Teaching with Technology Spotlight

In this issue, our Teaching with Technology Spotlight illuminates Susan Kirk. Ms. Kirk is a math teacher at Nikki Rowe High School and is currently in her fifth year as an educator.

Her teaching experience includes 2 years at a TECH school, 2 years at PSJA and this year she is teaching Algebra at Nikki Rowe HS.

One of her biggest motivating factors that led her to the Rio Grande Valley was its proximity to Mexico, where she is able to do missionary work.

The instructional technology tools that she is utilizing this year are Microsoft PowerPoint to create her presentations, and a content-rich SchoolFusion classroom webpage to communicate with her students, as well as their parents. Her SchoolFusion page contains a class calendar, class announcements, homework assignments, a message board, and resources vital to her students.

“Students understand technology. By using PowerPoint presentations, they see something without you being in someone’s view of the problem. By using the website, the students are able to access assignments and class notes out of the classroom. They are also able to take quizzes online which I use for x-credit. The students are asking when the next x-credit assignment will be posted”.

When asked how the use of this technology can better prepare students for post secondary education and success in the workplace, Kirk replied: “Technology is quickly becoming the way of the world, i.e. online degrees; college campuses using the internet for testing, submitting papers, etc. I feel that if students are subjected to this periodically throughout high school, college will not seem so intimidating”.

Educational Philosophy

“I believe that everyone should be encouraged to have dreams, goals, and ambitions. I believe that so much of the time students who are non disruptive fail to learn because of the disruptive ones who require most of the teaching time. I believe that all students can learn if they choose. I believe that a teacher cannot make a student learn but they can make them be respectful of other students who choose to learn. I believe that a teacher should not give up and should always be consistent."

It is teachers like Susan Kirk that prepare McAllen ISD students for success in the future!