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Hi, I’m Kathy Moorehead. I was born in Menlo Park, CA and went to high school at Notre Dame in Belmont. Then I got my undergraduate in English and American History at the University of California in Santa Barbara. After that, I worked as a corporate paralegal at Ware and Freidenrich in Palo Alto while I raised my first child, Matthew, with my husband Mike Moorehead. In 1989, My husband’s job as an electrical engineer at Hewlett Packard moved us up to Sonoma County where I had my second child, Michelle, and also where I got my single subject in English and my Multiple Subject Teaching Credential at Sonoma State University. After subbing for many years while raising my children, I went back to work at first part-time and then full time in Sonoma and then Napa County. I have been teaching full-time for eight years now and have been teaching using the project-based learning method since 2009. I went back to school in 2009 to get my GATE credential from San Bernardino State University, and then again in 2013 to get my Masters of Education in Technology and Innovative Learning from Touro University, CA.
Currently, I am a kindergarten teacher working in the Napa Valley at a small K-8 school, Howell Mountain Elementary School. I have taught almost all the grades now: TK, K, 1, 5, 6, 7 and 8. I also teach an after school class which began as a film class but has now morphed to include stop motion, animation, and web 2.0 presentation tools of all kinds. We love to green screen and make iMovies and create digital portfolios to house our creations.
We introduced iPads to our kindergarten room in 2012, and we have used them daily as an integral part of our literacy centers program and also at math time to differentiate instruction and extend our learning. I'm a big believer in working with math manipulatives in lower and even upper elementary to help build solid foundations in all of the math strands, so our tables and floors are usually strewn with blocks, links, cubes, Cuisenaire rods, clocks, bears, foam shapes, shape templates, and too much more to mention! I believe that a child's work is to play, and we are doing the hard work each day to build those core educational concepts as we play. We also work each day to build the social emotional development of each child that is so critical to their success as a student and in life. The afternoon is all hands-on with PBL activities in our science and social studies units. It is a fun day here in the kindergarten room, and I feel blessed to have such an important place in the educational life of each child. Each one of them has a special place in my heart.
Currently, I am a kindergarten teacher working in the Napa Valley at a small K-8 school, Howell Mountain Elementary School. I have taught almost all the grades now: TK, K, 1, 5, 6, 7 and 8. I also teach an after school class which began as a film class but has now morphed to include stop motion, animation, and web 2.0 presentation tools of all kinds. We love to green screen and make iMovies and create digital portfolios to house our creations.
We introduced iPads to our kindergarten room in 2012, and we have used them daily as an integral part of our literacy centers program and also at math time to differentiate instruction and extend our learning. I'm a big believer in working with math manipulatives in lower and even upper elementary to help build solid foundations in all of the math strands, so our tables and floors are usually strewn with blocks, links, cubes, Cuisenaire rods, clocks, bears, foam shapes, shape templates, and too much more to mention! I believe that a child's work is to play, and we are doing the hard work each day to build those core educational concepts as we play. We also work each day to build the social emotional development of each child that is so critical to their success as a student and in life. The afternoon is all hands-on with PBL activities in our science and social studies units. It is a fun day here in the kindergarten room, and I feel blessed to have such an important place in the educational life of each child. Each one of them has a special place in my heart.
Reflections on your Journey
It will be so hard to put all that I have learned from this program into the limited space allotted on this page, and I am not known for brevity, but I will try. When I started this program, I had my underlying pedagogical beliefs about how children learn, what it is that we should be teaching them, and what school should look like, but I didn’t really have the vehicle for articulating those beliefs. I had the will but not the way, or as Kahneman would say, “I was thinking fast, but not slow.” (Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman)
Now, I have studied “Epistemology and Reading” (Cunningham, 2011) with Dr. James Brown and the many forms of educational design theory with Dr. Redmond and Martha McCoy. I’ve studied the nitty-gritty of technology instruction from Dr. Crystal Jensen and CUE board member Dave Malone, as well as from my cohort partners, guest lecturers and a lot of self-directed learning. Now, through this year of intense focus on the art of teaching, I feel that I can express with confidence in an academic setting what I have always believed to be true about teaching and learning.
Now, I have studied “Epistemology and Reading” (Cunningham, 2011) with Dr. James Brown and the many forms of educational design theory with Dr. Redmond and Martha McCoy. I’ve studied the nitty-gritty of technology instruction from Dr. Crystal Jensen and CUE board member Dave Malone, as well as from my cohort partners, guest lecturers and a lot of self-directed learning. Now, through this year of intense focus on the art of teaching, I feel that I can express with confidence in an academic setting what I have always believed to be true about teaching and learning.
Lasting Learning from the Innovative Learning Program
More than anything else this program has reignited my passion for my chosen profession. I have learned so much, but there is still so much more to learn! I want to learn more about neuroscience and its interface with education. I want to learn more about curriculum design and push the envelope on PBL and PrBL. I want to stay on the cutting edge of new technology tools and lead the way in finding their educational applications. I feel so passionate about the new possibilities that this type of teaching presents for creating citizens who truly can solve our country and our world's problems. We don’t have a minute to lose.