Sitting here on Monday evening, I find
myself thinking about the learning that I have accomplished in the
past couple of months. Having been out of the educational environment
for so long, I was worried that I would be unable to get back into
the swing of things. The class I had this evening was my “Literacy
– The Integration of the Language Arts” and I had to give a sixty
second snapshot on the topic of shared reading. All of the
presentations for the last three classes had been power point
presentations. Me, well I am not a fan of such things. One thing that
I have taken though from my “Psycho-Social Perspective in
Education” (to be referred henceforth as Psych) learning has been
that a creative teaching approach is often more memorable that a mere
power point presentation and lecture. Tonight I prepared a ten page
children's book. I drew pictures an colored them for every page and
wrote the script that detailed the process of shared reading and also
important aspects of why it is utilized. My class and my professor
enjoyed the book and my creativity. I do not think it will be so
easily forgotten. After tonight I feel comfortable in saying that
yes, I can or have gotten back into the swing of things.
Coming from a background of the
business world, classes in my undergraduate program were all straight
up lectures that met twice a week. We were fed the information and
very little of the learning was self-driven.
My Psych class though has been a horse
of a different color. The weeks leading up to the first weekend saw
me reading like mad and taking notes and preparing my journal's AH HA
moments. Sick of those yet? Never before have I had to partake in so
much self-driven learning. Since that first weekend class I cannot
help but think of those students in India (?) who were learning from
the computer terminals. The computers acting as the experts in their
learning and giving feedback. With my journal entries and paper I
look forward to such feedback. Luckily, I was able to obtain a great
deal of feedback from students and educator during that first
weekend. Now, this may sound as though I need a lot of positive
reinforcement, but I have always been an independent worker and
self-driven, but that has never fully been applied to the scholastic
setting.
As I had mentioned, my undergraduate
studies were all driven by lectures and the occasional group project
- maybe one per class per semester. With Psych though we jumped right
in and were thrown into group learning and I loved it. Obtaining
different perspectives and ideas was amazing. The sharing of opinions
and experiences was almost more valuable to my understanding of the
classroom I will someday be in more than the actual textbook.
Do not get me wrong, I have used the
textbook to a great advantage and that along with leadership from my
instructor and assorted assignments, a fairly solid scaffolding is in
place. In many ways though, I have had to utilize personal
scaffolding to accomplish many tasks. More often than not I have been
asking myself probing questions and then seeking out the answers. My
mind just keeps trailing over to my research paper and how it had
been so long since I had written anything even remotely close to that
style. I had to keep pushing myself and asking myself how to improve
what I had written. I kept looking at the video and my paper and
asking what I missed and how could the activity been more beneficial.
At the same time though, the actual
writing of the paper was extremely difficult as has been fitting all
the work from my classes into these weeks in October. With such a
full schedule, time has become a precious commodity. Budgeting my
time between work and two classes has been trying at times. I loved
the first weekend of Psych and I took so much from that weekend. Now
though I feel as everything is being squished into just a few short
weeks. Having never taken a weekend class in my life, I was curious
how this class would proceed. While I have been able to keep pace
with the studies and learning, there is some part of me that misses
the routine of going to class each week and making the personal
connections with fellow students and professors. There was a
tremendous deal of social learning in that first weekend - I look
forward to more in the coming weekend - but I wonder how it would be
handled on a week to week basis. I am still contemplating if I like
the weekend class structure more or less than the standard weekly
classes. Perhaps the assessment will be improved and completed once
Psych comes to a close.
Learning seems to becoming fast and
furious though. Between classes, textbook readings, projects, and
research, I often find myself questioning if there is a bit of an
overload going on as concepts seem to be seeping into other facets of
my life. One of my nephews has just begun his freshman year of high
school. After I helped him with a history paper in early September –
he earned an A – he turns to me to review what he has written and
to ask questions. In place of giving him answers, I turn to more of a
system of scaffolding and asking him leading questions that have him
thinking about what he has written and how it can or should be
improved. Sometimes the required knowledge is there, but the right
questions need to be asked. Each time I sit with him I cannot help
but think of the future when I am able to help an entire classroom as
opposed to just one student.
Learning has always been something that
I have valued. The actual usage of said learning in applications of
everyday life is priceless. From the just a few short weeks of
studying learning theories and concepts I have had real life
opportunities to put them into practice. I do not think there is
anything more valuable than being able to learn and use that to
improve myself and those around me. Thank you.
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