Brittany McCarthy
SPED 518
Spring 2013
Hi everyone!
My name is Brittany McCarthy and I have been at Bridgewater
State University for the past five years as a Dual License major!
My fields of study are:
 Elementary Education (BS)
 Special Education (MS)
 Mathematics (BS)
I’ve recently finished the education
block this past semester which has
helped me to understand what
skills I will need when I do my student
teaching, and has given me some much needed experience
working with students in different class settings.
Why Math?
Why Dual License?
• Math was by no means my strongest point
growing up. In fact I was told by my precalculus teacher that I should be happy to
be finished with my “worst” subject junior
year of high school.
• I originally majored in Psychology, and
was told by my advisor that this was a bad
decision, so I needed to choose either
math, science, history or English. I then
chose English as a major, which was a
terrible decision for me.
• With English there are no right or wrong
answers, but with math there are.
• I always loved problem solving, and luckily
the teachers here were much more
encouraging.
• Not only was I able to complete precalculus with an A, I was also able to
complete Calculus I – IV successfully along
with many other advance math classes,
which I am very proud to say.
• I intentionally wanted to teach early
education when I applied to BSU.
• At orientation, I was told about the Dual
License Program which would allow me
to get a master’s degree in special
education and a bachelor’s degree in
elementary education (grades 1-6) in
only 5 years!
• At the time I didn’t realize I would need
a third major and that it would be very
difficult to finish in 5 years, but I am still
here and I cannot wait to finish up
strong with graduate classes this
semester and student teaching for a full
year next year!
Professor Sylvester, Shama, Moore, Heilman, Emmons and Glen were just a few influential professors
that I had at BSU. Each of them made me want to learn and because of them I what they’ve taught
me, I will be the best teacher that I can be. The classes that I have taken for my education degree so
far are: SPED 202, 203…ELED 220, 300, 310, 313, 340, 344, 350, 360…ELED 250 (foundations of
reading) and ELED 330 (teaching reading in elementary school)
One professor that I had in the block, Dr. Sylvester,
taught much differently than any other teacher I
had. He was teaching our class how to “teach”
history and English language arts. In his class, there
was no note taking and no lectures dealing with any
content. He would talk to us about how we should
be thinking as future teachers. He taught us how to
speed read, and how to think about different
situations with ELL students, parents etc. He wanted
us to learn about every country in the world so that
we could make a student feel welcome if he or she
was from that country. He would give us 6th grade
standards and say “this is not what I want you to
know, it is what the state says you have to know!”
He was very blunt, yet poetic, and he became
almost like a father figure to our entire block. His
saying was “you need to accept the burden of
knowledge” and it is powerful and true. I think that
this class and teacher, especially, guided my interest
into teaching even more.
• I currently do not have any
professional experience, nor
have I had any in the past.
The experiences that I have had,
although limited, were in the block.
• For several weeks, I worked with a fourth grade student each week
on his writing. I would do this by looking at the assignment I was
asked to teach, and then work on brainstorming ideas with him,
using visual aids, movements, exemplars etc. When I compared his
writing samples from the first to the last week, I could see a drastic
improvement, which gave me a sense of accomplishment as a future
teacher.
• The most important part of the block was working on our prepracticum, where I was assigned to teach a first grade classroom a
unit for math and science for five days.
• We gave the students a pre and post test to see
their improvement, not only did all of our students
improve tremendously in only five days, but they
were truly appreciative to have us there. When we
went to return their work, we were given these amazing
letters from our students!
• READING: Prior to this year, the only reading experience I’ve had as far
at teaching elementary education has been the “foundations of reading”
class, to help me pass the MTEL, that I still have yet to pass. In the block, I
had the opportunity to work with a third grade student on her reading
skills, administering an IRI, retelling, running record etc. to find out where
her reading level was, and determine how I could get her to progress
over a short period of time. I did so by bringing in semantic webs, word
work and free reads each week and recording my observations. I also
did create a bulletin board for her class that was space themed which
was a lot of fun.
• SPECIAL ED: My background in Special Education is limited as well,
because I have only taken two special education courses so far, both of
which have been fully online.
• I grew up dancing. As a dancer, I obtained a knowledge of
how angles, levels, counts and formations worked to make a
dance come together. A lot of what dance entails is linked with
mathematics. In fact, my topic for my writing intensive math
class was how to incorporate dance into teaching elementary
school math. I am a math major, as I said, so I think that this
knowledge will help me to teach in a different way than many
other teachers.
• I am a member of NSTA, which allows me to view different
methods of teaching science both online and in the magazine’s I
am sent. This membership was a course requirement for the
block, but it was one that has become very useful. I would
recommend NSTA to any teacher!
As of right now, my goal is to first
pass my foundations of reading
MTEL on FEB. 18th so that I can do
my student teaching next year.
Once I graduate, I would like to
teach either grade 1, 2, or 3
inclusion in a low income area, or
to teach special education. I
have had no real experience with
special education so far, so I am
not sure which will interest me
more. I also really enjoy math, so
down the road, I would like to
help other students who think that
that are terrible at math, realize
that they may need to learn it a
different way. I cannot wait to
encourage and influence so many
little lives, no matter where this
road takes me!