We got the Power(s)

This semester has been a whirlwind of information and new experiences. I have learned a lot not only about education, but also about myself. Balancing 18 credits, a 20 hour/week internship, and over 20 hours of work per week was not easy but I am happy to say it is all coming to an end and I made it. I was able to have many experiences in classrooms, not only through the field placement, but also through my internship and personal connections. I love getting to go into a classroom and get involved in the education taking place. I feel that the experiences I have when I am in a classroom are the moments that I learn the most from.

One thing I struggled with this semester was writing for the blogs. Although I do think it can be beneficial to learn how to blog and getting the experience, I am not a fan of writing in a creative manner. Because of this, I found the blogs hard to complete. Along with that, I found it to be tedious to have to find articles to go along with what we were writing. I understand the point of having articles to help with credibility, but having a certain number of them required left me feeling as if I was finding an article just to have it there, not because I felt it had a place in my blog. I do think that research is very important but I do not think it always needs to be shared. Sometimes people do research just so that they can better their own knowledge on a specific topic.  I have been doing a lot to learn about behavior through my internship. I work with students that have autism and have taken the training necessary in order to be able to work with the students independently of another teacher. All of the experiences I have had this semester are helping to shape me in to the teacher I will become in a year.

It’s crazy to think this blogging experience is wrapping up. It has definitely been a different experience, and a notable one at that.  Blogging has always intrigued me, as I have tried to start blogs many times. It is something that I think is a useful tool that con be used in or out of the classroom to share ideas to a large audience. Through this experience I have learned more about interacting with others blogs and different ways to respond or offer up questions to the audience.  I also have learned

My first blog post was about assessment and ELLs.  I took a class this semester on how to teach ELLs and make sure they understand the content.  Creating valid assessments for them is important, and this guided my first post. I thought it was important to reference this and write about it in a way that brought on more questions for others.  I brought in the article: Assessment in early childhood education: threats and challenges to effective assessment of immigrant children, which led to the interest in my next topic on assessment.

After judging whether assessments are fair for ELLs and how to make them equal across the board, I dove into the idea that assessments are not necessary and how teachers should consider project based learning instead.  It is more effective and gives students the opportunity to prove what they know in a more creative way. I referenced the article: Problem-Based Learning in K-8 Mathematics and Science Education: A Literature Review, because it brought in great ideas about STEM education as well.  Being a STEM minor I am always looking for different ways to incorporate those ideas into the classroom.  This article was a perfect example and brought to light the benefits of project based learning, which is a great alternative to testing.

My final post was about how I would utilize blogging in the classroom, which is different than the other two.  However, it is still important to note.  This post  relates to my take away from this whole experience. I think that blogging is important to have in the classroom and can have many benefits.  It can be utilized by students, parents and teachers and can create an online experience for them to stay connected and involved within the classroom.

Overall, this experience has been very different and I hope to include some of the ideas into my future classroom.  I think it offered many different ideas to the class and opened up discussion for a variety of different topics.

Blogging has made a difference in my educational experience, has it made a difference in yours?

After reviewing all of my blogs this semester it was obvious they were all semi-related, as that was my intention. The tiers of my blogs were mathematics, play, and females, but more so how all of those wide topics began to tie together. Writing about things that were important during my childhood, as well as during my time as a future educator were my main focus.
Now I sit here, writing this, thinking about how those two connect together. This applies to every educator out there, that the experiences we had in early childhood will really shape and prompt a lot of things that we do. It could also be the lack of things we did will inspire us to incorporate those into our classroom. For example, I didn’t have very many art experiences as a child so those are things I want to be sure my future students can have.
Connecting to my articles though, my father was very supportive of my female-self being involved in mathematics, while my male peers were not. This was the prompting life event of my third blog post, “The Future is Female . . . and Male.” I wrote this blog because math is my absolute favorite subject, although it’s not too frequently you hear a college student say that, especially a female. However, I want to change that and inspire a love of math in my future students. Some people may believe females don’t really think this negatively of math at such an age, but they do. I found research to support my claim, unfortunately, which can be accessed here. Also in this blog post, I referenced another article about math stereotypes. I would love if this wasn’t true, but a lot of females feel this way because of adults. I’ve even witnessed this very thing in several of my field placements. For example, one of my cooperating teachers flat out said to me the boys in her class are ‘simply better at math.’ I was astonished! I couldn’t believe one of the nicest, sweetest teachers I’ve ever met felt this way about her students. Now imagine if they heard our conversation, the females in the class would have been devastated by this. The title, although seemingly a little random, was my way of just stating to my peers we need to equally support both males and females in all subjects and areas of life.
My second blog, which is the one that inspired the blog I just wrote about in the previous paragraph, was about how helpful combining mathematics and play can be for students. When you give a child manipulatives, or something along those lines, they’re having so much fun playing that they barely even know they’re doing mathematics. For example, in my placement this semester I was given the opportunity to plan a center every week. One week I decided to practice patterns with the children using plastic bear manipulatives. They had so much fun talking about the different colors and sizes of the patterns that they didn’t even realize they were practicing their mathematics skills. One article I found about this while writing the blog was “Playful Math Instruction in the Contexts of Standard and Accountability.” This was an extremely helpful article to read, that helped me write before I was actually in the field. She shared experiences in her article that were extremely similar to what I’ve experienced in my years of field. I can definitely see the connection between this topic, the research, and my experiences in field.

In summary, blogging was a very unique experience for me. I’m sure a lot of my peers will agree that it wasn’t the best assignment we’ve had to do, but it surely wasn’t the worst. My favorite thing about blogging was I was able to add my own personality and flair to it, such as cracking a joke here or there, or putting a silly photo of my professor. I cannot say for sure I’ll use blogging for myself in the future, but it is surely something I’ll try once or twice with my future students.

 

Blogging throughout this semester has taught me a variety of things.  However, when we first started the process, I must admit, I did not see this as a positive addition of  coursework. I sort of saw it as additional work that would not be useful to my future career. My thoughts were  “O No! Here comes some more busy work.“.

Throughout this experience, I not only learned steps to take to create a thorough blog post. I’ve learned why blogging is  important and can be a very useful tool. I learned how it can be used as a way students for make connections from their learning. I’ve learned that it takes some  practice to be a great blogger and that I still have quite some ways to go. And Lastly, I learned about importance of hyperlinking resources and data to give my writing more credibility.

In my blog post You can thrive your first years of teaching!, I reflected on the article  Thriving Your First Years as a Teacher by Andrea Marshbank. From this I learned about useful steps new teachers  can take in ensuring their first year in the “teaching world”  is successful for not only for their students , but most importantly themselves. I love how the author shares her personal experience. Because of this I was able to truly connect with the author. She shared some helpful tips I will be sure to incorporate.

For our group blog posts, we discussed how we thought our lesson might go and then reflected on our experiences. From that experience, I learned how teachers must be flexible. As we lead our activity we noticed some things weren’t working. By our last group we were in tip top shape, and knew what changes needed to be made.

From my blog post Have you played today? , I reflected on two articles. The first article Viewpoint: Holding on to Play: Reflecting on Experiences as a Playful K-3 Teacher  and Don’t  Just Sit There… Pay Attention !. I learned about the importance of play in children’s development. Research from each of these articles has found play essential for children’s growth, especially in the primary grades.

Overall, Blogging has been a wonderful learning experience. As discussed in my blog post about blogging , Blogging is something I wish to use as a tool of communicating with parents, because Communication is KEY!. Blogging is a very useful tool that will only become popular and popular as time goes on. Throughout this process I have seen myself grow and look forward to what is to come.

Until Next Time!

Morgan Thomas

ERCH 496

Blogging

03 May 2018

The “Write” Experience

For great educators, teaching is more than just an occupation. Which is why educators spend so much of their time teaching in the classroom and beyond the classroom, along with learning about themselves, and stepping out of their comfort zones to explore more effective teaching methods. This course in particular (ERCH 496: Curriculum Instruction and Assessment) has taught me about blogging.

Through my blogging experiences I have learned that blogging catalogs your ideas. For instance, whenever I blog I can store it in a place that I can always come back to. If I ever need to access a particular blog for ideas, tips, or other subjects that I have blogged about, I can easily find what I am looking for from my digital filing cabinet.

In addition, blogs are easily accessible, sharable, and quick to access. If people are interested in a topic that I have blogged about, I can send them a link to the article and send it via email or through text. Also due to the easy accessibility, I will be able to refer back to my blogs whenever necessary. I may refer back to my blogs in order to track my personal growth and development.

On another note, I have discovered the ability to share my own thoughts, stories, and experiences through the use of technology By doing so, I will be able to view different perspectives, build my knowledge on new topics, and connect with others through my blog posts. According to Christopher Bronke, “Teachers have a way of reclaiming narratives, and it is simple. Know your story; share your story. Blogging gives us the opportunity to share the truth, our truth—to expose the intricacies of our days with students, the joy we share, the care we give, and the love we spread all come to life when we allow our words to flow from our souls for the world to read.” The aspect of bringing the world to life through blogging brought to my attention to network-forming that is built around my strong passion for teaching.

Creating Leaders One Step At a Time

With the vast development and integration of technology usage in the classroom, I have come to the conclusion that blogging would be a great integration for students to  develop and work with as well. Blogs can help students deeply engage in further discussions on a particular topic. This idea allows for students to communicate their ideas with others, “particularly with their peers and a more global audience, rather than just posting their own ideas, (Boyd, Patricia).

Other benefits of blogging throughout the classroom is that the students can use this particular tool for self-expression of their own individual opinions and ideas. Boyd also exclaims, “ At the heart of these kinds of blogs is personal experience with the subject matter, i.e., connections between the subject matter and one’s life. Personal experience is considered highly important in blogging in a way that it is often not valued in traditional academic writing. Likewise, discussing emotions is encouraged, whereas they are usually expected to be left out of academic writing (pg. 91).

The rapid increase of social media and technology has changed the way us educators teach and how students learn. I have witnessed the vast amount of technology that is accessible to our teachers and students and how it has become such an importance in the classrooms. Teachers use it to communicate with families, they use it to teach from, and they use it to store their data. Whereas students are using new technology for project based learning, research, and to communicate with others as well. Blogging is just another creative way to incorporate learning and literacy development skills. In conclusion, blogs have the potential to expand student creativity, communication, and writing skills. Teachers can teach with the use of blogging, incorporate it into their classroom, and use it as a communication tool.

 

Bronke, Christopher. (2015). Why Teachers and Students Should Blog.www.edudemic.com/how-and-why-teachers-should-blog/

Boyd, Patricia. (2013). Blogging in the Classroom: Using Technologies to Promote Learner Centered Pedagogies. Vol.26 http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.proxy-millersville.klnpa.org/

Blogging this semester has had its ups and downs, but it has ultimately developed my professionalism. At first, I did not see the point in blog writing when I have written so many papers in college already. However, looking back, I now see areas that I have progressed because of blogging.

I have always wanted to start a blog, but I did not think that it would start in a college course. It was really nice that we were able to pick a topic of our choice for blogging. Altough having this freedom sometimes made it difficult because I did not know what research was out there. I originally wanted to blog about international teaching and going abroad to teach. However, I struggled to find decent articles for that topic. Not being able to find any research was the low part of the rollercoaster. Looking back, I may not have had the right question when doing my research. My original question was “How to teach abroad?” Forming a strong inquiry question is one area that I have grown better in, and that was when I started to climb up the rollercoaster hill.

Since I had a hard time finding articles, I moved on to the next topic I had in mind: music education. I found an immense amount of research for this topic. The most intriguing article I found was “Music Education and the Brain: What Does it Take to Make a Change?” by Anita Collins. The amount of research that Dr. Collins has done is amazing. I even watched her entire TEDx Talk.

Also, on this rollercoaster of blogging, I had a direct application within the preschool classroom to apply Dr. Collins’ research with. Children were playing loudly with instruments during free time, and I almost was going to have the children put the instruments away. However, I remembered the research for the effectiveness of music in learning. Knowing this research, I instead was able to have the students play along with a consistent beat. Then, we started singing songs together, which was so much fun! They were all so excited and happy as we sang together.

Singing with children takes me back to the article “Pre-K Music and the Emergent Reader: Promoting Literacy in a Music-Enhanced Environment,” which provides evidence of the parallels between music and literacy. Songs with ABCs and nursery rhymes are all wonderful ways for children to practice phonological and alphabet awareness.

On top of everything, this rollercoaster blog has even taken me to research outside of the county. A study was performed in Taiwan on the enhancement of student learning when music is directly taught in the classroom. “Music teaching for young children at a developmentally appropriate practice classroom in Taiwan” talks more about this study and how music is also related to math.

My classmates, who were also on this rollercoaster with me, appreciated my blogs about music education. We discussed in our group how saddening it is to see schools shutting down music programs. Not one of us have looked back and thought that music education wasn’t worth it. We came to the conclusion that it is so worth it to teach music to our students. In fact, I even heard singing at one of our stations at the science fair, and I know for sure that those first graders will remember that station.

At the end of the ride, I believe we can all agree on the importance and effectiveness of music education. I hope that all of my classmates will advocate for music to be taught in our schools. This blogging experience has certainly grounded my belief that music is essential in the classroom.

This rollercoaster may have ended for our class, but it’s ready for the next class to come on board! 🙂

So it’s the end of blogging, at least for now! Beginning this process seemed very overwhelming and time consuming to me. I wasn’t sure what topics I would choose to write about and the quality of the articles I would find. I wanted to look into and learn about things that would be applicable to my career as a teacher and help me to improve my practices. Although I still found the process to take some time, I do think I learned many new things that could be connected to my field placement this semester or in the future.

The first blog post I created was about inquiry-based learning and the involvement of technology in that process. The article drew me in because the opinion of the authors about the importance of inquiry in education lined up with my own. “Children spontaneously inquire, asking questions and exploring, to understand the world; it is an important key to their lifelong development that should be cultivated and nurtured.” The focus of the piece is on computer technologies and the effectiveness that using them has in the various aspects of students’ learning. My placement this semester in a Head Start program did not use a lot of technology since the children are only in preschool, but they incorporated the use of tablets a few times throughout the day. Despite this lack of connection between inquiry and technology, the teachers always seemed very interested in every question that the students asked and encouraged them to expand upon their ideas. I believe this is the first and most important step in promoting inquiry-based learning, and that technology could then be incorporated as they enter into higher grade levels. Kids ask questions and instead of pushing those questions to the side, we need to embrace them and let them be curious about their world.

Something else I learned about while blogging was Responsive Classroom and what goes into that specific teaching model. Promoting Social and Academic Competence in the Classroom: An Intervention Study Examining the Contribution of the Responsive Classroom Approach is an article that looks deeper into the approach and the benefits it has had in real classroom settings. According to the article, interventions like Responsive Classroom “hold promise for improving classroom social processes, peer interactions, and academic learning.” These are all crucial aspects of a successful classroom. It also states that teacher-student relationship is not only important for their learning, but also their development in general. I have always made it one of my goals to have positive relationships with all of my students when I become a teacher, as well as in my placements before then, because we hear so often about the importance of that in the success and well-being of our students. This is another aspect of my placement that I believe was mastered by the teachers. They had a structured schedule each day and the rules were always clearly laid out, yet they were extremely caring and thoughtful of every child. They made sure all of their needs were met and treated them all fairly, which was one of the things I valued most from the whole experience.

Finally, we wrote a blog post about our experiences with blogging and I connected it to the article Blogging in the Classroom: Using Technologies to Promote Learner Centered Pedagogies. This article suggested that blogging could be one of the keys to having a learner-centered classroom because the author says that blogs can be deeply engaging and meet the students’ needs. After looking into this, I think that blogging could be useful at some point, but not necessarily by students in the elementary school setting. I think that they benefit more from more engaging uses of technology along with hands-on activities. Communicating with parents through a blog would probably be my main use of blogging as a teacher. In my field placement, the teachers often took pictures and sent messages to parents to keep them updated on their children and what they were doing each day. I feel that this was a very positive practice, but I would definitely make it a bit more structured by having a website with blog posts that update all of the parents, along with interesting pictures from our class.

This is the bog post to end all blog post! Throughout the semester we have been blogging to get us prepared for this final blog. I’ve done four blogs so far. Benefits of blogging?, Are you ready for inclusion?, Is timing everything?, Want an free an easy app to use, then class app is for you!.

I chose some of these blog topics because I can connect it to my field experiences and my own life. When writing the blog post Is timing everything? I was thinking about my own family. The article Does the Timing of Grade Retention Make a Difference? Examining the Effects of Early Versus Later Retention does a study to see if grade retention is a good thing and they say if it is earlier in their schooling it can be beneficial. (as shown in picture) I’ve seen this benefit by own brother, but I’ve also seen it in one of my past placements. One of the students was just not ready to more on so they held him back a year and this really helped him. The teacher told me if he would have moved on he would have been lost and that helps no one.

Another bog I wrote was called Are you ready for inclusion?. I liked this topic because again I could relate to it myself and I’ve seen it work in placements. The article Are Today’s General Education Teachers Prepared to Face Inclusion in the Classroom?, it shows a study that explores teachers level of preparation to deal with students with special needs in the mainstream schools. The classroom I was in, in high school for the most part we successful. The teacher was prepared so knew what to expect and how to include everyone in class activities and I feel like from what I’ve seen in field has been the same things. This is becoming more and more seen and used in classrooms, so teachers are more ready for it now than they were in the past.  The other article Inclusion : Teachers’ Perspectives and Practices said that currently most  students with disabilities in his school are partially included which is a good thing. We are moving in the right direction.

As I say my good byes to blogging I will leave you with an inspirational quote, “One child, one teacher, one pen can change the world”.

 

See you later Alligator!

In my blog posts, I had made connections to research,  field experiences and my personal work. I was a little apprehensive when starting to blog because I was not always the best writer. But, over time I have learned that I am actually good at coming up with catchy titles and finding research to back up my topics.

My first blog post was The Key to Perfect Class Management. I subscribed to the blog the Cult of Pedagogy because it gave information specifically on leadership and instructional tips.  I learned that one of the most effective strategies is to walk up to a student instead of yelling at them. Click here to read about “ How to stop Yelling” at your students.  Researchers found in a 2012 parent study, that those who were directly yelled at as a child externalized their behavior in the classroom and at home more frequently. Could this explain why your students don’t listen when you give directions? Or maybe they yell back? Yes!  

I continued with the theme of class management in my second blog post by focusing on transitions. From prior work experiences, I realized that transitions take forever.  In a 2014 educational study, Taking time out for transitions by Caroline Guardio and Elizabeth Fullerton, it was found “that students spent 17% of the school day in transitional activities that do not provide academic instruction (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Early Childhood Research Network, 2002)”.  The study was done in a kindergarten classroom during times of transition from table to circle time, from table to carpet time and table to center time. The average transition took between 2.13 sections – 4.14 seconds. By modifying the classroom, transition time was reduced by a mean of 1 minute and 36 seconds per transition- that means about 45- 50% of transition time was reduced! Guardio and Fullerton found that a long transition period was due to the classroom set up and peer distraction.  In result of this, suggestions included using chair bags, having an appropriate carpet size, labeling, and using a song for transitions.

The next three blog posts on our discussion board were group blog posts assigned for reflection on our science fair project. Classroom management was not the main focus of our post but if you look deeper you can find it! From the science fair, I learned that it is important to review the rules at the beginning of the lesson so students know the expectations of the teachers. By reviewing the rules, the students showed active participation and cognitive engagement throughout the activity. There body’s and minds were focused on the concept being taught.

In summary, I have learned that class management is a skill I will continue to mold throughout my teaching career. Research has helped me develop the facts, while field experience put these skills into action. After these steps, I was able to reflect and develop a deeper analysis of pedagogical content that will help me to be a successful teacher.

I have learned that blogging is a useful 21st-century tool to connect with peers across the globe! It helps you to gain many resources quickly and reshape ideas. Even though I have improved my writing over the course of this blogging experience, I have decided to become a consumer!

In that I say……

See you later alligators!

–Cassie

 

So this is it…the blogs are just about wrapped up. But, there is just one more post to make to tie the ends together. Keep reading to see how the past posts I have made make impact into my future teaching career.

Let’s take a trip all the way back to the first blog I wrote where I looked into the blog, The Cult of Pedagogy. I subscribed to this blog because after looking at the content there was just so much it had to offer. I felt like I could learn so much from this blogger. This first blog taught me a lot about the writing process of blogging. It opened me up to a new way of expressing my thoughts in a more relaxed way, but still informative. I’d like to thank that original blog and the blog I subscribed to for introducing me to the world of blogging.

Now let’s journey over to my second blog post. This blog I focused on STEM, as that is something I am very passionate about. Looking back at this post and the article,  More Than a Foundation: Young Children Are Capable of STEM, I used for research reiterates exactly my philosophy of STEM. The article discussed how young children are not to young to be introduced to STEM. There is no age limit. I put this into practice when involved in my placement this semester at the Head Start center. I took initiative in planning a small group activity just about every week being there. I took it upon myself to make sure my lessons were STEM. I thought it was a great opportunity to introduce young children to STEM. And to no surprise the children loved the activities and were actively engaged while learning the content. Those opportunities were a great way to put this research to the test.

Lastly, the final blog post I am reflecting on and connecting to is the post I made about why is blogging relevant. I mainly want to focus on the article I found, Hub-and-Spoke: Student Blogging and Advantages for Classroom Discussion. This article focused on blogging being beneficial for student-centered learning in the classroom. This article opened my eyes to the use of blogging in my future classroom. I never have thought about this technique until reading this article. I think a classroom blog would definitely be a tool I would use in my classroom. Based on the research in the article the use of blogging enables higher order thinking in the students. You will for sure see blogging making an appearance in my future classroom.

So, with everything I have learned and put to the test I think I can really enhance myself as a future teacher. I see a lot of growth in my writing process from blogging from now to the first post. I also have had opportunities to put my skills to the test and gain future teacher tools. Hopefully besides just classroom blogging I can find time to blog personally about my beloved profession. I am thankful for being exposed to blogging for the first time because now I can walk away this semester with much more than just trying to pass a class.

and that’s all she wrote…