When I was in high school, I wanted to be a teacher. As I got closer to graduation, I changed my mind and entered my first year of college majoring in Chemical Engineering. After a year of that, I decided engineering was not for me and transferred to Accounting. I graduated with a BS in Accounting in 2000. After five years, I decided I should have been a teacher all along. I went through the MAT program at my hometown university and in May 2007 graduated with a teaching degree.
I taught high school Algebra I for two years at a local high school before moving to Alaska. My older sister had already been teaching in Alaska for 5 years and had settled in the small rural Yup'ik village of Newtok. In August 2007, I began my teaching career in Newtok, Alaska through the Lower Kuskokwim School District. I teach secondary mathematics, grades 7-12. I love my job! I love the community and the environment.
I am currently enrolled in the M.Ed. program through UAS for an endorsement in Elementary Mathematics, grades K-8. I do not think I will ever teach in the primary grades, but being a middle school teacher, I wanted to learn more about the basics of teaching math. I want to learn as many strategies to teaching multiplication, division, fractions, estimation, etc. so that I can be more beneficial to my students - many of them whom struggle with these basic concepts even throughout their middle school and beginning high school grades.
Brandi, It's nice to have a familiar name (and face) in the class. I, like you, don't plan on using my M.Ed to teach el ed, but it's a great program to help us be better at teaching middle school and up...Gary
ReplyDeleteHi Brandi,
ReplyDeleteIt is great to see someone else going for the M.Ed, Mathematics. I also do not plan on teaching elementary school mathematics. I was hoping to learn new ways to teach college math. As I teach remedial math to adults, this leads me to believe that they may have missed something in their earlier mathematical life. I am just trying to figure out how to help them.