Week Five

I’m still very glad all of my fishies, Doodle, Strudel, and Nemo, are alive and well, always swimming with a great amount of energy. This ecosystem is not what I expected it to be, I honestly do not know what I was expecting. Here are some things I have learned with creating this self-sustaining experience.
 The dirt we use is most important while planting
 I can grow plants successfully
 I still have no idea what the correct amount of water to add is, I may be adding too much
 I really like fishes, or perhaps I like that they are thriving. Either way they’re cute!
 I lose things easily- where did my slug and cricket go? (Maybe I shouldn’t mention this)
 The amount of effort put in does not correlate with success.
        If we are carrying out the wrong actions, we will get the wrong results
        Self-evaluation- like adding too much water- is necessary
        Do not follow what others are doing, because it may not work for you
      Evaluate from your own experience and your own work, DO NOT evaluate yourself based on someone else

Unfortunately it has become that time where the work I have done and studying has caught up to me, making me very tired. This week I struggled most with motivation. I gave myself many pep talks yet I could never follow through with what needed to be done. This week I had tests and assignments in every class, even the ones I haven’t had anything due for since the start of the semester, and after I would do the bare minimum I would stop doing work. I didn’t successfully do anything to help this I’m sad to say. Every day is a new day with a fresh beginning, I slacked this week but will be better the next.

What thinking brought me the most satisfaction? My confidence in realizing I am in the same position of my peers. My peers, meaning the girls in the education program with me, are absolutely amazing. Their work is always tip-top and I have honestly never seen the kind of work they have done with other students or even graduates. I’m proud to be graduating with them, they are all very smart girls. There are times where I do not feel like I have over-achieved as well, but we are hardest on ourselves. As long as I believe I am sufficient, then I am. Next week I hope to find more information on experiments I can perform with my class without worrying about safety issues, and of course everything being age appropriate.

This week I helped contribute by having the measurement paper for anyone to use when measuring our plants. I also made sure to take care of Savannah’s ecosystem while she could not make it to class, taking notes on what I did and measuring her plant sizes. I’m not sure what all we will be doing next week, but I am sure I will find a way to help.

I have enjoyed Math Methods with Dr. Nanney SO much! Everything she has incorporated into her lessons for us has been greatly beneficial. Tuesday she showed us how to teach word-problem lessons to students while showing us the benefits of the different techniques we can teach that will help each student successfully carry out. Some students do better with adding, others with multiplying, and others with subtracting, etc. Teaching different methods will give our students the option to work out problems in a way they most understand. I appreciated that lesson as well and took many notes. I am always learning beneficial content that I will undoubtedly use in my future classroom. I had to get a separate folder for this class with how many notes I’ve taken so far!

Just like Maslow's Hierarchy of needs states, no one can concentrate on themselves or learning without having their needs of nourishment and a safe place met. We can help with their nourishment at least, and this leads to less stress and better learning. Most of us are here because we love these kids, I know I am. It's refreshing to know they can go home and not be hungry. This correlates with the NCPTS.2.c. We treat our students as individuals, not just another face in the crowd.

This final tweet is something that hits close
to home in our SCED classroom. We are
constantly talking about why investigating
and having students learn on their own
terms is more beneficial than them having
the facts given to them without context or
anything to really pull them in. Experiments
are not only fun, but great to investigate
the why!

This next tweet is about a teaching making posters for student learning. The posters were made by what the students said they were struggling most with. This helps greatly in the class by students having an immediate reference while working, having repetition by seeing it multiple times a day, and less time taken up when a student is struggling and needs reminding of how to carry out a problem. 

One thing that is very current at the moment is that it is supposed to be fall, yet is still 80+ degrees Fahrenheit out! I absolutely adore the fall and the drop in temperature, so I am highly disappointed to not be enjoying cool weather in a sweater. While there is still controversy about whether or not the earth really is hotter, you can see here that our temperatures are rising from earlier years. This is all thanks to climate change, a disappointing factor for us cooler weather lovers.

The hyperdoc this week is on chapter three of our textbook.
How is knowing different from understanding? We can just recite the facts and be considered to "know" something, but understanding is where we can put information in our own words and retell or even teach the information. The benefits for us would be that we can successfully teach our students.