January 19, 2004

This week, I've gotten a lot accomplished.

My goal was to finish Accomplishment 4, and I believe I finally did it. That is big news! You're allowed 12 pages to describe your accomplishments. I ended my four accomplishments on page 11, though, so to use up the rest of that page, I decided to write another Accomplishment.

I'm chairperson of the math committee at my school and we've done a lot to improve student learning. We've even held a Family Math Night -- which shows how we involve parents in their child's learning. I decided to include that too, although I'm not sure if it's worth having a one-page Accomplishment; maybe I should just expand the four I've already written? I finally decided to put it in and see what the rest of the group and our mentor say.

All the entries also include a reflection at the end; those are the next things I need to finish. The reflections -- which you're supposed to use to find connections between the Accomplishments and everything else you're working on -- need to be two pages long.

Finally this week, I also met with the speech teacher in our building to ask her questions about the student I'm picking for my Communication Entry.

Meet Nicole Chiarello Nicole Chiarello received her bachelor's degree in psychology from the University at Buffalo, of the State University of New York, in May 1994 and her master's degree in special education, learning and behavior disorders from Buffalo State College in December 1996. For the remainder of the 1996-1997 academic year, Nicole worked as an inclusion teacher at Niagara-Wheatfield Senior High School in Sanborn, N.Y. For the past six years, she has taught a district-wide special education program for three-to-five students with emotional and behavioral concerns at Bradford Elementary School in Westerly, Rhode Island. Nicole was named Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year in 2000. She is currently serving on a district team focusing on social, emotional, and behavioral concerns in the classroom.

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