Early Childhood Educator in Cochrane, Alberta

In 2015, I graduated from the Elementary Education Program at the University of Victoria. Throughout my degree I successfully completed three practicums, in three different classrooms with a wide range of age and ability levels. Having completed these placements, I am looking forward to continue building my skills and passion for teaching and guiding youth in new environments. In my practicums I was able to hone my skills of classroom management, adaptability, and ability to build strong relationships with students and colleagues. In each new classroom I continued to develop my personal philosophy of teaching, and incorporate my passions and student interest into my curriculum delivery and classroom structure. I was motivated to continuously reflect on my teaching practices, and apply suggestions and feedback from my mentor teachers. By maintaining a teaching blog I was able to apply reflective practices, and I continue to use this blog to grow and learn in my professional life. Working in the camp industry for the past 10 years, I have developed a passion and strong skill set for working with youth in outdoor and recreation settings. Most recently, I have worked as the Horse Program Coordinator for the Tim Horton Children’s Ranch. In this position, I have worked collaboratively within a large team to provide children from a variety of backgrounds in low-income families with a camp experience that exceeds expectations. Over the past two years I have successfully created a horse program at the Ranch in which youth feel engaged and empowered to learn about horsemanship and gain basic riding skills, while managing the care of a large herd of horses. As the horse coordinator I have supervised two teams of wranglers, implementing on-going training and team building to support the team in running a safe and collaborative program. In my second year as a coordinator, I also took on the role of supervising half of the summer counsellor team, and coordinating school group experiences in the fall and spring seasons. This allowed me to build positive working relationships with a wide range of community groups and elementary schools, supervise a team of program facilitators, and develop innovative programming for youth within a Community Leaders Program.