Carissa

**Eduational Philosophy**

//As an educator, I believe it is imperative to prepare students not only with strong content knowledge, but also with life skills in order to become well-rounded, productive members of society. This is most effective if curriculum is structured strategically in a way that allows course material to be taught while also focusing on communication, positive character traits and civic consciousness. Emphasizing these qualities can greatly enhance the content learning material while concurrently reinforcing the principles necessary for future productivity in education and life. I believe this to be the ultimate goal of education.//

**Mental Framework**

//My mental framework is designed in a way which displays interconnected learning as well as a natural educational flow. I chose a guitar to represent these qualities. The body of the guitar represents "self make-up"; What were you born with? What are your strength/weaknesses? The head of the guitar (where string tuning takes place) is labeled "Tuning the environment". This includes every aspect creating a quality learning space, examples being: behavior management, classroom set up, initial hype. The next steps all are included on the frets of the neck. I chose this because the natural progression of a guitar scale moves down the neck, but it is not necessary to follow the scale to create beautiful music. This is indicative of the learning steps, although there is a natural flow, these elements are interchangeable. Different combinations and orders represent our own unique melodies in obtaining knowledge. The last element is "Making it last!” The Music! Using, displaying and making your knowledge meaningful to society which then incidentally begins the process all over again. The diagram on the right indicates the natural movements of only the overall categories, not the individual elements.//  //(The chapter explanations are below the framwork as well as in the links below)// 