Rachel Krivanek

10800 Highway 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576
843-650-5600

25 April 2017

Senior Digital Exploration Judges

10800 Highway 707
Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

Dear Judges;

For the past four years in high school, I have been actively involved in a plethora of activities.
Music has been the center of my high school experience. I participated in concert band, marching
band, and winter guard for all of my time in high school. While playing clarinet in concert band,
I also was apart of the Tri-M Music Honor Society, being the Secretary for one year and
Historian for another year. After graduation, I plan on attending Coastal Carolina University,
majoring in Early Childhood Education. After four years of college, I would like to become an
Elementary teacher as soon as possible, which is my ultimate goal for my life.

Being apart of musical activities for multiple years, I was motivated to chose my topic because I
strongly believe music has an effect on how children learn. While interning at Burgess
Elementary, I tested my thesis on my child development class. I noticed that not only does music
help their learning, but it also brings a joy to children and makes learning fun. I have learned that
children can remember information with music, even if they think it is just for fun. This will help
me with my future teaching techniques.

For my senior exploration, I observed a child development class at Burgess Elementary. An

obstacle that I encountered was seeing whether the students learning was consistent or not. If a
student was having a bad day, it affected their attitude and how they took information in. An
accomplishment that I experienced was seeing my class improve on saying numbers 1-100 while
singing a counting song to help them. My experience helped me this year by showing my all the
positives and negatives of teaching younger children.

I would like to give a huge thank you to all the judges that took time out of their day to listen to
my experience and judge my presentation. Thank you for willingly participating in the Senior
Exploration process.

Sincerely,
Rachel Krivanek

Rachel Krivanek