Blog Post #2

In what ways is the school in which you are serving similar to or different from schools in the earlier periods of history in the United States?

The school I served in this semester was interesting to see the similarities to other schools I had been in as well as differences, especially from the time I attended school.

Provost Elementary seemed to have the same structure as many other elementary schools, there were pods of desks, art work on the walls, teacher interacting throughout the classroom, lines of children going to and from different specialty classes (music, PE, library etc). These everyday routine things reminded me of my school days.  There were however a lot of differences.

In this school, there were plenty of Smart Boards on the wall, Apple computers in each classroom, and iPads ready for the disposal of each class, the use of technology was a theme I gathered from the Provo School District. The school itself could easily use the funding to update the school or update books, but it was used for technology. Much like funding for math and science skyrocketed during the Space Race of the 1950’s and 60’s, I can see that funding is pushing for the advancement in technology in the classroom.

Technology is growing, every single day, and kids are more technologically savvy then they ever have been in the past. I think the use of technology is great, the downside I saw was that the Smart Board was never used, the iPads never used, and the computers used for math games. I think that a lot of the problem there was the possibility that the teacher wasn’t being adequately trained on the technology, having been a teacher for years prior, the use of technology wasn’t necessary.I found it interesting to me that depending on the District, County, State, funding goes to whatever will push the student to be greater, better, and above the rest.

Blog Post #1

What developmental differences do you see in the children in the classroom?

When it came to developmental differences in Mrs. C's first grade class, I noticed it when it came when the class broke up into math stations. The class was broken up into four stations, one consisted of computer games, a progressively challenging work sheet front and back, a worksheet which included an interactive coloring activity and then one-on-one time with the teacher. The stations were broken into 15 minute intervals and my job was to observe and help students in the three stations who needed help, but also help those stay on task.

I noticed very quickly the students that needed my attention no matter what station they happen to be in and the ones who were capable of reading directions and completing the tasks at hand. The students who struggled I was able to apply the three basic fundamentals of learning: audio, visual and kinesthetic. there were about three students who as I held up fingers and counted with them to find the solutions to their issues with basic subtraction, others I had draw circles and cross them out in order to solve the equation and the other two or three I had them count backward out loud to get the answer. So the use of the three learning modules helped me understand how much each person learns differently at different paces. As one group demanded my attention there was another group who was able to complete all tasks with no help at all.

I was also able to see firsthand the issues associated with ADHD, growing up I saw this with all of my brothers, but growing up and not being around that as much seeing it in a classroom setting was interesting to try and help this student focus on his task. I needed to get him to be visually stimulated, if I had left him alone to read his worksheet he began to worry and stress about other students and what they were doing OR not doing. By focusing on trying to get this student to visually focus and using drawings, hands and writing this helped him focus on his task at hand, it also helped more students who were also visual learners understand what they were being asked to do.

I noticed through this weeks module that humans are different. I had always considered myself a visual learner, but realized that I can apply myself and learn in many ways, by knowing this I was able to see the importance of all learning styles in a classroom and understand that by mixing up learning techniques helps achieve a lot more than sticking to one teaching method.