Miss Cioffi's
Homepage
About Me
♥ I
am currently a student in the ACT program at Cal State Northridge where
I am obtaining my teaching credentials. By this time next year I hope
to be
teaching third grade.
♥ I graduated from Academy of the Canyons High School and College of the Canyons in 2004 with my HS Diploma and Associates in General Arts and Sciences. From there I moved
to Provo, Utah where I lived for three years and graduated from Brigham Young University in
2006 with a Bachelors in History. After graduating and still not
knowing what I wanted to do "when I grew up," I spent the next year
working full time in a first/ second grade split classroom as a teacher's aid. This experience is what ultimately led me to pursue teaching. 
♥ I spent the summer
living in Cuenca, Ecuador where I spent 60 plus hours a week working in
seven different orphanages. My main responsibly there was in a day
care where I planned and implemented an activity each week for 40
children ages 1 - 12, all of whom spoke only Spanish, a language I do
not speak. It was a challenge but a life changing experience. This
increased my love for children and my desire to teach.(I traveled there
through a wonderful program called OSSO, Orphanage Support Services Organization.)
♥
As much as I miss Ecuador I am very glad to be back in Los Angeles. I
have a deep love for the US but also love to travel the world. Besides from
living in Ecuador I have been to Italy, Spain, Croatia, France, Sicily,
Mexico, the Amazon, and all across the United States. I
feel that traveling opens your eyes to the world and lets you
experience life in a new way.
♥ Other
thoughts about myself: I have always had a deep love for animals and
have three dogs and two cats. I set goals for myself and do everything
in my power to achieve them. My recent goal is to learn to scuba dive
and then wreck dive, I hope to be accomplishing this dream in the very
near future. I love photography, interior design, cooking, camping,
school, children, and swimming.
Teaching Philosophy
♥
I believe that every child has their strengths and their weaknesses;
the idea of multiple intelligences. I will teach in a variety of
ways to cover their various intelligences so that every child is
receiving an optimal education.With this goes along with individualized
learning and holding students to their level. If I was to teach at just
the middle level then then children who are falling behind and the
children who are accelerating ahead are not learning. In my opinion it
is important to create a varitey ot activities and and education that
will cater to all children's needs.
♥ I
also belie
ve in the idea that the classroom is a support system which
needs parent volunteers, para educators, and a student-teacher
relationships. I think it is vital that the teacher is not the only one
teaching. Student to student interaction is very beneficial. One child
might learn more from a peer than by simply
listening to me. By allowing children to teach one another they are
also strengthening their own learning, since according to William
Glasser we retain 95% of what we teach someone else and only 10% of
what we read and 20% of what we hear.
♥
I also think that it is important to use the problem solving approach
when it comes to math. This allows for a problem to be given to
students and in small groups they work it out in anyway that they come
up with. The teacher does not model a way before hand. Then various
groups of children come to the board and show the different ways they
got the answer and explain their thinking. By doing this the children
are learning many ways of thinking about a problem and not just the
teacher's way. Who is to say that only the teacher's way is the right
way? When they are able to explore and find the answer in their own way
math is making more sense to them and is not just a tedious task.
♥
I have a firm belief that correct classroom management makes all the
difference. With all my heart and soul I think that it is wrong to yell
at and scold your students. I believe that students will learn best by
understanding the rules and why we have them. In this they can receive
individual and direct consequences to their actions, but never in a
demeaning yelling manner. I think that gone is the day of minimal
line teachers, today is the day for extrodinary.
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