Alina Zixie Yang, B.B.A., M.T., OCT
Ontario Certified Teacher, curriculum designer, and educational strategist.
| Instructor | Alina Zixie Yang — B.B.A., M.T., OCT |
|---|---|
| Certification | Ontario College of Teachers, member in good standing |
| Qualifications | Intermediate/Senior — mathematics, business studies |
| Education | University of Toronto — B.B.A. (Scarborough) · Master of Teaching (OISE) |
| Practice | Ontario public secondary classroom; multi-campus STEM programs |
| Languages | English · Mandarin · Cantonese · Japanese |
| Enquiries | hello@alinayang.ca |
Section 1 — Biography
Who is teaching this
I teach secondary school with the Toronto District School Board and hold certification with the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) in the Intermediate/Senior divisions, with mathematics and business studies as my teachables. I completed my Bachelor of Business Administration at the University of Toronto Scarborough and my Master of Teaching at OISE — a combination that shapes how I work: classroom practice grounded in research, delivered with the discipline of a well-run organization.
I have been teaching since 2017, and in more rooms than any one subject would suggest: senior mathematics at a Toronto supplementary school, K–12 mathematics tutoring, grade 8 Mandarin, Cantonese language and culture, and — from March 2020 — coding in CoffeeScript and Python, online, for Caution Tape Robotics. Working across languages and age groups is part of why my planning starts with who is in the room rather than with the content.
As Director of Education at Caution Tape Robotics, I am responsible for educational strategy and teacher development. That means setting the standards a lesson has to meet before it reaches a student, building the curriculum that gets it there, and training the instructors who teach it — across robotics, coding, and maker programs serving students from elementary through high school.
My focus is the part of education that is easy to skip: making sure a program is coherent from one week to the next, that instructors know exactly what they are teaching and why, and that what students walk away with is real skill rather than a finished kit.
- Passionate
- Enthusiastic
- Respect
- Equity
- Diversity
- Inclusive
Section 2 — Teaching philosophy
What the practice commits to
Six commitments that decide what a lesson looks like, each followed by an instance of it from my own teaching record.
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01
Start from what students can already do
A lesson that ignores prior knowledge either bores the room or loses it. Good planning begins with an honest read of where students actually are — then builds one clear step from there.
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02
Rigour is a form of respect
Lowering the bar is not kindness. Students rise to work that is demanding and well scaffolded, and they can tell the difference between a hard task and an unfair one.
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03
Assessment should teach, not just measure
Feedback matters more than a grade. Assessment is designed so students know what to do next, and so teachers learn whether the instruction actually landed.
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04
Language is part of the subject
Students cannot show what they know in a subject whose language is still forming for them. Terms get spoken, used in a sentence, and checked — and the room talks about itself as "we", never as "you and I".
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05
Design for the whole room before designing the lesson
Universal Design for Learning and backward design belong in the same pass: read the expectation, write down who is actually in the room, and only then decide what happens on the day.
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06
A program is only as good as its instructors
Curriculum does not teach itself. Investing in teacher development — clear materials, modelling, coaching, feedback — is what makes quality consistent instead of accidental.
Section 3 — Current appointments
Where the work happens now
| Post | Organization & scope |
|---|---|
| Secondary Teacher — Business Studies and Mathematics Present · full-time permanent | Lester B. Pearson Collegiate Institute, Toronto District School Board Classroom teaching in an Ontario public secondary school, working within the Ontario curriculum and its assessment and evaluation policy. This semester I am teaching MCR3U — Functions, CIA4U — Analysing Current Economic Issues, and CIE3M — The Individual and the Economy.
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| Director of Education Present · with the organization since 2020 | Caution Tape Robotics I own educational strategy and teacher development across robotics, coding, and maker programs, and joined in March 2020 as an online coding instructor teaching CoffeeScript and Python.
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Section 4 — Education & certification
Qualifications on file
| Credential | Granting body & detail | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Ontario Certified Teacher (OCT) | Ontario College of Teachers Certified member in good standing. Intermediate/Senior divisions — mathematics and business studies. | — |
| Master of Teaching (M.T.) | University of Toronto — Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Research-based teacher education leading to Ontario certification. Intermediate/Senior division, with teachables in mathematics and business studies. | 2020 – 2022 |
| Bachelor of Business Administration (B.B.A.) | University of Toronto Scarborough Specialist in general management. Exchange terms at CUHK (Hong Kong) and NUS (Singapore) on scholarship, and a summer abroad at ICU (Japan). | 2012 – 2017 |
Languages
| Mandarin | Native |
| English | Proficient |
| Cantonese | Proficient |
| Japanese | Intermediate |
Tools
- Python
- CoffeeScript
- Google Workspace for Education
- Adobe Photoshop
- Final Cut
Section 5 — Practicum
Where I learned to teach
Three placements across the Master of Teaching program — mathematics and business studies, in person, fully remote, and hybrid.
A Grade 9 mathematics placement in the first year of the de-streamed course, taught in person and online at the same time.
- Worked with the Grade 9 mathematics team on the course outline for the new de-streamed MTH1W curriculum, and on the resources that went with it.
- Taught hybrid — the room and the remote students in the same lesson — and built the digital classroom that held it together: Google Classroom, Jamboard, Desmos, Geogebra.
- Built accessible alternates as a matter of course — the same task in large print, in braille, on paper and on screen — so students with very different needs were doing equivalent work rather than merely the same work.
- Wrote evaluations spanning the four categories of the achievement chart, at a range of difficulty, so every student had something to show.
- Volunteered two afternoons a week in the after-school Homework Hangout, in person and online.
- Helped run a school-wide Pi Day: more than 500 students estimating π by measurement.
- Attended parent–teacher interviews and spoke to families about their child’s progress.
A fully remote placement, taught entirely over Zoom in the middle of the pandemic.
- Named the curriculum expectation in every lesson plan and said the learning goal out loud at the start of every class.
- Used Pear Deck and Kahoot to get participation out of a room where nobody could be seen, and breakout groups for the work that needed talking.
- Marked on Brightspace with descriptive feedback a student could act on.
- Built icebreakers and mood check-ins into a virtual class so the students knew each other and I knew how they arrived.
- Chose advertisements and video that put equity and social justice questions inside the business curriculum rather than beside it.
- Brought physical props to camera — packaging, products — so an online class still had something to look at and hold up against the theory.
A school portrait case study, and three mathematics lessons designed and taught against the Ontario curriculum.
- Grade 9 de-streamed mathematics — product and quotient rules for exponents (co-taught).
- Grade 9 de-streamed mathematics — the power of a power rule (lead).
- Grade 12 mathematics — probability (facilitating).
- Planned with backward design and Universal Design for Learning: from the curriculum expectation to the learner profiles, and only then to the day.
- Taught as a flipped, inquiry-shaped lesson — breakout groups derived the exponent rules from a problem set on a shared Jamboard before any rule was stated.
- Five formative checks inside one lesson: minds-on activity, quick review, breakout observation, a review game, and individual work.
- Reviewed by twelve Master of Teaching peers from a range of disciplines, with the lesson adapted to their VARK profiles.
Section 6 — Prior teaching
Earlier posts
Before the secondary classroom: mathematics, two languages, and coding, taught to students from kindergarten to grade 12.
| From | Role | Organization |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Senior mathematics teacher | T.H. Chan Memorial Math School · Toronto A class of 26 students with a wide spread of needs; weekly quizzes, worksheets, and homework packages, plus interim and final reports. |
| 2020 | Coding instructor — CoffeeScript and Python | Caution Tape Robotics · Markham Online classes designed for participation and discussion, with feedback to students and parents through Google Classroom. |
| 2019 | Mathematics tutor, K–12 | Fairview Mall Tutoring Academy · North York Individual progress plans for students across grade levels, backgrounds, and readiness, taught concurrently — from Grade 1 through Grade 12 mathematics and Grade 11 physics. |
| — | Secondary teacher · VEX robotics club support | Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute, TDSB · Scarborough Supported the school’s VEX robotics programming and helped students get from the club room to a competition field. |
| 2019 | Grade 8 Mandarin teacher | Mon Sheong Foundation Chinese School · North York Monthly writing, penmanship, speaking, and reading comprehension assessment; parent feedback given in the family’s preferred language. |
| 2019 | Cantonese instructor | T.H. Chan Memorial Chinese School · Toronto Language taught through activity, with cultural and historical material built into the course and performed at community events. |
| 2015 | Study abroad program assistant | International Student Centre, University of Toronto Scarborough · Scarborough Workshops, outreach, and peer application support; coordinated 20 volunteers across campus-wide events. |
Years indicate when each post began; an em dash means the portfolio does not record one.
Section 7 — Works cited
Reading behind the practice
Where the ideas above come from. A syllabus should say.
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Hubert, T. L. (2014). Learners of mathematics: High school students’ perspectives of culturally relevant mathematics pedagogy. Journal of African American Studies, 18(3), 324–336.
On what a teacher’s visible confidence in a student does to that student’s confidence in themselves.
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Wachira, P., & Mburu, J. (2019). Culturally responsive mathematics teaching and constructivism: Preparing teachers for diverse classrooms. Multicultural Learning and Teaching, 14(1), 1–8.
Socio-constructivism as the working strategy for culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy in a mathematics classroom.
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Carsley, D., & Heath, N. L. (2018).
On colouring as a way to settle anxiety — the reason a colouring page opened a grade 7/8 class during the pandemic.
“I believe everyone can shine, and I can’t wait to see your best potentials.”
Alina Yang, OCT