When reflecting on my own teaching practices as an educator after these units, I believe that I will be more thoughtful about the motivators in the way new learning is presented to my students. I have a better understanding of why my students are more apt to be interested and engaged in some activities over others. I believe that in some aspects of my teaching I may not have been as successful because I ignored the cognitive sides of why and how students are learning. As a preschool teacher, I am always looking for fun and engaging things for my students to really get into the learning. Traditionally I have always done an “ABC Countdown” to the end of the year. This is where we focus on one letter of the alphabet a day in which there is a specific theme and fun activities. Specifically my students have always been super excited for “G for Games” day; and after unit four I have a better understanding why. These games are always relevant to my students, engaging and the motivator of the win is all they need to stay engaged in the activity. These games were never anything fancy or digital, simple Bingo games or chutes and ladders; however the learning piece is what was so important to me and I now know how important it was for my students in the way I presented the learning. I have begun to dive deeper into game based learning and how to successfully integrate it more often into my teaching; what it looks like being appropriately used in the classroom and the best practices for doing so. The video linked below is one that I found particularly interesting about the ways to effectively use game based learning in the classroom.
Houle School 