Hello!
My name is Sarah Miller, and I would like to take this moment to welcome you to my website and thank you for stopping by.
This is a map/overview of my website as well as a commentary on the methodology that informed its creation:
My name is Sarah Miller, and I would like to take this moment to welcome you to my website and thank you for stopping by.
This is a map/overview of my website as well as a commentary on the methodology that informed its creation:
About Me
An introduction to who I am, where I come from, and where my "journey in learning" has taken me up until this point. This is where you will also find my current thoughts and philosophies on teaching and learning.
An introduction to who I am, where I come from, and where my "journey in learning" has taken me up until this point. This is where you will also find my current thoughts and philosophies on teaching and learning.
Learning...
Building upon my teaching philosophy (introduced in the previous section), these are the key principles that I use to guide my teaching practice. These principles are:
Building upon my teaching philosophy (introduced in the previous section), these are the key principles that I use to guide my teaching practice. These principles are:
Learning Through Decolonization
Here you will find examples of how I decolonize my teaching practice through frameworks such as the First Peoples Principles of Learning and the Circle of Courage.
Here you will find examples of how I decolonize my teaching practice through frameworks such as the First Peoples Principles of Learning and the Circle of Courage.
Learning Through Creating
Here you will find my thoughts on creative work as a form of student inquiry and examples of what I have done in the classroom to help my student learn by creating.
Here you will find my thoughts on creative work as a form of student inquiry and examples of what I have done in the classroom to help my student learn by creating.
Learning Across Media
Here you will find my thoughts on learning as a transmedial, multifaceted experience and how I have used different media platforms to inform my instruction as well as assessment.
Here you will find my thoughts on learning as a transmedial, multifaceted experience and how I have used different media platforms to inform my instruction as well as assessment.
Learning By Making Connections
Here you will find my thoughts on connection-building as a way for students to connect what they are learning with their personal lives, values, and experiences and how this has informed my teaching practice.
Here you will find my thoughts on connection-building as a way for students to connect what they are learning with their personal lives, values, and experiences and how this has informed my teaching practice.
Learning in Community
Here you will find my thoughts on the importance of facilitating a community of learners who are actively engaged and invested in the learning process. You will also find examples of how I have used Cooperative Learning and Social Justice to inform my teaching practice and develop the social-emotional competencies of my students and to build character and moral reasoning.
Here you will find my thoughts on the importance of facilitating a community of learners who are actively engaged and invested in the learning process. You will also find examples of how I have used Cooperative Learning and Social Justice to inform my teaching practice and develop the social-emotional competencies of my students and to build character and moral reasoning.
Other Areas of Interest
Here you will find my vision for my future intentions for my "journey in learning." This includes guiding questions that I am interested in exploring as well as professional development that I have undertaken to find answers to those questions (as well as others).
The Method to My Madness: The Creation of a Website
I chose to use Weebly as the medium for my portfolio because it is a platform that I have used in the past for many different projects and it is one that has served those purposes well. As a platform, I feel that Weebly is very "user friendly" and it provides a simple way to organize my thoughts and present them with a clean, professional look.
Aside from my portfolio, I have used Weebly for class websites (to post class notes and assignments for my students) as well as a project I did for my Aboriginal Studies course at UBC that explored how storytelling could be used to teach literacy and integrate aboriginal content into the Secondary English Language Arts classroom.
In putting this site together, I framed it around the points I addressed in my teaching philosophy; my teaching practice is informed by my teaching philosophy and I wanted that to be reflected in my website.
At the top of each page, I have provided the title (which refers to one of my philosophical points) along with a quotation from one of my favourite authors, philosophers, and thinkers; these I have then placed over top of a specifically chosen CreativeCommons image that reflects the subject of the page.
I have included copies of student work where I have had permission from those students to share their work. To respect their privacy, I have omitted their names and other identifying features. This work represents the diverse abilities that I find in my classes which means that they are not all necessarily "exemplars," but they do represent the level of engagement I have across my classes.
The images I have used in my website are either stock images provided by Weebly. All other images were made available for creative commons use by the authors I have indicated.