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I chose this photo because it does an excellent job of showing that all students learn differently and excel at different areas. We have read a couple of article about differentiated learning and how important it is to have a variety of way for students to be able to grasp the content. I really like how this image represents that.

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I chose this image because we have discussed how important it is to incorporate active learning in the classroom. I love that this image connects the mind and body. We know students won't retain as much information by just sitting and listening to a lecture for an entire class period. It is important to incorporate movement in the classroom so students stay engaged.

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Immigrant Influxes Put U.S. Schools to the Test:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/03/16/immigrant-influxes-put-us-schools-to-test.html

This article is about the immigrant influxes that are happeninging in the United States and how that schools are having a difficult time to meet the needs of these ELL students. It mainly focuses on St. Cloud, MN and the growing population of Somali's and how they have been needing to adjust on fly to meet the students. There has been a civil rights complaint against the St. Cloud school district before in 2011 for allowing a hostile environment for district's Somali students. They are giving their best efforts to try and keep up with the influx and create a welcoming environment for all students.

When I came across this article, the title was what intrigued me to read it, but once I started reading it, I was even more intrigued because it focused on a city right here in Minnesota that is having problems. After processing it, I wasn't all that surprised just because I know that big cities of Minnesota have been trying to handle the influx of immigrants for a while now.

This connects to our discussion on diverse learners and how it is important to make sure not only you as a teacher, but the school as whole is meeting the needs of all learners. We have read and talked a lot about multicultural education and so I think this article fits in perfect with that. There is a very high chance that you will have a classroom of students with a variety of cultural backgrounds and it is important that you make content relatable to all backgrounds.

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Another important topic we covered in class was differentiated instruction. We have talked about it before in a couple of other classes, but this class went more in depth. I think it is crucial to include differentiated instruction in the classroom. We had that one article that talked about a teacher who confused student choice with differentiated instruction and that really helped me perceive what differentiated instruction is. It is important to have multiple ways of learning, so that all students have an equal chance to the curriculum. It is very important that the instruction accommodates all diverse learners and makes sure they are able to meet the objectives of the lesson. I've learned that the goal of differentiated instruction is to make learning more individualized and fit the needs of each student to ensure success of all.

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I think that this is a very important part of learning and after discussing it more in class, I believe that even more. If you classroom doesn't have any structure to it, you are in for a long year. It is important to set ground rules and what your expectations are for the class. I've learned that this can be fun by involving the students in coming up with a list of class rules. This way they held accountable to abiding by what they suggested. Also, it is important to create a safe, welcoming environment where all students are accepted. I think the best way have student engagement is first by making sure they feel comfortable. I think the environment and classroom management need to be established in the first couple of weeks to ensure a great year!

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I didn't really know what the edTPA was until I had this class, so at first I wasn't sure why it was something we needed to do. After going through the process and doing our own mock of the edTPA though, I now have a better understanding of why this is such a huge piece and why it is important.

I learned that it really breaks down the process of creating a lesson plan. By going through each of the tasks, you are able to see what areas are really strong in your lessons and others areas where you need to make some adjustments. The first task of getting to know your students really helps with incorporating differentiated instruction and figuring out the best ways a specific class will learn. Also being able to watch yourself teach and reflect on it is helpful to catch things you might not have otherwise noticed. For example, a person might notice they say "um" too much and then keep that in mind for the next time they teach.

I'm happy that we get a taste of what it is like before we have to do the edTPA individually during student teaching.

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In a lot of my education classes we have talked about technology and the ways you can use it to enhance student learning, but not so much actually practice using them. This class has by far taught me the most about a variety of technology tools and how they can be implemented into multiple areas of a lesson. I love that a lot of the assignments we did involved having to use some of the technology that we went over. I feel like it really helps an individual find out what, as a teacher, tools they like the most and which ones they could see using in their own classroom.

Technology has become a big part of people's everyday lives, so I definitely think it is important to use it for your advantage in the classroom. I think technology will gradually be used more and more in the classroom and for that reason I am glad it is a topic we cover in the class. There is so many tools to choose from using and I think that it can be overwhelming. It really helps that this class lets you start a list of useful technology tools and figure out features you like and don't like. Using Padlet to write a reflection is just one example of how awesome and creative you can get with technology