Rodnesha Minor Leadership Essay

I am thrilled to nominate Ms. Rodnesha Minor for North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University’s Outstanding Student Teacher of the Year. Ms. Minor has shown to be true to the spirit of excellence offered by preservice educators prepared at NCA&T. Her tenacity and drive for excellence in teaching and learning set a high standard for other preservice teachers. I have watched Ms. Minor develop and grow over the past 10 weeks into a strong and independent educator. NCA&T should truly be proud of her accomplishments.

Ms. Minor manages her time while working at Summerfield Elementary as a true professional. Her attention to detail and thoroughness is reflective in everything she does. Her lesson plans are well planned and reflective

Minor excels at meeting the diverse learning needs of the students within the classroom. She has an incredible ability to differentiate lesson to support the lower achieving students and those experiencing difficulties with meeting grade level expectations. As a result, she has designed intervention plans for several students to include reteaching strategies, one on one tutorials and modified assignments. I have watched students grow as a result of her instructional, differentiation and scaffolding strategies. Her lessons are rigorous but offer multiple modalities in which children can deepen understanding and knowledge of skills. During math lessons, Ms. Minor allowed the children to play while learning by using Playdoh as counters to teach multiplication strategies. This increased student engagement as they moved from concrete learning to abstract representational learning. Furthermore, her lessons regularly include songs, chants, dance, visual and auditory

Minor has served as a valuable resource for another preservice teacher in our building. Even though she has her lessons and materials planned for the following week, she has been observed staying back and helping her peer prepare for lessons also. Her collaboration with others reaches beyond working with her peer and myself. She utilizes the vast wealth of professional personnel available to her in our school. She collaborated with our literacy facilitator, IST chairperson, the third grade team and office support staff. She has been an active participant during PLC and staff meeting as well. She also presented to our IST team to share the strengths and weakness of a student experiencing difficulties with reading fluency. Her collaborative nature broadened the effectiveness of our professional learning community significantly.

Ms. Minor has used her creativity to create a literacy rich learning environment. She is particularly skilled at creating anchor charts and resources that are reflective of North Carolina Learning standards. Our students have become accustomed to using anchor charts to recall skills. One area of our room I am very proud of is Ms. Minor’s creation and use of an interactive Focus Wall. She has created a way to bring life and interest to lessons, I Can Statements and vocabulary