Final Reflection

Group Project #16

C4T #4

Using BrainPop to Enrich Math Instructions Mrs. Deyamport has started using the educational program BrainPop with her students to help them better understand math concepts. The website is fun, informative, and it tests what Mrs. Deyamport's third graders have learned. I know how fun BrainPop can be, a couple of years ago I observed a fifth grade class and they all used BrainPop for science. The kids enjoyed the site and they really learned I think it is an awesome program. Bringing the World to My School: Culture Day 2012 Mrs. Deyamport hosted Culture Day for her school and her students were a much needed help. They played a huge role in the day and they were not even required to do so, they did it just because they wanted too. Mrs. Deyamport had a lot of support from other members of the school faculty and universities. Culture Day was a huge success and the students really enjoyed it. I think it is a wonderful idea to have culture day it is important for the students to learn about different walks of life.

Blog Post #13

To be honest I really did not think I could do this activity. I thought to myself who could really go one full day without using technology. Then the unthinkable happened; My cell phone went dead and it would not charge, Saturday night. It was my only form of technology in the home. We do not have the internet and I am not a huge television person. My cellphone is my lifeline. So I did not complete the activity for 24 hours, but for about 12 hours I did go without technology. It was very difficult to go without using technology. It has become a part of my everyday life. I use my cell phone for talking, setting appointments, news updates, school, and for social networking. Everything I do involves my phone. Once my cell phone went dead I found other things to do to occupy my time. I read a novel, I used the land line to talk, and I even read the newspaper. I think since I have become so dependent upon my cell phone it has made me quite lazy. I did not even want to roll over and look at my clock to check the time. The time was always so convenient in the palm of my hands on my phone! My friends did not make the assignment any easier they were a distraction. They sent me sms and mms messages, that i just could not ignore. I became bored and I surfed Facebook, Twitter, and StyleTag. I believe by the time I start teaching that technology will be even more major than what it is now. I will have to be prepared and very well equipped on the various forms of technology to effectively teach my students.

Project #15 Smart Board Presentation 2

Blog Post 10

Do you Teach or Do you Educate?

"Education is not the filling of a vessel, but the kindling of a flame." – Socrates

When I decided to become an educator, I did it for these reasons: I could not think of another field to go into, I knew I wanted to help people learn, I wanted to be a role model, and I loved the teaching methods my elementary teachers used to teach me. I use some of their methods now when I am assigned teaching assignments. I idolized my teachers and I always said, “This is what I want to do.”
I intend to educate by students by getting them involved in the lessons I teach them. I will instruct them with smart board activities and I will allow them to interact with it as well. I will take that extra step for my students. I will provide my students with instructional websites, like Dr. Strange has done for us. I also want my children to know how to read and write, effectively! I will assign them different reading comprehension assignments, have them write out what and how they felt about the reading, and then they will be able to type their responses once I have proofread them. This is just one example of how I plan to educate my students; I will incorporate more than one teaching and learning method for my students.

Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home

Mr. Johnson kept a positive outlook in a general conversation he was having with another teacher. The teacher was more concerned with children learning from the structured learning environment; instead he encourages them playing different games and learning from them such as hangman. He believes they may learn something more valuable from their games than what we teach. He just has very open mind about children’s learning. This just teaches us that as we become educators to not focus so much on our students scoring high on test scores, but to encourage them to learn.

Blog Post 9

What I've Learned This Year (2008-09)

What I've Learned This Year (2008-09) must read for all new teachers. Dr. McClung is the author of a series of blogs and this one pertains to his first year of teaching. He list several guidelines for us as new teachers to follow. He advises us to be patient, to communicate, and to not be afraid of technology. When advised us to be flexible he gave a quote, "NO LESSON IS EVER PERFECT. THE LESSON YOU TEACH AND THE ONE YOU PLAN ARE ALWAYS DIFFERENT." Your first year of teaching is a learning experience, well ALL of your years of teaching will be a learning experience. The first year just allows you to trial and error different methods you can and will use for the future. He tells us not to throw a fit about our lesson plans and activities having a total different outcome than expected. The quote he gave about one his students, "I know my teacher cares about me as a person when he.
- Listens to what I say" was very inspirational. It just further shows how much our students really care that we pay attention to them. I think that EVERY teacher should have a wonderful Student-Teacher relationship. We are who our students see for the majority of a week-day's time. Taking the time out to listen to your students, teaching in a manner that is fun and somewhat caters to their likes and way of learning is a great way to effectively get your students to comprehend the curriculum you are trying to teach.

What I've Learned This Year (2009-10)

Dr. McClung informs us of his first year teaching junior high school students and his new teaching curriculum. He advises us to find a school mom, a teacher who has been teaching at the school for several years. She has the run down on how the school operates and functions. I agree with this and I think we all can relate to this. I know whenever I start a new job I always find a “job mom”. It provides a sense of security to me; it really helps with my confidence and improves my job performance. He tells us to be passionate, even if we’re faking it, about the subject we are teaching our students. If we as educators just stand in front of the classroom reading directly out of a book to our students they will be very bored. This creates behavior problems and possibly low test scores because our students are uninterested in the subject matter at hand. Dr. McClung also spoke about what really matters which is our students. He explained how the biggest conflicts in the school are not with the students they are with the staff, the adults! This is very true. Having a disagreement with how a staff member or administration is handling a situation should not be taken out negatively on your students. The students are our priority; just take the situation with a grain of salt and get back to what is really important, teaching your students as effectively as possible.