Looking Back on 2016-2017

This is my end of the year animoto video for my senior year. It consists of many Education and Training activities as well as pictures from the 2017 school year. Enjoy!

Field Trip to SMU and the President George W. Bush Museum and Library

This blog assignment is found on Mrs. Kallas's wiki, which you can view here.

On March 30, 2017, our class took a field trip to Southern Methodist University. Here, we got to view an Education building and go into classes to learn about both augmented reality and virtual avatars. I thought the avatars were extremely interesting. I thought it was cool that they could be programmed to play the role of different types of students. This would be great for new teachers to practice how to teach and control their different personalities. I learned that there are many ways to practice lesson plans, even with computer automated students! I also learned how important it is to be aware of the personalities of all the students, because talking to one in a specific voice, may not be okay with the another. For example, we did not talk to Maria using the same tone that we addressed Cindy (CJ) with.

Click here to view the SMU Department of Teaching and Learning.

This is a picture from SMU of my sister, Emily, and me.

Next, we went to the George W. Bush Library/Museum. Click here to view the museum's website.

• One cool aspect of the museum was the Oval Office. This was an exact replicate of the President's office. Given by the name, it was an oval shaped office with white walls and a ceiling. It had sofas and a desk with a big chair like that of President Bush's office. Also, there were two flags. There were many windows in the office that gave a view of out into the rose bush garden. The office had a replicate of a yellow sunbeam designed rug, chosen by Mrs. Bush, and an oil painting, A Charge to Keep. On the ceiling was a large presidential seal, which you can view below.   

The Oval Office

Presidential Seal on the ceiling

Education Initiative Exhibit

• George W. Bush's famous education initiative was "No Child Left Behind", and it was his idea of taking accountability to the national level, in order to help failing children and schools in need. He wanted to get all students capable of reading, because he believed that that was the foundation for learning and education. Many students were failing in school because they were never taught to read, which made every lesson and topic difficult to understand. His idea was an education system "that's based upon sound fundamental curriculum, one that starts teaching children to read early in life, one that focuses on systems that do work" (George W. Bush). This was one of his ways of making a difference, and helping promote a successful education community. He even went to several elementary schools and read to them as part of his program.
  

Fred's Tools for Teaching (Chapters 1-4)

This prompt can be found on Mrs. Kallas's blog, which you can view here.
Click here to view our Book Study.

In class, we recently started a book study on Fred Jones's "Tools for Teaching". It is a great read for new teachers, giving them motivation, instruction, and ideas to prevent discipline issues. After reading just the third and fourth chapter, I am excited to continue reading and learning more about the great occupation of teaching!

Chapter 3 -"Working the Crowd":

    At my field site classroom, the desks are aligned in two parallel lines, running from the front of the class near the board, to the back of the class. Each line is composed of two desks facing eachother, and five or six desks long. This makes for an easy way to get to each student, and while walking down the middle aisle, the teacher keeps all students in the red zone, with just a few steps. By standing in and walking through the middle, the teacher would be no more than two desks away from each student. However, it is difficult to get to one side of a column of desks because they are roughly two feet away from the teacher's desk. With chairs pulled out, and jackets on the floor or on chairs, it makes it difficult to squeeze through the tight walkway and help students in need. Also, in order to help a student in the corner opposite of the teacher's desk, the teacher would have to walk around and through the aisle, or around both columns to get to the back corner. Overall, it is easy to work the crowd with two columns, keeping everyone in a near zone, however it can sometimes be difficult to get to the opposite side of the room. 

This is an example of my field site classroom, with the two columns of desks.
One is on the left, one is on the right.

Chapter 4- "Arranging the Room":

     According to Fred Jones, a teacher's desk should go either in the back, in the corner, or on the side of a room. As long as the desk is not right in the front of the class, it will work, and not "cost you eight feet of proximity with every student in the classroom!" (Jones 39). In my field site classroom, I would honestly leave the desk in the same location that it is in. Although it is may be described as "in the front of the room", it is in the far corner, and does not block the whiteboard or get in the way of the teacher. The students that are in the front row of the class are roughly four or five feet away from the board. With the teacher's desk in this location, she can easily get up and assist her students, and she is close enough to them to hear and watch over them when they are working. If her desk was in the back corner, she would not be able to always keep an eye on the students. In this location, she can still watch the students, and it does not prohibit them from being close to the whiteboard. Also, if she is teaching and needs to grab a book or an example from her desk, she is close enough to get it, and her computer is close to her in case she needs to click or project something.

Since it is an elementary classroom, the current location of the desk successfully helps "facilitate mobility and proximity".