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I worked as a preschool aide this last school year and, even though I've been wanting to be a teacher and studying teaching for years, it still blew my mind how much my preschoolers didn't know!

In this principal, you need to teach new ideas by building on ideas they already know. But, when they have so little life and learning experience to go off of, it was difficult for me to get my feet on the ground and teach!

First, you really have to have an understand of what they already know. I suppose it'd be easier to determine this with older children- you can give them a survey or just as what they know and don't know. Building from the foundation is easier than building from the ground.

That was when I realized that teaching was a lot of swerving and learning yourself. I had to learn myself how to break down concepts to the lowest point and, even then, I know I didn't always do the best job.

These moments gave me so much respect for the teachers in my life, who had the patience, knowledge, and experience to learn how to me me and other students where we were at to teach us life-changing concepts.

But, I also know there were quite a few teachers that left students in the dust because they didn't know how to build knowledge on prior experience.

I feel like the ideas given- allowing peers to help in the mentor process, modeling learning, combining strategies, and using metaphors are all such helpful concepts and I am surprised to see in my life where these concepts were used and others where the learning lacked because they weren't.

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Principle number 1, "How do students understand new ideas?" was super interesting to me. Being able to comprehend new ideas is something that is the very foundation of learning.

I have gone into classes where the teacher just starts going without giving any context on where we should be, or without connecting the new stuff to what we have previously learned. Those classes, especially in the beginning, were always the hardest. They were most often just lectures with no engagement from my classmates and me. I know that often people dislike when we are told to "turn and talk to your neighbor" or when we are counted off and put into groups. From the student side, that's often because we don't want to be engaged. It's easy to just zone out in class, pretend like you're writing a few notes, and then go to the next class without participating and just being there. When we are told to interact with one another, we become active learners and have to engage with others. That is what is going to get students to understand new ideas. By bringing the students into the lesson, connecting the new stuff to what they know already, modeling for them when the task looks like, and coming up with analogies, we are helping students to learn.

As a student, I know all to well the days when you just want to tune out and not be present in the learning. But as a future teacher, being able to draw upon my students and bring them into discussions and connect with them is huge. It is our job as teachers to know how to bring students in and create a positive learning environment, which is why I think principle 1 is a very good foundational principle.

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The principal that I found the most interesting would definitely be principal 5. As I have experienced life as both a teacher and student, I have definitely experienced times when I am motivated and less so.

Humans are social beings, and so a lot of our life is dominated by our ability to find comfort and acceptance in different situations. And as a teacher it is vital that we create an environment where our students feel like they are accepted and can open up to learning new ideas.

I loved what was talked about in principle 5, especially the wheel of 9 ways to motivate students. It really shows that a student's ability to learn and find motivation is not as simple as following a straight line. The ways we assess, talk to, praise, provide feedback, and many more things can have a huge impact into a student's ability to learn.

When I think back to my experiences learning, I think about 2 different math classes I was a part of. In 7th grade I had a teacher who everyone feared. Every day was a new quiz and another opportunity for the teacher to yell at us and let us know how disappointed she was in our performance as a class. Needless to say, I did not feel very comfortable in that setting and did not learn very much. In contrast, my 8th grade year I had a teacher who always had a smile on their face, was excited to learn, and you could genuinely tell that they loved every student. He created a comfortable environment for students to learn and personally allowed me to develop a love for math that I never thought possible.

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As a student and a teacher I have seen proper feedback work wonders. Whether for praise or criticism.

Just leaving a score means nothing to a student who is actually trying to learn. Using AP U.S. History classes I taught back in China as an example, if I simply put the student's essay or short answer question score on the top of the page what would they get from it? Okay, they know the score but then what? How could they understand what they did wrong and improve for the test if I don't give a more constructive feedback explaining, even if in short, what they did right or wrong.

Feedback should, most assuredly, be focused on the task and not the student in order to prevent the student from feeling upset or otherwise put down. That said, some people just can't respond well to any criticism, no matter how good natured.

I'll share one of my own experiences in how feedback has helped me learn. I am extremely fortunate to have found the writer's group in Cache Valley that I did because they focus almost entirely on critique and and commentary which is exactly what I needed to learn. Oh, I'd read books on writing, but they didn't do anything for me compared to when my first chapter came back to me two weeks later bleeding red ink, and rightly so. I cringe now to look back and see my old writing riddled with adverbs and polluted by passive voice or nondescript descriptions. I became a significantly better writer as a result. Plus, we all go out to dinner afterwards to prove we're still friends too.

Now while my group's critique is a bit intense for a secondary setting, it has illustrated for me the necessity of proper critique in student learning.

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Theory 5- cognitive load theory. This learning theory provides us a way to not only keep students engaged but also help them learn on a deeper level. I have been so at my limit many times when teachers get going, and then the next day get upset because I didn't remember. I don't want this for my students.

I love the idea of giving examples early on so that they can start connecting new things to old things and it doesn't have to be so exhausting to sit in class. Being in class can come with more Ah-ha moments! For example when learning about math, we can review the previous math principles you have learned and know to understand new ones. Breaking down the problems to an extent many may not seem necessary can help students (like myself) understand what comes next. They can build motivation because they see they can in fact do new and hard things! Why? Because they already know more than they think.

Another example would be this class. Our professor is wonderful at doing what she teaches. She broke down each learning theory into a video. This helped us process the information and build upon more knowledge when we were ready. She did not bombard us and expect us to know everything right away.

This does bleed heavily into links to prior learning but it still stands.

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The learning science idea I found most interesting was Principle number 3; feedback. I’ve had some professors and teachers who were excellent at feedback and some who struggled to grasp the concept, but almost without fail, the teachers who gave me specific and consistent feedback were much better at helping me feel motivated to put my best effort into the class’ assignments. I learned more because I was willing to do more of my own research outside of what we assigned to read and/or study.

As a side note, I find it extremely exasperating when a professor writes, Great job, Jack, on a Canvas submitted assignment without putting the slightest effort in telling me why it was good or taking a few more seconds just to help me understand how I can do better.

I also feel like properly applied critical feedback, whether negative or positive, can help empower the students to make their own decisions regarding changes they can make to their homework/study practices. I believe most of them will start making changes on their own, or ask for more support from their teachers when they feel like they have one who cares about the type of effort into their study habits.

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Just a quick welcome message.

Needed to make sure I got everything working properly.