Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Thing #1

7 1/2 Habits

I had never heard of the 7 1/2 Habits of Life Long Learners before and I found it very interesting. I enjoyed the fact that the 1/2 habit was play. I can see being a teacher how it could be easy to forget this necessary habit and why it was included. No matter what grade someone teaches, everyone is more engaged when fun is involved. I would say that the easiest one for me out of the 7 1/2 habits would be habit 7 to teach and mentor others. When I was growing up I always enjoyed helping others and people felt comfortable talking to me about problems they were having. 

The hardest habit I would say would be habit 4 to have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner. Although I was an outlet for friends growing up, I lacked the confidence in my own studies. I was almost a year younger than most of my peers in my grade and I was put in all the honors classes. I struggled at times especially in math and questioned if I should be in the honors classes. I always felt like the "dumb" one in the class (especially Trigonometry). When it came to Calculus I didn't have that same feeling. The difference? The teacher... It is amazing how much a learning environment can shape students' learning. When you have a warm and safe classroom where it is ok to make mistakes a student can feel confident as a learner. I only hope to give my future students that type of learning environment that my Calculus teacher gave me. 

I heard of people blogging before, but I always thought it was a place for people to complain about things (I guess people save that for Facebook now). This introduction into blogging has taught me that blogging doesn't have to be a place where people write and complain but it can be a fun and exciting experience. I honestly never thought I would be a blogger, but with this post I am now officially a blogger. I hope to learn new and fun tools that I can use to say connected with my students and be a successful teacher!

2 comments:

  1. When I first started the graduate program, I had a meltdown the first day because I didn't understand half the jargon that was in the syllabus. I called my sister who works in the school teacher crying because I didn't know what the word pedagogy was. I hate to admit that now because I use it regularly. I struggled with the concept of being labeled dumb my entire life. I was always in the slower classes, but that was because I was placed in those classes when I was five and never given any opportunity to move until I switched schools. I think confidence is something everyone struggles with. Something I always try to keep in mind is that I wouldn't be in this class right now if I didn't do something right education wise.

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  2. Your comment about people complaining on Facebook made me laugh. I was just saying something similar the other day. When I joined Facebook almost 10 years ago, it was so different. Now, people use it to air their dirty laundry, which gets pretty annoying. I’m new to blogging, too. Hopefully we learn some new things that we can use in our classrooms!

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