classroom banner: Mrs. Shankle's Class, 8th Grade Language Arts and U.S. History

Mrs. Shankle family picture

Jennifer Shankle

A Little About Me

Welcome! My name is Jennifer Shankle. This is my 25th year teaching: 3 years in an elementary school in LaMirada where I taught Kindergarten through 2nd grades, and I have been at HIS since we opened our doors in 2002. I earned my Bachelor's Degree from Cal State Fullerton in the discipline of Child and Adolescent studies, My teaching credential at UCLA, and I completed my Master's Degree in Instruction, Curriculum Design, and Assessment at Marygrove University.  

My husband and I met on a Pop Warner football field, playing and cheering for the same team and we were very involved with the team for about 20 years - playing, cheerleading, coaching, etc. We have a wonderful family of 6! - Our "oldest child"; Matt, is my husband's cousin and has been a part of our family since he was 11, he is now grown and flown. We also have a daughter, Caitlyn - 20 yrs. old: a son, Ryan - 17 yrs, and our youngest daughter- Riley - 10 yrs. We are a very active family. Caitlyn is a competitive dancer and graduated from Rancho Cucamonga High School (Rancho- You Know!) in '21. She is continuing her education at Washington State University. Ryan is starting his Senior year at Rancho and plays year-round travel baseball as well as the RCHS baseball team. Riley is starting 5th grade and plays softball. When we are not on a sports field or at a dance competition, we love to camp, play on the water, and spend time with our family of friends.

Educational Philosophy

My philosophy of teaching is founded on the idea that each child is unique and deserves a rich educational environment. I believe students must experience high expectations in academic curriculum and personal behavior, and need to be empowered to take accountability for their own learning. My lessons include strategies to meet several learning modalities at once, and promote critical thinking and questioning. As a teacher, I believe it is my role to guide my students to become lifelong learners and contributing members in our diverse society. I strive to create a positive community in my classroom; a community in which all of my students are empowered to question, gain the self-discipline to work independently and collaboratively, and the freedom to make and learn from mistakes.

Announcements

Assignments

Computer Science Exploratory Course

Computer Science- Programming with Legos 

Course Description
In this course students will learn, practice, and master competencies through experiential, hands-on, playful STEAM lessons with Legos, Students will explore how hardware and software work together while investigating ways to communicate ideas using lights and sounds, explore how to control motors in different ways, how to effectively utilize motors in robots, and how to utilize motors to automate tasks. Students will utilize pseudocode to support creating algorithms and code comments to document their programs. Additionally, students will focus on how to collaborate with their peers to participate in pair programming as well as how to give and receive feedback to improve the overall quality of a project.

Six-Week Plan

Week 1:

Introduction to Coding: CodeMonkey

Lego Education introductory lessons

Week 2:

 Identifying/Solving problems with Code *Lego Education "Kiki" Lesson

Creating and adapting prototypes. *LegoEducation "Hopper Race" Lesson

Week 3:

Testing Efficacy *LegoEducation "Super Cleanup Grabbers" Lesson

Evaluating, iterating *Lego Education "Broken CNC Machine" Lesson

Week 4:

Controlling Movement with the Gyro, Distance and Color Sensors *Lego Education " Driving Around" Lesson

Week 5:

Coding uphill movement with force *Lego Education "Mortorcycle" lesson

Week 6:

Timing Operations *Lego Education "Break Dancer" lesson

Universal Access

Our primary focus will be to reinforce skills taught in Language Arts and provide opportunities for extension and acceleration in the curriculum.

This will be accomplished by working independently on personalized instruction in IXL, instruction in specified areas of class needs within the English/Language Arts content and collaborative learning and practice.