Strands of course work:

Communication:

Communication is the form of expressing yourself.  In my family communication is the way of talking to each other because they all live out of town.  I have learned that educating linguistically diverse students’ communication will be important.  Even if at the beginning it is only gestures because they don’t speak the English language.  Communication has been really important during this class because that is the form in which I have learned to know my students I am coaching.  Every time we meet we communicate with each other and learn new things about ourselves and our families.

Research:

Research is really important especially in this class.  Through research I have learned to find internet sites that teach you about other cultures.  This has definitely opened my eyes and I am sure I will be using these WebPages more in the future.  This semester I learned about children learning a second language, and how we as teacher can help them excel.

Technology:

I am good with computers but to a certain point.  When I learned I had to do a webpage for this class I was really scared.  I had always heard it was really hard to create one.  Now that I am at the half of the semester I am really proud of myself.  I have done my own webpage, and I believe it looks awesome.  I am really glad I got the opportunity to learn how to do it in this class, and this knowledge will definitely help me in the future.  At this moment many schools are using technology, all middle school children have a laptop now.  What should we as teacher expect in the future?  MORE TECHNOLOGY!!!!!

Collaboration:

Collaboration is one of the most important things needed in education.  You need the collaboration between teachers, students and school staff in order to have a good working atmosphere.  I have learned that while coaching my students at Apache Elementary.  The students collaborate with me really well.  We as UNM Students have worked really well in helping each other with tips to work with our students.  It is really fun to work together, and know that you have someone to work with.

Five dimensions of learning:

Confidence and Independence:

Confidence was one of my weakest points while coming into this class.  I have always been a very quiet and shy person, but with this class this has changed.  I gained a lot of confidence, especially while doing my Chautauqua Story.  Now I am not that scared to go in front of children.  After my performance I also started bonding with my two students more.

Independence on the other hand is something I have always been good at, but being independent with my two students was really hard.  I had never been in charge of two students all by myself.  With time this got a lot better, and I was able to be more independent.  Another thing that really helped me become more independent was creating my own website.  I did it all by myself, and it came out great.

Knowledge content:

I have gained a lot of knowledge from this class.  I have learned that in my future classroom I will have children that come from a lot of different backgrounds.  Many of them English will be their second language and will have to be learned at school.  This class I believe is really helping me prepare to that. 

Skills and Strategies:

Skills and strategies have been one of the most important things I have learned this half of the semester.  When we get together as a UNM class we all discuss about our students and the progress we are making with them.  A lot of us share skills and strategies to help other coaches with their own students.  For example, my student Bain is really good at telling stories and can make them up in an instant, while my other student is a little bit slower.  With the help of Bain’s imagination my other student is able to become getting inspired and create her story.  I encouraged one of the other coaches to group up with my students and maybe that will help.

Use of prior and emerging experience:

I am a second language learner, so this experience has been able to help me explain to the other UNM students what a second language learner goes through.  I know this will definitely help me in the future when I become a teacher.  I would love to help children learn English and have a positive look at it.  My experience with speaking two languages has helped understand better the content of this class.

Reflectiveness:

This class is one of my first UNM classes.  This is totally a different atmosphere than the college classes.  I really enjoy this classes and the opportunity to work with the children.  I have worked really hard in making my webpage look really good.  I really enjoyed working on my webpage and had lots of fun even though it was really time consuming.  I have worked really hard with my students and coaching them with their stories.  I have a notebook and keep all the changes we have every week.  I have achieved bonding with my two students and it seems like we are a really good team.  I have read my anthology book and I am really enjoying it.  From all the work I have done and kept up with the class curriculum I would give myself an A.