Week 5

Learning Experiences:

For one of my learning experiences this week I have been learning about Today’s Learners. Who are they, what they need to learn the best, and how to teach them. Throughout the years the way people are learning has constantly been changing. With computers and other electronic devices today, pretty much every student has access to some kind of device and this puts the internet and the world at their finger tips. The way these kids are growing up has effected how they learn the best. These students are independent, technology driven, creative, and social. They need freedom and choices, have opportunities to work collaboratively, opportunities to create, and be able to use technology which is so much apart of them. As a teacher I need to embrace technology and not be afraid of it. I need to put it into use and provide those opportunities listed above for my students.

Outside Learning:

This week was our first week at Washington, and it was awesome. I had so much fun and learned a lot. For this month I am in a fourth grade classroom on Mondays, though only for a very short time. On Tuesdays I am in a second class for most of the day. Since Monday was not very long we did not get to do much more than observe the class. We did participate in some small reading groups but I mostly just listened in on what they were doing and read when my turn came around. However, on Tuesday we did a lot. First thing was we learned how to do ORF testing, which is Oral Reading Fluency. And we did that with the students while the teacher worked on the lesson. After that we worked on preparing things for the activities the students were going to do later. It was the 100th day of school so the students were doing a bunch of projects and activities for that. We did so much that it would be hard for me to talk about and explain it all, but it was a great experience and I cannot wait until next week.

Future classroom:

Learning about Today’s Learners will help me better understand and prepare myself to teach them. I need to know how they learn the best so that I can teach them more effectively.