Welcome!

My name is Callie White and I would like to welcome you to my online teaching portfolio. I have been teaching kindergarten, first grade, and second grade for eight years. Prior to teaching full time, I also completed a semester of a student teaching internship in third grade at Hawkins Elementary in Brighton Michigan. Afterwards, I graduated Summa Cum Laude from Eastern Michigan University with a bachelors degree in Elementary Education and Integrated Elementary Science.

I have passion for my career and see every single day as an opportunity to make a difference in a child's life. I strive to grow each student in their life of learning while acting as a role model, making learning engaging, and building relationships with all of my students!

This online portfolio is meant to showcase my philosophy and experience as a teacher as well as my learning experiences as a student and life long learner. Thank you for taking the time to view and explore my online teaching portfolio!

Teaching Experience

• 3 years teaching first grade
• 3 years teaching second grade
• 2 years teaching kindergraten
• 1 year teaching a 1st and 2nd grade gifted and talented class

Taught Virtually March 2020-June 2020

Curricular Experience

Literacy
• Lucy Calkins (Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop)
• Into Reading HMH
• Wordsmith Spelling
• CRSuccess Phonics
• Oakland Schools MAISA Curriculum
• Handwriting Without Tears

Math
• Math Investigations
• Everyday Math
• Math Expressions

Science
• Project Lead The Way
• Phenomenal Science
• TCI Science

Health
• Michigan Model for Health Curriculum (MMH)
• Second Step

My Teaching: Philosophy

As a professional educator, I believe that teaching is a life-long learning process and there will always be room for growth and improvement. It is important to be open to new research and to adapt to new methodology or ideas. This thinking allows me to lead my classroom of learners by example and in doing so, fostering a love of learning that will last a lifetime.

Classroom Environment

Having a safe, comfortable, and welcoming classroom community encourages children to take safe risks in their self-discovery and learning. I believe that a positive classroom community is built through relationships that are established upon a mutual respect and trust between the students and me as the teacher.

One of my first steps in creating these relationships is by establishing clear and consistent routines, procedures, and high expectations. I enforce these through positive reinforcement and various types of modeling. When necessary, I support individual children with a learning-behavior plan. My classroom is a place where children can make mistakes, and thus learn without fear of failure. Social emotional learning is integrated across all academic content areas in my classroom. My students individual strengths and talents are discovered and celebrated. I encourage respect, appreciation, and celebration of diversity by including children's cultural funds of knowledge into the classroom to ensure that all students are positively represented. By establishing this environment, I can teach to the whole child.

Student Learning

I believe that the best way to provide a quality education to all students is to first understand them as individuals. By forming relationships with my students, I am able to incorporate their interests into the teaching of the curriculum to motivate their desire to learn and participate. My understanding of students also includes assessing their developmental understanding of each curricular area. I do this to ensure that children are learning in their zone of proximal development and are appropriately challenged.

From there, I differentiate the content taught, product expected, or process used. In my classroom, students are encouraged to engage in high-order thinking through my questioning as well as by formulating their own questions. I believe that by encouraging them to ask questions (instead of simply answering questions) they will be able to identify and solve problems, come up with new ideas, and pursue opportunities in a meaningful way that will serve them well in their journey to becoming a life-long learner. With the right approach and materials, I know that I can create ample learning opportunities to help all students be successful.

Community

I believe in community and family involvement in the school learning environment. A strong home to school connection allows parents and other caring adults to be a partner in their child’s learning. The connection between home and school is one that can truly make a difference. In keeping constant communication with families, I can ensure that we are all on the same team, rooting for their child to be the most successful they can be.
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Being an active member of the school community is valued in my eyes. I enjoy working and collaborating with other teachers, as well as being an active and encouraging staff member.

Classroom Community

I believe that building and maintaining a classroom community provides the building blocks for a successfully managed classroom. Without relationships, learning struggles to occur. Students must feel safe, secure, and a sense of belonging. We build class community through collaboration, positive reinforcement, growth mindset, student leadership, modeling, and feedback.

Along with that, I work hard and strive to go above and beyond the curriculum to teach students what it means to be a positive addition to their community exhibiting and building skills such as kindness, compassion, and empathy. Social and emotional learning is woven all throughout our learning day.

In order to ensure my students are intrinsically motivated, life-long learners, I lead by example. I hold myself to a high standard and uphold the same effort, respect, and kindness that I expect from my students everyday. I take my role seriously as their teacher and always have their best interest at heart.

Making Thinking Visible

Students in my classroom engage in a culture of visible thinking where a growth mindset is emphasized. We use many thinking routines to capitalize on our thinking in order to make it visible to others. These routines facilitate student engagement, understanding, and independence in early learners. Visible thinking routines play a major role in Creating a Culture of Thinking in my classroom. Students are encouraged to share their thinking through active participation and discourse.

The routines pictured here are:
• Step Inside
• See Think Wonder
• Headline, Chalk Talk, and 4C’s
• Compass Points
• Tug of War

Technology Integration

Technology is used in my classroom to support and motivate children's learning, as well as ignite curiosity. I believe technology should be used to enhance curriculum already in place, and to do so in appropriate increments.

Technology Used:
• Lexia
• Book Creator
• Smart Board
• Promethean Board
• iPads
• Seesaw
• Classroom iPad
• Classroom Twitter
• Classroom Website
• ELMO
• Learning Games and Websites
• Google Drive/Forms/Slides
• Go Noodle Brain Breaks
• Email
• Remind
• Epic!
• Raz-Kids
• Reading A-Z
• iReady

Reading

The goal of Readers Workshop is to create a bond between the reader and the text where the child learns to ask questions about the text, construct meaning, and make connections. Children gain independence and take ownership of their learning through the implementation of this format while also connecting with other learners through reading partnerships. Readers Workshop has components that help students become successful readers. These components include the following:
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Mini-lesson: The goal is to keep the mini-lesson to ten minutes in length. This time is dedicated to whole group instruction that focuses on a reading strategy or an aspect of literature.

The mini-lesson is comprised of four main parts:
1) Connection
2) Teaching
3) Active Engagement
4) Link

Independent Reading: At this time, students are sent to read in their “just right reading spots” and are practicing the concepts introduced during the mini-lesson. Students are reading “just right books” and books of high personal interest. They record their thinking on sticky notes.

Guided Reading: While students are independently reading, I meet with small groups of students or confer with individual students.

Sharing: To close the reader’s workshop session, students will share with a partner, or the class about their discoveries during their independent reading time. Each student engages in accountable talk in order to give and receive valuable peer feedback on new thinking.

Writing

Writing is the heart of what we do during our school day. Currently, I teach writing in the writing workshop format by following the Lucy Calkins writing program. There are enrichment projects put in place when appropriate. Children are involved in a mini-lesson that incorporates modeling and visual reminders. They then have a significant amount of time to write and experiment with newly learned skills such as adding a strong beginning, adding details, incorporating dialogue, using punctuation, and revising for clarity. Lessons end with a sharing session to celebrate success. The students will be expected to work through the writing process and practice good writing traits across the curriculum as well as in their stories. I support them in attaining their personal writing goals through one on one conferring and flexible strategy groups that are formed based off of formative and summative assessments.

Math: Hands On Experiences

I use hands-on math experiences to take an abstract concept and establish concrete understanding through visual and kinesthetic manipulation. In my classroom, we use manipulatives, visuals, whole-body movement and real-world application. Each year I create a classroom culture that fosters mathematical understanding and learning by valuing student ideas and autonomy by accepting a variety of methodology. This culture also includes student voice, someone I respect greatly once said that “In the classroom, the one doing the talking is doing the learning.” Each day in my classroom you will hear students explaining their thinking to others. When a child can teach others or explain their thinking, they more fully understand the concept.

Science

I believe that the goal of teaching science in the primary grades is to provide a learning environment that promotes, supports, and encourages opportunities for learners to build their own understanding of new ideas. Inquiry should drive the scientific process allowing students to conduct scientific models and participate in hands-on investigations. I achieve this through phenomena-based lesson plans that integrate literacy and math skills. Primary students come to scientific conclusions through collaboration and discourse with others. When science is taught in this way, students are accessing three dimensional learning as outlined in the NGSS and solving real-world problems within their primary classrooms.

Social Studies

In alignment with the standards, I teach social studies in an integrative, active, and challenging manner. The use of thinking routines and read alouds can aid in the understanding of social studies concepts. Children should learn about the world around them and how they can influence change to improve our current society. Students should gain an appreciation and celebrate the diversity of the world around them. I achieve this in my classroom by providing students with authentic activities and experiences that are relatable and meaningful. Children should understand that they are part of a community, country, and world where they can make a difference.

Social and Emotional Learning

I believe in educating the whole child. I do this first by knowing my students as learners in order to achieve personalized learning that meets the unique needs of the children that compose my classroom community. Community is essential in creating a psychologically safe atmosphere in the classroom and as a caring, interested teacher I develop rapport and trust between myself and my students but also student to student. A sense of belonging in a psychologically safe classroom atmosphere encourages students to take safe risks and in turn participate in deep learning of new concepts.

Habits of Mind: The sixteen Habits of Mind are introduced to students in my classroom in a variety of ways to encourage development of problem solving skills.
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Conscious Discipline: I explicitly teach students about their inner thoughts and emotional responses and model how to appropriately respond using the Conscious Discipline framework.
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Responsive Classroom: The morning meeting routine as outlined by Responsive Classroom provided an engaging structure for students in my classroom to build connections and create a strong sense of community when returning to school in the fall of 2020 after the COVID shutdown. My first graders also gained speaking and listening skills through the use of the morning meeting routine.

What is Ms. White Learning?

As a teacher and life-long learner, I am always learning something new! My students teach me new things each day. Through professional development, I am currently learning more about the Science of Reading and completing my LETRS training. I am also reading Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. My long-term learning goals include becoming a National Board Certified Teacher.