MoFroYo Fundraiser 11/25/13 4-9 pm

Tomorrow night, Monday November 25th, we will be having a fundraiser at the Monster Frozen Yogurt in Westfield! Part of the proceeds made between 4pm and 9pm will be donated to Westfield SNEA and will go toward our spring grant project that we will be announcing soon! If anyone has any questions about the event please feel free to email us at: westfieldsnea@gmail.com 

Hope to see everyone there!
Meaghen Chalmers
SNEA President

Technology in the Classroom 11/4

Our fourth meeting of the year was all about Technology in the Classroom!

The instructional strategy that we presented was centers. Centers are set up in various spots in the classroom. The students are put in small groups and given an activity. Each center has its own activity. As each group completes their task in the allotted time they move onto the next center. How someone may present their centers is:

We used centers to deliver our information on the topic of the week. The different center topics were Social Media and Your Classroom, Finding Content, Dos and Don'ts of Social Media, Pinterest in the classroom and Helpful Teacher Tools and Sites. Below is a general summary of what each center discussed:

Social Media and Your Classroom
- Twitter
> Post homework, keep students updated and provide inspiration.
>Do not use your personal account
> Do not create an account with an ambiguous name
> Make sure you keep your personal and teaching accounts separate
> Keep the account private
- Classroom Website
> Keep parents and students informed
> Let parents know what is going on in your classroom (schedule, procedures, birthdays, provide resources and ETC).
- Phone HW
> Remind 101.com
> A free texting app that you can text parents from without them ever seeing your number and you cannot see the parent's number as well, everything is confidential

Finding Content
-YouTube
> Brings content to life
> Make sure to keep clips sort and relevant
> View all videos in their entirety before showing them in class
- School Tube
> A video sharing website for both teachers and students
- Teachers Pay Teachers
> Website where teachers can post units, individual lessons, posters, projects and much more
> Can buy lots or get free materials for your classroom
- Common Core APP
> Free app for iPhones and iPad to find the standards you are looking for

Dos and Don'ts of Social Media
-Dos
> Make sure your social media is private
> Make sure your are not tagged in inappropriate pictures
> Get permission to use your students photos on classroom bog/newsletter
> Use appropriate language
> Stay off during work
-Don'ts
> Friend/follow students or parents
> Post any incriminating photos of yourself or others
> Post photos of your students on social media
> swear
>Start/engage in drama
> Over share
>Bash others
- Remember
> You never know who will see your social media posts
> If you wouldn't want your grandmother to see it, don't post it
> If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all

Pinterest in the Classroom
-You can search under the Education category for lots of ideas
- Get inspiration for decorating your classroom.
- Get ideas for an inspired bulletin board.
- Get fun ideas for new projects.
- Look for ways to organize your classroom.
- Get ideas on how to make learning more hands-on.
- Find great books to use in the classroom.
- Learn how to help with behavior management.

Helpful Teacher Tools/Sites
- Google Docs
> Allows users to create and edit documents online
> Helpful for sharing documents with classmates
> Collaborate live with others
> Automatically saves
- Power point
> Great visuals for students
> Makes note-taking easy
> Has many styles, forms and custom layers
- Prezi
> Similar to power point but has a zooming canvas which opens up the classroom to active learning, making the lessons understandable, memorable and fun
- Wordle
> Generates "word clouds" from text that you provide
> The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text
- Edmodo
> A social learning platform for teachers, students and parents
> Builds an online learning conversation with your class about your subject
- Springpad
> Free online application that allows users to save, organize and share collected ideas and information
- Jing
> A perfect way to enhance your fast-paced online conversations
> Create images and videos of what you see on your computer screen and be bale to share them instantly

Please email us if you are missing a handout!
See you at our next meeting: November 18 at 7:00!
Julie

 

What Makes a Classroom 10/21

Sunday was the 20th annual Rays of Hope Breast Cancer benefit walk held in Springfield. It was a lot of fun and awesome to participate in such a great cause! We want to thank Stephanie, Callie and Kelsey for joining us in the  walk!

Monday marked our third meeting of the year! The theme of the meeting was What Makes a Classroom! The instructional strategy introduced was a word wheel. A word wheel is a great use for teaching vocabulary! The word that is being taught goes in the middle and around it are words that describe it or synonyms. Word wheels come in many shapes and styles. They can be adjusted in many different ways that will fit the needs of a classroom! Below is an example of a word wheel:

 

To continue on our theme of what makes a classroom as a whole group we talked about lesson planning! The board provided examples of lesson plans that they have done here at Westfield State. Topics like the curriculum frameworks, where to find lesson plan ideas and the format where discussed. Listening to suggests, concerns and questions allowed for a great discussion! One great suggestion offered by one of our members was to buy a 5 subject notebook and label each section a content area (ELA, math, science, social studies, ETC.). When you think of an idea or see one write it down in the notebook so you have to reference later on!

 

The next topic we discussed was about time spent in the classrooms! Tips about apparel, what to do in situations and what to expect were provided. Important topics like restraint training and being seen as a teacher in the classroom were discussed. As a whole group we also discussed past practicum experiences. We got to hear some real funny stories!

 

To wrap up the meeting was a Bigs and Littles activity. As a whole group we arranged ourselves in certain orders (height, birthday and first name) then chatted with our neighbors. A few topics we discussed were sibling order, one interesting fact about yourself, one thing that is going well in your life at the moment and what is your favorite class this semester!  Do not forget Littles to come up with some fun field trip ideas :)

 

Don't forget to check out our Pinterest: WSUSNEA that is run by our two underclassman reps!

Let us know if there is anything that you need :)

See you at our next meeting; November 4 at 7:00!

Julie

Editor

 

What It Means To Be An Education Major 10/7/13

Our second meeting was jammed packed with lots of different things that allowed us to get this year started! We held elections and are excited to welcome both Sara Hootstein and Megan Juchno to the board as our Underclassman Reps! We are also thrilled to have Liz Aspinwall on the board as the Special Education Rep! To learn more about our new board members check out the meet the executive board page! After reviewing all of the questions, comments and concerns from our previous meeting we designed our workshops around those themes!

The theme of our second meeting was What It Means To Be An Education Major! To facilitate this information to our members the board first each discussed a general question. The questions were:
1. What is a concentration?
     > A concentration is basically your minor where you "concentrate" on a certain area such as reading, English, psychology, science, history, Spanish, ETC.
2. What is a prepracticum?
     > Any hours (15s or 30s) you do before you student teach, there are different requirements for every major.
3. When do we student teach?
      > Normally during the second semester of senior year, but a lot of people postpone it until the first semester of a fifth year.
4. How many classes should I take every semester?
     > It sort of depends on your major, but if you can handle 6 classes/semester do it during your freshman and sophomore years so you do not have to do it when you're taking difficult classes!
5. What is an MTEL
    > Massachusetts Test for Education Licensure
6. Can you take spring break while student teaching?
     > NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
7. How many credits do you need to graduate?
     > 120, but our program are pretty full so most if not all of you will take more than 120!


Then we held break out sessions based on majors (Early, Elementary, Special and Secondary). The sessions were run by board members whose in that particular major. The upper classman also provided valuable insight by providing their own personal experiences and ideas. The topics that were discussed are advising, registering for classes, the sequence of classes, professors to take, practicums, studying abroad and MTELS! The upperclassman also wrote down helpful tips for being an education major that we will be providing for our underclassman in some form!

We had our first Bigs and Littles meeting! The Bigs and Littles met with one another and got to know each other a little. The Littles were able to ask some questions or express some of their concerns! As a quick ice breaker and future planning activity we played was Four at the Door. The Littles wrote down four stresses they have about being an education major or freshman year and stuck it to the drawing of a door we had on a poster board. The concept of this was so that they could leave their stresses with their Bigs and know that they will get the supports they need!

This year we are also going to be modeling teaching strategies for our members. This week we did "ticket out the door". Tickets out the door are used for assessments or feedback. One way we modeled this was with the Bigs and Littles four on the door activity. The other was with our F-Back box. The members were given a piece of paper with an empty head on it that read "whats on your mind". At the end of the meeting they wrote any questions, comments, concerns or ideas on it and put them in the box. These slips will help us when we plan future meetings!

Another instructional strategy was the use of anchor charts. Anchor charts are hung up in the classroom during the year that provide important information. Our anchor charts contain MTEL information per major and will be hung up at the meetings all year!

 

At the meeting we had two volunteer sign up opportunities!

• Our volunteer positions for Kids Zone are full! An email will be sent out soon about who is volunteering and when!
• Rays of Hope is a Breast Cancer benefit walk that we will be attending on October 20! Registration begins at 10:15 so we will be leaving campus at around 9:15! We will meet in front of Scanlon! If you want to attend please email Alyssa(aperry0320@westfield.ma.edu ) by October 17 so she can get everything organized! When you contact her please give her your phone number and if you are willing to drive!

As always please email us if you need anything!
Our next meeting is on October 21 at 7:00!
Julie!

First Meeting of the 2013 and 2014 year!

We held our first meeting of year on Monday September 23! All of us were THRILLED to see so many new students want to get involved in SNEA and make the most of being an education major here at Westfield State! It was also awesome to see some familiar faces come join us again for another year!

 

At the meeting we did many activities to get SNEA rolling! While eating pizza we discussed what SNEA is and what kinds of workshops and projects we do over the year.  One of our goals for this year is to really build a community between all our members and the board! The board went around said who they were and talked a little about themselves and what their individual roles and projects are. As a refresher this years SNEA board consists of:

- Meaghen Chalmers

        > President

      > Project: Bigs and Littles and many other presidential duties

- Kate Roberts

       > Vice President

- Colleen Macdonald

       > Treasure

       > Project: Kid Zone 

- Alyssa Perry

      > Secretary

      > Project: Benefit walks

- Julie Dabenigno

      > Editor

      > Social Media

      > Project: Apparel

- Laura Smith
      > Historian
      > Project: Homeless Shelter
                         Bulletin Boards
- Katie Thomann
      > Secondary Education Rep
      > Project: Read Across America
- Underclassman Rep
      > A Freshman or Sophomore can run for this position! If you are interested in getting involved run at our next meeting, October 7! You can run with a partner if you want to!

 

Check out the Meet The Executive Board page on our blog to learn more about this years board members!

To begin building relationships with one another we played a few icebreakers. The first game we played Meaghen asked some questions and if it applied to you, you stood up. This game allowed us all to get to know one another a little bit better. It was also cool to see all the connections between everyone. We also had all our members write down questions, concerns or ideas on index cards. A few were able to be discussed at the meeting but we did  look through all the index cards after the meeting! There were some similarities between the questions about the dreaded MTELS, what classes/professors to take, practicums and student teaching. We have started to plan some of our future meeting around your questions.

This years T-shirt design was showed at the meeting!
 

 If you are interested in a T-shirt but did not sign up for one don't worry sign ups will be available at the next meeting!










We began the process for our Bigs and Littles mentoring program. Bigs and Littles is a program where a Senior and Sophomore are paired up and a Junior and Freshman are paired up. It is a great program where the Littles get to learn so much about being an education major from the Bigs! You can use each other for support, ask questions and even make a friend! During the meeting you will engage in activities and this year there is also going to be Bigs and Littles outings! If you are interested and did not sign up because you did not get the sheet or could not make the meeting please email Meaghen by next Wednesday! Meaghen's email is Mchalmers8543@westfield.ma.edu

To end the meeting we had a few raffles where some of our members won some great books to start building their classroom library, apparel and a tote!

We could not be more thrilled with how our first meeting went and are very excited for this upcoming year!

Here is the upcoming meeting dates for the fall semester!

October 7

October 21

November 4

November 18

December 2

These are all at 7:00 in the SGA room!

-Julie

 

Children's Author: Jerry Pallotta

At our last meeting, we were lucky enough to have Jerry Pallotta come and speak. We got to learn a lot of interesting information about how his books get published and how he got started writing. My favorite part about the workshop was learning all of the little secrets that most people do not know about his books and the illustrations inside of them. We learned many fun facts and he was so funny to listen to!

We were able to purchase his books at the meeting, and he even signed them for anyone who bought them!

 

 

 

He read some of his books to us while they were broadcasted on the projector and he told us fun facts about how the stories had changed since he originally wrote them. He even showed us orignal manuscripts from when he was first drafting out some of his books.

It was a great meeting and we are so thrilled that he was able to come!


Erica
SNEA Vice President

Walking with Natalie

Hi everyone,

Some of you may know by now that SNEA has been planning a benefit walk called "Walking with Natalie" for some time now, and it's finally getting close!  On Sunday October 14 we will be holding the walk at the Westfield State University Woodward indoor track, all proceeds will benefit the Fothergill family in purchasing a new handicapped van for their daughter.  If you would like to register, donate or for more information please visit walkingwithnatalie.eventbrite.com! Or, as always, contact us at westfieldsnea@gmail.com!  We are also going to be having a registration table in the dinning commons this week and next!

Meaghen
SNEA President

Hi guys!

I know it's been a bit since our first meeting but we wanted to put up a quick recap incase anyone had any questions before our meeting on Monday!
      >We introduced our board, whom you can learn about by visiting each of our pages at the top of the blog
     > We discussed several upcoming events and handed out a calendar... we will post a copy of that on here too so that everyone can stay on top of all the awesome events we have!
     > Callie passed around shelter sign ups and we are thrilled to have so much interest, we know you guys will love the visits as much as we do!
     > Erica talked about the Bigs&Littles program where underclassman can be paired with an upperclassman mentor to learn the ropes and make new friends! We will have sign ups at this next meeting!
     > Scholastic book order forms were handed out so that we can all start building our libraries, if you filled out a form feel free to get them back to Britney!
     > Jess told everyone about "Walking with Natalie" the benefit we have coming up in a few weeks, we're going to be looking for volunteers soon so look for information about that!
     > Kate closed the meeting discussing our new social media: our group on facebook (Westfield State University SNEA) our twitter @westfieldSNEA and of course our blog!

So thanks again for everyone who came out to the first meeting, we hope to see you again this Monday October 1 at 7 in Scanlon Banquet Hall for the next meeting where we have guest speaker Jerry Pollatta and tons of new information for everyone!

Meaghen
SNEA President

Hello everyone!

With the 2012 Presidential Elections coming up I thought that it would be a good idea for you to read about the candidates' views on education.  The URLS will take you to the issues and each candidate's views on education.  However, I encourage you to look at all the other issues that they talk about because this election will be affecting us the most since many of us will be becoming teachers in the next couple of years.  If you have any questions or things that you would like to talk about please feel free to contact us!

Mitt Romney's Views:
http://www.mittromney.com/issues/education

Barack Obama's Views:
http://www.barackobama.com/education?source=primary-nav

Britney
SNEA Treasurer

Hi Everyone,

Over the Summer some of us had an amazing opportunity to attend the NEA's Student Leadership Conference in Washington D.C!  While we were there we got to work on an national outreach project at Thomas Johnson Middle School in Maryland and attend two days of conference workshops.  We learned so much ranging from membership benefits, to new ways to recruit future teachers and about voter registration, since it is election year after all! During the conference we also elected a new Student Program Chair, David Tjaden, if you want more information about the elections or the student program you can check out the NEA student program page. We all had an amazing time and are definitely looking forward to any future conferences we can attend! Below are some of the pictures we took while we were in Washington :)

Sight seeing on our first day!

Ready bright and early for the outreach project in Maryland

Second day of conference workshops

Westfield State SNEA Board (minus Callie) and fellow Massachusetts SEAM members from Worcester State!

Thanks for reading!

Meaghen

SNEA President