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Hello, and welcome to my blog! My name is Maria Loughran and I am a Secondary Education and English student at Saint Michael's College. My hobbies include running, philosophy, rugby, and anything outdoors. Follow my blog to see all I am learning in becoming a teacher and helping to foster thriving minds! 

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Constructivism

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 One theory of  development that I am interested in learning more about and eventually incorporating in my classroom is constructivism . The idea that a majority of new learning is built from prior knowledge  aligns with how I want to encourage my students to approach learning. This concept can also be applied outside of the classroom. From a young age, students can use the skills they are learning and keep building upon them in new and dynamic ways. This also encourages  a growth mindset which  I believe to be a healthy way to approach challenges both inside and outside of the classroom.    There is also a focus on allowing students to shape the way their brain is developing, which empowers the individual, and gives them a sense of ownership of their education. As an educator, my role would be to help guide this way of learning and create learning opportunities that can support these ideas. My one worry on this approach would be how to engage students...
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YA Literature

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As a hopeful future educator, it is important to acknowledge the fact that it can be extremely difficult for a student to focus on and learn from classroom instruction if their personal and psychological needs are not being met. It is simplistic to believe that a student going through a personal crisis will be able to focus on and interact with content material in the traditional way.   Jasmine Wanga addresses this in her YA novel, “My Heart and other Black Holes”. Aysel, a 16-year-old growing up in a small southern town, is convinced that her father’s prison sentence for homicide against a hometown hero is inescapable. Feeling tightly wound to the sins of her father, she sees suicide as the only option. The “black slug” inside her, which is how she refers to her depression, follows Aysel throughout the day, and creeps into the classroom. She acknowledges its presence in her English class, as she is frustrated with the seemingly petty interpretations of poets her peers. While...
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Curriculum Philosophy Presentation Connections

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The “curriculum philosophy” presentation assignment for ED 361 had us investigate and report out on a few outlooks of curriculum that we found particularly aligned with the ways we want to implement curriculum in our future classrooms. This assignment relates heavily to the second pillar of the Saint Michael’s College Education Department Mission Statement which states that, “our graduates are reflective and contemplative practitioners”. The main connection comes from the statement that SMC graduates “draw from a solid theoretical base to guide their instruction and leadership decisions”, as this is the exact content that the curriculum philosophy project investigated. We looked into widely accepted theories of curriculum, and critically analyzed which ones we felt could be the most effective for student learning in our future classrooms. The curriculum of a classroom has an enormous effect on each students learning experience, and thus it is important that we make the decisions ...
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