Classroom and school culture - in 27 years of teaching in a variety of experiences, this is what I have learned - classroom and school culture make all the difference in the success of a school. The attitude of the teacher can breathe joy and passion into learning or it can suck the life out of a classroom. My goal, on every campus of which I am a part, is to build a positive, caring, safe environment in my classroom, and to help build the positive environment throughout the campus. Part of building this positive climate is ensuring that students know that I understand where they are academically and know that I am going to work with them to improve their skills and help them reach their goals. I use formal and informal assessments to monitor and track student progress and to inform planning for daily lessons. This information guides the forming of small groups for specific instruction for remediation or enrichment and helps create optimal groups for cooperative learning.My teaching strategies incorporate a variety of methods and modalities that allow students the opportunity to learning according to their own learning styles. For example, a vocabulary lesson might include the opportunity to hear and talk about words, see or draw a visual, and a hand movement. In this way, students have used visual, auditory, and kinesthetic strategies while learning new words.Finally, I bring my love of learning and my passion for reading and writing into the classroom. Through class meetings, surveys, and journaling, students are able to share their interests. I try to build these interests into my teaching. For example, if a student shows and interest in World War II, I will find books and articles about World War II to use when teaching reading. Knowing and integrating student interest shows students that I care about them, helps build our positive classroom culture, and hopefully, helps students understand that reading and learning can be exciting.Thank you for taking the time to read this quick summary of my teaching philosophy. If you would like to learn more, please follow the featured link to my portfolio or contact me personally.