Nikki Bennett knew since her early teens that she wanted to work with children as an educator. Since then, she has been driven by her University of Oregon peers to work hard in her undergraduate studies to make this dream a reality. Nikki strongly believes that access to a quality education should be a right and in the power of education to help transform a student’s future across all backgrounds. One of the ways Nikki has been working to achieve this dream is by studying Spanish since the seventh grade so that she may be able to better communicate with ESL students and parents alike.

Nikki hopes that her values of kindness, honesty, and open-mindedness create a culture of motivation and curiosity within her classroom. Additionally, Nikki hopes that her students discover within themselves innovation, enthusiasm for learning, and creativity to help form a better future for all students of all backgrounds.

Learn more about Nikki via her Scratch project: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/217483826/

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 Brooke Knutson loves the outdoors and spends a lot of time hiking, climbing, and napping in grassy fields. She is a strong believer in the transformative power that the outdoors can have on children from all types of backgrounds. Brooke spent a large amount of her early school years in the outdoors, and she feels that it gave her a lot of the foundation that she has helped create and successful and happy life. She hopes to bring the same experience to children by connecting them with nature and the world around them so they can learn to lead creative, inspired, and healthy lives. Additionally, she hopes to instill in children what it means to be a global citizen and how to care for the earth and the people around them.

In addition to an emphasis on Elementary education, Brooke has also studied for Spanish for many years and hopes to bring a love for the earth to children in other countries and to be able to connect with students here in the states from diverse backgrounds.

She believes that coding and computational thinking is important for students because it teaches them critical thinking skills and helps them to solve problems in new and innovative ways. These skills will be crucial in making our future world a better a brighter place.

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/217479447/

 

Daviana Smith dreams of being an elementary teacher when she grows up, and has benefited from learning from creative, passionate, and hard-working professors at the UO. She believes that all of her strongest core principles can be traced back to life lessons she learned in Kindergarten: strength of community, bravery, kindness, compassion, exploration, and diligence, as well as an undying passion for learning. She currently works as a Home Care Aide with New Horizon’s In-Home Care facility and is also a Peer Mentor. Since beginning university, she has traveled extensively, and believes that global-mindedness and intercultural experience is the key to culturally-responsive teaching.

To learn more about Daviana, please visit her project on Scratch:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/217480948/

 

Maren Scribner is extremely excited to be pursing teaching in elementary education. Maren is interested in expanding and promoting the importance of international identities and relationships through her classroom curriculum. She currently works at the UO with the American English Department as a classroom tutor and conversation partner for international students. Following her passion to promote a open and safe dialect between diverse communities and cultures, Maren hopes to join the Peace Corps before venturing into teaching her own class. Maren wants to promote and celebrate diversity among her future students while exploring academic lessons through hands-on cooperative group projects and creative art assignments, that support her students to be hard working, introspective, motivated leaders.

To visit who Maren is as an educator on Scratch, click the link below!

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/217989064/

 

 

Claire is passionate about achieving her long time ambition of teaching elementary students through an intersectional lens, teaching them virtues such as kindness, acceptance, and perspective. Claire wants to make sure children develop their own moral philosophy and set of values that can make their community, and entire world, a better place. It is important to to Claire that she instills righteousness in children. Her goal is to become an elementary school teacher in a low income area after she receives her degree at the University of Oregon. Her mother has worked at Davis Elementary School in Troutdale, Oregon for fifteen years where most of the children and their families have suffered from poverty. She and her mother believe that the only way to make a change for the better is to be educated and open-minded. Overall, she believes an excellent education is needed for everyone, including teachers who need to inspire children to want to learn. Claire wants to be a well informed teacher with a developmentally appropriate practice. She believes education is the only realistic way to reach greatness and carry out change. She is inspired by the words of Nelson Mandela who stated that “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Claire’s feelings towards education truly have fueled her passion for achieve her goals. Education gives her hope everyday that young minds are growing and learning and that the world will improve through their efforts, as well as her own.

To learn more about Claire as an educator, visit her scratch project: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/217483154/