Last day of class today! This week has been so busy for me, but I finally finished my online portfolio :) I think it looks pretty good and Im definetly glad to have it as another reference for the future! Now just putting together what exactly I need to say for my presentation today and a little bit more blogging to do!

So this past week/weekend has been really busy since the last class we had on Wednesday. Im working basically all day everyday and have had a nasty cold the past few days. I feel like everything goes on or happens right when you have big projects due at school. Oh well, in spite of my illness and business, Ive been able to work on my capstone project quite a bit. Im doing the Online Portfolio. Its coming along pretty well, about a 1/3 of the way done :) I think the hardest thing Im finding is putting all the thoughts, goals, and philosophies that are in my head down in a written format. But it's coming along! So crazy that this class will all be done here in a few days! This semester and summer has flown by so fast already!

Wow, this spring semester has flown by so fast! There's only like a week and a half left to our class! Anyways, I'm almost done testing out the modules we need to do this week. Overall I think they've been designed very well and you can tell people have put lots of time and effort into making their weeblys and modules. I thought the personality test was pretty accurate when I took it. I got Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging. I was kinda shocked by Judging because I don't see my self as judgmental towards people at all and thats what I thought the test meant by judging, but it didn't :) It meant more of being a perfectionist and staying firm in beliefs/ values and taking responsibilities for your choices. Although I felt it was accurate, at the same time I feel like I can be part of both sides of the four categories depending on the situation. I think everyone is like that though as well.

Congrats!!!

So I know this post doesn't have a whole lot to do with our class, but it does have to deal with education and what we'll all have to be doing here in a few semesters/years.... student teaching!!! I just wanted to say congrats to my wonderful fiance Bryan for finishing his last day of student teaching today! I know some of you won't care about this post or might just see it as a way to brag, but I think everyone should be proud of someone when they accomplish student teaching, its alot of work! Bryan attend EMU for his Special Education teaching degree, specifically in Cognative Impairments. Im not sure if at UofM students have to do this, but if you are studying special education at EMU you have to do 2 student teachings. This normally means you spend a whole school year doing your student teaching! Thankfully though through some connections and being denied multiple times, Bryan was finally accepted into an accelerated program in which he would do his regular classroom teaching and then his special education teaching back to back in a consecutive 20 week span, ten weeks for each one. So today was his last official day of those 20 weeks :) Im so proud of all the hard work he's put into this! Not only did he teach every weekday, he also worked practically ever week night after teaching and then worked the entire weekend. I have no idea how he fit time in for everything (Well actually I do, he prolly hasn't slept more than 4 or 5 hours each night since 20 weeks ago).

I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting both of the classrooms he worked with. I got to actually seem him interact and teach a few lessons :) I first met his regular 3rd grade, 26 kid classroom on one of the last days he was with them. He did a whole unit on Native Americans of Michigan and the last day of hte unit he had a pow wow. Both my mom and I were able ot go to this because my grandmother was a full Chippewa Native American that lived on a reservation. That makes my mom half and me a quarter. So we got to go and talk to the kids about our heritage and show them lots of authentic native american items. It was also important that I went because Bryan wanted to show his students that people don't always look the way they are stereotyped (I have blonde hair and blue eyes, not a typical Native American like my mom who has black hair, tan skin, and brown eyes). So it was cool to encorporate a diversity lesson in with that. Anyways, I could just see how much the kids loved him and had grown so close to him. Some of the kids parents said their kids were almost to tears when they thought about him leaving. On the last day they had so much fun that none of them had a chance to which was very good :) I think the cutest thing though was that the last day each kid gave Bryan a hand written recommendation letter to include in his portfolio. It showed how their writing skills had improved over the ten week period as well they talked about all of the things they learned and liked about him! It was such a good idea and the best gift they could have ever given him!

Now his second student teaching was alot different then the first. Bryan was in a special ed class that had CI (cognatively impaired) and EI (emotionally impaired) students. His class had only 8 students grades K-5. Now the day I went to visit, they were making mother's day stone mosaics and Bryan was doing a science lesson. Bryan did a fantastic job helping and working with these students, but I can see that working in a Special Ed classroom isn't for everyone. Its alot harder to motivate this group of children as well as get them to pay attention for short amounts of time. There is alos a mix of learning, behavioral, and emotional issues all in one classroom. I think the hardest thing though is the relationship building with these children. You could be the worlds best, kindest, friendliest teacher and still not see any sign of connection between certain students and you. Some of them just lack the emotionality of relationship building. A big part of being a teacher for me is building relationships with your students and I would feel like a failure if the student showed me no emotion, whether it be them hating me or loving me. Bryan is a people person, but at the same time he understands these kids perfectly and works well with them.

I just have to say that I've learned alot from Bryan over these past 20 weeks, mostly about what determination and harwork really are. I've also learned so much about students with special needs. These students are overlooked alot of times. Some teachers don't have training on how to help these students when they are mainstreamed in their classroom, so they end up falling even more behind. Also, students aren't taught how to interact with these children so they either pick on them or ignore them. I just don't want to see any child at a disadvantage in life or to be left behind by the school system. Im just so happy and proud that Bryan wants to help these kids and make a difference in their lives!

So Im about to head to one of our final classes here in less than an hour. This spring semester has flown by! This is the first spring class I have ever taken, although I have enjoyed it, I've realized that they are much more work than taking the same class in a Fall or Winter semester. I feel like mostly all Ive been doing this summer is working and doing homework, but hey at least it'll be one less class I have to take in the future :)

So I handed in my portion of the learning modules last night, since I had to work early this morning. I had some troubles with weebly and rubistar, but figured out most of the quirks! Im excited to see what we'll be doing in class today. I imagine it'll have something to do with looking over each others modules and making comments or possibly doing some of them! that makes me both excited and nervous! Excited to see what people think of our modules, but yet nervous to hear what people say about it! Im a perfectionist and a people-pleaser (can't think of a better word right now) when it comes to schoolwork. I want everyone to like everything I do and how I do it, I understand the real world isn't like that so much, but I try my best. So listening to other people's criticism is hard for me, but Ive learned over the years to take it positevely and realize that the person analyzing my work is just trying to help me improve my work. So we'll see how class goes :)

So Chris and I have been working on our weeblys for our learning modules this whole past week. They've been coming along pretty well so far. Im mostly focusing on the Goals Reflection Map. In this module, the students are supposed to reflect on the personal and field related goals that they have for the future. Not only are the students supposed to think about the goals, they are also supposed to contemplate the routes in which they will fulfill those goals. Goals are accomplished through time and hard work so it's important that students realize the steps in which they need to take in order for those goals to come to life. So anyways, the students are supposed to use SpicyNodes in order to diagram their goals. I think it's coming along pretty well so far and should be failry easy, but good for the students to do.

I don't know if anyone else has had any trouble using Weebly, but I have found it quite frusturating a few times when I've been using it. I can't seem to find an undo/redo button which would be really helpful. For the longest time I was trying to do a bulleted list and it would change my whole format for the paragraph and other times delete everything I had done to that page. I think I've reposted one particular picture at least 6 times already. Luckily I've saved everything that I've posted in a Word document so nothing is lost forever when it has disappeared :)

So I'm about to head to class here in a few hours. We are officialy over halfway done with the class! Time has gone so fast and I can't believe there's only a few sessions left. Thankfully this is the only spring class I've been taking, it has taken quite a bit amount of time and effort to make sure everything is done in the right amount of time and is of good quality! I work mostly long weekends, Thursday-Monday all day, so it's been hard making sure my part of projects is done on time to hand in on Monday. But it's taught me to manage my time well and sometimes stay inside and do work instead of enjoying the nice weather outside. Excited for class tonight to see what we will be doing to improve upon our activity modules we created!