Education Blog

Week Six: Anxiety In The Middle School

    Anxiety In The Middle School: While learning about anxiety in the middle school the major takeaways come from being able to understand how to control it and where to stop the stressors. It is important to know how to respond well and in a timely fashion. Many students may suffer from anxiety, but the teacher can easily assist the student in calming down. I too believe that anxiety can play a huge factor in a students grade negatively. Through being able to cope with anxiety, students can become much more efficient in class. This can also be the feeling of not being good enough. Sometimes it is best to just relax and take a break.

Week Five: Instructional Best Practices & Diverse Populations In The Middle School

    Instructional Best Practices & Diverse Populations In The Middle School: Going through this week it was all about learning through other culture of what their education looks like. Learning about diverse learners and what makes up a diverse learner, and the education practices that help these types of learners grow. I believe that learning about this is much needed and differentiated instruction is something we can use for every student. Being able to tailor their own learning style so that it can suit them best. 

    The film review assignment allowed us to open ourselves to culture we are not to familiar with. This allowed me to learn about Mr. Escalante and his amazing true story on how he was able to teach his low economic status underprivileged class calculus and was also able to have them pass the test. It is amazing to see what an educator can do once they inspire their students.

Week Four: The Role Of Administration In The Middle School

    The Role Of Administration In The Middle School: Reading about how important principles are within the school shows the amount of need their is for that principal to be effective. I have found that shaping a vision for all students to see them succeed academically has been very relevant within the few chapters. A principal can create this community that is surrounded by positive culture to influence the schools success.

    I have also seen that allowing the staff within the school to work at what they can do best. Being open and hospitable towards teachers allows for their lessons to bloom. This gives them a strong support in their lesson planning and teaching.

    A principal of the school is a leader, they also need to share their abilities to bring up other leaders out of staff. Demonstrating courage and collaboration through working with your staff can allow for a much more better learning environment. 

Week Three: Active Learning Strategies In The Middle School

    Active Learning Strategies In The Middle School: Learning about these active strategies that I could use within my classroom, it has helped me think of multiple ways to help my future students. Active Learning allows for students to become much more active within their education. Being able to discuss and work in groups on projects and the subjects they have been studying. I have noticed throughout the active learning strategies that I reported on, many have the idea of being able to use them in future settings. Students can hold on to these strategies and learn useful skills through their performance. By combining intellectual, physical, and social learning you receive active learning. This is very important for all types of students and is something as important as multimodal learning. Students will be able to discover the world through these active learning strategies and become much more interested with their education. 

Week Two: Are You Prepared To Teach Middle School?

    Are You Prepared To Teach Middle School?: While reading through the multiple online articles from this week's course work, I have been learned how important middle school really is. Being able to empathize with your students and understand them can greatly change a students outlook on school. Kids in middle school are going through a weird phase of their life where everything is changing, being able to assist them in quality education should help them ease their worries. Especially after learning on how a teacher can tailor specific lesson plans to each students multiple intelligences that can improve their learning. If a student is down on themselves and doesn't always believe that they can do it, help them through enabling a growth mindset that can motivate the student. I believe that it is important to make sure your students know you want what is best for them. So giving them your best will allow them to do the same through the quality of lessons you give and the quality of work you then receive. Having a challenging and relevant curriculum should allow you to get this job done correctly. Being prepared to teach a middle school classroom is something that is necessary in order to succeed. 

Week One: Young Adolescents and the Changing World

    Young Adolescents and the Changing World: While reading through the first twelve pages of This We Believe, I have noticed that successful schools are characterized by culture. Through my own perspective, I have noticed the high school That I attended, their motto was "Academics plus Activities equals Excellence". This is the same thing as forming a culture around your school for adolescents to thrive. It also helps when this book tells you what it wants, they give you an example on how to get it. Providing a clear specification on what culture is within a middle school setting. Yet, I was able to find culture throughout all school settings; not just middle school. All of the main topics were astounding, for example: Courageous/ Collaborative Leadership, A Shared Vision, High Expectation, and so on. All of these characteristics make up what a middle schools culture should look like.

    Another reading was about the emergence of middle schools. This gave me a short history on middle schools on how they first started to what they have become. I believe that middle school is a very big time in young adolescents and it gives them a time to especially outside of academics for them to find themselves and shortly become teenagers.

Module 5: Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Chapter fifteen goes through a large amount of classroom assessment, grading, and standardized testing ideas. These may be some of the most important areas while in a classroom because they end up being what effects the student the most. Grades can affect student in a multitude of ways, it may just depend on what the grade they receive is, and the type of student they are.

Distinguishing between what a formative, interim, and summative assessment was huge in this chapter. Formative is an ungraded, diagnostic assessment that shows the educator where the student may be at within the area of the topic that’s being taught. An interim is a growth assessment that can be seen through intervals of the school year. While summative assessments are the end and shows what a student has learned throughout the school year. Summative assessments may report the achievement a student has received and where they are at in the end of the school year or topic area.

Grading can be huge while in school and can put a weight on the students who receive the grades. Although not all students are the same, some may reflect differently towards the grades they receive. Even if the student gets a bad grade, the teacher should be there to help the student with any tutoring needs. From my prior experiences, I was never the best at math. Receiving a C in a math class was the best for me, if I got a B, it was almost like I got an A. I had a teacher that was great at tutoring, and it really reflected on my grades I would get within math.

Module 5: Chapter 12

Chapter 12: While reading through chapter twelve, I have noticed a big are about motivation in learning and teaching. Motivation in learning and teaching are very important topics that bring the best out of student for when they’re completing work within the classroom and at home. 

Goal setting can be great for a student’s motivation. Being able to set goals that are attainable within the near future can leave a huge positive impact on a students work. Without this, some students may feel lost or not guided to where they should be. Student’s that are willing to set goals and hit those goals are the best, getting every student to be interested in goal setting should be the educator’s priority.

The student with a motivated mindset tends to learn a lot from constructive criticism and master goals with ease. Students that tend to have a mindset of helplessness can be influenced by the educator to get out of that negative mindset. An educator can become a great motivator for students that may be dealing with helplessness to get out of that mindset.

Module 4: Chapter 10

Chapter 10: While reading through chapter ten, I have noticed a big role on constructivism and designing learning environments. Being able to understand constructivism, it helps to learn the philosophy on knowledge. The two kinds of constructivism which consist of “cognitive constructivists” and “social constructivists”, this allows for us to learn how individuals make sense of the world around them. While using that within the classroom, it will allow for me as the teacher to get a better view of where their thinking is coming from. This can be seen through the culture of the classroom and a benefit within good thinking. Being able to encourage these practices through interactions with others will allow for the student to grow.

Being able to design your own learning environment for the students based off strong conceptual knowledge, it will allow for scaffolding to take place. Scaffolding is extremely important within education. This includes providing support for learning through motivational and cognitive support. Being able to reach to a deep questioning phase, students will be able to learn how to answer such questions. Just by building off “prompts, cues, needed information, coaching, and so on”.

Collaboration and cooperation are important within a classroom. Being able to respect those with differences and working together to attain a shared goal. Building off cooperative learning, students working in groups can help build this. Without any productive interaction, a classroom cannot be properly used. Social skills will become strengthened, and your students will get the most out of their education within your classroom.

Module 4: Chapter 9

Chapter 9: While reading chapter nine, I have noticed a lot surrounding the idea of complex cognitive processes. This includes learning about metacognition, or the idea of “thinking about thinking”. Being able to get an understanding of metacognition allows me to understand how information is processed during class. The different types of knowledges include declarative, procedural, and self-regulatory. These three different knowledges are important to know due to each student being unique in their own way holding on a specific knowledge type. To be successful, knowing how to understand how each knowledge type may work and metacognition, your classroom will become skillful.

Taking into mind learning strategies, they play a big role within the classroom too. To assist your students throughout their educational journey, learning strategies will help them achieve their goals. This can include “planning and focusing attention, organizing and remembering, comprehension, cognitive monitoring, and practice”. Being able to help within those categories will play a big part in a child’s education. One that really stuck out to me is “taking notes”, I believe that some students may not know how to take “good notes”. Being able to help your students learn how to take “good notes” should be a number one priority in secondary education.

Just keep building their knowledge and assisting them on the way through it. Teaching them for complex learning and robust knowledge so they can attain critical thinking skills and be able to use them in and out of school. Through practice, each student will become a scholar.

Module 3: Chapter 7

Chapter 7: While reading through chapter seven I have noticed a lot of themes surrounding behavioral views of learning. I believe that this is one of the most important things to learn about when becoming a teacher, because it’s needed to help manage your classroom.

First off, understanding how these students learn by experiences causing change in a person’s knowledge or behavior. This is then shown through the idea of classical conditioning, which is a neutral stimulus.

Learning about Skinner’s concept of operant conditioning helped me learn about the effects of consequences as a reinforcer. But it must strengthen or maintain the response that brought it about. While trying to make sure your classroom is under control and having a system that works is the best thing that can happen.

This goes into the Applied Behavior Analysis and making sure you’re able to observe all behavior. Learning about ABA has taught me many things on what punishments may be and some ways to reinforce them. Being able to manage all these strategies will help a lot within a classroom when it comes to behavioral problems. For me personally, I plan on being a high school teacher. This may work with some students, but I believe a lot of students in the high school level can see right through this. If they’re always disrupting the classroom and the learning process, then it becomes an issue.

If you can keep everyone’s interest in learning together, I believe it would allow for a great process of education. Connecting learning and performance together, it is best to have the student show that they can perform it too. Some challenges may come with negative impacts on other students. Everything must be used appropriately.

Teacher Interview on Classroom Management:

I chose to interview my mom for this because she works in a preschool classroom with many different types of children with multiple different types of backgrounds. She works at Ridge Pre-K and Kindergarten in Oak Forest.

Q: How do children react to classroom management?

A: All children react to classroom management differently. Most react well with positive reinforcements (even just a positive comment now and then). Otherwise, younger ones (which I deal with) enjoy stickers, extra recess time, having a special jammie day at school, etc. Everyone single class will have one or two children that this doesn’t work with. Some you may need to go over rules daily with. Some you may need to just ignore when they’re acting out as they’re doing it for attention. Praise them as soon as you catch them doing the right thing. Some children may need direct eye contact and an extremely firm voice, while this may scare other children. Again, it all depends on the child.

Q: Can you give me any examples of this?

A: Example: Clean up time. Child doesn’t want to clean up. Remind child that we are leaving in two minutes to go to gym, and that you hope they will join us. Toys will miraculously get put away. Always look for what the child enjoys and use that as an incentive. This works very well. (It could be going to gym, going to the library to get a book, going outside, or just playing in a certain area or with a favorite toy). For the child that has a hard time ending an activity and beginning another one (or transitioning) give them a countdown. For example: “We will be cleaning up in five minutes, so try hard to finish your picture” (or finish your game or whatever it is they’re doing). From five minutes, go to three minutes with another warning, then down to one minute. They will have gotten enough notice and will not feel rushed. Another thing we do is when it is time to clean up, we turn off the lights. This also signifies playtime is over. Some children need visuals, perhaps a schedule (in our case a picture schedule). This way they know what is expected for the day.

Q: What should I mainly get out of what you told me?

A: Main thing is always to be consistent. Go over rules when necessary. This way children always know what is expected. 

Q: What is the best way for me to learn classroom management?

A: Classroom management is not something that can be learned. It must be experienced. Think back to your favorite teachers, what did they do to capture your attention that you liked? What did they do that you absolutely hated? Think of your favorite teacher, what made them your favorite? Try to become like them in your management skills and in time you will learn other secrets (through student teaching) and strategies that you can use in your own classroom. Children do not like to be told what to do constantly. They do not like to be yelled at constantly. They will turn you out immediately. For good classroom management you need to establish a good relationship with your students. Let them know you, respect them and value their opinions. Listen to them when they talk (really listen)! Ask them questions about things they are interested in. Form a relationship with each and every one of your students. They will in time realize you care about them and will come to respect you also. At that point, classroom management will be simple. In order to teach, you must have developed good classroom management. If not, you will spend the whole time disciplining and not doing what you should be doing, teaching.

In the end, I learned a lot about classroom management, but was also surprised that I already knew stuff myself about classroom management.

Module 2: Chapters 4-6

Chapter 4: While reading through chapter four about learning differences and learning needs, I believe it really taught me how to build a curriculum around students who have any learning differences or needs. Constructing a plan built to have every student participating would be the best way to have engagement throughout the whole class. Developing more effective ways to encourage this will enable the student’s success rate to raise dramatically.

Being able to understand students with learning challenges will encourage for a better learning environment. It is important to understand learning disabilities for that having a student that may have one is a high chance. To motivate them and help them improve their learning would be best done by focusing upon learning strategies. Being able to help clear their anxiety of reading will enable them to build their vocabulary. Some may feel helpless, but there is no need to give up on them, creating a growth mindset within them will help them succeed.

There is also a focus on students who are gifted and talented. Being able to keep their attention and possibly help them by assigning more rigorous work would be helpful. They may have even skipped a few grades and enjoy the conversations they have with older adults and students that are older than them. An accelerated learning is something they look forward to.

Chapter 5: While reading through chapter five the main idea was behind language development, language diversity, and immigrant education. I believe that these three categories are extremely important for a welcoming classroom, especially for younger grades. 

The development of language is something that may take place at home and within the school. Although there is a diversity of language developments, and some students may be using the heritage language that their parents speak. That is where the goal of balanced bilingualism comes into play. The students who come from homes that speak their heritage language will then have a balance of both languages. This will allow them to use the two languages they know in their adult daily life.

Chapter 6: While reading through chapter six about culture and diversity I was able to learn a magnitude of objectives that activated my critical thinking. Through these somewhat controversial topics, I was able to learn about social differences that take place within the classroom.

Through the economic and social class differences, there were studies between the socioeconomic status and academic achievement. I believe that it’s the teacher who really needs to try and get the students parents interested in their child’s education. Although a teacher cannot change a home environment, working with the student is the best thing to do.

While ethnicity and race in teaching and learning, this can go both ways, including the ethnicity and race of both student and educator. Some conflicts that go along with this are easily avoidable by being kind to one another and judging by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. This topic always seems so touchy or pushed too much. By removing prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes from the classroom, it can easily be taking care of. Making sure that students know they’re in the future, they don’t have control of what happened in the past and reenforcing positivity through motivation, it can all be solved. There’s no need for any of this in a classroom.

This goes along with creating a culturally compatible classroom. Making sure to stick to the lesson plan and hit every state objective is the best thing to do. When it comes to creating a culturally compatible classroom, that can be anything as working in a public school. I personally believe that students will generally stick with those who have common interests and are genuinely nice peers. If you push this stuff onto a student, I feel like it ruins the experience of getting to know someone. Understanding others heritage and culture is the best part of public school. Everyone is completely different and get along with one another.

Module 1: Chapters 1-3

Chapter 1: While reading chapter one, I have found a basic theme of teachers being able to make a difference in a child’s life. This idea can be seen within the first couple pages of the chapter and it allows for ways that help build confidence within your students. This can help them with getting through the day, doing homework, taking tests, and anything else that may get in their way. 

While using educational psychology and learning about how to use it properly, the many different methods that come along with education psychology and studies that have been done with educational psychology being used. All of this is important in chapter one and is a basic building block for this classes’ main themes and ideas, especially within the module.

Supporting your students and providing them a proper education while making sure that you’re a positive difference in their life is shown all throughout chapter one.

Chapter 2: While reading chapter two, the idea of cognitive development has me think of the different people like Piaget and Vygotsky. Names that I have heard many countless times and their philosophies on education that never grow old.

This is the part of educational psychology in where you find out how your students learn, and what is happening within the brain during the time the lesson is being taught. Brain development is important within adolescence for proper development and learning how the brain works is very complex. For educators, knowing how your students’ brain may work is something that could be important, and it will allow for your lessons to be properly planned out and thought about for an effective learning environment. “Brain based” learning allows for good teaching and helps the students thinking skills grow, especially through scaffolding and assisted learning. These ideas assist the student while also creating a space where they need to learn through problem solving.

Chapter 3: While reading chapter three, learning about the self, social, and moral development within students was the main theme.

This idea grows into the development of the child. It comes with need for exercise, and unfortunately, challenges that may follow along with it. These challenges include obesity and eating disorders. Many of these eating disorders are all psychological and something that I wish you can just fix.

Learning about the family structure and the many different parenting styles is shown within this chapter. Learning about the parents whose child you’re teaching is something very important to do. Depending on the number of times you talk to that parent or if they come in for parent teacher conferences. Getting to know the parent and good communication is something that’s extremely needed within education and schooling in general. This can also lead into areas of learning about divorce. Not every student will have a mom and dad, so being prepared on who you may be speaking to is always beneficial. 

The student’s behavior and learning about moral behavior is discussed within this chapter. Many times, boosting the student’s confidence could possibly fix this issue if it has to do with self-esteem. Depending on the student’s background may also be the reason they act in certain ways. This all has to do with psychological development within the student and how they are treated in their daily life.

Blog Post One

 

             Throughout my journey on Twitter, I have run into many educational assets. All of which have helped me grow not just as a person but as an educator. Twitter may not be your forte at first, getting used to it took me some time. I was so used to using Twitter casually and just following things that were in my interests. Taking an education viewpoint to Twitter truly allowed me to grow.

             Taking this class has showed me that Twitter is great for collaborating with other future educators that are planning on teaching in the same subject as you. For example, I really enjoy history and hope to teach it one day for students in high school. This may sound extremely fascinating to me, but I was able to private message an educator just to get some tips on how he runs his classroom. Also, on how he sets up presentations/ slides and just decorates the classroom. Random but helpful things like that go a long way. Especially for a student like me. I am very doubtful sometimes when it comes to if I can really do this, or if I’m going to be able to do this at my full potential. I want to become a teacher that doesn’t just put on a movie or documentary, but a teacher that can truly teach their classroom and inspire students just like my high school history teacher inspired me. 

             Other things I have found on Twitter that really helped me learn were just different Twitter accounts that were based off of history and historical events. I have gotten myself into a rabbit hole of many different articles. I could honestly spend all day just reading about events, people, and places I have never heard of. I am excited to be able to teach students one day about history. I hope I can make it as fascinating as I see it in my own eyes.

            Overall, Twitter has been a helpful resource that allows me to grow into the educator I would like to be someday. Without all of the knowledge I have attained from Twitter, that is actually useful, I don’t think I would be as well prepared as I am right now.

Blog Post Two

 

            Based off of what I have noticed, Student Response Tools are extremely valuable to use while in or outside the classroom.

            While using https://quizizz.com/ I have noticed the potential it holds. Personally, this tool is better than Kahoot in my opinion. That is due to the mechanics of the tool and all the extra things that it has. For example, it is personally much easier to set up compared to Kahoot and it allows 100% engagement throughout all students. The scoring system works perfectly fine and has no problems there. Quizizz also allows for students who get a question wrong be able to redeem themselves at the end with the same question; something I have never seen before. There were no weaknesses on Quizizz based off of everything I’ve done on there. My experience with Quizizz has been overall helpful and I could see myself using it for future use while in the classroom.

            The next Student Response Tool I used is https://www.polleverywhere.com/. This is basically a site that allows you to create your own interactive meetings with polls. I can see teachers using this website if they are teaching online, because it is mostly online based. I wouldn’t exactly use it while in the classroom, this may be a weakness towards it. Personally, I see it as a tool that can just be used for online class. Otherwise, it has really cool features that are like no other and can help boost your classes participation. Multiple real time actives with feedback that is instantaneous, perfect for using with your students. Some more positives for this tool, it allows you to take attendance, which is pretty neat. You can also quiz your students while using it and allows you to see if they’re understanding the content that is being taught. Overall, I had a great experience with Poll Everywhere.

            The last Student Response Tool I used is https://nearpod.com/. Nearpod was another great tool overall. It allows you to make every lesson interactive by engaging your students into the media or assessment. Adding interactive activities like simulations, quizzes, and virtual reality. All of these will allow for your students to become completely engaged into the lesson. This will work from wherever; the student can be at home or in the classroom. Allowing for your students to collaborate with each other and be able to grow together. Everything created on Nearpod is unique and can be specialized for each and every student. I haven’t found any weaknesses within the tool. This may be the best out of the three I have used. Overall, Nearpod was a great experience and if it’s still valuable when I get out into the education field, then I’ll plan on using it.

Blog Post Three

While finishing up my time on Twitter, I have learned through many people I’ve followed since the beginning. Twitter allowed me to understand that there is actually an education side to it where others come to collaborate with one another.

These collaborations also include Twitter chats, which I hosted my own. Being able to host your own Twitter chat was satisfying and allowed me to ask the questions that I wanted answers to. Even though the only person who participated in it was my friend and classmate Julian, I gained the experience of what it was like to host a Twitter chat. Which mine was based off of the implementations of technology within education. Being able to understand the questions and receive proper answers allowed for growth between Julian and I. Twitter chats are fun and allow you to retain knowledge on what the subject is.

I also started paying a lot more attention to who I followed. I followed a lot of educators and those who posted about history. Both were totally different people, but they were able to feed my interests. Learning more on the role of the educator and learning more about history allowed me to grow. Accounts that were dedicated to history allowed for me to read and learn about things I never heard of. The educator accounts allowed for me to fully understand what it is like to be an educator, especially during this semester, it had opened me up to new learning ideas.

That leads me to all the educators that had to completely change in order for their students to succeed this semester. As in, due to covid, the lessons they had done via Zoom or in the classroom social distanced. I will continue using this Twitter to allow me the chance of viewing what it was like before covid. Most of the time educators would try and post inspirational things on their Twitter feed, or actual information and ideas. It was always a good blend of both, and it was great to see that educators have a humor when it comes to posting on Twitter. Not everything posted was always serious, or full of information. But when it was information, it allowed me to grow and shape me to what I want to be.

Just like many of the educators were big in digital education. I have never heard about this until I took the class and got on educational Twitter. Due to the massive amount of educational Twitter users who post about digital education, it allowed me to open my eyes to something brand new in my experience. Digital education allows for the educator to prioritize their teachings digitally and is just a whole new way of teaching. After this class, I will take into consideration digital education and all of the benefits that it brings.

To sum up the end of this blog, it has been a good time. Being able to learn new teaching techniques through Twitter, understanding fully what digital education can bring to a learning environment, and history that I’ve never learned about before. I will continue using my educational Twitter account, and hopefully it will bring more knowledge to the table.