..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.