Mrs. Slaviero's Blog

This morning I learned I renewed my National Board certification.  Achieving initial certification is rigorous--a detailed portfolio, videos featuring whole-group and small-group instruction with written analysis and reflection on both, and six exams in a professional exam setting, the same setting used by medical and law students, among others. For all of the challenges, I am so happy to have undertaken this endeavor. My students have benefitted from my progress and accomplishment. The renewal process was still daunting, made even more so because of the struggles of the pandemic. In retrospect, I was wise to start renewal as soon as I could, this allowed me to defer renewal during the start of the pandemic to the 2020-21 school year. I needed to focus on my immediate student needs before I could focus on this work. My renewal portfolio had to be created during the shift from in-person to dynamic virtual and hybrid learning, though. This was daunting, to be sure. I knew I could mee...

Happy New Year! January has been full of meaningful opportunities for learning! Eighth Grade Student Historians presented their Breaking Barriers in History National History Day projects to their 6th and 7th Grade peers recently. A special thank you to Learning Village--Michigan History Day's fearless leader, Ms. Amy Bradfield, our Media Specialist, Mrs. Chatel, our 8th Grade Language Arts teachers, Mrs. Galbraith, Mrs. Pagnani, and Mrs. Wright, and our Special Education teachers Mrs. Ritter, and Ms. Bard, for all of your help in making this day possible! It is always exciting to share learning but this year's work is taking on a special purpose--7th Graders and Language Support-History students will, for the first time at our school, complete modified NHD projects themselves later this school year. The 8th Graders will serve as mentors during this process. I am very eager to work with my students in this leadership capacity! Eighth Graders are continuing the...

One of my greatest professional accomplishments was the day I certified as a National Board Teacher. My Cooperating Teacher is an NBCT and after witnessing the impact she had on her students (and me) it became one of my top bucket list accomplishments when I was hired twenty four years ago. One of my closest colleagues achieved certification eleven years ago, she and other colleagues convinced me to attempt and I certified in 2011. It's hard to believe but it's been close to ten years since my initial certification and I became a renewal candidate this school year. My initial certification cycle consisted of four portfolio entries, two unedited videos (one of me teaching small group activities, the other of me teaching a whole class activity), and six Assessment Center tests covering pedagogy and Social Studies-History concepts such as how to understand and teach primary sources to students. (The tests were stressful--candidates are required to go to a testing site and t...