Stephanie Petersen

Background

About Stephanie Petersen

I am a preschool teacher with past experience in teaching infants, toddlers, K-2 MiCi, 2nd grade, 9-12th MoCi, and early childhood special education. I am currently working on obtaining my M.Ed in Instruction and Curriculum with an emphasis in Early Childhood Education. Through the state of Michigan I have a Standard Teaching Certificate for Elementary K-5 All Subjects, K-8 All Subjects Self Contained Classroom with an endorsement: Cognitive Impairment (SA) K-12. Teaching to me means being the voice and advocate for those who don't have the ability to advocate for themselves. Every child should have the right to be placed in their LRE, while receiving the appropriate level of support needed to succeed. Young children learn best through play, and as an educator my job is to make a child feel safe and secure within their classroom environment. Children need to feel comfortable in order to explore new learning opportunities through play without fear of failure or making mistakes. My strong suit within the field of education is taking any piece of curriculum and adapting, modifying, or enhancing the material to reach every child within the classroom. Not all children learn the same and follow the cookie-cutter mold a perfect world would like them to conform to. Instructional learning should be broken up into different categories: small group learning, large group learning, and whole group instruction. During whole and large group the goal is to teach to the mean, while noting how children respond to the material. However, during small group there should be a push to meet every child where they are at, and then provide them with an appropriate level of support to help take them to the next step. Every child moves at their own rate, and there should be minimal pressure during the years of early childhood because as one area of development for a child may begin to take off, another area may fall behind, for the brain is still developing and can only process so much at one time.