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I have been working for Alief for about 19 years.  I started as clerk for the Special Ed department. I have worked as workroom aide and in attendance.  This will be my 3 year teaching Culinary Arts.  I LOVE food, I eat, breath,  go to sleep thinking of food.  However, I enjoy working with kids that is why I choose to teach Culinary Arts.  I want students to see that you can create something delicious with very few ingredients.  I want my students to learn the different cultures and that food is one thing that brings us all together.  My first year teaching was during the pademice however that didn't stop my from wanting to teach my students about food even if it was through a screen. I just took one day at time and rolled with it. I love what I do and hope one day I can inspire my students to cook and create new recipes they can pass down to their kids.

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My name is Sayeeda Raza. I am an ESL teacher at Outley Elementary School. I am very interested in improving my skills with technology and ensuring that the learning process for every single kid is enticing for them. Personally I seek to learn more innovative learning techniques through this course, which I will be striving to implement within my enviornment. Through my work I hope to sustain an exciting learning classroom for students so that they foster an excitment and genuine love for education.

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I have been teaching for 15 years. These last 2 years have been incredibly challenging. I tried to always "keep the end in mind". Meaning, the end result of the hard work both the students and I put end is always worth it. I love to reflect back of student's growth from August to May. It is amazing to see how far they have come each and every year! For a student to go from not knowing all their letter sounds to reading a paragraph or not being able to identify numbers past 10 to adding and subtracting multiple digits with regrouping is always amazing to me!
COVID pushed me out of my comfort zone as it did for most of us when it came to technology. From this discomfort came growth for me as well. This was actually for the best because I was forced to learn so many tech based things I initially put off.

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I've worked for Alief as an occupational therapist since 2017 and had an "interesting" time creating engaging virtual therapy sessions during the pandemic. I moved into a teaching position in April of this past school year. I am the TLC teacher at Martin Elementary (one of my assigned campuses when I was working as an OT) and plan to remain in this position for a while. For those who don't know, TLC stands for "total learning center" and serves students with significant physical and/or cognitive disabilities requiring health services. Last school year we had two full day students and this coming year we anticipate five. My OT background allows me to create a classroom that is engaging and interactive. My lessons are designed to reach children who are deaf, blind, etc. Seeing their faces light up in smiles keeps me motivated to keep working. People who have never taught children with significant disabilities might ask how they can possibly benefit from lessons that involve audiovisual modalities. What can the get out of this? A lot! My students absolutely love the games and songs we play and they love watching videos of themselves and listening to recordings of themselves vocalizing. They love this more than they love me! :-)

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I'm a Spanish teacher at Albright  Middle.
I love teaching language and it's very advantageous to be bilingual in today's global world, as well as fun learning a different language and cultures. What motivates me is when students begin to show success by using the vocabulary they know and taking a risk to try and communicate what they've just learned even if it's not perfect. I want to learn how to engage them further with technology resources and more games than the typical ones we all use.

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This upcoming school year, I will be teaching 6th grade bilingual Math, Science, and Social Studies. I teach because I love knowing I made a difference in a child's life. I love when students come back years later and say "I'm glad I had you as a teacher" or "thank you". As an Alief alum, I want to show students that there is more out there that they are capable of doing. Many of our students do not know anything outside of Alief. The past two years challenged me to become a better teacher. I feel I have grown so much and am capable of helping my students even more.

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My name is Kenya. I am a Social Studies teacher. I have been teaching for many years. I am taking this course to try and learning some new more entertaining ways to teach my students. I want to make History more exciting in order to get my students more interested in learning.

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Hello! I am a the 5th Science/SS STEM teacher at Klentzman Intermediate. I absolutely love teaching Science and over the past 2 years I have learned so much. COVID forced us to integrate tech into our everyday lives and I haven't stopped. I can't imagine not having Schoology and all the the games, websites etc, that I use to teach daily. We have to keep up with what the interests are students have and we have to keep them engaged, we can't stop learning and doing!!!

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I am an ESL IPC teacher at Hastings High School. I do what I do in order to make a difference in the lives of my students. I am an Alief Alumni and wanted to come home to pour knowledge into my students. What drives me is the success that I have had with many of my ESL students. What motivates me to keep going is to know that we will be relying on this new generation of students, and I want to help nurture them to be the best they can be our in the real world.

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I am an 8th grade science teacher at O'Donnell Middle School. I love interacting with my students and helping them grow in my science classroom. Growth comes in two main forms, their science content and also their social/emotional self growth. I try my best to help the "whole" person grow and not just be focused on the science TEKS. Over the last 2+ years I felt I was forced to grow and adapt. I love what I have been able to develop and integrate the tech with our science content.

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I am the Science/Tech Specialist at Liestman Elementary.  I do what I do because I like working with teachers and students.  The best feeling is when you have a teacher who was reluctant to use technology become one of the leaders in tech integration. I have been motivated over the past 2 years by the way teachers responded to the technology learning curve and have continued using the technology even after virtual learning was over.