Experience Summary
As an adjunct faculty instructor at the University of North Alabama, I teach students in a public speaking course through a series of class lectures, individual and group activities, live performances, examinations, and out of class assignments. I work on skills such as audience and situational analysis, research, organization, delivery, body language, and listening. My goal is to make my students more at ease with public speaking by teaching them how to be successful at it in a variety of situations. My activities and assignments are meant to challenge their critical thinking skills while improving their performance skills and help me to offer more individualized instruction.
While teaching 9th grade world history in Haleyville, I covered the time period from roughly 1500 to present. I taught them about the rise out of the “dark ages” and world exploration, the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation, colonialism, the industrial revolution, the world wars, the cold war, and many other topics. I instructed my students through a series of classroom exercises and activities, lectures, examinations, map tests, debates, and classroom discussion. My goal was to help my students develop a more secular view of the world we live in and what role we play in it. I challenge them to become self learners and to educate themselves for their own betterment, not just a score on a test. I was also an assistant JV football coach.
As an 8th grade language arts/life skills teacher in Murray, I covered topics and skills such as poetry and essay writing, literature, reading comprehension, grammar, and other topics. I taught the after school ESS program, an exploratory class covering the causes of the Civil War, and I helped to coach the soccer program.
I was a substitute teacher for grades K-12 where I taught various subjects and grade levels. I had three long term substitute positions at Murray Middle where I instructed 6th grade geography for six weeks and technology for six weeks along with 5th grade math, language arts, and social studies for the last three months of 2009. I completed the required semester of student teaching at Calloway County High School in December 2004. I made observations in education classes at Murray State University along with teaching in my practicum classes to high school students and microteaching in my HIS 361 class. I am certified to teach (CBEST) and substitute teach in California and Oregon. I was a soccer coach in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and a high school tutor in various subjects.