It took me giving one of my students my research website for me to realize that it’s been a few months since I’ve updated my blog! Better get to it then!
Well, the summer was a wild one. It was just honestly jam packed. I finished up my VERY LAST CLASS EVER. Unless I need to take another course in the future here at U.B or at any other point in life, this was it. I took an introductory course to quantitative methods in research over the summer to finish up on my classes so that I could accept my two teaching opportunities.
I really have to say, it’s weird and also nice to be on this side of the PhD. Taking classes is interesting in that I can learn new things, but I also just really enjoy teaching. It’s also just nice to be able to teach and pursue research without having to worry if I’ve missed an assignment! Having that load off of my shoulders has really given me time back to work on what else I need to work on for my funding responsibilities, my professional life, and most importantly, my dissertation! I’m in the midst of exploring different ideas with Dr. Cameron, but we feel we may have found a gap for me to potentially fill in. I don’t want to say anything yet because I need to explore this further, but I’m really excited about where this is heading!
Now on to the courses I’m teaching!
First, Fredonia. What an honor to teach EDU 221, Introduction to Early Childhood Education. I’m having such a fun time teaching the class that I took with Mira. My only wish is that I’m supporting my students well in training them to be early childhood educators. They really are such a sweet group, and big too! I have 28 students, which is very uncommon for an education course there! They just got their placement information and they’ll be going out into the field in over a week! I’m so excited for them.
One fun thing I’m trying out with this class is I’m holding book club meetings! Alongside our required textbook, I had my students purchase ‘ “Don’t Get So Upset!”: Help Young Children Manage Their Feelings by Understanding Your Own’ by Dr. Tamar Jacobson, one of Mira’s friends. I had met Tamar when she came to visit Fredonia when I was a student, and she is such a lovely person. To tackle the need of supporting their self-efficacy and self-regulation, we will be reading this book throughout the semester and once or twice a month, we will be meeting in class to discuss different prompts connecting the theme for a chapter to our own real life experiences. Students are also required on days that we meet for book club to hand in a confidential reflective journal to me for me to read and respond to. So far, the class discussions have been fruitful, but what I knew they would benefit more from was a quiet source of contemplation and private writing. The journal writings have been profound so far. I’m looking forward to seeing where things go with our readings.
I was also able to network with the university’s CEC chapter, and I’ll be their guest speaker for their October 15th meeting! We’re aiming for me to speak about early childhood special education in general and the history of its teacher preparation. I’ll speak more on this soon once it’s formally announced.
And now U.B!
I’m teaching an asynchronous class this semester! It’s LAI 474, Teaching the Exceptional Learner. It’s been good for me to get back to the basics of special education again. I’ve been enjoying creating lectures and online case studies for students to investigate certain areas of each textbook reading further, to really drive home certain concepts and having them critically think. Though if I’m to be honest, it’s been strange for me to record myself teaching. I use a lot from the atmosphere I get from my students to “check in” on them for understanding, and obviously I’m not getting that from my computer camera. My hope from this class is that, since this is a new experience for me, that I’m still able to convey who I am as a professor to them and that they’re still able to grasp the concepts from class.
However, I had two students request office hours with me this week to connect with me! That really made me happy.
In other research news, my assistantship was moved from Dr. Cameron to our new early childhood professor, Dr. Brianna Devlin! I’m excited to assist her with her research. Her focus is in mathematics in early childhood education. I just started helping her with transcription items for a study that’s already been in progress, but I’m looking forward to helping her with the manuscript and hopefully some grant writing with her to pursue other study ideas! I would love to gain some grant writing experience.
I think that’s it for now, but I’m hoping to be able to update you all with things so soon!
Samantha Didrichsen, MSED. 