English and Language Arts (ELA) Archives

Bobby Irven

September 7, 2020

Bobby Irven is a private tutor who specializes in Mandarin Chinese, ESL, the humanities, virtual learning, research and special education. He is also proficient in a variety of digital design and communications software, as well as recently leveraging online and application based tools to collaborate, learn and communicate. He has traveled and worked around the world, and currently works at a large international nonprofit doing communications for the poverty eradication team. He has over a decade of experience working with students of all ages in small classroom settings and private tutoring.

Bobby Irven earned his B.A. in Chinese Studies and Political Science at Rutgers University, and then continued his education, receiving an M.A. in International Development from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, and conducted his thesis research in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

He is passionate about bringing a unique teaching style to each student interaction in order to ensure no one is left behind, and has worked with a wide variety of students, from recently arrived refugees to children with special needs. Bobby Irven loves combining new or alternative resources to complement traditional methods. This includes sessions or a focus on executive functioning: ensuring students are using the tools, technology and resources available to succeed in and out of the classroom.

When he is not traveling around the world to various work field sites or helping his students, Bobby enjoys playing competitive volleyball, advocating for social justice, scuba diving, and learning new languages and cultures. You might even catch him in a dance class or two!

Dan Muro

September 7, 2020

Dan Muro is a private tutor who specializes in social studies, language arts, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Dan grew up in New Jersey, where he attended The Pingry School from kindergarten through 12th grade. In High School, he was an honor roll student and frequent discussion leader in class, particularly in his favorite subjects: biology, English, Spanish, and political science. Outside of the classroom, Dan was a competitive swimmer and a founding member of the Coffeehouse Society, which organized open-mic nights for the school’s student artists. He also worked as a camp counselor at the Montclair Yard School of Art’s summer camp.

After graduating from Pingry, Dan Muro attended Wesleyan University, where he earned his B.A. in anthropology. A native speaker of Portuguese, Dan had the opportunity to share his love of Brazilian culture and language as a course assistant for beginner and intermediate Portuguese, facilitating group tutoring sessions and providing individually tailored support to students. He also worked as a woodshop monitor, teaching student artists how to properly and safely operate heavy machinery and tools. His sophomore year, Dan designed his own study abroad program in São Paulo, Brazil, where he conducted ethnographic and archival research with an architecture office supporting community-led housing initiatives and design processes.

Dan Muro currently works as a writer and consultant for cultural institutions, such as The Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University, Philadelphia Contemporary, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum. As one of the founding team members of DVDL Design Decisions, a boutique consultancy, Dan assisted in the design of new education, curatorial, and space design strategies for world-class museums.

Dan draws on his patience, listening skills, and love of learning, as well as his real-world problem-solving experience, to meet each student where they are. He offers support tailored to each student’s needs on test-taking strategies, reading comprehension and analysis, integrating new concepts into their intellectual toolkit, and problem-solving tactics across subjects.

When he is not teaching or tutoring, Dan can be found reading poetry and old urban planning documents, writing songs with friends, or enjoying the outdoors.

Lana Bunning

August 31, 2020

Lana Bunning is a lifelong learner and has a passion for sharing her love of education with her students. After earning a B.S. in Biology and an M.S. in Education from the University at Albany, she began her career with the New York City Department of Education. She has been a public school teacher for over eight years where she has taught math, science, and many other enrichment courses. She proudly holds the title of Model Teacher because of her skill and expertise of best instructional practices and student achievement growth. Lana has also worked as a private tutor for several years with students from kindergarten through high school. Her experiences have ranged from supporting students with academic coaching, test preparation, and executive functioning.

Lana Bunning is thoughtful when designing curriculum and supports for students, ensuring that the instruction is engaging, rigorous, and accessible for all learners. She is able to plan and execute her lessons in this way due to her ability to build a strong rapport with her students. Lana takes the time to get to know each of her students’ strengths and areas of growth, building trust and taking the time to get to know their hobbies and interests outside of the classroom. For these reasons, Lana is a lead teacher on her school’s Instructional Leadership and Equity Teams as well as District 13’s Math Leadership Group.

Lana’s experience educating students has not stopped at the classroom. She has privately tutored students of all ages attending NYC private and public schools, including The Dalton School, Horace Mann, Stuyvesant High School, and The Summit School. She skillfully differentiates instruction for all of her learners, including students with more complex neurocognitive profiles. Her tutoring work integrates monitoring and enhancing students’ executive functioning capacities and skills. She loves working one-on-one and in small groups with students because that is where she can have the most impact.

Lana Bunning is always working towards furthering her own learning in order to engage students at the highest levels. She participated in Honeywell Educators at Space Academy in 2016 where she participated in traditional Space Camp activities such as engineering design challenges, mock flight and space missions, rocket construction and launches with teachers from around the world. Sometimes you can still find her in her blue flight suit! She partnered with University of Washington Burke Museum paleontologists in 2017 to conduct field research on an active site, digging up 66 million year old fossils with teachers and researchers. In 2018, she explored Yellowstone National Park while engaging in STEAM projects to implement into the classroom with her students. She is always learning new ways to reach her students and spark their natural curiosity.

In her free time, Lana loves riding her Peloton and biking outside, snowboarding in the winter months, enjoying the beach waves in the summer, collecting and listening to vinyl records, and sharing meals with friends and family.

Vanessa Khemlani

August 21, 2020

Vanessa Khemlani is a NYS-certified teacher with a dual master’s degree in early childhood education and early childhood special education. Vanessa cares deeply about child development and how best to support growth and learning at every stage. For over eighteen years, she has worked in classrooms and homes in New York City, Long Island, and Lower Westchester. She specializes in cooperative learning, supportive interventions, multi-sensory lesson plans, differentiated instruction, organizational skills, social/emotional skill development, literacy instruction, and classroom curriculum support for early childhood and elementary school students.

Working in a multitude of school settings over the course of her career has afforded Vanessa the opportunity to see the implementation of different approaches and curricula. She calls on these experiences frequently when creating individualized educational programs. Incorporating elements from The Greenspan Floortime approach, Reggio Emilia, and Montessori, Vanessa has worked with a large and wonderfully diverse group of children in their schools and at home.

For the past ten years, she has been an independent educational facilitator working with students, families, and school administration to support successful learning. Vanessa works with students one-on-one, both in the classroom and at home, integrating emotional, intellectual, social, and physical aspects of learning.

Vanessa is well versed in the protocols of CSE and CPSE and works with educational advocates to support families as they navigate assessments, participate in IEP meetings, and testify at Department of Education impartial hearings. In addition, she assists in coordinating therapy referrals, neuropsychological evaluations, and ongoing school admissions process. When working in the home, Vanessa creates a curriculum to support each child’s growth in and out of school. Vanessa has received Orton Gillingham training and incorporates this approach when developing literacy programs.

With a strong understanding of child development and a working knowledge of how children learn, Vanessa builds working relationships with her students and their families to support sustained academic success.

Otis Kriegel

August 18, 2020

Starting as an international outdoor adventure guide, Otis Kriegel made his way to the classroom afterwards and has been teaching and tutoring privately for the past 18 years. Having taught in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Berlin, Germany, Otis has taught all of the grades 1st -8th in monolingual, dual language (Spanish/English), and fully inclusive classroom setting as well as also created and taught a Digital Arts program for a public Middle School in New York City.

Otis Kriegel has expertise with numerous literacy and math programs and approaches such as Words Their Way, Teachers College Reading & Writing Project, Sounds in Motion, Fundations (an Orton-Gillingham based approach), TERC (Investigations), Engage (Zearn), Math City and Marilyn Burns methods of teaching math. He is also well versed in the FOSS and Amplify science curriculums and is very experienced in mixing and matching different curricula and approaches to match the student, group or class with whom he is working.

A product of a Montessori education himself, Otis Kriegel is familiar with these methods as well and utilizes them in his everyday teaching. Otis is also comfortable teaching remotely using many different programs such as Google Classroom, Zoom, Raz Kids, Zearn, Loom, Flipgrid and other platforms that make remote learning both effective, captivating and fun!

Otis Kriegel was an adjunct professor at New York University and a guest speaker at The Bank Street College of Education, City College of New York, Touro College and others. An experienced presenter, Oits has spoken at numerous conferences and given workshops to hundreds of new and veteran teachers alike, as well as consulted with educational administrators and principals. He wrote Everything a New Elementary School Teacher REALLY Needs to Know (But Didn’t Learn in College) (Free Spirit, 2013) and Starting School Right: How do I plan for a successful first week in my classroom? (ASCD Arias, 2016). Most recently, Otis has been giving virtual workshops to corporations and organizations such as The Gap, The Office of the Mayor of the City of New York, Hoot Suite, TMP and others on how families can balance working from home while educating their child during the pandemic.

Otis is also an artist, who cofounded the public art collective, Illegal Art, whose book, Suggestion (August 2005), was published by Chronicle Books. Their work has been featured by such media outlets as National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Public Art Review and The New York Times Op Art page. His work has been exhibited, commissioned and published in catalogs throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and The Middle East, and he was an artist-in-residence at the 2013 SXSW Festival.

Otis Kriegel was also commissioned by The White House to participate in the South By South Lawn Festival (Obama Administration). In 2018, Otis gave a TED Talk about this work.

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Lana Bunning

Vanessa Khemlani

Otis Kriegel

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