Reaching all students

As I was monitoring my Facebook feed the other day, a friend of mine shared a blog post written by a parent about what one teacher does to monitor her students' feelings of belonging and inclusion. The mother talks about how the teacher has the students anonymously list three students who they would like to sit by the next week, and how she studies those requests to see which students are not being requested to sit by who may be lonely and may need some intervention. The author artfully threw in that this teacher had been doing this with her class (I think 4th or 5th grade) every Friday since Columbine in an attempt to prevent something similar from happening again by helping lonely students before it reaches a critical point. Although the blog post provided an impressive and insightful way of information gathering, it didn't go in to much detail about how the teacher actually goes about using the information she finds.

After I read the post, I tried to comment to try to get more information, but the site continually said it wouldn't post my comment because there was some sort of error (and now, as I try to go back to the post, the host says that page doesn't exist). So, I turn to you, my cohort and other small pocket of readers, to help me think about how to answer what I would have asked the original author.

Here is what I would have commented had I been able to:
"Wow. As a preservice teacher, I found great ideas in this post. I would be very interested in hearing what she does next with those students next. How does she arrange her room to try to make those who are outcasts more involved? How does she approach those who seem to be lonely? How does she actually go about using those lists to actually help the children in need?"

So what do you think? Once we discover which students are lonely, what can we do about it as teachers?

Wading through it all

This blog was set up as a course assignment, and I have blogged as assigned periodically over the last 6 months. My posts have felt like they came very naturally as a response to something I read or experienced, yet this week seems like I have nothing useful to contribute to the great blogosphere.

I feel like there is so much information out there and being constantly added to (I actually got stuck in all of it for a few hours trying to come up with something to blog about) that I don't feel like I should always contribute to all that noise. Although I do find endless awesome sites and ideas on the internet, it can take a while to get there. Wading through all that information can be time consuming, tiring, and stressful. My technology class has been introducing great tools for finding information and sorting/filing great information, but even using all of those tools can get overwhelming at times.

My teacher says of twitter that there is just too much information out there for you to keep track of; you just need to dip your bucket into the river every once in a while to see what you can get.

Within the last couple months, I have applied this concept to my entire internet usage. I have discovered a great way to make me a happier person and reduce my stress level over finding information by stepping away from my computer much more often. A rule I have for myself is if I find myself browsing things for more than a half hour that don't help me complete an assignment for school or specifically help me do something that I'm learning to do, I need to get off the computer and do a physical activity or hobby. It has actually helped my mood and outlook on my life, and I have started doing things that make me happy rather than just looking at websites that I will probably forget about the next day.

And speaking of which, I have spent far too long on the computer today, so I shall say goodnight to the internet for tonight...well, maybe at least for a couple hours...

Day Eight: Food Journal Reflection

I have been using the MyFitnessPal calorie counting app on and off for the past year and a half, but this was the first time I dutifully used it for absolutely everything I ate for more than five days in a row. Part of why I would use it so intermittently is because of my crazy weekend eating/drinking habits. I didn’t want to acknowledge how many calories I was actually consuming on the weekend, but this forced my to acknowledge this and make some personal decisions based upon what I saw.

I decided to cut down on my drinking, not just because of this assignment, but it helped keep me accountable. It also helped finally keep myself accountable for the things I was eating; not just the amount, but also the content.

MyFitnessPal keeps track of things like sodium, fat, sugar, and vitamin content, but I hadn’t really paid too close attention to these amounts prior to this assignment. After one week of keeping track of everything, everyday, it was apparent that I wasn’t getting nearly enough vitamins and potassium, so I made that my goal/priority to make sure I was getting enough of these things in my diet. I started actually taking my daily vitamin daily and trying to eat more foods rich in potassium. While I still am having a hard time getting enough potassium, I’m generally getting better amounts of other vitamins and I am actually feeling better.

I could see food journaling activities to be potentially very beneficial for my future students. Hopefully they would be able to truly apply the activity to their lives and make reflections upon how their food affects their health much as I did. They would at least be somewhat forced to at least start seeing and thinking about the things they’re putting in their bodies.

I also feel like even if there wasn’t any time specifically dedicated to teaching health that this activity to easily be linked to other subjects individually or as the tying factor between multiple subjects. Science could be brought in in the terms of nutrition, what food is made of, and how we get energy from it. Math could be brought in for calculating the amount of calories and other nutrition facts based upon the serving size and actual portions eaten. We could also set goals and analyze the journals in writing. Social studies could even be tied in to study typical diets of different cultures. It could easily be the tying theme for all of these subjects as a nutrition unit. I hope that I will be able to use my ideas for a unit like this sometime in the future; I think the students would really learn a lot from the experience.

Day Seven: Book Discussion

I was somewhat disappointed with the very limited amount of time we got in class to talk about The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Because we were to pick a theme and create a poster on that theme in the limited amount of time, we didn't really get to discuss all that much or get in to differing opinions. One of my group members in particular had an extremely different view of the themes and events of the book due to her background, and we didn't really get to discuss our differing views while coming to a consensus for our poster. I'm looking forward to digging into the meaning in the book on my own as I write my reflection paper, but it would have been interesting to have more time to discuss as small groups and as a large group.

Third Day: Child Abuse

Since it was my third time taking a child abuse reporting course, there wasn't much content in today's class that I haven't seen.  However, it never ceases to surprise me how knowing the laws and signs and whatnot doesn't make many situations easier to determine whether there is an issue of child abuse or not. I plan to always err on the side of caution, but it's interesting how one case, of say not getting a child needed prescription glasses, can be completely different from another due to context, history, and even due to lens of observation. I know as a teacher I will always have support of my fellow teachers and administration to figure out what to make of situations, but from my experience I know it is still unnerving to always need to be watching for signs of child abuse regardless of support systems.

Second Day: Intro to Lesson Plans

In class today I learned about important things to think about and record when creating a lesson plan. One included section was academic language required for the lesson, and this was something I hadn't ever considered when thinking about lesson planning. It makes quite a bit of sense to draw attention to the terms and language that the students will be using during the lesson so that the teacher doesn't forget to emphasize new vocabulary and its meaning. Furthermore, it also draws reflection on whether there is fairly vocabulary being used that students may or may not have been exposed to yet in their lives. What an interesting thing to consider.

First Day: Initial Thoughts

We started out our class today creating a flowchart of important topics of health education. As our group started off, we initially thought of each topic and relationship linearly. We came to figure out fairly quickly that every topic and subtopic within health education is connected in an all encompassing way rather than branching linearly like we had initially thought to represent them. Physical Health cannot be completely separated from Emotional Health because things like physical exercise affects endorphin levels which directly affect ones happiness and energy levels for future exercise. One facet of health education cannot be separated without also talking about connections or effects each facet has on another. I think this will be an important idea to keep in mind for teaching topics in health.