I've been on this math journey for 10 years now. As a student, I never hated math, but I never loved math either...until I discovered the secrets that I felt my teachers were holding back from me. I was always the student that wanted to know why the tricks worked. As an Elementary Education major, I fell in love with math concepts through my Math Methods class. I'm now on a quest to get others to develop a passion for math and to not see it as the enemy. Have you ever been afraid to teach a certain group of students? It me! I was that teacher that was ready to call it quits because I was so afraid of the students that I was about to teach and the labels that had been placed on them. I was afraid of the things that I was told about them. It's been often said that you have to love your students to teach your subject, and that is so true. The summer before teaching this group, I had a revelation that instead of focusing on numbers, these students needed so much love and genuine concern about their well-being long after they leave my class. I've also found another component of that saying to be true. To effectively teach students you have to also have an infectious love for your subject. Both of these discoveries has allowed me to witness a decrease in math anxiety while increasing student growth and achievement in various settings. In the past 12 years of teaching "at-risk" students, I've seen tremendous growth through systematically implementing systems to build self-efficacy in my students and help them foster a love for math. The feedback that I've received from students, parents, teachers, and administrators has confirmed that this quest to increase student achievement through developing self-efficacy has led to effective outcomes for students. Fun Facts About Me: My joy is fueled by coffee and Jesus! I'm married to an educator (he's currently an administrator) I'm a boy mom x 2 The beach is my happy place I have my master's degree in Curriculum & Instruction I'm a K-5 Math Coach I love math, my students love math, and YOUR students can too