Review: Bees

A post on the announcements that stuck out to me was the "Words of Wisdom" post on Tuesday, August 23. The English proverb posted states that "bees gather honey from every flower." Above the picture it talked about how this relates to how people enjoy all types of books and stories. I can definitely relate to this idea. I like reading anything from romance novels to mysteries to books filled with action. I don't have a "type" that I enjoy most. I like the popular books that have been made into movies, but I also really enjoy the underrated books that nobody has ever heard of. I tend to stick to one author for a little while and then I like to switch to a new author and read some of his or her books before moving on again. I wish I had more time to read during the school year so I'm excited that this class allows me to do some of that reading for a grade.

Proverb relating to the diversity in a reader's book choice. 

Famous Last Words: Checking Off Week 1

This week went pretty well considering it was the first week of school, which can always be a little hectic. I enjoyed all of the readings from this week and was able to get them all completed considering they were relatively short. One girl in my assignment blog group, Miriam, had some really good writing. She put in a lot of detail and thought into each of her writings. I am currently in two other online classes as well as two other in class classes. This made the first week a little more difficult than usual because I had to really get motivated and encourage myself to get ahead as I can in all of my classes. I am hoping that as the weeks go on, I will get all my different schedules and due dates and assignments down so that all my classes will not be as jumbled. Sadly, I have only been on campus twice and it was for a fairly short amount of time due to my schedule containing mostly online classes. It was the first week of three-year old pre-school and first grade for the children I babysit so that was pretty exciting for everyone. Next week my goals is to get ahead as much as I can. I am going out of town for labor day weekend and will be gone Friday through Monday. Because of this, I really need to be on top of things and try to get the majority of my assignments finished by Tuesday or Wednesday. Im planning on working two hours a day to make sure I have time to complete everything. I also need to do this while balancing my other classes and not getting behind on the readings. I work every day this coming week so I am planning on using that time as my study break time so that as soon as I am finished I can go right back to knocking out all of my week 2 assignments for all of my classes!

 

Personal picture of Jenna and Layla's first day of first grade. 

Personal picture of Ben and Sam's first day of 3 year old Preschool. 

Wikipedia Trail: From Arabian Nights to the Hellenistic Period

For my Wikipedia search I started with searching Arabian Nights on Wikipedia. I was reading and noticed a piece of information on anatomy and physiology and this led me to Medicine in the Medieval Islamic World. As I continued reading on this page I saw a comment on The Book of Healing. I have heard about similar book, but was unsure what exactly this one was referring to. Somehow, I was finally led to a page on the Hellinistic Period.

The Nike of Samothrace, the greatest piece of Hellenistic art

Growth Mindset

I have never heard of Carol Dweck or growth mindset before. I think it is a very interesting topic and I think I fall somewhere in between in agreeing/disagreeing with her. I think the idea of furthering growth and desire for growth in children is amazing and definitely something every school and classroom should possess. Helping children to stay motivated and not get discouraged is difficult so it is refreshing to hear someone so passionate about this topic look for ways to pursue this. My only concern is that in these cases, children will not learn how to cope with disappointment or learn to overcome failure. If they are taught with this growth mindset tactic their whole lives and then go to college and have teachers who view education differently what happens if they fail a course? In the past they were told they had not passed it "yet." In college, you can retake a course if you fail, but many times that grade is simply averaged in and does not replace the failed grade. If I had never truly failed a class in the past and then came to college and did fail, then I would be devastated and not know how to move on. I think that Carol has an awesome idea that would work great if teachers everywhere chose to teach this way; the problem is this simply is not the case. I think that her method is very positive and rewarding for students and I hope teachers elsewhere use her uplifting theory to teaching.

(Meme is from Pinimg)

Starting the Semester

Assignment Calendar: My first goal whenever I begin organizing for a new semester is to get all of my big assignment, such as tests, quizzes and papers, all written in my planner. I go through each syllabus and write them out in the calendar area of the planner. I then add my social events such as football games, date parties, etc. This helps me to see which of my weeks will be super busy and which will be semi-easy. This is especially important for this class because it allows me to see when I have extra time to work ahead so that the busier weeks are not as stressful.

Prioritize: I make it a priority to not let myself get behind at all the first few weeks of class. I make sure to have all my readings finished before class, my notes completed, my syllabi printed, etc. This makes it more likely that I will keep up with my school work and not get behind because I won’t be playing catch up from the beginning.

Books: I buy my books as soon as I possibly can. My sophomore and junior year I always waited to see if the teacher mentioned we would really be using the books before ordering them. 90% of the time the teacher said we would and I would have to order them, hoping they were still in stock, and then wait almost a week to get them. By this time, I was usually behind on the readings and had to borrow a friends book. Now I order them all, but don’t take them out of their boxes/wrappings until I know we need them; this makes them easy to access if needed and quick to return if not.

Books: the most expensive necessity for education. Pixbay