Farewell to the end of spring 2010!!

Unit Plan Adventures!!

I thought that the unit plan process has been a long, fun, exhilarating, stressful experience all at once. It is important to me that my unit plan be the best it can be and so far i have put in many many hours of my time. I think my unit plan wouldn't be what it is if it was not for the use of technology that i learned is out there today! Wordle and voki, just to name a few, are some uses of technology that i have enjoyed learning about this semester. I have been having fun looking up different things to use for my unit plan and i have really enjoyed coming up with ideas on my own. In the beginning of the semester the unit plan was scary to think about, especially the idea of using a wiki. Now i am not only using a wiki but i am adding photos, videos, links, pages and so on to my wiki to make it better. Each day i am learning something new whether it be by exploring, asking my professor, or asking a classmate. I am excited to present my unit plan to my peers on Monday and i hope that everyone enjoys it!

After seeing other presentations for the unit plans from my peers, I came up with some new ideas of how i can re vamp my own unit plan. I really love how nice everyone is and how willing everyone is to help you when you need assistance. I liked seeing the different unit plans because everyone had there own way of presenting and their own unique ideas. I thought everyone did a nice job! I really liked the way chrissie presented her unit, and i also liked the links from Nicole's unit plan. I thought Brittany's was great too and what made her stand out to me is how excited she was to show the class her unit plan. Overall, everyone really did do a good job and i enjoyed looking at all of the different units.

Mrs. Bucci's Second Grade Class

I learned a lot during my time at Edward J. Russell Elementary School this semester. Mrs. Bucci was really nice and her students were very welcoming. One of the first things i asked Mrs. Bucci was what her philosophy of teaching was. I was curious to know after all of the schooling she has gone through and her 7 year experience as a second grade teacher what her philosophy would be.

Mrs. Bucci's philosophy of education:

" When a student enters my classroom they will be entering a place where their learning is the main focus. Understanding the need for academic excellence, I have acquired the knowledge and developed the creativity needed to accommodate students' diverse needs, learning styles, and learning modalities. Hands-on-learning is a priority. I believe it is very important to create a supportive learning environment for all students. The poster 'Children Learn What They Live' hangs in my room year after year as is the basis of my teaching philosophy".

From my observations, Mrs. Bucci implements her philosophy of education into her teaching day in and day out. I really liked the set up of her classroom. I thought that the way the tables were set up were creative and implemented the use of hands on learning being done in the classroom. The tables were arranged in a diagonal way. Mrs. Bucci also used a stick system that i loved. The children would get popsicle sticks for showing positive behavior and doing the right thing. When the students get ten sticks they bunch them by wrapping them up with a rubber band and putting them in their cup. By bunching them the students are learning to count by ten's. At different points during the year the students will be rewarded with a stick party. I thought this was a great idea to reward good behavior and to make it a good incentive for those who are having trouble behaving.

The lessons that i observed in Mrs. Bucci's class were hands-on. One of my favorites were playing math games with a partner. The game "Race to 100" is a game were the student rolls a dice and has to collect the number of cubes on the dice. The first person to get to 100 wins. The kids really enjoyed this activity and it was fun to watch!

Mrs. Bucci also showed me teacher editions of books she has to use with the school's curriculum. Mrs. Bucci showed me her weekly homework sheet she hands out to the children along with her planning and attendance books. Mrs. Bucci always explained why she did the lessons she did that day and made herself available during her free time to answer any questions i may have.

Overall, observing was a positive experience and i enjoyed the time i spent in the classroom with the students and Mrs. Bucci.

Basics Of Curricular Planning

Overall, this course has been a rewarding experience. I am happy with my decision to stay in the course and i am grateful for Dr. Smirnova for because of her i have become more technologically advanced and i have truly come out of something learning new things that i can carry along with me when i am a teacher. I am a better person for taking this class because i have learned patience and to go with the flow of things instead of having melt downs and getting stressed out. It helped that Dr. Smirnova was available to answer any questions i may have. It also was a big help to know that i had my peers in the class to turn to if i had a question or needed a suggestion. I will miss everyone in the class and i look forward to the rest of my journey at Mount Saint Mary College.

The Beginning of the End of Spring 2010

When I imagine myself as a teacher, this quote describes the person I would like to be. The journey so far in the class has been long and difficult, but worth it to me. I enjoy challenges and doing the best I can in everything I do because this is my life. Being a teacher is going to be one of my biggest milestones and I am looking forward to the rest of my journey that lies ahead in this course, my degree, and my future as a teacher.

Why are Standards Important?

I realized while we were learning about standards that they aren't just guidelines that teachers have to follow to know what to teach for their grade level. Standards to me are general statements that become the starting point for a teacher. I think that standards help the teacher to be able to expand the students knowledge and are general enough that the teacher can choose to go in any which direction he or she chooses, as long as they are following the standards.

The video is from a Kindergarten class that aligns their ELA standards with their curriculum. I think the way they do this is insightful and aides to what I said before about a teacher being able go in any direction he or she chooses. This class followed the standards, but the teacher did it in a creative and hands on way by having the children work in groups and use technology to help them learn the material they needed to know. When I am a teacher I want my students to feel as if their experience in my class was fun and rewarding. I want to teach the students that they can learn and have fun doing it. I thought that this class showed that perfectly. I think that it is also really important to have resources such as “star fall” for teachers to use in the classroom with students. Through searching the web I have found so many interactive websites and videos that help with math facts and tell stories that I can use when I am a teacher to help my students learn a concept. Overall, I want my students to be successful in my class and because of everything I have learned thus far in the class, I am confident that I will be able to do so in an educational and fun way.

Practicing with Aims, Goals, and Objectives

In class we practiced with writing aims, goals, and objectives because we are going to have to do so when we start our unit plans. I personally struggled with this, especially with writing objectives. I liked that we were given take home practice tests to feel more confident with these concepts because I am the kind of person that needs to have the opportunity to practice in order to have a new concept learned. I felt that after completing the take home tests I had significantly improved, but I feel that as a growing learner I could always improve my work and I am always willing to improve my work. I don’t think that this is supposed to be easy. I think that if you truly want to be a teacher, you should be willing to put in the time it takes to be successful. Even though I struggled, I put the time in to practice and improve my learning. If I hadn’t done these things I would still be making the same mistakes.

All Aboard! The Community Train

I can't even begin to explain how excited I am about beginning my unit plan for second grade on suburban communities. I have so many ideas that i want to implement in my planning. I decided to use a Wiki to complete my unit plan on because I want to be challenged and try something new. I am so used to taking the traditional route and I feel as if I could really expand my technological skills through completing my unit plan on the Wiki. I didn’t think setting it up was difficult as long as you watched the tutorials and paid close attention to the directions being given in class. I do wish there were more examples available to look at because I am not sure if I am on the right track with my unit plan. I feel a little nervous to write my objectives for my unit plan, because of how I struggle. Above all I really just want to be successful and create a really neat unit plan that I could possibly use with my own students when I am a teacher. I also want to be familiar with the pbworks website so that I could possibly use it to complete more units on when the time comes. I am just so anxious to get the ball rolling and to really get into the deeper stages of planning. I have collected many resources from the college curriculum library, the internet, and also through the library located in my town. Overall, I am so anxious to plan that I lay awake at night thinking about it because this is the most fun thing about teaching: being able to plan and come up with creative ideas to engage students in learning. If you don’t believe me, ask my family members and boyfriend (I never stop talking about it).

The Road Will Be Long

Looking back on my two previous blogs until now I found that I have come a long long way since the beginning of the semester, and i am proud of my efforts thus far. I look forward to seeing what the end of the semester will hold. I am excited to get started on the unit plan and to accomplish this will be very rewarding to me because I enjoy looking back on things I have done and thinking about the time and energy spent and knowing that it is all worth it, because in the end i will one day have my own classroom where i will teach everyday and go home at night to my own husband and children and live the life I have always dreamed for myself. I only want two things in life: 1. To teach and 2. To have a family. Although the road will be long, it is a road that will be an adventure each and every day with every step I take.

..And The Journey Continues..

I chose to use this quote for this journal because it truly describes why i want to become a teacher. It isn't for the money and it isn't because i will have summers off, and it isn't because it is an ideal job to have if you want to raise a family.. I want to be a teacher because i want to make a difference in the lives of my students.


Philosophies:

When we were talking about philosophies, my focus was Social Reconstructionism. When i researched the philosophy to broaden my knowledge on the topic, i found that this philosophy promotes social change. I liked that it focused on student experience and gave students the chance to get involved in the community and make a difference. Social Reconstructionism is also considered to be taking the world into the classroom which i think is also important because there is so much going on in today's world and it only takes one person to make a difference.

When i presented Reconstructionism to my peers, i used cards that had pictures presented on them, much like the pictures above. The pictures depicted choices. For example, The card on the top shows a picture of children from Africa who are begging for food. The card on the bottom shows a mother and her two children eating plenty of food for breakfast. By using these cards, I asked my peers if they would rather suffer from hunger or have plenty of food and of course they chose to have plenty of food. I told my peers that hunger is a big issue in society and that reconstructionism takes real problems such as hunger and applies it to learning. An example of how I would apply this to learning is to maybe have my students put together a food drive to collect canned goods to send over to the children in Africa.

Learning Theories:


I thought that the different learning theories that were discussed in class were of importance because it gave you an insight on the different beliefs of how you learn. My group did a presentation on the learning theory Cognitivism. I thought Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy was useful to use in the classroom, and as a future teacher i plan to implement his 6 levels into my teaching. The 6 levels are more than just general knowledge. It focuses the student to take the knowledge and to use it, break it down, make critical connections and then to make judgements based upon what you learned. From the other presentations i saw from my peers i would say that i would like to use a mixture of each theory in my classroom when i am a teacher.


Micro-Teaching #1:

I had my first micro-teaching experience and i must say it was a lot of fun. I was nervous and intimidated by it because i am generally a shy person, but i felt that once i got up there everything just fell into place. I used Wordle to introduce the aspects of good planning. Wordle is an amazing program that i plan to use constantly to introduce topics when i am a teacher. It was so easy to use and i was having fun creating it and also browsing other people's wordle's. I introduced my boyfriend's mother to Wordle and she is using it with her special needs children at her job. I think that anything that is different that children have not seen before or have not been experienced to can be the most rewarding. In the beginning you are seeing words that you don't know anything about but by the end of the lesson, the students can go back to the wordle and remember the words and reflect upon their meanings. I think something i would do with my future students with Wordle is to activate their prior knowledge by creating a wordle together and then after the unit is over we would create another wordle and combine the prior knowledge with the new knowledge attained.



Unit Plan:

The unit plan design is quickly approaching and i have decided to do my unit plan for second grade on communities. I am going to focus on Rural and Urban communities (How they are the same, how they are different). I am excited to begin my unit plan because i already have so many ideas that i would want to implement into my plan and have researched some great ideas online that could push me in the right direction in terms of planning. I am looking at this project as something i could potentially use when i am a teacher so i want it to be the best it can be.

YouTube:

There was a video posted on MOODLE that showed you a typical day in a 7th grade classroom that uses the constructivist approach. The student showed you how she uses the internet as her learning environment. I thought that the glogster website was really fascinating because you can create your own vritual poster. I would use this in my classroom for introducing topics and also by assisting my students in creating their own virtual posters on the topic as part of a research project. Everyday i become more and more surprised by the massive technology in society that is available to educators and their students..

Standards:

Currently in class we are talking about Social Studies Standards. My device to help myself remember the 5 standards is using flashcards with pictures to represent the standards.I learn well through pictures so this is the best choice for me.

I think it was necessary to create a device to learn the standards because we will be working on our unit plans and they will have to be age appropriate and follow the New York State Standards. Being familiar with the standards will help me a lot when creating my unit plan.

I thought that i would end my post with a video on Social Studies Standards since this has been the most recent topic discussed in class. It is a video about the aspects of Social Studies that one learn's in Kindergarten. I thought it was cute and very creative.

My First Learning Experiences in Curricular Planning

This quotes truly describes my admiration for teaching, and i will keep this quote in the back of my mind as things start to get harder in class, because I can do this, and i was meant to do this.

JOURNAL ONE

As the first few weeks of my first semester at Mount Saint Mary College begins to calm down, I cannot even begin to express how excited I am to be in Basics of Curricular Planning. I am so eager to learn and to be exposed to all the various forms of technology and opportunities that wait for me throughout this semester.

I learned in the first week that Social Studies would be the main focus for the unit plans this semester. I am looking forward to learning about the standards and how to formulate a solid unit plan. I think the unit plan is going to be a lot of hard work, but I crave these kinds of things because I want to be a teacher so bad.

What I hope to get out of this course is to be able to gather resources that could help me to be a great teacher, and to be able to creatively put together a GREAT unit plan. I am willing to learn and I want to be successful. When I picture my life, I see myself as a great teacher, much like the teacher in the film “Freedom Writers”

I am looking forward to learning about the various different technologies that are available for use in my future classroom. PDF cute writer was a good experience because I learned how to convert my files into PDF format. I never knew that even existed, and I am happy that I was given the chance to experience it because I will use it in the future. It is a great tool, and in my opinion it makes your writing look professional.

If I could pick one thing that I would want in my future classroom (technology wise), I would want a SMART Board. I think that the SMART Board is a great tool to use because there is so much you can do with it. You can watch videos, you can use the markers as you would on a white board but it is all electronic. You can use the programs on the SMART Board to make diagrams and practice Math and Writing Skills, and so much more. What is even better about this tool is that it is kid friendly, meaning that it is educationally rewarding and appropriate for students of any age to use.

I also enjoyed the visit the class took to the curriculum library. I learned that the library has so many resources for teachers in any subject. Also, the computer programs “Inspiration” and “Kidspiration” were great to learn to use because they could be implemented into my unit plan. I actually loved the programs so much and when I talked to my Dad about them he decided to surprise me and he bought them so that I can use them at home, and for when I am a teacher in the future.

The same day we toured the curriculum library was the same day we were assigned the "Name Project", which I used Microsoft Powerpoint to describe myself. I liked this project because it gave me a chance to be creative, and to tell my classmates more about myself. It wasn't as nerve wrecking as I thought It would be to get up In front of my classmate's and openly speak about my life.

When we discussed as a class how people learn, I pondered on the subject for a long time because people learn in so many different ways. I was so excited to sign up for my micro-teaching presentation because I would be aiding to how people learn, and observing what works and what doesn’t. I think that micro-teaching is a great tool to begin a lesson with because it grabs the attention of the students and helps them to focus. I am going to use the micro-teaching aspect of learning in every way I can when I become a teacher and I will aspire to make each presentation better than the last.

I think one thing I will always remember is Bruner’s Structure of Knowledge that we discussed in class during the third week. I will always remember this because these are the keys to teaching children. I know that if I follow these ideas and creatively present them in a way that interest’s my students, I will be doing a good job.

Overall, I am happy that I stayed in the course because I feel that I have learned so much more in three weeks than I had in any other course, any other semester. I am so excited for the learning to come, and I look forward to starting my unit plan and micro-teaching.

Test 1-2-3

Testing out my new blog. I am very excited about this.