EDUC 450 Leo

 The alterglobal movement really spoke to me as it promotes gardens on campuses to create environmental awareness while creating an environment to push STEAM initiatives. The addition of arts in STEM definitely invites a sense of balance and it is very important to know, especially with the climate change the world is going through, the importance of environmental sustainability. It was a shock reading about how the campus planners envisioned just another lecture hall but outside. With a roof, screens, sockets and everything. It really shows how far we've strayed away from our connection with nature. Where once, humans and nature co-existed, now we don't even consider nature to be part of our lives as technology continues to evolve. In addition, campuses and schools require that gardens teach the school curriculum to survive. The whole point of the garden is for it to teach the things that a whiteboard and computer can't teach. Nature takes us back to our roots and helps us...

Something I never thought I would do in a math class was draw, but doing the sit spot activity today was very eye opening. I chose to sit in front of some small trees propped up by pieces of wood planks just to enjoy the sun a bit as it was chilly. As I sat there, it finally gave me a moment to enjoy the outdoors. In this program, every second of the day has been allocated to thinking about the next assignment or just catching up on readings and sleep, but in that moment, the only thing to do was to enjoy nature. As I started drawing the scene in front of me, I realized that I not only had to know what the object looked like in my mind, but what I saw from where I was sitting. I can't see all sides of the rectangular wooden plank from where I was sitting but in my head I know what it's supposed to look like. So it was hard to draw only what I saw when I knew exactly what it was "supposed" to look like. This activity taught me two values that I forgot about while getti...

 This article resonates with me as it speaks upon very similar values to my own approaches to teaching. Open-mindedness, responsibility, and wholeheartedness are timeless and all teachers from any time should be implementing these things into their teaching. Nobody is a perfect teacher, we can always learn from new students and we will always have to adapt our teaching styles with relation to cultural and societal changes. Like in 2026, our values have shifted from in the early 20th century or even the late 19th century. I also agree that reflection on our teaching is important, but finding time to carry out these reflections seem better used adapting within the classrooms. Just like how parents develop a parent's intuition a teacher should develop these senses as they continue in their teaching career, and be able to intuitively improve their methods in accordance to their class of students. The article also happens to point directly to another problem in recent years where teache...

 From today's class my biggest takeaway was Frank McCourt's way of teaching with honesty. I always thought that being a teacher would somewhat entail being a role model for the kids, but I know myself, and I wouldn't call myself an ideal student by any means. So I would have to pretend to be an ideal teacher that sets an example for the kids to be ideal students, but this made me realize that what the students need may not be someone "perfect", but just another human being they can relate to. Someone who makes mistakes and knows what its like to be a teenager. But to what point do we want to relate to our students? Obviously we still need to keep a firm boundary of student and teacher, but at the same time, that boundary might keep some students too far away to reach. Also his approach to understanding students dislikes and rolling with them rather than fighting against it illuminates how a teacher should be flexible and not be too stubborn about one way of teachi...

 Hello everyone