Miners Trail

Went for an adventure with the Young Adults group and took the kids! Lots of fun was had 🙂

The Good Ol’ Days

I went to go visit my class today that I was with for my PS1. It was so wonderful. I was only able to be there for a little bit but it felt so good to just be back in the classroom. I was there while they were in music so when they came back to class I was there as if I had never left. They came in all excited saying “Mrs. Stretch, Mrs. Stretch”! Before I knew it I was surrounded by 27 grade 3 children giving me a great big group hug with little voices saying things like “I missed you, how long are you staying, when are you coming back?” and so on. Being surrounded by their joyful, smiling faces helped me to remember why I want to be a teacher.

The children then proceeded to give me important gifts such as a friendship bracelet (large neon pink pipe cleaner), REAL fools gold (from the dollar store) a drawing of Spiderman (the student had saved for when I came back) and a couple of stamps on my hand. It was beautiful watching the connection I had made with the student come back to life in a single minute.

I love children so creating relationships with them has always been easy for me and came naturally throughout PS1. It was apparent to me during my practicum but was made more apparent when I went back to visit. Creating relationships with your students is vital. Children will respect you and listen to what you have to say when you have a mutual relationship of respect with them.

“When you make them smile, laugh, think, write, explore, take notes, read, or give them a chance…you have taught them something everlasting.”
Copyright © 2003 Wayne Groves

The strong relationships you create with your students will also be what they remember. There is no way they will remember everything you have taught them throughout the school year but when students look back it will be either a negative or positive overall emotion students will feel about this important year of their life. Teachers have the ability to inspire children to do great things and I hope as I become a teacher, I am able to focus on these important things and not be overwhelmed by the small things.

“If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy”-Dale Carnegie

Professional Semester one is a busy time for all of us at the University of Lethbridge. Numerous amounts of presentations, projects, group work and the like are surfacing with a quick end in site. There is much to reflect on every day but you are constantly moving on to the next thing.

I have been very pleased with myself on the work I have done thus far in the course. My presentations have went well and I have received positive feedback from my peers. I have also taken suggestions into account and look forward to refining my teaching skills through the valuable method of peer evaluation and self reflection.

Having the opportunity to teach has made me much less nervous than I previously was and I now feel comfortable talking in front of my peers. Soon I will be teaching in front of a class, my T.A. as well as University professor and I feel equipped to do so. My practicum begins at the beginning of November and I am still anxiously awaiting to hear where I will be placed. I am comforted in the fact that wherever I may be and whatever the teacher may be like, I can us this opportunity as a learning experience for my future career.

Being busy in this time gives me a glimpse of what my teaching career may look like. I am figuring out that this is the job I want to do for the rest of my life and I am willing to put in the effort necessary.

Professional Growth Plan

Below I have posted a link to my professional growth plan (PGP) for this semester. We were assigned this task in our University Teaching seminar but the same is expected each year of employed teachers. I decided to use a program called ‘Glogster’ for my plan as it was easy to use, effective in outlining my goals and was aesthetically pleasing. Another positive of this is I can use the technology to work on my first goal of my PGP and send my goals to others. This is also an effective tool for me as I can access these goals on any computer through the website. I had never used the site before but look forward to exploring it’s capabilities more in the future as it is a program geared towards teachers.

Something important I have learned the past week is to use technology when it is appropriate and if it works for the method you are trying to convey. Technology should not be used all the time, no matter the lesson. Instead it should be used to enhance teaching as well as learning. KSA #10 states “[t]eachers apply a variety of technologies to meet students’ learning needs”. We have to remember to keep a balance between the two.

Professional Growth Plan

Geese

My friend (Katelyn Patterson) posted a few of these facts about Geese:

“What I Learned From Geese
-When geese fly south for the winter, they fly in V formation
-Together they can fly 71% farther than they could if they were to fly alone.
-Each goose supports the geese behind it by causing an updraft that actually assists the birds flying behind and slightly above it.
-If the lead goose gets tired, it simply drops off to a position further back in the V and allows another goose to take the lead.
-Each goose honks to support the rest of the geese in the V formation.
-If a goose tries to go it alone, it quickly finds out that it is much more difficult and rejoins the rest of the flock.
-If a goose gets sick and cannot continue the flight, a couple of geese will stay with it until it can rejoin the flock or has died.
-Together they accomplish more.
Speaking in human terms: by encouraging each other, sharing the leadership, and caring for the weaker members of the group, they achieve their goal.”

I thought we could learn a lot from these geese when teaching. In our classes we have touched a bit on collaboration and the importance of it. We emphasized the fact that working as a team was more productive than working as a group. This was because when working as a team people develop ideas together, work within their strengths, encourage each other, plan lessons together etc. Working as a group is also productive but looks more like a school that may encourage each other and share lesson plans that worked for them but not relate on that deeper level.

If schools and teachers can learn to collaborate, support each other, and fly as a group schools will be able to go much farther than they would alone.

Beliefs Assignment

I just completed my first assignment for my first professional semester in University. We were told to think about our personal beliefs and values as teachers and to try and present this through some form of media.
I had no problem at all coming up with my beliefs and values but struggled for a bit on what medium I should use to present my ideas. My initial thinking was to use my love for crafting and use a scrapbook to show my ideas. The only problem with this was that my professor somewhat encouraged using ‘technology’ to show our ideas. He said it was not mandatory but he found it showed competence in other areas and was useful for things such as job interviews in the future.

Eventually I came up with online scrap booking (something I never had ventured in before).  Needless to say, once I figured out what program worked best for me, I LOVED IT! It gave me a chance to use pictures to tell a story, show my technological skills, and make an aesthetically pleasing work of art. To check it out simply follow the think below:

http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/education/personal-statement-of-beliefs-and-values-5442874

Education

This is an AWESOME video on education. It explores education in the past as well as changes he believes needs to be made in the future.

I really appreciate a lot of Robinson’s out of the box thinking and hope as a teacher I will be able to break the mold of the old ways that are not working and benefit the education system for the better.

 

In The Beginning…

This fall I started in the Education Faculty at the University of Lethbridge. One of the first things we were taught was to be aware of our ‘digital footprint’. This sounds like a bad thing and something you want to reduce but I learned it was really the opposite. Our professor encouraged us with the obvious such as untagging pictures from Facebook, controlling privacy settings and thinking about what others might think. The interesting part (that was not so obvious to me) was that he encouraged us to expand our digital footprint for good (and not for evil).

Having a public presence on the internet in a positive way is much more beneficial to a career than having no web presence at all.

Here is a kind of cheesy but interesting video our professor provided us with concerning our digital footprints.