Getting to Know Me

Get to Know Me

Hello! My name is Abby Raser and I am currently in my fifth year teaching, my fourth at a charter school in Brighton Park. Throughout my five years teaching I have been in special education, working with grades K-4. This year I am doing a combination of inclusion and pull-out for kindergarten, second, third, and fourth grades. I love getting to know my new students every year but also having the opportunity to continue to work with previous students when I overlap grades!

I grew up on the Southside of Chicago in the Beverly neighborhood. I went to college in Providence, Rhode Island and loved living on the East Coast, but I always knew I would come back to my favorite city. I love being able to spend my summers with my family traveling. Over the summer we spent a week in Northern Minnesota hiking different state parks to celebrate my grandpa's 90th birthday!

Image Source: Blog Author

Image Source: Blog Author

Outside of school I teach dance classes at Dance Gallery Chicago. I grew up dancing and am fortunate that I am able to work at the same studio I danced.Here I teach a pre-ballet class for five year olds as well as a special needs class.

Technology and Me

Technology has always been a part of my life and I enjoy spending time learning about new  tricks and tools that I can use both personally and professionally. I am not super tech-savy but I do enjoy the challenge of problem solving when things do not go the way I expect. 

I use social media to stay in touch with family and friends. I am an avid user of Pinterest and am often looking up new recipes to make for my family. Most recently I have begun using a Cricut and helped create the decorations at my sister's wedding. I like to consider myself a detail-oriented person so this was a task that I was excited to take on. 

Technology and the Classroom

My school is fortunate enough to have one-to-one Chromebooks for all students. During the school day I want to have my students use technology at least once every day, especially with the growth of technology in the classroom over the past couple years! When working with pull-out groups I want to make sure students have time to use their Chromebooks (this is also a good way for me to progress monitor IEP goals). I like to find engaging, educational websites for students to use for different subjects. For math, I will often switch between Zearn, Boddle, and Prodigy. For reading, I use Epic, ABCya, and Lexia. Many times students will tell me about different websites that they want to use and if it is school appropriate I will often try to incorporate it into my lessons.

I am very excited to continue to learn more about how I can incorporate technology into my classroom, especially when working with small groups. 

Image Source