Creative approach yields big results

Despite having worked several years as a paraprofessional, Selinda Edwards remained plagued with doubts about whether working with children was her true calling. But her colleagues, paraprofessionals and teachers alike, saw something in her that she didn’t recognize in herself: a knack for connecting with and engaging students. Working as a 1:1 paraprofessional, serving one student over the course of a school year, cemented the change in her self-perception. At the end of the year, she realized that her student “wouldn’t have gotten anything that year academically” without her support. “And that’s when I realized — I’m here for a reason,” Edwards said.

Edwards decided she wanted to serve a broader expanse of students and considered becoming a teacher, but she was apprehensive about returning to school. Another paraprofessional colleague gave her the final push she needed. “She opened my laptop, and she said, ‘You’re re-enrolling in college,’” said Edwards, who, before becoming a paraprofessional, had taught life skills to young people for the city’s Office of Mental Health and Disabilities.

While still working as a paraprofessional, Edwards completed her bachelor’s degree. She began teaching special education math at IS 117 in the Bronx in September 2024.

As her colleagues and family predicted, teaching is a natural fit for the creative and energetic Edwards.

Greg Fuchs, a fellow special ed teacher and the school’s chapter leader, says Edwards’ thoughtful and dynamic teaching style is yielding big results. “She’s always trying something new, a new game, a new pairing,” said Fuchs. “She does amazing groupings.”

Edwards’ commitment to testing new strategies in her lesson planning and classroom management is the key to keeping her 6th- and 7th-grade math students focused and on track, he says.

Edwards crafts lessons, stations and small-group work with an eye toward multiple entry points and full-class engagement.

Edwards incorporates games into her lessons to help motivate students, and provides students with differentiated instructions and goals “so everyone can play,” she says. She gets to know her students and thoughtfully pairs them to draw out shy students as well as support those who work better with a particular classmate. She’s quick to notice students who are “shutting down,” and offers murmured prompts to keep them focused on the activity.

Edwards also brings the real world, and her students’ interests, into her lesson planning. She develops story problems that draw on Roblox and Minecraft narratives. She teaches ratios and proportions by piling supplies in front of groups of students and asking them to consider what “proportional” means: “Is it equal? Is it fair?” she asks.

She teaches lessons on polls and statistics through the lens of TikTok videos, leveraging her students’ interest in being “content creators,” telling them, “This is how you gather data to predict whether your page is going to be successful or not.”

She asks them to consider the real-world application of percentages by creating math problems that ask about cellphone battery life – though their real phones are held in Yondr pouches until the end of the day. This helps them anchor their learning in the real world. “They cannot connect to something that’s not tangible, but they can definitely connect to that phone,” she says with a laugh.

Edwards, who grew up in the Soundview section of the Bronx, sees teaching as a way of paying it forward. “It’s my duty to give back,” she says, “because DOE teachers were there for my own children.”