About Me
My name is Camille Ramos-Beal. I am the academy coordinator at Palomares Academy of Health Sciences and the director of the Pomona Health Career Ladder Program at Western University. I teach 9th grade English and French at Palomares Academy. I have taught ELD levels I-III, 7th & 8th grade English, Language ! Intervention, Creative Writing, and Strategic English.
I have a single subject English credential and a multiple-subjects credential with a supplementary credential in French. I have a master's degree in education from the University of Southern California. I recently earned my Tier 1 Administrative credential from the Great Leaders for Great Schools Academy facilitated by CalPoly Pomona and Pomona Unified, and I earned a doctoral degree in K-12 Urban Leadership from the University of Southern California.
This is my ninth year teaching. Apart from my teaching experience with the middle grades, I have middle school administration experience, I have also taught in a nursery in London, and worked privately with two severely autistic boys.
I am passionate about creating equitable learning opportunities for all students. I believe that all students can learn. By building relationships and supporting our colleagues and our students, we can create the conditions to support learning for all.
I have a single subject English credential and a multiple-subjects credential with a supplementary credential in French. I have a master's degree in education from the University of Southern California. I recently earned my Tier 1 Administrative credential from the Great Leaders for Great Schools Academy facilitated by CalPoly Pomona and Pomona Unified, and I earned a doctoral degree in K-12 Urban Leadership from the University of Southern California.
This is my ninth year teaching. Apart from my teaching experience with the middle grades, I have middle school administration experience, I have also taught in a nursery in London, and worked privately with two severely autistic boys.
I am passionate about creating equitable learning opportunities for all students. I believe that all students can learn. By building relationships and supporting our colleagues and our students, we can create the conditions to support learning for all.
My Educational Philosophy
My objectives as a teacher are to teach students to think critically and to encourage students to pursue life-long learning. My goal is to prepare students for academic success. Beyond the classroom, I would also like my students to think critically, ask questions and function successfully in real world settings. I incorporate 21st century skills that prepare students for the challenges of a globally competitive job market. I encourage students to experience life beyond their everyday environment. World exploration can begin with a question, leading to research, and hopefully leading to travel and new knowledge.
To reach these goals and objectives, I apply direct instruction and theme based learning. I use direct instruction, group work, technology, and inquiry based learning. Direct instruction is stating the learning objective and lesson sequence explicitly before the lesson, during the lesson, and during the assessment. Part of direct instruction is to assess student understanding through teacher observations, by asking CFU (Checking for understanding) questions, homework, classwork, and formal and informal assessments. Theme based learning is building knowledge around a project or theme. Skills are learned and used in projects that are aligned in cross-curricular subjects.
I will improve my teaching through problematizing, a process that the educational philosopher Paulo Freire describes as, "[S]omeone's reflection on a content which results from an act, or reflection on the act itself in order to act better together with others within the framework of reality." (Freire 1973: 154) Teaching strategies that work with one cohort may not work with another because the student context will change. Teaching is a craft that is ongoing and needs frequent reflection and adjustments to be made in order for it to be responsive. I believe that part of a teacher's responsibilities is to create engaging lessons. I collaborate with colleagues for ideas to improve past lessons and design projects, assignments, and assessments to administer to support student learning goals. I respect the knowledge and experience of my colleagues as well as the knowledge and experience of my students.
I believe that students can learn anything from a motivated teacher. This teacher must be passionate, creative, patient, sincere, but most importantly, this teacher must be respectful towards students. I believe that the most important aspects of teaching are the relationships we build. We have a great responsibility to feed the students' minds and hearts. We must make a commitment to work at improving our teaching practices and continue learning and relearning best practices. Teaching is a way of affecting positive change in society; in order for meaningful change to happen, we must not waste or daily opportunities to effect change.
