The CALLING: ECDC Reading Camp

For the past week i have been tutoring at the ECDC for the first session of the summer reading camp. The child i tutored was Sebastian, he was a 2nd grader. MAN talk about an EASY kid. he was very quiet and well mannered, as well as his brother, who was also in the reading camp. He however had to leave for mexico today for the rest of the summer.
So now i'm observing another tutor and his 7th grade student and have QUICKLY come to the conclusion that i NEVER want to teach above the intermediate level. It is SO FOREIGN to me! Right now the tutor seems to be working on comprehension and memory via a science lesson. The boy is reading a chapter about space, the earth and its qualities. The tutor is asking the boy to recall and to list the layers of the "pheres": troposphere, stratosphere, homosphere, and mesesphere, on a pictogram. he is making a point to show the student how quickly the words on the page are being used to lable all of the images on the picture.
Something that i would have trouble with would be the quietness of the ENTIRE PROCESS! With my kiddo we were EXCITED to read about all the different stories, we wanted to see where the next page would take us. even with the NONFICTION books!
I think that it is a calling from GOD to teach each grade level, that i have found my calling and that it lies with the elementary graders.

Unperfect

My hair isn't always having it's best of days,
and my skin isn't always clear.
My fingernails are bitten and ragged,
and my body... ohh my body has seen better days.

But I KNOW that
I am a STRONG young woman,
and I can accomplish anything that i want to.
I may use some moose, make up, acrylic,
and a treadmill to mask the mess but,
I have a Family and a Man, who love me,
A Future, that is TOO BRIGHT for me to see,
and a GOD who thinks that I am PERFECT, unperfectly.

The Simple Truth

So since completing my class and moving on to summer vacation I have decided to continue my blog. YAY me, right? ya ya ya... whatever... it's just another activity that i can do to keep myself and my mind busy, ALL SO THAT i DONT notice just how much i MISS KEYTH. So now, all of you, "My Fellow Bloggers," can officially read my HOPEFULLY, daily journal (my life) like a book. oiy.

So here's the RUN DOWN. The List of Happenings, Events, and LIFE Altering EXPERIENCES which have occurred in my LIFE, during the past month.

1. I completed my 4th OFFICIAL Collegiate semester and am a Junior, Education Mjr.
2. I FLEW on and AIRPLANE to DFW BY MYSELF!!! (&& I DIDN'T get LOST!! YAY!)
3. I managed to drive through Downtown Dallas at 2 am -- and we made it home ALIVE!
4. I turned 20 years old -- on May 14th... (i will NEVER be a teenager again-- haha)
5. I introduced my PARENTS to my FUTURE mother in law and grandmother in law. (worked out VERY nicely, if i do say so myself)
6. I survived a ROAD TRIP from Dallas to Corpus Christi with 5 people ages ranging from 5 to 55.
7. I went to a Mav's PlayOFF game and to a Rangers Game.
8. I took my Best Friend, Keyth, to the airport and watched him get on a plane to Japan. (that, to this date, was the hardest thing i have EVER had to do).
9. I decided to attempt to use Blogger for the rest of the summer... we shall see if it lasts...

I think that I have done some SUBSTANTIAL GROWTH in the past few weeks. I've learned more about myself and the things that i CAN accomplish. I've learned how to survive without leaning on someone else 24/7 and how to make short term GOALS which help reach LONG TERM goals and most importantly how to accomplish them. I've learned how to LET GO. To LET GO of the people you LOVE. They will come back to you when God wills it happen.


WORDS of SIMPLE TRUTH
Some advice that i have picked up through the struggle of allowing myself to let Keyth leave the country for a matter of MONTHS is that one should ALWAYS be nice to everyone and anyone with whom one comes in contact, for they are fighting a much bigger battle that one may not even begin to comprehend.

WE DID IT!!

WE DID IT!!!
The boys and I got it DONE!!
It was definetly frustrating at times but with a little bit of online help and some Excellent planning on my part, if i do say so myself, we are completely finished with our research together. Now all that I have to do is figure out how to add my class and professor so that they might watch the video.
Throughout this experience I have learned that as a teacher you have to work as a team with your coworkers, roll with the punches, and go with the flow, PLAN AHEAD, and KNOW your STUFF! I think that with a bit of extra practice I will be able to take on my own classroom and will definetly be using the Blogging System throughout the school year with my students.
Sarah

ALMOST THERE!!!

Today is Wednesday, and the boys and I have done a LOT of work! We hit some speed bumps along the way but we are taking them in stride. One of those speed bumps was having to share the computers with 9 other group projects and their mentors. So we made the best of what we had to work with, we ended up doing all of our journals and planning on paper so that when we got to use the computers we got to upload ALL of our work at once and today we did JUST THAT! IT was SO FUN to see all of our work go up and get completed so quickly! Another speed bump we hit was timing for our meetings. The boys both had violin practice today and we had to meet a little bit earlier than usual in order to get our work done. It is WONDERFUL to have such a lenient and cooperative teacher to work with. Ms. Reynolds is a DOLL!

Here is the boys link if you would like to SEE MORE!!

Going With the Flow

Today I helped two children, Santiago and Kevin, research their class project on Moths! They were excited to be in the computer lab and allowed to use the computer on their own. I began helping them by introducing myself and learning their names, project, and where they stood in the completion of their assignment. I then directed them to google.com and helped them search for kid friendly search engines once we isolated that site, we began asking questions, such as, "What are the differences and similarities between Moths and Butterflies?" The kids were supposed to complete a blog about what they have learned about their animal, but unfortunately we ran out of time to do so. Tomorrow is a new day and I will be meeting with the boys again and we will try to complete our leftover agenda. 

Here is their blog!

Frustrations As A Teacher

Today I came to class, EXCITED because i was almost completed catching up on all my homework, everything was falling into place and going right! My friends, however, weren't so happy. They had been downstairs to the 2nd grade class in order to fulfill the service project for our class, and came back quite frustrated. They described the event as a complete chaos and a waste of time, full of technological difficulties and miscommunications. The girls said that neither they, the students or the student's teacher knew what was going on or what to do.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting here not having been a part of this experience thinking, WHAT A NIGHTMARE!!! Then my professor came in and the girls explain the disaster, and Dr. Elwood explains that we are teachers, we have to make sense of the complete chaos and "Make IT Work."
This was a lesson that I needed to learn. It made me realize that in the real world no one is going to hold my hand and show me how to get things done, I have to be able to "think quick on my feet" and do what needs to be done, not only as a teacher but, as a person and a student.

Great Expectations

I began this week by feeling like my entire world was crumbling to the ground. I was behind in my classes and "spinning uncontrollaby." After running around like a chicken with its head cut off I have FINALLY caught up in most of my classes and am ready to begin a new week, with the goals of accomplishing every assignment as it requires.
This next week the assignments I am looking forward to most are meeting the kiddos that I will be helping via my service project. I'm excited to see what animal they have been researching and to see just how far they have gotten on their own. I'm anxious to learn how far they have come in the way of technology and how much they can accomplish on their own.
Here are some of the UNIT questions that I might encourage my student to begin his/her project with.

Digital StoryTelling: Care to Share

Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling is a WONDERFUL tool to have in the classroom. As a teacher, I value this tool because I can create the slideshare, voice thread, or slidecast and use and re-use the same lesson plan again and again. From the students point of view, it would definitely change up the daily schedule to have technology weaved into the classroom every once in a while, and the lesson might even “stick” better with me because it is technology and I surround myself with technology on a hourly basis.

Care to Share

View more presentations from tlugirl1707.

Above is a slideshare video that I would use for a lesson plan in my unit plan for Communication:  Conflict Resolution:  Importance of Sharing. The slideshare program is a helpful tool in any classroom. It allows for a smooth transitioned PowerPoint/video with which you might choose to add a voice thread to or to edit to add more interest to.

The idea of the slideshare is to provoke inquiry-based learning, where the students view the presentation and then are enticed to ask and answer questions about what they just learned. The instructor could then advance the lesson by asking the students to role-play, in order to further encourage the lesson at hand.

For more of my idea, check out my Lesson Plan! :D

The Wedding Budget SpreadSheet!

This is a chart I created based on the estimated and actual costs of a sample wedding budget in excel. It was an interesting example, used to show the different ways to utilize excel spreadsheets and charts. To view more, look at my "Wedding Planner Spreadsheat."

Excel is a great program to teach students at an early age but, how young is TOO young? It has been my experience to expose students to grids in the 4th grade and then to introduce the Excel program soon after that. However, the concept of compare and contrast, and charts and graphs should be known by the students at a much earlier age.

Post Secondary Students: You will use EVERY part of Microsoft throughout your collegiate career. My math class has just completed a section covering Excel and all of the different ways to utilize spreadsheets and charts in the classroom. Using the project-based learning method, my professor had us inquire as to some statistics of our choice and then create several graphs/charts in order to illustrate our findings. The charts were very useful to my classmates and to my professor, they were able to view the charts and question them as my group was presenting our findings. 

As a future teacher, I might use the Excel program to have the students create spreadsheets, and charts/graphs in order place a visual on their progress in the classroom. By having them do this I am able to see the progress in my instruction and their progress in the assignments. A guiding question for them to use would be:

• What was the difference between your math homework grades in September compared to your math homework grades in October?

I might use the program to have the students create a circle graph, through interactive writing, comparing a ratio of students. A guiding question for this task would be:

• How many students are there in this class? How many boys? How many girls?

Another example of an assignment would be, comparing TAKS testing scores by grade level and by specific test. This will help them to not be as stressed about the state exam and to make it a more positive experience. A guiding question would be:

• What was your class score on the 3rd grade Reading TAKS test compared to your class score on the 4th grade Reading TAKS test?

An Interesting View

Today I read an interesting blog by David Warlick. The blog was entitled 2Cents Worth .  and then to Don't Like Learning Alone? After going through a few weeks of this course i have realized that we, the students, are doing the exact same thing as Mr. Warlick was... learning by ourselves. It seems as though our professor gives us a "To Do" list and expects us to learn it on our own, but by using the blogging system we are able to view other classmates work and to learn from their experiences in order to influence our work. 

I can definetly see this being used in a classroom, but it depends on the age level on who will use the system, parents or students. In a high school setting I feel that the blogging system would be most beneficial to me as the teacher, it would provide a link from student to teacher to parent. The student, by this time, should be well rounded in the ways of technology and will be able to comprehend exactly what it is that he/she will be doing and with a few short lessons on blogging and by giving a COMPLETE understanding of what we will be using the blog for, he/she will be confident in the task at hand. 

However, the student will not participate in the blogging during the elementary years of their schooling. I see the blogging system being most beneficial between parent and teacher. This would allow me to communicate swiftly between parent to parent, in order to share the lesson plans for the week and give updates on their students status.

As a teacher I realize that not all parents are literate in the way of technology, therefore there will have to be several night courses on the blogging system, where all parents meet together to learn about this intriguing system. I also realize that not all parents and students have access to the internet, much less a computer. This throws a damper on my plan, only to be corrected by the use of previous methods, such as the notes sent home or the phone call. 

Internet Resources

There are many different types of resources for the student, the teacher and the parent. With the internet, today, we; teachers, students, and parents; have many modes of learning, there is communication via e-mail, instant messaging, and skype, there are plenty of search engines to question and choose answers from, you can read books, articles, and acquire a plethora of knowledge from the WWW.

As a student becoming a teacher, I am watching myself learn and it's quite the experience! I'm learning about how students learn and am noticing myself doing exactly what my professors are saying. So, I do see how my future students will be able to find their own resources, as I have had to do the same for this very assignment. We all, teachers, students, and parents use search engines, and task bars, but what I have learned by experiencing this class is that students can learn by each other's examples, especially by using the blogging system. 

For the Primary and Secondary students and their TEACHERS: Knowing that the WWW is not always the most kid friendly place, I have used a few more "adult" search engines, such as GOOGLE and Ask.com, to access some kid friendly resources. These are:  

- Kid Friendly Resources - which lists several websites classified by content and grade level for the student to sort out which site he/she might want to look at first. 

- Ivy's Search Engines for Kids - lists several different search engines, along with a text bar for the student to list several key words to search for what they need.

- Blog Catalog  - Allows students to blog with their families in order to connect with others across the nation or even world. It gives the students and parents a chance to regulate and assimilate the protocol of internet citizenship.

These resources are just a few that the WWW offers. 

As for the Post Secondary Student (such as myself):  Some of the resources that I am urged to use are those such as, Google Docs, Edublogs, 21Classes, and TAMUCC uses WebCT as it's University blog, which customizes itself to each students personal course load. 

For more information check out my Work Cited list.

. 

Classroom Blog Spots

I intend to use blogging in my classroom as a way to communicate reasons for my methods to the parents, fellow faculty members, and a way for me to have feedback about what others think.
Students can use blogging in the classroom to communicate. As a teacher I need to have every sort of teacher/student communication available. I need feedback from the kiddos, telling me what they got out of the lessons taught, how they are applying the lesson, and most importantly what they aren't understanding.
Blogging is also a way for the student to decompress, IE: issues they don't necessarily want to talk about. It is a source for me to go to if I suspect the student is having issues with other homework, other students, or at home. It is a source of counseling.
http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

Do YOU have any QUESTIONS?

Learning can happen in a variety of ways in almost every aspect of life; it can even occur without any realization. Inquiry-based and project-based learning are two strategies that will be used in my classroom to help students learn.
Inquiry-based learning is learning through asking questions. The concept of inquiry began with Socrates who led his students to learn individually by constantly asking questions. The reasoning behind the urgency of students to constantly ask questions is so the children can learn by experiencing things first-hand: if a child asks a question, they are able to learn the answer directly from a source of knowledge. Children will find and internalize what they WANT to know, not only what teachers think needs to be tought. I think this is especially important at a young age because kids have such a strong desire to learn. If teachers just stand up and lecture, a child's desire to learn may be thwarted. This concept of learning focuses on allowing children to use their senses (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell) to learn new material and is based on three basic principles: focusing on information-processing skills, allowing the students to be the center of their own learning process, and using, me, the teacher as a facilitator of learning rather than a lecturer. It involves much cooperation from the student who cannot simply sit back and listen to me lecture, but must be actively involved in asking questions and desiring to learn.
However, this method will be challenging because. As the students grow and develop, they will become more and more reclusive and tend to not ask as many questions in the classroom for the fear of being ridiculed by their fellow classmates. The lack of questioning may cause the inquiry-based method to fail. So it is my job do my best to keep the questioning alive and the students under control in order to use this method. It is a shame that students become afraid to ask questions.
Project-based learning, as opposed to inquiry-based learning, is a little more dynamic and more active. It is an advanced level of inquiry-based learning which allows students to be more hands-on and work independently in small groups. This method will allow me to take the classroom OUTSIDE! I think that the idea of moving the classroom outdoors and using multiple resources for research is essential to re-defining the traditional setting. In theory, this idea allows students to learn new material without being judged by a rubric that would tell them if their paper or exam was up to par. This way, students feel a sense of accomplishment upon completing their project and also develop important social skills by interacting with their peers. With project-based learning, the classroom is more of an idea: learning can also occur outdoors, on the Internet, or at another student's house.
As stated earlier, project-based learning provides a way for students to learn in a more relaxed environment. Instead of sitting at a desk, fearful of talking, children are able to work in groups in which they can talk and share their ideas. This type of setting may seem a little more chaotic since each group is talking and collaborating simultaneously, but it is actually a good way for students to learn without even realizing that they are learning. In this type of learning, the use of technology will be applied. Students will use computers to research the topic of their project, or they have the option of using video and digital cameras to document their learning process.
However, it is a risky method because some students may not be as proactive as necessary and may just be sitting there while their partners do all the work for them. So, parental guidance, along with very close student/teacher communication as to how the assignment is flowing along will be necessary to be aware of the students activities at all times in order to keep the assignments fair and equal.
Both project-based and inquiry-based learning can be used in any classroom at any level. They challenge the students to do more than be just another face in the crowd, listening to me blab about an unknown topic. Instead, they are given the opportunity to learn by doing. Whether it is asking questions, researching, or building something for a project, kids can learn valuable lessons that help them both in school and life.