1st-Grade Language Arts and Social Studies teacher, Miss Alicia Murray, Keeps her Students Engaged Virtually

1st-grade Language Arts and Social Studies teacher, Miss Alicia Murray, has been teaching at PA Distance since July 2019. Like others at PA Distance, she has always wanted to be a teacher since she was a little girl which was often showcased as she played “school” with her siblings.

Her volunteer teaching experience at her church in high school further solidified her future career path as she worked with little kids at summer camps. Her next step was pursuing an education degree at Penn State University for Adolescent and Early Childhood Education. Later on, she continued her education at the University of Pittsburgh for her M.Ed in Reading Education. She has PA Certifications in PK-4 and Reading Specialist K-12.

“I love working with young children and helping students learn. I love to find engaging strategies that will motivate my students to learn,” she explained. “I want them to be excited about learning and wanting to come to class.”

As a Language Arts teacher, Miss Murray focuses her classroom lessons on teaching her students letter names and sounds, promoting confidence in reading and writing, and foundational skills in phonics. For Social Studies, Miss Murray teaches about timelines, different communities, social emotional lessons, community building and how to be a helper and spread kindness.

“I think of different ways to keep them engaged using technology,” Miss Murray said. “I’m always trying to be creative with my lessons.”

“In class, I typically read a story and my students come on camera to discuss the plot, characters feelings and actions, and vocabulary,” she explained. “They love to listen to read alouds.”

While Miss Murray works to teach her students confidence and independence, she still relies heavily on parent collaboration.

“Our team strives to work together with each parent to explain the best ways for them to support their students while they are in the classroom,” she said.

For example, parents will help out with live lessons when students need to type on their Chromebook keyboard. When Miss Murray teaches phonics, the students will often indicate the sound that they hear with a letter. That’s when their parent or guardian will step in and help facilitate their answer using the keyboard.

To further engage her students while teaching phonics and letter sounds, she will use a lot of interactive games.

“It's so much fun to see them learn those concepts and transfer what they learn to their reading and writing assignments,” she added.

Each Friday, her students practice their writing skills by writing letters to Miss Murray’s stuffed dog, Heinz.

“The kids love writing to Heinz,” she explained. “It helps them stay engaged and gets them excited to do their assignment.”

When she started at PA Distance in July 2019, she immediately enjoyed interacting with her young students.

“I love getting to teach students from all over the state,” Miss Murray said. “It makes our classroom discussions really diverse and interesting. It’s a unique position to be in.”

“I’m looking forward to helping my students grow as individuals and learners. I am also looking forward to helping my students learn to read so they can use this knowledge to use reading to learn in other subjects, too,” she noted.