Patrick SalazarWuppertal, GermanyStudent-Focused International Educator
I am trained in Math Instruction from K-8 and have built inquiry-based math programs at the 5th - 8th grade levels, including virtual and Project-Based Learning programs in middle school. During my years teaching in Brooklyn, all of my 3rd and 5th grade students all passed the NY State Math Exam. While working at the American School of Tangier, I taught math grades 5-7 while redesigning the math program and helping all teachers improve their instruction in order to re-align our curriculum and improve the school's math program.
I always strive to create authentic and memorable math experiences for my students through experience, pedagogical knowledge, and innovation. I have employed a wide array of digital resources and tools to create scaffolded learning progressions with a mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning. For example, in a statistics unit for grade 7, students engaged with data from previous pandemics to make recommendations for governments facing different pandemic scenarios. For our subsequent probability unit, I utilized online activities from websites like Desmos and Geogebra as formative tools, as well as Google Drawing tools for students to create and design math-based strategies for virtual versions of board games like Catan. The following year, as our students prepared to return to in-person school, they designed and made plans for outdoor classroom spaces that could allow learning at our school to continue in the midst of a pandemic.
I have worked with large populations of English Language Learners from vastly different math backgrounds, and analyzed their work and performance results to perpetually track their progress, identify knowledge gaps and alter lessons to plan for these gaps. I believe in using visual models and real-world contexts to help first develop the conceptualization of math before finding strategies to problem solve, and then build rigor and depth.
