Author: Michelle Huffer

Looking back:

When I first started this blogging experience I was clueless with how to blog and I was not excited at all. I dreaded the weeks when my blogs were due because I had to come up with creative ideas which, I am not very good at. After the first blog though, I began to learn more from the class sessions and practicing. I began to enjoy blogging. Once I figured things out, I actually really enjoyed this assignment!

 

Going Forward!

I would love to use a blog in my future classroom. I think it is a great idea to keep parents in the loop and updated with our classroom. I know as a new teacher it will be hard to keep it updated, but I think it is something I might try!

Teaching from home is a big transition for students and their families, but it also is a HUGE transition for teachers!  It isn’t just you and your class anymore. It is you and your families and pets, and each student home with their families and pets. I’m sure many of us are prepared for crazy days teaching, and lots of distractions (Especially us Pre-K-4 teachers), but I don’t think anything could have prepared us for this pandemic that is forcing us to teach from our homes!

That being said, I am sure you are experiencing the same emotions that I am being at home and having no face to face interactions with students: sadness, anger, frustration, and A LOT of stress. Many of us in the field of education are perfectionists and transitioning to online curriculum was not easy. We are stressed about our families, maybe our spouses and our students from our schools. In a time like this it is so important to take care of ourselves! Here are 3 easy things you can do for yourself during this stressful time.

1. Keep a schedule.This might be something you already do because you are teaching your class, answering parents, staying in touch with other teachers and coworkers, and juggling all of the tasks for your own children. Even if you are not super busy, there are still benefits to keeping a schedule. Set aside time for your class and time to answer emails, then you will not be focused on it for all of your waking hours. Make sure to schedule time to do something for yourself every day!!
2. Practice Mindfulness ActivitiesTake a few minutes a day to practice mindfulness activities. This can just be taking a few deep breathes when you get a minute or doing some activities as a whole family. Here’s a great video for mindful breathing with kids!
   

   Rainbow Breath – Flow | GoNoodle

   Learn how to raise your energy and face your day with this exercise. Have fun with it! This video comes from GoNoodle’s Flow channel. Flow gets kids to relax…

3.  EXERCISE!!!There are so so many benefits to physical activity. It can even reduce our anxiety and stress levels. Even if you don’t have much time, take 5 minutes to stretch or do something you enjoy. This does not have to be rigorous. It can be any exercise you enjoy. Maybe for you it is taking a walk, bike riding, yoga, or playing your favorite sport for a while. I love the app FitON, it has so many great workouts!

   Hopefully you find some time to do something for yourself during these stressful times. Take the time to take care of yourself. Everyone in your life will benefit from it!

When you look out the window it may look as if the world is shut down. Businesses are closed. Schools are closed. Parks and playgrounds are closed.  Parents jobs are changing from working professionals to full-time teachers. While many parents are working at home with their school aged children, they are struggling to find ways to keep their kids entertained and active instead of just looking at a screen all day. As an educator, I wanted to provide 2 easy activities you can do to get your kids hearts pumping while stuck inside!

Physical activity is so beneficial to children of all ages. It can promote healthy sleep patterns, improve posture and even improve some connections in the brain! To read more about the benefits of physical activity check out this website!

The first thing you can do for your kids is an alphabet exercise sheet! For older children, they can spell their vocabulary words or spelling words that teachers send home online. For younger kids, the words the spell could be common sight words or their names. The kids work on spelling out the words and completing the exercise associated with each letter. This would be super fun for parents to do with their kids!

The 2nd activity I chose was GoNoodle. If you have kids in public schools, they probably know what this is and can even tell you their favorite video.  GoNoodle is a website that provides videos for families to use at home to get active. There is even a kids Zumba channel where kids can dance to get their heart rates up. This is great for kids of all ages!

Even though everyone is stuck at home, get up and get active as much as you can!

Picture this.

Your sitting in a child sized chair, there is 19 kids buzzing around the small classroom. Your sitting at a table with Snap-cube blocks. There are 5 kids sitting with you building towers as tall as they possibly can. Suddenly one student is crying, and the other student is adding her blocks to his tower. He keeps taking blocks right out of your hands and from other students just to make his tower taller. He continues to do this again and again, and you are supposed to use positive reinforcement! What would you do in this situation?

Well when I was faced with this situation, I had to ask myself “Does positive reinforcement really work?

What do the experts say?

According to research, positive reinforcement can help students be more on task and behave better if you use it correctly. In another article I read , it stated that reinforcing the positive behavior helps increase the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated in the future, but I did not find research that helped me handle the situation I was provided with. I also spoke with my mentor teacher about the situation. She has been teaching a very long time and is extremely knowledgeable about this age group of students.  She told me that in situations where a child does not respond to positive reinforcement she uses a different strategy to keep her students safe. She also uses time out when it is appropriate for students.

Difference Between Positive and Negative Reinforcement

Overview of reinforcement and its subtypes! Check us out on Facebook for DAILY FREE REVIEW QUESTIONS and updates! (https://www.facebook.com/medschoolmad…) …

Reflection:

In this situation, I had to do something that was not positive reinforcement because the student would not listen to me. I asked for him to give the blocks back multiple times and he continued to rip them away from other students, so I asked the lead teacher for help since I did not know how to handle the situation. The student was not behaving appropriately and should not have been allowed to continue to take things from other students. I reminded him to make a good choice so many times, but enough is enough. She carried him to the calm down chair (where he decided to throw things at me from the calm down kit)  and he had to talk to one of the teachers about his actions before he was allowed to come back to playing. In my research I found that there really isn’t a way to use positive reinforcement to help behavior in the moment, only beforehand. I plan on continuing my research and using positive reinforcement to help students increase their behaviors overall!

Resources:

Reames, Heather1, heathermarie417@gmail.co., and Cynthia F. 2.cdicar2@lsu.ed. DiCarlo. “Using Positive Reinforcement to Increase Attentive Behavior and Correct Task Performance in Preschoolers during Extra Curricular Activities.” Journal of Teacher Action Research, vol. 4, no. 2, Spring 2018, pp. 1–9. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=eue&AN=128943466&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

We can all relate to having a really good teacher right? What about a really bad one? I think at some point every child has a teacher they really love and a teacher they really can’t stand. In this blog post, I am going to talk about the teachers and people who shaped who I want to be as a teacher.

Influences:
I never really liked school, so when I found myself in an education program after high school graduation, I wondered what I was doing here.  I would be spending the rest of my life in schools (which I hated)! After thinking about it, I realized that me not liking school is actually what drove me to be a teacher. I had some teachers who were not great. They were mean and didn’t care if you succeeded or not. I was always in trouble because teachers never changed the material to challenge me. Those teachers did not know what I needed, and I want to be a teacher who can do the opposite of that and meet my students needs. Looking back I realized that although I hated school, I did have some pretty great teachers also. My first grade teacher was one who was particularly influenced me. It was her first year out of college and she was young and energetic. She taught in a way that was fun, and changed the lessons to fit what was happening in our classroom. I remember learning about bugs in first grade, and my family found a praying mantis nest at our house. My first grade teacher allowed me to bring it in and taught us all about the parts of a bug and it’s life cycle by watching them hatch. She was so influential and one day I hope to be as kind and caring as her. All of my teachers from elementary school to my current college professors, are shaping the teacher I am going to be one day soon.

Pedagogy:
The one theorist that I believe really influences how I want my classroom to be is Maslow. His theory is about the hierarchy of needs. It basically says that students are unable to learn if their basic (Physiological) needs are not met. If students feel, hungry, thirsty, cold or not well rested, they

will not be coming to school ready to learn. Maslow’s theory also mentions the need for safety and security. This is also something that I aim for in my classroom.  I personally love his theory because it inspires me to do as much as I possibly can for my students.  I want to ensure that they feel welcomed and supported with whatever they need in my classroom. His theory does not necessarily impact my teaching, but it impacts my classroom environment. To learn more about Maslow’s theory, here’s a great article! https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

Who is Teaching the Why and How of the field?

In the field of Early education I think that my professors are teaching me the why and the how. I also think all of the teachers I had as a child taught me things I do want and do not want to do as a teacher. I ultimately think that we teach ourselves they why in our field. Each and every one of us has our own reason for teaching. (Even though everyone’s first answer is “for the kids”) We all went in to this field for a reason, and the more we experience the more we know about why we are all here.

Who Speaks the truth and shares insights with me?

I believe that all of you-fellow teachers, education majors, and professors speak the truth and share insights with me. Hearing all of the stories from other people’s experiences inspire me to do better and work harder. Many of my professors were teachers for many years, and they definitely are not afraid to tell us the truths of what happens in their classrooms. Collaboration with all of my peers allows new insights into the world of education. I can’t wait to call myself a teacher and hopefully share my insights with future educators like all of us!