I came into education from a 26 year career as a Registered Nurse, not knowing what to expect or what it entailed to become a certified teacher, especially for a technical school. I was given the names of the courses I needed to complete, told how to sign up and what book to purchase.
When I came into my first class, what a surprise! It was very different from nursing school, I am sure being that we were all adults, that changed the dynamics as well.
It was so refreshing and fun and incredibly helpful. I was given tools to actually bring to life the way I wanted my students to learn and comprehend. I was also taught about the social and emotional needs of school-aged children, something that I was not very educated in as I had always taken care of adults.
I use all of the formats they taught us, from carousel to cooperative learning to flash cards. It was so comforting and interesting to know these tools existed!
The ice breaker activities that bonded us over laughter and personal stories transferred perfectly to using them with my 11th and 12th graders every September, especially this past year as we have not been able to go to the hospital or nursing home due to COVID. I have been doing a lot more ice breaker and bonding exercises to keep the students applied and interested.
I was really interested in the lesson on different learning modalities, how every person learns and processes information in their very own way. That is so amazing and it really struck a chord with me, when I thought back over my own childhood being educated in the parochial school system with little room to allow for differences in student's learning styles. I have brought that into my own classroom with student self-assessments to be completed at the beginning of the year. The students love it also, to see how they learn best and then we work together on the best ways to present materials. That is another lesson learned, how to incorporate the students, so they feel part of the class and respected for their ideas and opinions. That is a goal that I intend on reaching, for all my students to be happy to be a part of my classroom and to be proud of their achievements in there!
When I came into my first class, what a surprise! It was very different from nursing school, I am sure being that we were all adults, that changed the dynamics as well.
It was so refreshing and fun and incredibly helpful. I was given tools to actually bring to life the way I wanted my students to learn and comprehend. I was also taught about the social and emotional needs of school-aged children, something that I was not very educated in as I had always taken care of adults.
I use all of the formats they taught us, from carousel to cooperative learning to flash cards. It was so comforting and interesting to know these tools existed!
The ice breaker activities that bonded us over laughter and personal stories transferred perfectly to using them with my 11th and 12th graders every September, especially this past year as we have not been able to go to the hospital or nursing home due to COVID. I have been doing a lot more ice breaker and bonding exercises to keep the students applied and interested.
I was really interested in the lesson on different learning modalities, how every person learns and processes information in their very own way. That is so amazing and it really struck a chord with me, when I thought back over my own childhood being educated in the parochial school system with little room to allow for differences in student's learning styles. I have brought that into my own classroom with student self-assessments to be completed at the beginning of the year. The students love it also, to see how they learn best and then we work together on the best ways to present materials. That is another lesson learned, how to incorporate the students, so they feel part of the class and respected for their ideas and opinions. That is a goal that I intend on reaching, for all my students to be happy to be a part of my classroom and to be proud of their achievements in there!