My blog

I have learned a lot over the full semester of this class. The top 10 things I have taken away are…

1. the arc of a child’s development while growing up
   • There is a whole arc of development that a child goes through from the time of birth to 18 years of age. When we learned about the arc, it really helped me learn how children develop and how it can affect how they act depending on how their family lives are and how they are raised.
2. the ages in which boys and girls differ when puberty hits
   • Boys and girls hit puberty at different ages due to their maturity levels and hormones in their bodies. Girls normally hit puberty before boys do because they are normally more mature than boys. The average age for girls to hit puberty is around grades 5-7(ages 10-13). Boys hit puberty around grades 6-8(ages 11-14). Since boys and girls hit puberty at different times, this means that there will be multiple different levels of maturity in a classroom that a teacher will need to learn how to handle.
3. social and emotional development in adolescents
   • The adolescent years are the prime years when teens start to develop socially and emotionally. They get countless experiences throughout their early adolescent years through classroom experiences and being around their peers. These experiences help them to learn from their own mistakes and successes.
4. The concepts of development
   • Multiple points of development contribute to how we understand development. The concepts are. development is lifelong, development is multidirectional and multidimensional, development includes both gains and losses, development is characterized by plasticity, development is embedded in historical and cultural contexts; development is multiply determined, and development is multidisciplinary.
5. Domains of development
   • There are multiple domains of development. The domains of development are physical, cognitive, social, emotional, personal, moral, and spiritual. These are all ways that psychologists have broken up development into different categories to understand it better.
6. Our group work for our seminar capstone project
   • During our capstone project, I was in the seminar group, and we met twice a week to talk about our topics. We each picked a question we wanted to research more about, and we presented our topic to the group. I learned a lot from this experience and it helped me to understand the ways in which I work best. I work best in a small group where I can get my voice out. The small group made me feel more comfortable and less uneasy about getting things out.
7. Working close to Dr. Riggle
   • During our capstone project, my seminar group got to work closely with Dr. Riggle to gain further knowledge about our topics. We gave him resources we found, and he helped us by finding another possible article to use. Together, we planned a way to present our topics to the other people in our groups.
8. Research Project
   • Similar to our capstone project, the first project we did was a research project where we had to come up with a question and find developmental articles to help us find answers to our project. We then had to compile the main points we found during our research and make an end project to submit to Dr. Riggle to show him all that we had learned.
9. Different People Who Studied Development
   • We have studied and looked into multiple people who have studied development. We studied their philosophies to see what they took away from their studies and dove deep into what they thought about their stages of development and what the milestones should be. This really helped me understand better how the stages of development work and what milestones children should hit when growing up.
10. Individual work
    • The times of individual work we did over the course of the semester helped me discover what kind of person I am when I work by myself. I learned how I work and what I need to be successful when I was working on over the course of the projects we did.

These were my top 10 takeaways that I had from this semester.

Something valuable I have found this semester somewhat relates to work we have done during our class times, and also relates to my time at work at the daycare here on campus. In class, we have talked about multiple topics that can affect a child’s development. The multiple ways in which we have talked about ways children can develop differently depending on their experiences, has really showed me that not every child has the same upbringing. Every child is going to have a different experience in how they were raised that will affect how they develop in the future. I know that someone’s topic is having a positive role model in a child’s life is important because it gives the child someone to look up to while growing up. Working at the daycare, I have seen this when a parent(or both parents) come to pick up their child. All of the children at the daycare run up to the gate screaming “mama” or “dada’ when their parents come to pick them up. This shows me that all of the children are well taken care of and loved at home because they have this reaction when they see their parents at the end of the day. I know that not every child has a loving and supportive upbringing at home, and that they may not react the same way to seeing their parents as the kids that I work with. Seeing the children that I work with getting excited when they see their parents at the end of the day really just shows me that having a good role model or a good family dynamic at home can make a huge difference in a child’s development.

Over the past four weeks, I have learned that in order to be a “developmentally appropriate” educator you need to be able to know the types of things that your students could be going through. Each student will be different, and will have different back stories and different family lives. Just because one child was raised one way or has a specific family life, doesn’t mean that other children will.

You need to be able to know what types of things your students are going through in order to help them and give them the materials they need to be successful. Not only will understanding your students help you support them better, but it will also help you build more of a connection with the students you have. Building connections with your students is very important because it helps you know them better and know what they need in order to be successful.

In general, it is successful to understand the background of where your students come from because it will allow you to build deeper connections with them to be able to support your students to the best of your ability.

Some benefits of being in small groups when working on projects are that you are able to connect with one another more, have more time and ways to work through issues or conflicts , and you are able to collaborate more with one another.

You can connect with one another by being able to share and express your thoughts with one another more than you would be able to in a bigger classroom setting. Some people may not feel comfortable expressing their thoughts to the entire class, so being in a small group may help them feel like they are able to express their thoughts.

When you are in a small group setting, there could be conflicts in your work that need to be fixed. Some people may not be able to say what is wrong or not working in front of the whole class, so being in a smaller group may help them be able to find their voice to help one another work through the issues that are occurring in their work.

When you have fewer people in a smaller group, and are able to connect with one another, you are able to get through more of your work in a shorter amount of time since there are less people. Having less people in a group can also be beneficial to feeling like you understand what each individual person wants to complete in your work.

One way I will incorporate small group work into my classroom one day is to have my students collaborate together in groups of four or five on a project. In those groups, they will have to work together to make their projects work by incorporating each person’s idea into it in some way. This will not only help them become better at working as a group, but it will also help them work on their communication skills when they are talking about their work.

As a seminar group, I think that in order to help one another gain more knowledge about our topics, we need to be able to do a few things.

One thing we need to be able to do is support our topic with enough support to show that we know what we are talking about. When you know what you are talking about, you come across as more knowledgable. When you are able to be confident about the information you are talking about, people tend to listen more and retain the information better.

Another thing we can do to help one another is to be respectful and listen to what the others are talking and/or teaching about. When we show someone respect, most of the time, people will do the same in return. It is always important to show one another respect and listening skills because people have worked hard on what they are working on.

One more thing we can do to help one another is to discuss topics that people are talking to us about. When they ask us questions, it is important that we talk and discuss how their topic relates to education so that we are able to get a better understanding of how everything relates to education.

These are some ideas I had on how we can work together to better understand how our developmental issues relate to education.

As a teacher, you have to make lesson plans for the activities you will be teaching your students. While you are teaching, you will have different kinds of students. They won’t all be the same, learn in the same ways, or act the same. Every child is different, and that carries across into how they act in the classroom. To be able to make successful and effective lesson plans, you need to make sure that they are adaptable to all of your students. Not only will they all be different and have different ways that they learn, but they will also have their own specific needs. You may have students that need more attention than others and some students that are independent. You need to take that into account when planning what you will be doing with your class. As an educator, each and every one of your students fully rely on you to give them the education they deserve. Not only do they look to you for education, but you may also be an adult figure to them that they may not see a lot. You also need to be a good role model for your students no matter what age they are. In the early stages of school, the students will be looking at you to understand how to correctly act in a school setting, but how to also learn effectively. As their teacher, it is your responsibility to make sure that you have effective lesson plans for your students to learn from. Not only do the plans need to be effective, but they also need to be engaging so that your students are able to stay intrigued in the lessons and activities happening in your classroom. If the students aren’t engaged in the lessons, they won’t want to learn. Because of this, you need to make sure that your students are interested in what you’re teaching them so that they want to continue learning in the classroom. 

There are many different ways that students learn. Some students are visual learners, some learn better by listening, and some are hands-on learners. There are many other ways that students learn, but these are the ones I will be focusing on. As a visual and hands-on learner myself, I know that these are the best ways for me to successfully learn the material. I have ADHD, so being able to see and touch something when I am learning is a massive help because it helps me stay focused. If I were to just have to listen to a teacher talk for an entire class, I wouldn’t be able to remember or recall the information because it doesn’t stick in my brain when it is just spoken straight to me. Because I have ADHD, I need to have something to do with my hands when I’m being taught something or else it will go in one ear and out the other. Having something physical in my hand is helpful because it lets me focus on something while also listening to what is being taught to me. Some people can also be a mixture of types of learners. I am a mix of a visual and hands-on learner. Depending on how you learn the best, your recollection of the material may be different. Let’s say someone learns the best by listening and they are given a putty to play with while learning, the putty may distract them from being able to retain the information being presented to them. The same goes for visual and hands-on learners. If someone learns by having something to do with their hands and then they are told that they can’t have anything in their hands, they will most likely get distracted by the things around them and not be able to focus on what their teacher is presenting to them. For a visual learner, there is most likely always notes or some presentation on the board for them to look at, so if the notes got taken off the board randomly one day, that specific student would most likely have trouble focusing on that current lesson. There are multiple different ways that people learn, and in order for everyone to be successful in their education, they need to know which method of learning benefits them the most and keeps them engaged in the lessons.

During my time in village project over my freshman year, I learned a lot of new information that I feel will help me when I get to my time to become a teacher. I was at Doty Elementary School, where I was with the kindergartners. They spanned from the ages of 5 to 7. The younger children were the most difficult to manage because they were so young, to the point where they were still throwing temper tantrums. The older kids were normally the easier ones to manage. They were on the older side of their grade, so they had already had an experience with being in a classroom setting for about a year. To add onto this point, one of my takeaways is that depending on how old the kids that you’re working with are, the more or less difficult they will be to handle. We had a child in my group who had just turned five before he started kindergarten, so he was very young for his grade. Because he was so young and hadn’t had a school classroom experience before, he didn’t know what was acceptable and what wasn’t. Since he didn’t know right from wrong, he would always throw temper tantrums when he didn’t get his way. Because he was so young, he wouldn’t want to listen, it was almost impossible to get him to listen to us trying to calm him down. Another takeaway I have from the village project is that the children will always want your help with any task they are doing. When you are working with the children, you need to set boundaries of how much you will help them and how much they have to do on their own. When you help the students do their work right off the bat, they will assume that you will help them with their other work the rest of the time. For this reason, you need to set boundaries right in the beginning so that they do their work on their own and know how to be successful on their own. If you want the children to be independent, you need to allow them to fail at things so that they can learn from their mistakes. That is another one of my takeaways is that failure is okay. You need to fail sometimes to be able to move past them and learn from her mistakes. Failure is a key part to learning because it in order to learn, you need to fail every once in a while. We had one child that would throw a fit and get very sad and upset when he failed at something. We were doing an activity where we were forming sentences with game pieces. He was one of the younger kids in my group, so he was always struggling to figure out how to control his emotions when he didn’t win. It was always difficult to calm him down because he was so worked up that we just let him work it out on his own. Another one of my takeaways from village project is that when you have different diversity of students, you need to be able to adapt your plans and activities for the children. There are all kinds of ways that different children can learn and you need to be able know all of the ways that children learn so that you are able to support them in the ways that they need. In order to give the students the attention that they need, you need to know their own individual needs and what they need to be successful. When the students get the attention they need to the level that they need, they will be more successful with the work that they will complete. In my classroom, I will make sure that all of my students feel heard and get the attention that they need so they can be successful. My fifth takeaway is that you have to make your lessons fun so that the students stay engaged in what they are supposed to be learning. In order for your students to stay engaged and intrigued in the lesson being taught to them, it needs to interesting so that they are able to stay focused on the task at hand. Something else I learned is that in order to be a successful teacher you need to be able to know what you are doing and be confident in what you are doing. No matter what age students you are teaching, you need to show that you are confident in what you are teaching and that you own up to the mistakes that you will make. Every teacher will make mistakes at some point, so you need to be okay with the fact that you won’t always be perfect. Not being perfect is okay. It is a necessary skill to be a successful teacher. You need to know that you will have good days and not so good days. You also need to acknowledge that it is normal to have good and bad days, and that it is completely acceptable to have some bad days. Being able to communicate with your colleagues is another important skill you should be able to do is communicate with your colleagues. You need to be able to get along with the people you work with because they will be in your life as long as you are teaching in that specific district. Learning from your colleagues is important because you can take the activities and lessons that they use and incorporate them into your lessons. There will always be something that you can learn from your colleagues so it is important to always be communicating and learning from them. Being able to understand the needs of your school district is another takeaway I learned. Every school district will have different needs and rules that you will need to follow in order to teach. You will need to successfully follow the rules that are set for you so that you teach in the ways that the district wants you to.

My teaching philosophy is based on a couple important principles. These principles are caring for your students, being an energetic/engaging teacher, having a connection with your students, and knowing how to include all of your students especially when there is diversity in your classroom. I feel that these are all important parts of teaching because they allow you to not only be better for your students, but to also better yourself along the way.

The first principle is that teachers should show care towards their students. It is important for a teacher to show their students that they care about them because then the students know that their teacher is there for them. When a student knows that their teacher cares about them, they may feel more comfortable going up to their teacher and asking for help or support.

“Students don’t know how much you care until they know 

how much you care” -anonymous

I also feel that teachers should know how to be professional with their lessons, but also know how to make things fun for their students. When all a teacher does is talk, that is never fun for the students. Coming from a student who had many teachers that just talked at them the whole time, it isn’t fun and makes the class feel like it’s hours long. I have also had teachers who have made classes fun by being energetic and making the lessons interesting. When the lessons are interactive and have the kids engaged, they are more likely to stay engaged for the whole lesson. Speaking from experience, when a teacher made an effort to make jokes in class, connect with the students during the lesson by using things the students like outside of school, it always kept me engaged throughout the whole lesson. I was always wanting to come back to class the next day in hopes that the teacher would have another fun lesson planned. 

Not only should you have a connection with your students, but you should also want to see them succeed in everything they do. When you are working with the students, you need to show them that you are there to support them along with teaching them. Being a teacher isn’t all about teaching the kids. It is also about helping the students grow into who they are going to be when they grow up.

Going along with having a connection with your students, you need to make sure that you understand their own personal situations and know how to support them in the ways that they need. Every classroom will have its own diversity, and some classrooms will have more than others. As a teacher, you will have a vast diversity of students, and being able to support their own individual needs is a major part of that. Depending on their life situations, they may deal with things differently, so you need to be able to support them.

As a teacher for kids of any age,  it is important to always try your best in everything you do and make your lessons enjoyable for all of your students. Not only should you make your lessons enjoyable, but you should also make sure that your students feel that their voices are heard. It is important to make sure that your students are comfortable in the classroom and feel like their voices are heard by you and their other classmates.

My teaching philosophy is based on a couple important principles. These principles are caring for your students, being an energetic/engaging teacher, and having a connection with your students. I feel that these are all important parts of teaching because they allow you to not only be better for your students, but to also better yourself along the way.

The first principle is that teachers should show care towards their students. It is important for a teacher to show their students that they care about them because then the students know that their teacher is there for them. When a student knows that their teacher cares about them, they may feel more comfortable going up to their teacher and asking for help or support.

“Students don’t know how much you care until they know 

how much you care” -anonymous

I also feel that teachers should know how to be professional with their lessons, but also know how to make things fun for their students. When all a teacher does is talk, that is never fun for the students. Coming from a student who had many teachers that just talked at them the whole time, it isn’t fun and makes the class feel like it’s hours long. I have also had teachers who have made classes fun by being energetic and making the lessons interesting. When the lessons are interactive and have the kids engaged, they are more likely to stay engaged for the whole lesson. Speaking from experience, when a teacher made an effort to make jokes in class, connect with the students during the lesson by using things the students like outside of school, it always kept me engaged throughout the whole lesson. I was always wanting to come back to class the next day in hopes that the teacher would have another fun lesson planned. 

Not only should you have a connection with your students, but you should also want to see them succeed in everything they do. When you are working with the students, you need to show them that you are there to support them along with teaching them. Being a teacher isn’t all about teaching the kids. It is also about helping the students grow into who they are going to be when they grow up.

As a teacher for kids of any age, it is important to always try your best in making lessons enjoyable for your students. Not only do you want your students to learn from your lessons, but you always want to be learning from things you have done. It is important to be a lifelong learner as a teacher. You always want to be learning from things that you do yourself or other people you work with. You could use things that you have learned in the past, but you can also learn from other teachers around you and the types of strategies you use. It is important to always be learning when you are a teacher because then you are able to keep improving your skills for the future.