Week 1: Jan 6-15

I really didn't know what to expect coming into this class and learning more about this specific subject. However, I've already learned so much since our first day of class. I love that we'll be learning about how to advocate for children's right with the law. I don't know very much about Special Education laws and their rights, so it'll be interesting to learn more in order to help fulfill their needs and reach their academic goals as a future educator.

On our second day, we learned a lot about how to not only be successful in this specific class but also for all of our classes through college. We learned about staying ahead of assignments and introducing ourselves to our professors. A really wonderful way to solidify information is to meet in study groups and immediately review information directly after class. Retention is crucial in order to build upon what we already know and store this information in our long-term memory. We also learned how to read material in a way that helps our minds summarize information and make sure that we truly understand the concepts. 

On Monday, we talked about the idea behind our concept maps and talked about our readings and what we learned from each. We identified that all our readings could be connected to Christ's Gospel and everything else was simply an extension of that. After our discussion of the readings, we had a "vote with your feet" activity that brought up many statements and we had to choose whether we agreed, strongly agreed, disagreed, or strongly disagreed. It was the first time that I have thought deeply about some of these issues and situations, so it was very interesting analyzing each example and forming my own personal opinion. 

On Wednesday, we began discussing our own personal teaching philosophies and the different components that should be included in these statements. A hot topic up for debate was the role of teachers vs. parents and what our expectations are for each other. It really got me thinking and I have concluded that we need to form a team between the two in order to help each student in an individual level. 

Friday we were able to share the rough drafts of our teaching philosophies and I was able to see new and fresh perspectives and points of view. It's wise to break up the philosophy in different sections like classroom management, assessment, teacher's role, and teaching methods. We also began discussing different court cases which really helped students with special needs having equal rights in the classroom and the different types of law.