I received a BS in Art Education with an Art History minor at The Pennsylvania State University in 2013. I have spent the past five years exploring a variety of art genres with a diverse multicultural group of students at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Teaneck, NJ and Bergen Arts and Science Charter School in Garfield, NJ. While teaching anywhere between 300-400 students in a week, I developed standards based lessons and performance based assessments from grades 4-8. The body of student's showed a diverse range of learning levels, which resulted in lessons that had multiple ways, "Approaching the Standard, Meeting the Standard, and Exceeding the Standard," to achieve the same objective. My passion is too challenge my student’s skills and critical thinking, but also to see beyond the ordinary. Student's create art, talk about art, and write about art.

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As a part of my curriculum, I enjoy collaborating with other subject areas in order to build a school-wide community that understands how the arts connect to the academic subject areas and develops a diverse learner. I believe in teaching children how to grow and design in their own environment. Public installations of artworks, such as the mosaic murals, allow the students to work collaboratively towards a common goal as they transform a space and reflect on its powerful effect on the community.​​

 

Growing up in Paramus, New Jersey, I was influenced by my mother's passion for painting and interior design, and my father's family owned 65 year old Landscape Design and Garden Center. During my childhood, I was surrounded by artistic support, weather it was my father's ability to transform an entire plot of land in to a piece of natural art work, with waterfalls and flawless composition or my mother's continuous desire to make her home aesthetically unique, including pieces of artwork hanging on the walls.

 

With the skills I have learned in my four years at Pennsylvania State University and three years of teaching experience, I am able to recognize my strengths and weaknesses to alter my teaching methods to meet the students at their level of learning.