Name: Robyn Hubener
School district: Cheney USD 268
City/State: Cheney, KS
Class/content area taught: 5th Grade – Writing, Spelling, Grammar, Reading
What are you most excited about with your new career? I am most excited about being able to learn new things and impact the lives of my students. With teaching you’re constantly learning and working to better yourself for your students. I enjoy being able to do that on a daily basis.
What you enjoy most about teaching:I enjoy the relationships that I get to build with my students! Relationships are a play a large role in what we do.
In what ways has your school/district supported you? I have a mentor in my team that I collaborate with daily. We also have a curriculum director that I meet with twice a month to help better my content knowledge. Overall I have a tremendous amount of support from the school and the district.
What are some specific things you believe KSU especially helped prepare you for your new career? KSU helped me align the Kansas standards with the content that I am teaching. We do not have curriculum at our school, so being able to creatively engage students while teaching to the standards is key. I use my knowledge from KSU to help me create my lessons.
Are there specifics about your background that make teaching the perfect fit for you? Both of my parents are teachers, so it runs in the blood!
Suggestions/encouragement for new teachers: Reflect! When something does go as planned, write down what you didn’t like about it at the end of the day. Keep running documents of what you do so that you remember for years to come. Don’t be afraid to ask for help! It’s a crazy ride and they are all trying to help you do the best that you possibly can. Sometimes they’ll have ideas that you never even thought of!
School district: Clearwater USD 264
City/State: Clearwater, KS
Class/content area taught: Sophomore World History
What are you most excited about with your new career? I’m most excited to just get to continue growing as an educator. I’m getting to actually put the knowledge gained at KSU into practice, but at the same time there is still so much to learn especially in the Social Studies field.
What you enjoy most about teaching: Getting to be creative. I enjoy trying to come up with fun unique ways to engage students.
In what ways has your school/district supported you? Right now I’m going through the Kansas Mentorship program. I have my mentor as well as several other teachers and administrators who have been very supportive in offering any help or advice if I need it.
What are some specific things you believe KSU especially helped prepare you for your new career? One of the biggest things KSU helped prepare me for was alignment with Kansas standards. That is an area where my school district is really trying to push and encourage teachers to ensure that their lessons are always tied to a standard and have a purposeful objective. This is something that was pushed hard at K-State, so I am already used to utilizing the standards and creating objectives.
Are there specifics about your background that make teaching the perfect fit for you? I don’t know that there is anything from my background that makes teaching a perfect fit, but I would consider myself a fairly creative, hard working person and I feel that teaching fits well with that. I am able to use my creativity in creating lesson plans. I’m always trying to improve myself and there is always opportunity to grow as an educator.
Suggestions/encouragement for new teachers: The only encouragement I have for new teachers is don’t be afraid to take risks and try something new. If there’s something you want to try to incorporate in your classroom, give it a try. Reflect on it afterward and if it didn’t work as well as you’d liked, you can always adjust it or get rid of it going forward.