Hello, my name is Taren Keith, and welcome to my blog! I am currently a senior studying special education with emphases in learning disabilities and emotional impairments at Grand Valley State University. Overall I believe schools must prepare students for their future roles as community activists by encouraging them to develop their passions by being and doing a variety things through community building and community based activities in the classroom. This belief guides how I plan lessons, develop my classroom management plan, interact with students and fellow teachers, and educate myself as a future teacher.This past semester I was a teacher assistant at Quincy Elementary in a Young 5's- 3rd Grade resource room located in Zeeland, MI. There I gained some experience using technology in the classroom with Smartboards, several Ipad apps related to handwriting and story telling through puppets, and a few math-based websites such as XtraMath. Clearly, my knowledge about planning and using technology in the classroom is greatly limited. I have heard about paper-less high school classrooms and am wondering how this concept works and if it would be feasible to do in elementary school classrooms. I am hoping this EDT 370 course will answer this and other questions and concerns I have about technology in the classroom.
When I am not teaching I enjoy reading, volunteering, and playing with my pets. I am currently reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, but my favorite book is The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Typically I enjoy reading dystopian fiction, so I am branching out with these two selections. In addition to reading I spend my time with my little sister from the Big Brothers Big Sisters program about once a week. We matched in October and spend a lot of time doing crafts and watching movies together. However, she is not a fan of my hedgehog, which is strange, because he is adorable! He is the little critter crawling on my arm in the picture to the left. His name is Sherman, he is 1 and a 1/2 years old, and he is sassy. My students at Quincy Elementary loved hearing about him.
Thank you all for visiting my blog! I am looking forward to getting to know everyone this semester. Please feel free to comment or ask questions about any of my posts. I would love to hear from you!
