholas Sparks

Rewards/Consequences Lottery ticket when I see the students working hard beyond my expectations. The possibility of a reward will motivate the students to aim for higher goals. Disruptive students will get three warnings, after further consequences will take place such as calling the students parents or being sent to the administrator. Disrespect will not be tolerated. The moment a student is disrespectful towards another student, myself, or property, they will receive a strike and once they get three they will get a zero for class participation. The three strike system will be implied for most altercations unless I feel it is severe enough to be addressed immediately.

PBSI in my classroom! The first tier in PBSI will address almost all students in the classroom. They will be expected to follow the set classroom and school rules. This tier will be used to address new problems that begin in the classroom. One of my rewards, the lottery system, will positively encourage the students’ good behavior. The second tier focuses on students with behavioral problems that exist before entering the classroom. The problems can be prevented by working around and with the students behavior to accomplish the classroom goal. That will be accomplished in my classroom by setting students up to work in certain groups/pairs that I know will benefit all of the students, or by designing certain classroom activities that allow the students to use their strong aspects in a positive way. The third tier closely focuses on individual students who have extreme behavioral issues. If a student reaches this tier they should be considered for an Individual Education Plan. It is crucial at this point to develop positive support system for the student to succeed. In my classroom if there is a student with an IEP, I will be sure that they are able to get the same education as his/her peers by being a support system for the student when they are struggling.