My MEL Experiences

• Context- In the 5th grade my sister was learning what a biography was. The teacher had all the students research and write one. The personal connection the teacher help the students make was helping the students choose a famous person in history with the same name as the student. My little sister's name is Molly and her biography was on Molly Pitcher.
  
• Avoid Rewards- In my elementary gym class, we had to do assessments at the beginning of each year. We had to do jumping jacks, sit ups, and a sprint. My gym teacher would always give the kid who won each event a lollipop. I think it made the other kids feel bad for not being as fast or not being able to do a lot of jumping jacks or sit ups. In retrospect, a gym teacher feeding kids sugar seems counter intuitive.
  
• Hands on- In my biology class, we were doing a bird unit. My teacher played for us some recordings of bird sounds of birds that were local to the area. Then we went outside and walked the cross country trails listening for different birds. I think we ended up hearing 5 different birds that we could identify. That was fun and it helped us appreciate something as mundane as bird chirps.
  
• Helping Students Succeed- I was struggling with the review at the beginning of my AP Calculus class because I had not had any math classes since the beginning of my sophomore year and this was my senior year. My teacher was very patient with me and reviewed with me some basic principals that I had forgotten. I was getting frustrated because I knew I had done it all before and I could not remember it. He just said, "hey take it easy. I know you can do it, just relax and let it come back to you." Knowing he had confidence in me helped me feel comfortable to come in after class whenever I did not understand a concept. I got a 4 on the AP exam but even without that kind of success, I know he helped me a lot.
  
• Student/Teacher Relationships- I had a geography teacher, Mr. Jones, that for all of his classes, he gave each student a nickname. Even outside of class, when Mr. Jones saw us, he would call us by the nickname he had given us. My nick name was M.C. which are my initials but the day he gave me the nickname, he asked me if I could touch this. I just looked at him and said, "touch what?" He said, "come on M.C. isn't that your song?" I just laughed but the name stuck. It made me feel like he cared enough to come up with nick names for all of us and remember them.