Journal #1: How the brain Works                              

Everything we do involves three major networks in the brain: cooking a meal,driving to work, planting a garden, reading a book. Across and within the brain networks, we all have different combinations of strengths and challenges and these differences shape the ways we learn and work effectively.

  1).What did you learn from the on-line activity about how your brain works, and how your unique strengths and challenges affect your willingness and ability to engage in different tasks?

Response: I found the activity to be interesting. In fact I completed all three of the activities. I saw that each person in the group activity had something to offer the task. Individually they did not hold all the abilities to be able to complete the task on their own. I was able to see a pattern with my selection of activities. I first looked at what interested me (never mind the task itself). Secondly, I looked at the difficulties of the tasks to see I could overcome them. I generally feel that I can complete most tasks in life, and looked at the activities in the same perspective. In this perspective, every activity seemed more like a job which makes the activities I found uninteresting just as something I had to do rather than it being to terrible.

      First, I did the community garden project, which involved the group designing and creating a garden for their community, was the most interesting project. Creativity and organization was the main key to completing the activity. I enjoy creating and planning many events, tasks and project making this activity my first choice. Also, the outdoors in an environment I enjoy, and the project seemed to be the easiest because I had more strengths.

        Secondly, on the cooking activity, that involved the group to cook the Indian meal, I felt completely useless. I was optimistic, however, when another member of the group was familiar with Indian food. I figured that I could help with shopping for the items and preparation and still be an asset to the activity. Cooking is not one of my favorite activities, and I was happy to know that the pressure was not all on my self.

      Lastly, I completed the climb up Mount Katahdin. Here I had to display and strengths and challenges I might be faced with during the climb. This would have been my most difficult project. The climb itself would be tough and I don¡Ùt believe I would make it all the way to the top. Another problem was trusting my friend who wanted to go off into areas they weren't familiar with. I like a certain amount of security and the fact that we could be lost in the mountains, even with a friend who was an EMT,  is a scary thing.

Journal #2 The Promise of an Inclusive School

            What is Inclusion? I am glad you asked. Inclusion education is about embracing

everyone and making a commitment to provide each student in the community the right to

belong.  It's a belief system and attitude that a school teaches students by example.

Because Inclusive education has Special education and Regular education in the same class,

it offers the least restricted environment. Students really focus on their students strengths

and are able to recognize their weaknesses. Overall an Inclusive education benefits

everyone in the classroom.

            Ghandi once said our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and test of our civilization. I believe he is saying that the way to reach beauty is to work and live collectively, but he believes this is a challenge for our civilization. I agree with him. We are fighting now to create and Inclusive education system. We have come to the situation that we have many levels of classes such as gifted, normal, high normal, Special, almost Special and more. People are afraid what will happen if there is a classroom of gifted children, normal children and disabled children. Someone will suffer and other might be expected of too much. I believe, however, the opportunity to, for the disabled children, to grow has been cutback. They have been kept in their box because they are afraid what might happen. Also this Inclusive education would showcase and help grow each student¡Ùs gifts- the disabled, gifted and normal.

            There are two rationales for change that I find compelling. The first would be the philosophical change. I believe no one should be out casted or separated from a group. Most problems can be worked out. We, as humans, are also creative and we can solve certain issues by taking a different route than out casting others. Also, another rationale is funding. If enough people do not support and Inclusive school there can be many financial difficulties. Many children can be left with no books or desks. If the Inclusive education is going to work, proper funding must be there. This is a problem because the funding will be the same as it is now with all the separated classes.

             Since Inclusive education in a new way a teaching, teachers need training on how to teach these classes. The need training , guided practice, feedback, and opportunities to problem solve with colleagues. Such training would be mentoring, team teaching, study groups and workshop series. This is very important because the more diverse the students are in the class, the more skilled the educators have to be.

            This concludes my essay. I hope that you see how important it is to have and Inclusive education and how it will benefit the society as a whole.

Journal #3 My background and preparation.

       What role does my background and preparation have in my effectiveness as a future teacher? I grew up in an Italian/Cuban family, but my family has also talked to me about of cultural backgrounds. As I am getting older, I am eager to learn more and more about other culturals. I want to understand our differences and how to learn from different experiences. Now I am in college at a multi-cultural school, and I am learning about culture more than ever. In considence with learning about culture, I am learning how to become a teacher in my Seminar classes. I have learned various technique on how to teach students from different countries and of different abilities. Through the years, I have also done tutoring as well as teacher diffent classes in my church. The practice time has really help my career already.

       These two keys are going to be an asset to my teaching career. I have an open mind about culture, which is important for the metropolitan county I live in. I am also being instilled with important techniques to teach students who are disabled and gifted.

Journal #4 What is Collaborative Teaching?

          Collaborative teaching is to work jointly with other teacher in an intellectual endeavor. It allows teachers to work as a team and combine their knowlege and experience to strengthen their roles as effective teachers. There are many types of collaboration, such as mentoring an peer coaching teams and teaching teams. These organizational arrangements of two or more members of school and greater community who distribute among themselves the planning, instructional, and evaluation responsiblities for the same students regularly  for an extended time. Some benefits are that it reduces teacher isolation. It also builds continous professional growth opportunites for teachers. Working together helps teachers bounce ideas off of each other. Sometimes a certian lesson has worked really well and teachers can share these lessons. New ideas and creative activities can sturr form collaboration.

Journal #5 Mutiple Intelligence

        I not only a Kinesthetic learner, I am also have Intrapersonal stregth. A Kinesthetic learner is one who uses their body to express ideas and feelings. Such people would be an athlete, dancer, or actor. An Intrapersonal Leaner is one who has self-knowledge and the ability to adapt on the basis of that knowledge. This intelligence has an accurate picture of oneself. Multiple Intelligences are very interesting. I can see how it would benefit teachers. Teachers will understand how their students learn, and when they need to help them on a subject then can relate the topic with their Intelligence. Doing many activities within the different Intelligence also creates an excitement to class. The student's will never know what they are going to do that school day. The reqires teacher to master teaching with their strong Intelligence and strengthen their weak Intelligences to benefit their students. Learning different intelligences can help teachers engage their studentd, and in return learn more.