Kristina Scott

Kristina’s first teaching experience was at the University of Massachusetts Hospital in Worcester. Here she taught in cardiac rehabilitation patients about heart disease from a physiology perspective, and how nutrition, exercise, and stress management can be used as preventive means to protect against additional cardiac diseases. 

She then took a position as an instructional assistant for a K-2 school in South Grafton, Massachusetts. This is where she received applied behavior analyst (ABA) training and took on a position as an ABA therapist. This behavioral training helped Kristina land her next job as a grade seven resource room teacher for students connected to the judicial and court systems. Here she taught inclusion language arts, math, and science, and pull-out math and language arts in this environment for a year. She loved this position, but received a pink slip from the district, a standard procedure for teachers in their first three years of teaching in this district. 

She did not feel comfortable waiting out the budgeting game, so interviewed elsewhere and accepted a position to start up a partial inclusion program for students on the autism spectrum. During her time in the position she taught and worked with teachers and students in grades two through eight. She was successful in starting the program and helping it grow. After being in this position for six years Kristina decided to explore if teaching at the university level was something in her long-term career path. She has been in her current position at UML since January 2012.  While exploring this career option Kristina was able to successfully defend her research proposal last May, and will continue to collect data and write her final chapters this fall. She is in the Leadership and Schooling Doctorate program at this university.