Malika Anthony-McAlmont is the outstanding coach of the Ithaca Learning Pod. The Ithaca learning pod was envisioned in another form more than 2yrs ago when Mr Joey Downes donated funds for robot kits for the children of Ithaca. Today Ms McAlmont fulfills that pledge with her commitment to the Ithaca Learning pod. Ms McAlmont is a teacher, mother, and mentor who has shared more than 8 years of classroom experience with children in and around the community. Ms AcAlmont aims to empower and mold the minds of the children in her community and in the Ithaca pod.
Ms Malika shares that she believes that, “…every child has the ability to learn and this continues to be my fundamental belief whether in the classroom, the learning pod or doing work in the community.” She goes on to state that being given the opportunity to be a Learning Pod coach has allowed her to explore and experience new strategies of learning and delivering the lessons to her students. This experience, she shares, has also taught her how to better improvise due to daily challenges faced at the pod.
Teacher McAlmont states that she has observed a tremendous improvement in the performance of a majority of the learners since the pod program began. This she shares, is something truly exciting to witness as the coach of the pod. Ms McAlmont states that the observed improvement is also a motivator for her to push more to achieve 100% performance improvement from all of the children who are members of the pod.
Ms Malika ends by stating, “for the new year, It is my hope also to better prepare my learners to enter robotics competition and be more versed in coding and to watch them learn and excel in these new and exciting areas.”
