Month: May 2019

Making blog posts this semester has been a great learning experience for me. I think it is safe to say that I had a bit of difficulty  at first because I had never done anything like this before. In fact, I had a lot of anxiety about creating these posts and making sure I was doing them correctly. Sometimes, I would put off blogging just because it was something so challenging for me to do and it made me nervous.

If I were to experience the R2P again, I think I would try to relax a bit more. I often got so worked up about making it perfect, that I forget the most important part of this assignment is not about making it perfect but learning how to do it. I also tended to struggle with different technical pieces of the assignment, such as the permalinks and the research database. If I were to do this again, I would try to focus a little more on the technological aspect of the assignment because it posed difficult for me. As far as content goes, in all three of my past blog posts, I think I could have went into more detail with my observations.  I would also have liked to try podcasting or vlogging because they would be extremely out of my comfort zone and I think it’s important for me to try and learn new things.

As a future teacher, I will definitely be remembering this assignment and referring to it when I need to do research. I will constantly need to look up different classroom topics and the research process we learned in class is going to help me do that. The information we learned is incredibly meaningful and important.

The advice I would give to a future ERCH 496 student would be not to worry if your blog post, podcast, or vlog doesn’t turn out how you envision it. It’s more of a learning experience than something that should be causing you a lot of stress. Additionally, I would encourage the student to try something they might not be as familiar with, whether it’s blog, podcast, or vlog. Exploring new options is a great way to grow.

This assignment has really been helpful for me, and I feel that I have a better grip on researching topics and then sharing the results on a public platform. This has been a valuable experience.

Last time I wrote a blog post, I talked about classroom management, specifically call and responses and songs, and how they could be used in the classroom.  Today, I want to talk about another classroom management technique that I think is very effective: positive reinforcement. I observed positive reinforcement being used in my preschool classroom, especially in the form of stamps or stickers. One day a little girl was behaving very well, and she got to move her clip up to “I’m having a great day!” Although I do not agree with the clip chart idea, I  liked how the child got rewarded for having a good day. She received a stamp and a sticker at the end of the day, which she was very happy about. I was interested in finding ways to incorporate more types of positive reinforcement into my classroom.

To get some ideas about other types of positive reinforcement I could use in my classroom, I did some research. In an article entitled Positive Reinforcement, I learned that praise is a great positive reinforcement technique. I also learned that it can be tricky when it comes to praising children because we don’t want to call them “smart”. Calling them smart implies that they do not need to work harder, however praising their specific efforts motivates them to perform those same efforts again. I always thought that it was okay to call children smart, but it actually is more damaging to them than beneficial.

Another idea for positive reinforcement that was provided

in the article is incentives. These incentives can include extra credit points or activities, such as a movie or extra center time. I think that children would be more likely to behave if they were working towards a goal of  getting to do something they really want to do.

I also learned positive reinforcement can be something as simple as your body language. I never realized this before, but positive reinforcement can be found in your smile and in the way your tone of voice sounds. All those little gestures and facial expressions you make can actually have a big impact on the way a child learns and feels in your classroom.

I really like these ideas and will definitely be applying them to my future classroom. I think it is important to encourage the students to do their best as much as we possibly can! Thanks for reading again!

A future early childhood teacher!

 

References

Positive Reinforcement. (2007). Techniques: Connecting Education & Careers,   82(4), 10–11. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx direct=true&db=eue&AN=507970201&authtype=sso&custid=s3915890&site=ehost-

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