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Wrapping Everything Up

May 2nd, 2022

This blog concludes my ISM journey as the year is coming to an end. This past week we had our Final Presentation Night for ISM. Everything went very smoothly for my presentation, and I am very proud of my presenting skills. I was pleased to have my family and friends show up to support me, and it was overall a great night and a good ending to my ISM journey. ISM has been an amazing opportunity and I am so glad I got the chance to take the class. It has not only grown me professionally, but has allowed me to excel in my personal skills. I have made great connections that will be an asset to me long term. The skills I have acquired from this class will take me far in life whether it be job interviews, opportunities in college, small talk, student teacher placement, ect. I am sad that the class is over, yet I think I got a lot out of it and worked hard throughout the year. My Original Work and Final Product's both turned out great and the research I put into them taught me a lot. As I wrap the year up, I hope to take what I have learned in ISM and implement it into my future career as an elementary teacher.

 

Finished Final Product

April 18th, 2022

I am so happy to have completed my final product in ISM! I have worked very hard this whole semester gathering data, research, and putting it all together. I am very pleased with the final result of my presentation, it turned out great! I created a presentation that I believe really highlights the importance of implementing non-traditional learning strategies into the classroom. I think that If I did get the opportunity to present it to upper administration, they would really take my ideas into consideration. I am very excited for Ms. Wood, my mentor, to see my presentation because she may be able to add some of my strategies into her own classroom for next year. This past week in ISM, I gave my Final Presentation Night Speech and I think it went very well; which makes me excited to present it for the real thing. Unfortunately due to timing, I can't insert my entire Final Product into my Final Presentation, but I do get to talk about the highlights, which is good enough for my audience to understand the concept. I am very happy to be entering the end of ISM, I am very proud of everything I have been able to accomplish. 

 

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Constructing my Presentation 

April 4th, 2022

This week is the last week before our final products are due. Thus meaning I need to work on planning what I am going to say and show during my presentation. I am going to make a slideshow to help illustrate my findings and I will need to make sure to have an outline for what I am going to say during my speech. Since I have already given presentations, I am going to use the same introduction that I have been using since the beginning of the year. I want to make sure I highlight the background behind why I am interested in becoming a teacher, and include the steps it took to get me to where I am now. I will touch on the interviews I had, and talk a little about my mentor. I then plan to move into talking about how I constructed my original work. Finally, I will speak about the research I conducted for my final product, and what I learned throughout it. I will explain how important it is to implement non-traditional teaching strategies into the classroom. I will also use the knowledge from my mentor visit experiences to highlight how it can benefit students. 

 

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Research Videos

March 28th, 2022

I spent some time researching about non-traditional techniques in the classroom, and came across some really informative videos discussing examples and past experiences teachers have had while using them. The first video I watched was on a Ted Talk given by Kayla Delzer, and it was about "Reimagining Classrooms." I absolutely loved this speech and took so many notes about it. Kayla had some amazing viewpoints on rearranging a classroom's learning environment, and gave a bunch of great strategies to use in your own classroom. One of my favorite topics she discussed was about "Embracing Purposeful Technology." This basically means that if an assignment is boring to do on paper, it's still going to be boring to do on an IPad. She goes into depth about how she uses technology with a purpose in her classroom, and gives suggestions about how we can too. The second video I watched focused on flexible seating. It focused in on a school from Albemarle County, and used them as an example to teach about the benefits of flexible seating. One important strategy I took away from this video is that you tell a student to "sit where you work best." This way it doesn't force a child to use flexible seating if they don't want to, but also it allows other students to move around and work where they feel the most comfortable and where they feel they can get the most work done. 

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Observing Flexible Seating

March 21st, 2022

Last week I was able to schedule in two mentor visits with Ms. Wood. I did this so that I could get the opportunity to catch up on my final product calendar since I felt I was a little bit behind schedule. These two mentor visits were a huge step in my research because I was finally able to witness flexible seating in a classroom with my own eyes. Doing this allowed me to observe how the students react, how their behavior is affected, if they pay closer attention to their assignments, ect. I was excited to finally see how flexible seating can benefit a classroom. My observations did conclude that he flexible seating was a bit of a distraction for some students; however, I think this was the case mainly because the kids aren't as used to it. Since they have not really been introduced to flexible seating before, many of them got excited and chatted with their friends more than they worked on their assignment. I am hoping that as I observe more this week, the students will have become more used to the concept so I can actually see the benefits and results of implementing flexible seating into the classroom. 

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Game Plan for Finishing Final Product

March 14th, 2022

Over spring break, I took a detailed look at what I am hoping to accomplish in my Final Product, and what I still need to do or work on in order to accomplish this. I also planned out what I am going to do during my mentor visits this week. I realized that I am a little behind schedule, and not at the point of my data that I wish I was. This meaning, I decided it would be in my best interest to schedule two mentor visits this week so that I can hopefully catch up on my observations of flexible seating in the classroom. Before spring break, I spoke with Ms. Wood about implementing various flexible seating in the classroom to see how the students react, and she was totally on board. My first mentor visit this week is tomorrow (Tuesday) and we are going to give one table in the classroom flexible seating chairs and I will take notes and observe how it affects their behavior, attention span, work ethic, ect. After I finally get finished recording my data, I can begin working on my final presentation speech; which is the final part of my final product. In the speech/presentation it will include all the research and data I have conducted over this past year. 

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Begin Adding my Final Product Into the Classroom

February 28th, 2022

I realized that I need to begin working more diligently on my Final Product work. Up until this point I have conducted good research on non-traditional techniques to implement into a classroom, focusing on flexible seating. The information I read about has given me a good overall understanding, and I feel that I am ready to start adding these techniques into my mentorship classroom. I am trying to schedule two mentor visits for this week since I didn't get the opportunity to have one last week due to the ice storm. I am hoping that by having two visits, it will allow me to catch up on my Final Product work. I am going to spend a lot of my time this week observing the students who use flexible seating, and take notes on how it affects their attention span and overall work ethic. Ms. Wood already has a variety of flexible seating options in her classroom, so it will be easy for me to observe how each method of seating affects each student. At the end of the week, after I have completed my observations, I will get together with Ms. Wood so that she can help me decide what the next steps should be. 

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Spelling Test

February 21st, 2022

This past Thursday during my mentor visit, my mentor had me give the class their weekly spelling test. I was so excited when she assigned me this task because I think giving spelling tests is so fun. I made sure to clarify with Ms. Wood exactly how she reads them off to the students, so that I could give the test exactly the way the kids are used to. Ms. Wood explained to me that she typically goes down the list of the regular spelling words, says the word twice, and then says the word in a sentence. After she completes the 10 words, she does the same thing with the 5 challenge words. When I read the test to the students, I made sure that I was using a clear voice and made up good sentences that went along with the spelling words. Overall, I am proud of myself and think that I did a good job. In addition to giving the test, Ms. Wood also asked if I would grade them. Of course I was happy to do so. Unlike other teachers, I find it fun to grade students work. I find it interesting to look at each students penmanship and see what each of them needs addition help with. 

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Flexible Seating Research 

February 14th, 2022

For for research assessment last week, I decided to continue searching for information to include in my Final Product. First I started off my search very wide, searing for non-traditional methods of teaching and its benefits. Once I realized the information that was showing up wasn't necessarily what I was looking for, I realized I needed to narrow my search. So I decided to focus on one aspect of non-traditional teaching that I know I wanted to learn more about because I want to make it one of the main topics in my final presentation. Flexible seating is such an amazing non-traditional technique that many teachers have implemented into their classrooms because of the great benefits it has on the kids and teachers. My article proved that flexible seating helps students focus more in school. Kids feel more comfortable because they get to pick their work space, and this leads to them being better listeners and staying more on task. In the article many real life teachers quote how amazing flexible seating has gone in their classroom, and how they recommend it to everyone. I loved getting to read this article because it makes a great stepping stone to build on for my final product. 

 

Preparing for The Research Showcase

February 7th, 2022

This upcoming week I am going to do a lot of preparation for the research showcase that we have coming up this month. Last week, coach Goff handed out our invitations that came in from the printer, and this week I am going to mail them out. I have brainstormed who I want to invited to the showcase; my teachers, parents, friends, old teachers and a few of my moms friends who want to learn more about ISM so they can possibly add a similar program to their school. The invitations turned out so good, and I'm sure people will be interested in coming to the showcase. A couple of weeks ago, I had planned out what my display board is going to look like, but this week I get to construct it together. I think my plan is to work on the parts during class tomorrow, so that I can put it all on the board Wednesday, and have it ready to go for class on Thursday. My vision is to make the board very vibrant and exciting to look at. I want it to catch peoples attention when they walk by it. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and I can be prepared for the showcase!

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Teaching Grammar Lesson this week

January 31st, 2022

Last week at my mentor visit, when I was leaving, Ms. Wood mentioned to me that she would send me the lesson plans for the upcoming week. This morning I received an email from her that contained the writing lesson and the grammar activity that the kids are going to do on Wednesday. This week I am scheduled to have my mentor visit on Wednesday during the students writing block. In the email, Ms. Wood asked me if I would like to teach the grammar lesson on Wednesday! I am super excited that she is already having me teach small lessons, and sending me the weekly lesson plans is so helpful. I am already very grateful for the way that she is already handling this mentorship. So, this Wednesday I am going to teach the class a grammar lesson on "adverbs." I am going to prepare by reviewing adverbs and making practice sentences for the lesson. Since I am going to be giving the kids a sentence containing an adverb and their job is to create a new sentence that mimics mine. I am interested to see how students do with adverbs, since it is something I used to struggle with understanding when I was in elementary school. 

Beginning My Final Product

January 24th, 2022

Last week in ISM, we began determining what we wanted to do for our Final Product; and then completing a proposal and calendar schedule for getting it done over the next few months. At first I was struggling with an idea about what I should do for my final product, but then I was able to talk with Coach Goff and we brainstormed some ideas about what I could do. I decided I wanted to do research and conduct findings over non-traditional ways that allow students to perform better academically. Thus meaning that I will look deeper into the positive effects of having flexible seating in the classroom, benefits of teachers assigning less/no homework, how a shorter school day could increase a child's attention span in the classroom, ect. During this project I will be able to both find research about how these methods benefit students, but I can also test the results using my mentorship classroom. This will allow me to use the information that I gather online and see if the results are true for my class. I will work with my mentor, Ms. Wood, and together we will be able to hopefully benefit our classroom of students. I am looking forward to working on my final product because I think the information I find could really benefit a lot of students. 

First Mentor Visit

January 17th, 2022

This past Friday I had my first mentor visit with Ms. Wood! Overall, the meeting went very smoothly and we accomplished everything I had intended to. We were able to work out a schedule for future visits; we came to the conclusion that me coming once a week, alternating Tuesday's and Wednesdays is the best option. On Tuesdays, I will come during my soccer study hall period so that I can experience Reading, and then on Wednesdays I will go during my ISM class period and witness Writing. We established a dress code for me when I come, I will just be wearing jeans and either an Allen or FHS T-shirt or a sweater. Ms. Wood has been super sweet throughout this whole process, and I know that she is going to make this semester so much fun! I am ready to dive into working with her and the kids each week. All the children in Ms. Woods homeroom class are kids who just switches to in person school since online learning is no longer offered. This meaning they all haven't been to in person learning in about two years, so It's going to be interesting to see how online learning has affected them. I am excited to finally get to introduce myself to the kids next week so that I can get to know them better, while they get to know more about me. 

Preparing For My First Mentor Visit

January 10th, 2022

This Friday I have my very first mentor visit with Mrs. Wood. She teaches a classroom of fourth graders reading and writing at Allen Elementary. I am more than excited to spend time with her, hopefully learning how to become a better teacher myself. Since this will be our first meeting together, I plan on just going over the basics. The first thing on my agenda that we need to discuss is working out a schedule for future meeting dates. Since the high school has an A-day, B-day schedule, it will most likely be easiest to meet every Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on which week it is. I will need to talk this over with Mrs. Wood so that we can be on the same page, but this is my mindset going into the meeting. I will also need to talk to her about proper dress code for when I come to visit. Last year when I did my student teacher class, I wore jeans and either a FHS or Allen Elementary T-shirt, or a simple blouse. I am hoping the dress code will be similar this year because it is what most teachers in the workplace also wear so it makes the most sense. I am very excited that I am finally in the second semester of this class so the real fun of going on mentor visits can finally begin!

Completed My Original Work Project

December 13th, 2021

I am so happy to finally turn in and be done working on my Original Work Project. After months of doing research, brainstorming ideas, constructing activities, and more, it is finally complete. I am overjoyed with the way it turned out, I think the final outcome looks even better than I could have imagined. My final product was made on a brochure using Canva, it was ocean-themed to relate to my Aquarium Field Trip. The design of my brochure was very well put together, it was all blue and green themed to match the ocean water, and it had a variety of pictures that included different forms of ocean life. I think that I did a good job representing my research and conclusions through my original work, it is evident that I put a lot of effort into making it. My main focus was creating activities that can be beneficial to a variety of different learnings. To do this, I created activities designed by focusing on one multiple intelligence. In my original work, I made sure to explain what the Multiple Intelligences are so that way readers can better understand my project's purpose. Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of my original work, and I hope it can inspire other teachers to branch out with their lesson plans to create more fun activities like the ones I came up with. 

Week Back From Break

January 4th, 2022

This past week we had been on Winter Break. It was very nice to have a relaxing break from school and everything else that had been stressing me out. During the time I got to relax, it allowed me to catch up on some things and brainstorm how I want my second semester of senior year to go. For most people this is the time of year that most seniors begin to give up, and I am hoping that will not be me. I am hoping that in ISM, I get to start going on mentor visits soon so that I can further my knowledge about the field of education through a hands on learning experience. I know that the sooner I can get into the classroom, the better. I am more than excited to spend the second semester learning in the classroom of some very sweet elementary students. I am also very anxious to learn from my mentor, I’m sure she has some excellent insight into the education field. I plan on emailing my mentor this week and trying to schedule a visit within the next couple of weeks. We had said we would start working together after break, so I am excited to reach out to her and get started. Overall, I am more than happy to be back so that I can get my mentorship going!

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Research Speech

November 15th, 2021

This past week I was preparing to give a speech to my ISM class about the research I have been conducting thus far. This included telling what I learned through my research interviews, the various articles I have read, and the information I have absorbed from it all. I had to create a slideshow representing key details and pictures about this information to show during my presentation. I made sure to include specific information about each person I interviewed, each topic I conducted research on, and how I planned to use it all in the future. I gave the speech today in class, and I feel like I did fairly well. I did a good job explaining my interviews in detail and highlighting the main concepts I got out of each one. I then explained how it all related back to my original work project, which I am currently using all this new knowledge to work on. One thing I need to work on when giving speeches is to not use as many "filler words." When I lose my train of thought or get nervous, I use these a lot and it distracts from my presentation. Overall, I think I did a good job presenting my research speech and I hope my class got an idea about what to expect from my original work. 

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Building the Layout of My Original Work

November 29th, 2021

During Thanksgiving break, I was able to spend some time working on my Original Work project. Now that I have finished my research, and gathered ideas for activities, it is finally time to begin working on my brochure. The brochure will help to show all the research and information I have acquired during this assignments process. Instead of going straight to working on the final brochure, I thought it would first be a good idea to plan it out, determine what information is going to be represented on each side of the paper. So, this past week I worked on getting a layout of my brochure set up on Google Slides. I made sure to plan out exactly where I want to put all of the information to make it most appealing to the eye, and make the most sense of where to be placed. I was able to complete the layout, cover page, and Field Trip page about the Dallas Aquarium. I will continue to work on the layout this week, making it as colorful and creative as possible. My goal is to have the layout on Google Slides finished by the weekend so that next week I can construct the final product and have it finished. â€‹

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Determining Activities 

December 6th, 2021

During my ISM class period today, I had the opportunity to continue working on my Original Work project. In an effort to make it as effective as possible, I have done extensive research looking for fun activities I can do with my students that include the topic of a Field Trip to the Aquarium. Throughout my research, I have come across websites that include a variety of ideas for Field Trip activities that I have either used or they have allowed me to brainstorm for other ideas. During class today, as I was writing down my activities, so I could better visualize them, I realized I needed to do a little more research. I wanted to search for fun worksheets that included the Aquarium or Field Trips. I remembered a website that my mentor from last year used to use for lesson plan activities and thought I would see if it had any good ideas. After going on "Teachers Pay Teachers," I discovered some fun worksheets and ideas for activities for my students to complete after taking a trip to the Aquarium. I found an engaging worksheet that allowed my students to draw a picture of their favorite animal they observed, and then describe it to me in a paragraph. I am excited to finish up my Original Work project this week and hope everything goes out smoothly. 

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Activities For My Original Work Project

November 1st, 2021

My original work project has been coming along nicely! As I continue to research more information regarding the Dallas Aquarium, field trips, and the multiple intelligences, my knowledge expands and I am able to come up with more activities for my students to do during my lesson plan. I am focused on making the assignments engaging and fun, instead of just doing boring worksheets. The article I did research on this past week was extremely helpful because it had some great ideas for incorporating activities that would help to keep the students engaged and focused. I had originally not thought about doing assignments before the field trip, but this article persuaded me to believe that would be a good idea. Simple activities such as having the students explore the Dallas Aquarium website, or making sure they know how to properly write about observations are two examples of activities I am going to do prior to taking the kids on the field trip. In addition to doing activities before the visit, I have now incorporated some super fun assignments the students will do while we're at the Aquarium. For example, having the students do a version of a scavenger hunt would be able to keep them engaged while involving the kinesthetic multiple intelligence. Now that I have a few activities planned out, I can begin working on making them for the end product of my original work. 

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Strategies to Help Kids Increase Their Attention Span

November 8th, 2021

This past week I decided to branch away from research for my Original Work project just a little, and research ways to keep a child's attention during a lesson. Although this doesn't directly relate to the Aquarium or the Multiple Intelligences, I think it is still useful in my original work because I learned some techniques to keep my students focused which will come in handy during the field trip and when I am trying to go over instructions for their activities. A common factor between a lot of the suggested strategies was to take breaks and do the lesson/work in chunks. An example of this would be to take small breaks where students can do some sort of physical activity. Doing something as simple as 10 jumping jacks during the middle of a lesson can help get the student's blood pumping so they regain their energy and aren't falling asleep while you're teaching. Another technique that I think would be effective would be to break up the student's work into sections. Spreading out their assignments throughout the day could allow them to not get discouraged and keep them more focused while working on each piece of work. This article was great to read because now I have some great strategies to try to help keep my students attention focused throughout the day. 

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Reading about the Aquarium

October 25th, 2021

For one of my assessments this past week, I decided to do a research assessment on the Dallas Aquarium. I researched and browsed through many websites and articles that discussed the information relevant to field trips for classes to the Aquarium. I found a lot of good information including ticket prices, how to schedule events, what kinds of animals will be on the tour, and much more helpful information. Researching these kinds of things will be a huge help for my original work project. Now that I know a little more about the Aquarium, I can begin to brainstorm activities my students could do with the information they learned and saw on the field trip. It was great to learn that the Aquarium not only shows ocean life animals but a variety of other kinds of species. This will allow me to make fun comparing and contrasting assignments between the different habitats. Also, I can have the students make a chart and write down observations they see about the animals at each exhibit. After reading more information about the Dallas Aquarium, I am very excited to begin working on my lesson plan activities for my original work because I have some great ideas flowing. 

Original Work Preparation

October 18th, 2021

As I have begun working on my original work project, I have noticed that I need to conduct more research before I can fully begin. My original work includes me making a brochure that discusses 4 out of the 8 multiple intelligences. In my project I will be explaining the different types of multiple intelligences and how they can each be effective for a student. In my project I am taking a class of students on a pretend field trip to the Dallas Aquarium. Using this field trip I will be coming up with activities that the students can do using 4 of the multiple intelligences that I have selected to focus on in my project. As I was beginning to work on my original work, I realized that I needed to do further research on the Dallas Aquarium as well as refreshing my memory about the multiple intelligences. I need to figure out how to plan a field trip for a class of students, and what would be available to us on the trip. Also, I need to search for some fun activities the students could do that relate to each multiple intelligence, I want them to be engaging yet informative to learning about the Aquarium. 

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Business Symposium

October 11th, 2021

This Past Thursday, all the students who are involved in ISM from Frisco ISD got to attend a Business Symposium. It was such an amazing opportunity to get to go and listen to a variety of professionals speak about their careers and answer any questions we might have had. It was also very encouraging to hear from adults who were ISM alumni. They told us how incredible ISM is for our future, and how the things you learn in this class really put you ahead of the game in the real world. One of my favorite speakers was a woman who is a professional therapist. She had us do an activity where we had to draw a lantern and write out the main word that we felt controlled our life. Then we had to label the different parts of the lantern, like the handle, with people whom we felt were involved in this part of our life, things we feel we need to work on, etc. I enjoyed this speaker because she was very engaging and I feel like I was able to take something away from her session. Overall, the Business Symposium was a great opportunity, I was able to hear many answers to questions from different professionals. It was good to hear a variety of opinions about the business world.  

Preparing for My Interview

September 27th, 2021

I am very excited to have my first interview this Wednesday, September 29th. I am meeting with a teacher who works at Allen Elementary in 5th grade. After emailing back and forth a couple of times, we found a date and time that works best for us. She seems very nice and appears to be interested in the ISM program. As I prepare for my interview, I am a little nervous about meeting with her. I have my interview questions ready and plan to do a couple practice interviews with my parents this week so that I can be prepared for Wednesday. I need to make sure that I have my professional suit ready by Tuesday night, and wake up with enough time to get ready Wednesday morning so that I am not stressed or rushed. I plan to eat a good breakfast before my interview so that I can put all my focus on the teacher. I will ask her if I can record the interview so that I can go back and takes notes on it later. I feel this way would be better for me so that I can focus all my attention on the interview and not worry about taking notes while we're talking. I feel if I do all these things, I will be prepared for my interview and everything should go smoothly. 

First Interview

October 4th, 2021

This past week I got to have my first interview with a 5th grade teacher. From the moment we introduced ourselves, I could tell she was such a sweet lady, and she really cared for her job. Her classroom was very cute and well organized. During our interview I asked her a variety of questions about what her job is like, why she wanted to become a teacher, classroom management skills she has, and many more interesting conversation starters. One thing she said that really stuck out to me was when she mentioned that "structure and organization is key for success." She seemed very passionate that keeping a structured classroom can lead to a positive outcome and overall better experience with the students. Since the woman has kids of her own, both in elementary school, it is evident that she knows how to deal with children around their age. This teacher was very enthusiastic and appeared to be someone who really cares about her kids and wants to see them succeed, which is exactly how I strive to be when I am a teacher. The uplifting atmosphere in her classroom is very welcoming and causes me to believe that she would make an excellent mentor. 

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Searching for a Mentor

September 20th, 2021

I am ready to get back into the classroom so that I can have hands-on experience with teaching kids; however, I need a mentor in order to do this. As I've began searching for people to Interview, It is a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. My mentor from last year was very helpful and gave me a list of teachers names who she thinks would be a good fit for me this year. My goal is to find a mentor who teaches at Allen Elementary. I specifically want to have a mentor from there because I really enjoy everything about this school. It makes for a good experience because it is the elementary school I used to attend and it is fun to talk with the staff who still works there from when I was a student. Also, it is a convenient drive and I have previously built relationships with the staff, so they know who I am and what I do there. I have reached out to the list of teachers, and am anxiously awaiting their response. I hope to teach in either a 4th or 5th grade class so that I can gain experience from a new age group. I hope that by the end of this week I will have scheduled my first interview, so that I can actually begin the process of finding a mentor. 

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The Career of an Elementary School Teacher

September 13th, 2021

I was able to do a broad research on what the career of an elementary school teacher really entails. I found an article that goes into detail about the job outlook, salary and the degrees that are best associated with elementary school teaching. I found it very entertaining and beneficial to read; it taught me new information about the job that I had not known before. Also, it was able to widen my understanding on aspects of the career I thought I knew all about. It allowed me to wonder which degree I will want to get when I go to college. The article listed all the benefits of a Bachelor's vs. Master's degree in Elementary Education. Whereas it also listed information about getting your teacher certification and the advantages of getting a second major in a specific subject you may want to teach. I am now thinking that I may want to get a masters in Elementary Education and have an additional major in mathematics, because it is my favorite subject to teach. After all this research I learned that I want to discover more about the salary, degrees, job responsibilities, ect of a teacher who works at a public school compared to one at a private school. Since my mom currently works at a private school, I have always wondered if that is what I want to do as well when I get older. Overall, the article I researched was incredibly eye opening and got me very excited for what my future entails.   â€‹

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Covid's Effects on Education

September 6th, 2021

This past week I had my first assessment in ISM. I researched and found an article that went into detail about how covid had an impact on the education system. It was very entertaining and informative to read, because as someone who got to experience both the teacher and student side of covid last year, I could agree with all the article had to say. As a student teacher I got to experience kids who really fell behind while they had to do school at home. It was sad to watch because some of their other classmates were much farther along than they were. Reading the article amazed me when it discussed how much learning student's had lost because of covid. It makes me wonder if and when student's will be able to catch up on the learning they missed out on. In addition, this week I made interview questions that I will get to ask in my future interviews. Making these questions allowed my mind to wander about what my future mentor's answers to some of my questions will be. I'm excited to hear about personal experience they might've had and some advice they wish they might have known as they went through the process of becoming a teacher themselves. I am anxious to begin reaching out and looking for people to interview so that I can begin my ISM journey as soon as possible!

First ISM Speech

August 30th, 2021

I knew coming into ISM that there was going to be a lot of public speaking involved. This typically doesn't frighten me, because as a teacher I will be having to present a lot of lesson plans to my future students. However, I was a little nervous about giving my first ever speech in ISM. I did a lot of preparation for it, and I am pleased to say that I think it went well. Presenting my topic to the class made me even more excited to get going on my journey through ISM. I am so excited to be studying Elementary Education this year! When I was preparing my speech, it made me question what exactly I wanted to focus on this year. That's when I decided I want to learn more about which ways students learn information the best; which is what I am planning do more research on this year. Hearing everyone else's speeches was so fun and interesting because I feel like I got to know my classmates even better. Hearing them talk with such passion about their topics, made me so excited to get to know them on a more personal level throughout this upcoming year. 

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