Top 5 Take Aways

I still can’t believe that it has already been two weeks of classes for the second semester. I was coming into this class not knowing anything about what Psychology is but every class that Dr. Riggle has talked in has helped me better understand about Psychology. In his words Psychology is the study of “how individuals learn, what motivates them to learn, how we know learning has occurred, and factors that impact learning in educational contexts.” (Dr. Riggle). So, our first blog post we have to write about is our five new take aways from class these past two weeks. I my top five “take aways” from Educational Psychology are:

1) Game Simulation Film– I loved how Dr. Riggle on our first day of class showed us the “movie” called World Peace Game. This film is about how a teacher came up a game that demonstrated teamwork and conflict. It was up to the students to work as a team to beat the game. I think the reason why Dr. Riggle showed us this film was to show us one way a teacher creates a learning atmosphere. I also think Dr. Riggle showed us this film because this film is supposed to prepare us for what it is going to be like in own own classroom atmosphere. Instead of doing this we are going to be designing and building a learning game or simulation for children or adolescents which focus on academic content and skills. I really like this idea because this will help us prepare for all of us becoming future teachers.

2) Syllabus– I think that Dr. Riggle has one of the most organized syllabus out of all the professors I have this semester. In his syllabus he makes it very clear with important details in each section of the syllabus. I like how Dr. Riggle in his syllabus has the whole semester of the calendar of the topic we will be talking about. It helps me being someone who is constantly forgetting what assignments are due on what days. I can easily access the syllabus with the assignments. Most professors just put the assignment that is due that next class period on Moodle but Dr. Riggle puts the assignment that is in his syllabus onto Moodle so there are two way to access what we will be learning. I think it is very helpful to have a handy syllabus with details and descriptions.

3) SEL Learning -I loved starting to learn about SEL. I have heard about SEL Learning but I have never been able to tell someone about what is is. Now, I can say that of what I have learned so far about SEL Learning, SEL Learning ( Social Emotional Learning), ” is the set of skills, knowledge, and behaviors involved in understanding and managing emotions, setting positive goals, feeling empathy for others, engaging in positive relationships, and solving problems effectively.” (MHE Education). SEL learning has to do with the “future teachers” have to plan lessons for children to help them teach themselves to work on handling stress and emotions on their own. Of course, they won’t be able to handle it completely on their own, but I think that if we, as future teachers/educators, can help them learn these skills on their own, they’ll become more independent with their learning.

4) Moodle Organization- When I first logged on to the Moodle page for Dr. Riggle, I did not expect to see the way it is. I was super impressed with the layout of his Moodle page. I love how when you log onto the Moodle page, it is super organized and super easy to navigate through. A lot of teachers don’t use Moodle they just tell the students in the class what the homework is. I personally do not like this method because I easily tend to forgot so putting it on Moodle helps me.

5) Norby’s Buddies– I was so excited when I found out that we were going to be able to participate in Norby’s Buddies. Norby’s Buddies is a program that matches children from an elementary schools with a “buddy” in order to build literacy and resiliency skills. Norby’s Buddies builds relationships and connections with children through 1:1 attention during the daytime and after-school programs. Norby’s Buddies is geared towards students who want to gain more experience working within the classroom over a semester or longer period of time. Norby’s Buddies is extremely flexible and allows students to work with their college schedules. Lastly Norby’s buddies allows St. Norbert students to build cultural competency.

So, if you ask me if I have learned anything from Educational Psychology class so far, the answer is YES. I believe that we all learn something new each and every day. It is up to us to understand the material. It takes one great teacher to teach one great lesson .