I found myself thinking of all the ways in which kindergarten teachers teach the alphabet. PRACTICE, practice, practice! Over the space of several weeks, the alphabet it taught and retaught. While it's broken down into a letter of the day, or week; the entire alphabet is practiced daily. Different letter activities, work books, songs ...so many options are available to teach letter concepts; reinforcing this principle of retaining new information.

After watching the lecture video, and reading the few notes below it , I did not realize that all of us had to build on things while learning new ideas. That helped our brains not get overwhelm, and help us understand what we need to be learning. I think that it is cool that we can link so many different things with previous things we or kids have learned or are learning.

The most interesting thing I learned is that students are more motivated when they are accepted and believe they belong in an environment. This is a fascinating concept to me, because I would not have guessed that as a motivator for students. But, now it completely makes sense to me. You're not going to be motivated to get anything done if you feel like you are unwelcome in that environment. When you're comfortable and confident you are going to be more motivated at school. I really loved learning about this idea. Creating a welcoming environment as a teacher, is crucial for the student's learning process.