Blog 21: Exit Interview

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

• EQ: What is the most effective way a kindergarten teacher can engage different learning styles to enhance student outcomes?
• For my first answer I chose the kinesthetic/play-based learning style because there are students who learn through body movement.
• For my second answer I chose the visual learning style because there are students who learn more through seeing.
• For my third answer I chose the auditory learning style because there are students who learn better through hearing information.
• My best answer is my answer 1 because the kinesthetic/play-based learning styles allows the students to have more hands-on experiences which encourages them to learn more.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

• I did a lot of researching and I also talked a lot about this with my mentor Michelle Handley which is a kindergarten teacher, so she helped me by giving me real life examples of how each learning style helps the students.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

• A lot of the articles had similar information so it was kind of hard to go deeper into research for some of my answers more specifically my third answer, but I talked to my mentor and she helped me by giving me more details about each learning style.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

• My first significant source would have to be my mentor Michelle Handley and my mentorship in general because she gave me the chance of going into her classroom and seeing first hand  how the students learn and how the learning styles work in a kindergarten classroom. 

April Blog

Earth Day in Mrs. Handley's Class

As we all know Earth Day is on April 22nd. In Mrs. Handley's class the students learned about different ways that they can help to keep the world and environment clean. Some of the things the students came up with on their own were planting gardens, picking up trash off the floor, and saving energy by turning off lights when they are not in the room. The picture above is a picture of a circle with the handprints of each student. This represents their "helping hands".

Blog 19: Independent Component 2

LITERAL

1.   I, Lisette Alvarado affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 31 hours and 30 minutes of work.
2.  Since all I did was extra hours of mentorship, my mentor and mentorship in a kindergarten classroom with all the students were the main sources that helped me with my independent component and my research project.
3. Senior Project Hours updated
4. During spring break I went to do my extra hours in a kindergarten classroom since their spring break was the week before mine. I went the entire week for at least five hours a day and that’s how I completed my 30 hours.    

INTERPRETIVE 

• I think that it was good that I did extra hours of mentorship for my independent component two because I was able to get more first-hand experience of what goes on in a kindergarten classroom. Every day that I went in was basically different there were things that were the same like the beginning of every class but other than that it was different.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

APPLIED

• Independent component two helped me with research for my essential question because I was able to experience how each learning style is dealt with in a kindergarten classroom and I got to see the teacher actually use the different strategies for different learning styles that I have read and researched about.  

Independent Component 1

LITERAL

• (a) I, Lisette Alvarado, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 32 hours and 30 minutes of work.
• (b) The sources that helped me with my independent component were my mentor and my mentorship with the students in her class. All I did for independent component one was complete extra hours of mentorship.
• (c) Senior project hours updated.
• (d) I went to mentorship for about twenty-one days and completed the 30 extra hours I was supposed to for independent component 1. On each day I at least completed 1 hour, on some days I did a little more.   

INTERPRETIVE

• Every day that I went in for mentorship was different. On some days they would be working on math, on others science, and sometimes even learning centers. Going in and doing extra mentorship hours helped me with my senior project because since Ms. Handley doesn't have a set routine for each day, every day that I went in was different and this helped me see what different learning styles a kindergarten teacher can use to teach her students.

APPLIED

• This independent component helped me with my senior project because I was able to witness different teaching styles in a kindergarten class room and I saw how some kids did better than others in certain teaching methods. For example the students who were more visual learners had a harder time answering a math problem that wasn't written down.

Extra Post: March Blog

FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS SONG

I though this video was pretty cool because it teaches children the importance of following direction. It teaches them how to follow directions, but it is a fun way for them to learn. This would be and example of kinesthetic learning style.