My EDPY Experience

Looking back on my last 3 months in EDPY many things come to mind; the friends I made, the lessons I learned, but most importantly the excitement I felt. After every class I left feeling excited, excited that in three short years I will be taking the lessons I have learned and using them in my very own class room with 20 to 30 smiling elementary students. I love children and most of all I love spending time with them and working with them. After taking EDPY I know I made the right choice to become an elementary teacher as I loved the course and its content, I found it interesting and I never once dreaded going to class like I did for English 219. One of the most interesting things and probably one of the most helpful to me was Vygotsky, I found his idea of Zone of Proximal Development very interesting and I hope to integrate his ideas into my planning and classroom activities. I also feel that I would like to help children that are exceptional and also children who have problems either emotional or behavioural. I would like to thank my instructor Robert Nellis for doing a wonderful job teaching the course it is something I will take with me for the rest of my career.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

With attending post secondary education I place myself in the cognitive needs level of the hierarchy. I am looking for knowledge in my program of study to one day have the requirements of a teacher.

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Small Group Work

Some Benefits:

When working in small groups all the members are able to contribute their ideas to the group project this would speed up the brainstorming process. The work load is also decreased because the members can split up the tasks or work collectively to complete the assignment. Also having more people work on the assignment allows for the assignment to be bigger and for it to be completed fast than if one person were working on it.

Some Drawbacks:

Students tend to get off topic when working with a group of peers, for example, weekend plans become more talked about then the assignment. Students that are in the same group may not always get along or may have conflicting views, ideas, or opinions on the assignment and how it should be completed. In small groups there are always a couple of students who do not contribute to the assignment and leave all the work on someone else. 

Responce to Digital Nation Video

In today's class we watched a video called Digital Nation.This video really got me thinking about the internet, cell phones and video game usage within my family and how it affects us. Within my family there is always someone on the computer whether it be my dad or one of my three siblings. Sometimes we would literally fight over who gets to go on the computer first. This constant fighting drove my mom crazy because not only did we fight about who went on first but about how long each of us was on the computer. So my mom bought a timer and we were each allowed half an hour on the computer at a time. My mom is the only person in my house who doesn't know how to work the computer or know how to text message and she doesn't want to learn either. One of the most common punishments in our household is being grounded off of the computer or off of our cell phones. We are all completely addicted because when this punishment is given out we temporarily hate my mother.

My brother in ten years old and currently owns 5 video gaming systems: 2 play station two, Wii, game cube, and the newest addition a play station three. He is always playing video games and when his marks start to drop my parents take away the games and once again his marks improve.

This only proves how dependant my family and the world is on technology. I do believe it is an addiction as currently I am typing this blog, instant messaging on facebook, watching televison and using my blackberry.

Memory: Responce to Andi Bell's Video

Andi Bell is a very smart man who won the world memory championships. He was able to do this because he has a fool proof way of remembering information. This process of remembering is done by taking a route you know very well and pairing the places you go on this route with the information you want to remember. This proves to work very well for him. This video got me thinking of how I remember content for our EDPY midterms. When I read a question I picture my notes in my head and then remember where the information was located on the page this then leads me to remember the answer. It works for me all the time. For the last midterm I somehow missed two pages of my notes and when the questions came up on the test I realized I could not picture the text in my mind because I had not read it over prior to the exam. This is how I learn; by visually remembering the text on the page and it works very well for me.

Some aspects of oparent conditioning are:
- Positive reinforcement is when the teacher gives praise to receive more of the intended behaviour. An example would be that a student works quietly and gets his/her work finished in a timely manner. The teacher would reward this behaviour by giving the student a gold star which will motivate the student to display this behaviour more often.
-Negative Reinforcement is when a teacher gives, for example a glare and then takes it away to reinforce the student to do less of the disruptive behaviour. A situation where this could be used is when a teacher gives a pre-test in the area of spelling and if the student gets 100% then they no longer have to do the final test on Friday. This reinforces the student to always work hard on their spelling in hopes they won't have to do that final test.
- Positive Punishment is when the teacher gives a punishment like detention this will make the student do less of the disruptive behaviour to avoid this punishment again. An example is when there is a student that is acting out in class by constantly interrupting the class so the teacher asks the student to take a time out. This should get the student to stop interrupting.
-Negative Punishment is when the teacher takes something away to get better behaviour out of the student. Keri is continually late for class so her teacher takes away twenty minutes of her lunch hour. Missing out on lunch will prevent Keri from being late again.

Response to Richard D. Lavoie`s FAT City workshop.

In Richard D. Lavoie`s video he showed a handful of professional adults what it would be like to be a child with a learning disability. He showed them pictures and then proceeded to ask them questions at a fast pace. This caused anxiety and as a result the adults began to think and act like students with a LD (Learning Disability). Richard had a lot of very good points and I agreed with all of them. He mentioned in his video that teachers often pressure students for answers by saying "come on this on is easy" or "if you don't tell me the answer now you can't have recess", this tends to only make the LD student feel worse. When I have completed my schooling and am finally working as a teacher I never want to say anything like this to my students because I can only imagine how bad it is stressing them out. I want my LD students to succeed and do well in school. They won't be able to do this if I am treating them like they are not smart enough. I need to understand their exceptionality and treat it properly in order to help them succeed.