Piloting the Classroom: Teaching from Multiple Perspectives

Abstract

ABSTRACT Piloting the Classroom: Teaching from Multiple Perspectives

By: Nicole M. Gilmore This honors thesis serves as a teaching portfolio based on my lessons and experiences with teaching in the classroom and with individuals. I have had many experiences with teaching other than just my student teaching. I have taught in both upper-middle class schools, schools that are on “academic watch” and even a school in Belize, a different country and a different culture. Not only have I taught in the classroom but I have also had experience teaching in a military training program for future officers, Air Force ROTC. I did not realize how well all of these experiences would interconnect and improve me as a teacher until I started work on this portfolio. Each section is dedicated to my different teaching experiences throughout the past two years. There are also notes from professors, cooperating teachers and even students that are valuable to me as a future teacher and serve to highlight my teaching experiences. Each section includes an introduction summarizing and highlighting my writings. This will give the reader a good indication of which sections are of most interest to him or her while reading the portfolio. In each section, especially the capstone paper, I discuss how each of the experiences has impacted one another. My findings and conclusions on how they all relate, come from a mixture of both my research and experiences with teaching. The purpose of this portfolio is to allow me to have something to look back on after I have served my years in the Air Force, so I can remember the valuable education I have received at Miami University on teaching and how to be an effective educator. The education I have received here is of the utmost value and I cannot risk losing all the information and lessons I have learned through the classes and experiences here. This portfolio is one giant step to prepare myself for my future teaching career. This portfolio also serves as a tool for prospective schools that will interview me, to see examples of my work throughout my time at Miami and my experiences with teaching.