Teaching Mrs. Ryan

It is once again time for finals and this month has been the hardest so far.  I began the month behind in my psychology course due to work scheduling conflicts.  I stayed behind for the rest of the month and I find myself working on a holiday weekend in desperation to create a final piece that is worthy of what I want to accomplish in the amount of time I have.  While taking my psychology course our professor had us do a very small piece concerning creativity in the classroom.  This really was a blip on the radar compared to the extensive talks we've had on Piaget, Kegan, and Kohlberg, but it really was the piece that grabbed my attention.  I remember a video that is posted on this very blog that talks just a bit about how the current school system sucks out creativity from the teachers on down to the students.  And I really found myself actively reading topics that discussed creativity and the classroom and why it is important to have.  What better ...

This term has been a wild one due to massive amounts of work, and massive amounts of personal health issues!  I missed my first psychology course of the term due to my daughter being in the hospital and almost missed the second day due to me needing to be in the hospital.  And what I have learned does boggle the mind. I have taken several psychology courses while I've attended schools in various areas.  I loved what the psychological courses discussed and lets face it, who doesn't want to learn to psychoanalyze oneself and others!  Educational psychology is a field that you have to look at from so many different angles.  I've always known that you can not pinpoint one's development, moral growth, actions, or anything of that nature on one theory or one person book of why.  No one person can successfully categorize human beings and be correct  Instead I've learned and am currently learning that these theories have to be combined and considered based u...

I hate to call what we are doing a semester since it is only a month long, but WOW the workload is a semester's worth.  This month I am taking an educational psychology course along with an elementary literacy course that focuses on assessments as well as teaching.  Both are very interesting so I can say at least while I'm being overwhelmed with a lot of work, it isn't boring work!  The biggest difference I'm seeing with this month's workload versus last month's work load is the amount of papers I have to write.  There are an ENORMOUS amount of papers.  One of my paper's that I must write this first week focuses on Piaget;s theories of cognitive development.  I've found a little YouTube video that discusses what they are so you can get an idea of what I'm learning about at this stage in the program. I missed the first psychology in class lecture due to my daughter having to go to the hospital, and now I am feeling like I'm flying blind on my...