Teaching Mrs. Ryan

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...

This week is the last week of our Summer I courses.  Two full size courses crammed into 1 month has me exhausted.  And then, I remember I still have 2 more months like this to go!  I CAN do this.  This week we focused mostly on our final projects which are presentations for both classes.  Tonight is the last presentation for the week, but the work is not done.  We still have take home finals that are due prior to midnight on Friday.  I started yesterday, but have a long way to go with that. Next month is considered Summer II and before I get geared up for new learning, I wanted to take some time to reflect about what I've learned in this past month.  I really feel like I've learned a lot about what the teachers do inside the classroom.  This didn't come from instruction as much as it came from getting to know those that are in the program with me.  These teachers teach in various types of schools to various age groups, and they all h...

We are now working on our end of the month projects and we are having to do an OLD fashioned tri-board for a presentation.  I see nothing wrong with this, it keeps you grounded and makes you realize what students in elementary through high school go through.  With that being said, I am so happy at this point in the course that I have enough craft supplies to open my own store.... literally. Having all of these wonderful supplies did not stop me from going out to buy more.  Heck no, Hobby Lobby was having a killer sale!  30% off of Cricut items.  And since I have a Cricut Expression and about 15 different cartridges, the only thing I could possibly need and find useful is Cricut Design Studio .  So I went out, spent my money, and came home with CDS so I could begin working on my Tri-fold.  I'm half tempted to do what I do in my other blogs, and that is take pictures of what I've done and post here... but I won't.. partly because I'm too tired to add...

This is something we did in class today... and I loved it!  So I'm sharing :) Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

This evening I am working on legal briefs for my Legal Issues course.  My case for this week's assignment focuses on whether searching a student's private property on school campus violates the Fourth Amendment of unreasonable search and seizure.  The long and short of this case is that the Supreme Court of the U.S. has ruled that it is not a violation of the student's Fourth Amendment rights providing that the search is reasonable and not excessively intrusive.  For those that do not have a legal mind, the biggest thought to an educator is what is deemed reasonable and what is deemed excessively intrusive.  Knowing what the courts deem reasonable will help facilitate best practice where searching student's property is concerned.  Recently one student went all the way to the Supreme Court to help define what was reasonable and excessive in nature.  The Supreme Court ruled that this student's constitutional rights were violated when she was strip searche...

I really had a great goal of posting everyday, but it just isn't going to work.  Right now I'm sitting at a Hilton hotel in San Antonio waiting on room service to deliver me some dinner.  I have to prepare for tomorrow's training with my current company and do homework for my degree!  I have driven approximately 7 hours today and class starts at 7am tomorrow... I'm tired thinking about it.  However.... This morning I woke up bright and early to do some homework.  This girl is NOT getting behind.  Today I worked on issues discussing internet safety and really why it is important.  I discovered that Texas is currently revising the technology TEKS which is a VERY important thing to know.  Internet safety is something I really have a heart for, and there are many reasons.  I have 5 at home with me right now, and the dangers of children not being safe hit a little too close to home this past year.  In the neighboring community a young t...