Week Five

This week has been quite eventful! First, we completed our Wisdom from Experience projects. Then, we visited Washington Elementary School and helped out the teachers there. To be honest, I am surprised with myself that I thoroughly enjoyed working with my first graders. It is a grade I never thought I would want to teach, but I have been pleasantly surprised and am finding it very beneficial and enjoyable. I have also been working with my group on the today's learner project and it has been very helpful. So while this week has been really busy, I've been learning a lot!

At Washington, I observed my teacher using a math program titled Eureka math. This is something that is new to the teachers there, but it really makes sense as to why they were using it. Eureka makes students solve the questions by explaining how they got their answers. I think this is a great idea to show that students are really comprehending what they are learning. I am also excited to start learning about Eureka along with my teachers at Washington because I know that it is a program that is really starting to show up in a lot of schools and this will help me as I get ready to use it in my future classroom.

We have also been talking about today's learner in class. I realize that in my future classroom, I will not have an "average" learner. I am going to have students who learn in all different ways. It is so important that I establish a safe environment for my students because they are most likely going to be so diverse intellectually and culturally. I must recognize how my students learn so that I can teach each student to where it benefits them as individuals.

While completing my Wisdom from Experience project, I interviewed a teacher who gave me some great suggestions about technology that I can use in my classroom. So, I am using one of her recommendations as my technology resource this week. One thing that is really big at her school is Discovery Education. I have seen this tool being used in the classroom before and not only is it extremely helpful to the teachers, but it is also really fun for the students. It gives topics based on grade levels for the teachers to use as resources. There are videos, virtual field trips, and so much more that gets students engaged in the lesson while also incorporating technology. This is a great resource to use in my future classroom because like I have said before, it is essential that I integrate technology into my classroom. Discovery Ed also has art activities for students so that they can incorporate the fine arts into their lessons. There are puzzlemakers and clip art activities for the visual arts which can really visual learners that I have in my classroom, as well as videos for auditory learners and actual projects for kinesthetic students. Overall, I think this is a really neat tool to use in the classroom: http://www.discoveryeducation.com/