Thing One

1. Begin with end in mind
I am beginning my journey with the end in mind. After taking six years off, I decided to come back to school. The end of this journey that I am on now is graduation. After graduation I start another journey, my career.

2. Accept responsibility for your own learning

Who else would be responsible for my learning? I am the one who wants to be a teacher. I am the one who decided to go back to school. I am the one who is suppose to be in class everyday to take notes and listen to the instructor. It is my responsibility to learn what I need to know to become a teacher. If I don't like it, then I should quit. But I love it, and I will never quit. This is my dream and I will do whatever it takes to learn what I need to know.

3. View Problems as challenges
I will have to say that this topic is my biggest problem. I started at APSU back in 2001. Since that time I have had several things come up in my life that slowed me down on getting my degree, or so I thought they did. Instead of looking at these problems as challenges, I stressed too much and put my education on hold. I now have a fresh start and I will face any problem as a challenge. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.  

4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
I am really back at second guessing myself, I freak out when I take a text and I always think the worst. I took a quiz in a class the other day and had no idea what to do. I sat there for a few minutes and asked the teacher what exactly she wanted on this piece of paper she handed me. I could tell her everything she said in class that day and I knew that the information she went over was on the quiz. I got an email the other day and she said I made 100%. :)

5. Create your own leaning toolbox
In all honesty I had no idea what this was about. Too me, everyone will have different "tools" in their tool box. No everyone learns the same and have different ways approaching topics. I am interested to learn what other peoples ideas are for their "toolbox".

6. Use technology to your advantage
I am glad that I am taking Dr. Wall's class. I was introduced to Blogger this summer and I thought I know everything about it. Today, I learned how to post an Avatar of myself and how to change the layout of my page. There are so many other options that I can choose from to change my page and I'm looking forward to exploring these.


7. Teach/Mentor others
I started to volunteer my time this summer to help people in my class with their studies. I also have a four year old daughter that I teach/parent. We read books, play games and do several other activities that will help her become a great student when she gets to school. Today was my first parent teacher conference for my daughter's Pre-K class. I was told that she scored highest in her class with 100% on the testing they do to determine if she is learning at the right speed. They said that she should be reading a book by Christmas. This mommy is a very happy camper!

7.5 Play
I play everyday. Weather it be a board game, outside activity, school work or something else, I find that my "play time" is my "me time" and it helps me to relax, recollect and take control of what needs to be done.