Carolyn Liriano

CS 414

Journal Entry #2

Role Call: Student Empowerment During Difficult Times

In this journal article, I learned more about how students can be the role of their learning

and how to take charge and responsibilities for their own learning. In order for students to do

this, they must have guidance and support from a teacher to do so. Since COVID, instruction has

been a learning journey not only for the students but for teachers as well and can be very difficult

to adjust to remote learning, or having both in class and remote learners. One thing the article

speaks about is creating a flexible space especially when students are remote.

As being a partially remote learner in college, I can agree that we sit in class based on our

own comfort. In my experience, and having two remote students in my class, I find that when

they are sitting at the kitchen table with their siblings and have their headphones in, they are

more likely to get distracted. I feel as though students are more willing to learn when they are

within their own comfort level and should be able to sit on the floor, outside, or on the couch

when learning. If it wasn’t for COVID, and I had my own classroom I would implement different

spaces for students that seek comfort for learning such as bean bags, cushions, or letting them

learn on the carpet (depending on the class’, age and needs).

Another topic that is brought up is embracing choice. In reality, nobody likes being told

what to do, and basing things off curriculum and what is expected. I feel as educators, we often

feel that we need to assess students based off tests, homework, projects, etc. However, we

usually give the students our expectations as teachers, and almost limit some of their reasoning
by saying it is either a right or wrong answer. In my opinion, I feel that we as educators can still

assess this way, but challenge the student in giving them the opportunity to explain their

reasoning further. By doing this, we are not discouraging the students, but we are giving them an

opportunity to become their own leaders, expand their thinking and knowledge, and proving to

us that they can earn those points back. In my current placement, students get discouraged when

they didn’t do too well on a spelling test, and if I had my own classroom I would try to offer

other opportunities such as a bonus 1 point quiz on something they have learned recently.

Also spoken about in the journal article, the teachers are encouraged to connect learning

to people, projects and responsibilities. I agree that students find learning to be more meaningful

when they can make real world connections or experiences to it. This will allow for the students

to recognize that they will use this information one day, and not the usual “when am I ever going

to use this?” In my current placements, I use this strategy to help the students recognize that they

will either use the topic in the future or they have done so already. Such as when teaching math, I

explain to the students that we use math when going to the store, or withdrawing money or

paying for things and that simple math can help us in certain situations. The other day I told the

students as they were feeling discouraged about the new math lesson, and told them an

experience in which I went to target and had a cart full of things and how my bill came close to

$500. However, I knew that is wasn’t nearly that much because I used math to give me an idea of

how much I was going to spend before checking out. I spoke up and the cashier had accidently

scanned something that was $20.00 for $200.00. I used this example to reengage them, as they

were so surprised!

In the article, I loved how they spoke of coaching students to increase their agency and

how instead of constantly discouraging the students about being disorganized or not paying
attention, they would do a “tip of the day”. This is something I implement in the classroom when

I realize my students are not as engaged or getting distracted, I have the students to a quick 1

minute exercise in which they stand up and shake their arms, legs, and whole bodies to take a

quick mental break and have them jump into the lesson again. I find this to be very effective, and

not specifically calling out a specific student and embarrassing them throughout the day.

Lastly, it speaks about how we need to ensure that we are not just giving the students

busy work, but that we are giving them continuous work that they can continue learning off of.

This has always been an important aspect to me, as teachers I feel as though that we need to

ensure we are not giving students busy work, just to fill in a spot during the day. We need to

ensure that what they are doing actually has meaning to it, and is expanding their thinking. So

instead of giving the students a word search puzzle, maybe go outside and have the students

explore the environment or five minutes. This was a concern I had in my current placement, I

feel that the students could be more productive, and that a word search is fun but really not

encouraging their brains to think further. In the future this is something that I wish to implement.

I wish to make the students day more interesting by exploring new things, and not giving them a

paper with no meaning to it.