Hello fellow classmates and readers!!
I am super excited to finally start a blog where I can post journal thoughts and ideas regarding my teaching philosophies and practices. Hopefully, by doing this, I will inspire those who read these experiences and thoughts and either leave comments (advice of when they tried or what happened when he or she implemented something similar in their classroom, etc.). We are so lucky to live in an age where we can share ideas and learn in a global community (although it can be treacherous sometimes to weed through the jumbled mess!).
About me: Teaching is something my mom always told me I should do, and all the personality tests I have taken through out high school, college and post-college put me in the category with teaching as the highest. Well, I had different plans: I wanted to go into medicine or Physical Therapy and be an innovator in the Mind-Body Medicine world (thus why my other blog is about Mind-Body philosophy and all my undergraduate research/major is titled "Mind-Body Connection". My love for medicine and medical research is still very much alive. Now, as a 7th grade Life Science teacher, I hope to spread that love and passion to better medicine and ask pressing questions of practices implemented in today's world to try and improve upon them; new discoveries are made by trying new ways different than the old ways (input Einsteins definition of idiocy here).
So far in my teaching, my inspirations come from Judy Logan, author of "Teaching Stories" (2008) and a middle school social science teacher in a rough neighborhood of San Francisco, that pushed back against the traditional way of teacher-directed learning to allow her students to experience self (student)-directed learning. I am very fortunate to be in a department that fosters self-discovery within safe limits, like Judy Logan does. I want to encourage my students to get out and learn. If they have questions, I want to say "yes" (within reason) if I am already controlling a variable. Example: a student mentioned a biology course he took over the summer that required them to compare lake water organisms to the fountain water at the school he was at and he found more rubber particles and living organisms in the drinking fountain! Now, I wasn't there to control the variables, however, I thought this was be an awesome experiment to try in our class since we are learning about microscopes. I pulled a few students aside that always finish first, who were already looking bored, and gave them 4 beakers: 2 to test two different fountains around school, 1 to test the hose water outside the classroom, and one from my Brita water filter that is fed by the sink water at the lab tables (still gross!). They found soooo many cool organisms from the hose water!! Other students were inspired and gathered their own specimens (dead small spider, decomposing leaf, hair follicles). I finally brought lens paper, microscope slides, cover slips and medicine droppers to life after testing them on those lab tools the last few weeks!! It was a great moment to be a teacher this morning and I am happy to share my inspiration with you.
I am super excited to finally start a blog where I can post journal thoughts and ideas regarding my teaching philosophies and practices. Hopefully, by doing this, I will inspire those who read these experiences and thoughts and either leave comments (advice of when they tried or what happened when he or she implemented something similar in their classroom, etc.). We are so lucky to live in an age where we can share ideas and learn in a global community (although it can be treacherous sometimes to weed through the jumbled mess!).
About me: Teaching is something my mom always told me I should do, and all the personality tests I have taken through out high school, college and post-college put me in the category with teaching as the highest. Well, I had different plans: I wanted to go into medicine or Physical Therapy and be an innovator in the Mind-Body Medicine world (thus why my other blog is about Mind-Body philosophy and all my undergraduate research/major is titled "Mind-Body Connection". My love for medicine and medical research is still very much alive. Now, as a 7th grade Life Science teacher, I hope to spread that love and passion to better medicine and ask pressing questions of practices implemented in today's world to try and improve upon them; new discoveries are made by trying new ways different than the old ways (input Einsteins definition of idiocy here).
So far in my teaching, my inspirations come from Judy Logan, author of "Teaching Stories" (2008) and a middle school social science teacher in a rough neighborhood of San Francisco, that pushed back against the traditional way of teacher-directed learning to allow her students to experience self (student)-directed learning. I am very fortunate to be in a department that fosters self-discovery within safe limits, like Judy Logan does. I want to encourage my students to get out and learn. If they have questions, I want to say "yes" (within reason) if I am already controlling a variable. Example: a student mentioned a biology course he took over the summer that required them to compare lake water organisms to the fountain water at the school he was at and he found more rubber particles and living organisms in the drinking fountain! Now, I wasn't there to control the variables, however, I thought this was be an awesome experiment to try in our class since we are learning about microscopes. I pulled a few students aside that always finish first, who were already looking bored, and gave them 4 beakers: 2 to test two different fountains around school, 1 to test the hose water outside the classroom, and one from my Brita water filter that is fed by the sink water at the lab tables (still gross!). They found soooo many cool organisms from the hose water!! Other students were inspired and gathered their own specimens (dead small spider, decomposing leaf, hair follicles). I finally brought lens paper, microscope slides, cover slips and medicine droppers to life after testing them on those lab tools the last few weeks!! It was a great moment to be a teacher this morning and I am happy to share my inspiration with you.
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