Educational Blogging

 What is Educational Blogging?

Educational blogging has become utilized in classrooms all across the globe. But what exactly is educational blogging? Blogs in the classroom can be used in various ways from creating simple discussion posts to using it in big group projects. By letting students use blogging as an extension to their own voices, peers and teachers can get to know their student. Educational blogging is important because it reaches all learning styles of students. It incorporates personalities ranging from analytical to creative and all that fall in between. NSU Florida dives even deeper into the benefits of educational blogging and how this aids in not only the students academic understanding, but also the teachers ability to transform education and assess students'

Picture above shows an up close 
view inside a sheet music book. 

Learning from other blogs:

It is always important to remember that as instructors, or soon to be instructors, the learning never ends. There is always something new to be read which includes other blogs. First I read a blog post from Andrea Byrd titled "Music Class is for EVERYONE!". I chose this because my area of study is in Spanish which is so opposite from music so I consider this an area of weakness in my learning. I learned the importance of accommodation for special needs students and how this extends to ALL classes, not just academic ones. This topic is one that many shy away from but is very important to learn about because there will never come a day that students no longer need accommodations, and this blog post helps to break it down so the topic is not so intimidating. Diving farther into music classes, another post by Miss. Byrd opens up to the real issue of cutting time from music classes. This opens the readers eyes into the real importance of catering to student diversity. By cutting time off of arts classes it hurts some students the same way shortening science class would to others. Students' brains work differently and this blog shows how we need to give credit to the diversity of how all students function which includes more than just academic classes. Finally, reading Ms. Miller's blog on music and languages opens up a whole new world of discovery to music. As a student studying languages myself, I found this pretty fascinating to compare music to a way to communicate because that is so rare to hear, but once thought about makes complete sense. By viewing music as a way to communicate it can not only add more to how music is taught, but also the other way around to how languages are taught. 

Blogging in my future?

Short answer: yes. Blogging will be used in my classroom one day. I think blogging opens up a world of possibilities to reach all personalities of students. Specifically to my area of teaching in Spanish, this will be tremendously helpful to use to practice grammar, accentuation, spelling, and more. My experience thus far with blogging has only been positive ones and I plan to continue this in my classroom one day. 

Home Life and Academic Success

 Study on Family Factors Affecting School Performance 

Family and home life have a significant impact on how students perform in the classroom. This is such an important aspect to study about your students. In order to be a sufficient teacher, one must recognize the diversity of lives of their students and take this into account when assigning materials/homework. From looking at a study done that researched the effects of home environment on academic performance, it yielded some interesting results. The results found show that home environment is the most significant factor affecting academic performance followed by family member's interaction, facilities available, and self esteem. This study is important to consider, because all these factors affect how a child will enter the classroom that day and subsequently how they will academically perform compared to their peers.

My Thoughts:

Image showing an overwhelmed student
leaning on a pile of books for some rest.

I have had the opportunity to work as an intern in a 4th grade mathematics class and see how the teacher chooses to address the topic of home life. In this 4th grade classroom the teacher had already met and made contact with all the students' families to learn what environment they are coming from when they enter her classroom. This significantly changed how she approached homework and parental involvement with her students' work.  I could see the difference in the students coming from a serene home life compared to those coming from a more complicated home life just by looking at their work. For students coming from a more chaotic environment they had trouble focusing in the quiet because it is not what they are used to, and vice versa for those coming from a serene home life. This goes to show that teaching involves learning who students are as people and where they are coming from before looking at their academic standings to determine who they are. By making modifications to assignments for students that need more time or a different way of completing an assignment it levels out the academic standings and that is when teachers can truly see what their students are capable of. As said in an earlier blog post, students are not standardized so we need to stop treating them like they are and this starts with equity over equality in the classroom.