About Me!!!

My name is Erica Sledge. Currently I attend South Alabama in Mobile, I am majoring in Elementary Education and one day hope to become the teacher that makes a differance. There are many reasons that I want to be a teacher, first of all I love kids and want to help them in anyway that I can. Second of all, I want to instill something in my students that they can use for the rest of their life. A mentor, role model, friend, these are some of the things that I want to be besides being a teacher. As I am teaching, I myself will be in the learnig process looking for creative ways of teaching so that students will retain information especially at such a young age. I hope to provide a fun learning experiance, in hopes that my students will be the best that they can be.

Let's have fun

To start with, I believe that making the learning experiance fun for my students will help them to learn to love school. I recently interviewed a preschool teacher, and she told me that one of her main objectives was to help her students love school. If kids love school, they will probably get more out of it, want t learn and continure their education to the highest level. I want to incorporate different activities and fun educational learning tools into my lesson plans to help the children want to learn. If I instil this love for knowledge in them at a young age, maybe it will stick with them and they will love school.

Hands On

I really enjoy doing hands on activities, they are really a valuable tool to me because I feel they help children remember what was going on. I remember things better when I can actually experience what is going on. I also believe that games are important in the classroom setting. These two things help engage students in movement and getting to one another, as well as cooperation with others. Games and hands on activities help students see what is going on in the lesson, and game questions will probably stick with them if there are teams or fun relays, then they will probably remember during a test what happened in those types of lessons and activities. During testing time, most people study for what is going to be on the test, but with these two types of teaching, I believe the information will stick with them after testing rather than study for a test and then forget.

Technology

I want my students to be able to use and understand the technology that surrounds them. We all see the technology increasing daily, I'm sure somewhere there is someone right now trying to come up with another way to enhance our technology. There are a number of ways that I can involve my students in using technology. Blogs, web pages, assignments on computers, podcast, and much much more. The increased technology is a plus for future students, lets say some one is absent, they can go to the class blog and see what was posted for that day. During class time, instead of having show and tell with an object, my students could get on the computer look up something that we have been discussing and show the class the technical way and tell about it. Blogging once a week on a certain subject,or for assignments, contacting others in schools anywhere around the world. I think it's pretty neat, I hope to help my students use technology and learn how it can help them in the future.

Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is another important thing that I want to incorporate into my teaching. This day in time, most schools have different students from different cultures residing in their classes. This seems to be an issue for some people, but I want to make it resolved, at least in my class. In one of my classes I am taking here at South, we learn about different cultures and how to involve them and their families with class and school functions. I believe that this issue is important, take a look around there are so many differences between people today, and that is not a bad thing, but we need to be aware of each others beliefs and customs. A way I would want to incorporate multicultarism in my class is maybe each week or month learn a few things from a different culture. Even if there is no difference within my class, I want them to be aware of these things for future referance. It would be great when they get older and they must be involved with a different culture, and they already know all about it. There are so many ways that teachers can incorporate multicultural activites for our young people.

Success

To be successful in my teaching career is very important to me. It is not about having summers off, getting off at three o'clock and going in at seven thirty, my career will revolve around my students. Growing up, I think I can truley say I had some of the best teachers there were. I look around today and think I'm glad I was in school back then and not now, some teachers don't need to be teachers. I did an interview for one of my classes and I asked the teacher why should people become teachers(elementary), she said "the love of children." I believe that sums it up. When my students have grown up and they look back on their education I want to be the teacher that they remember and loved. No matter what they may have done or what they will do I want it to be their best and learn from their experiences. If I can manage to be successful, I think my students(most of them anyway) will follow especially if I set a good example for them. This is what I want to see when I look back once I am retired many many years down the road... SUCCESS!!