Kayla Carew's Teaching Portfolio

Hi guys! Today's blog is brought to you by myself, Rylee Booth, and Allie Cullen (check out their blogs if you have time!). Adolescence is a time when emotions essentially control the mind and make it difficult to think rationally. There comes a time when an adolescent begins their journey into adulthood and must learn how to think, act, and regulate for oneself. The purpose of a coming of age ritual is to break from the norms that characterize adolescence. While some coming of age transitions are planned and purposeful, some events force adolescents into the transition to adulthood.  As Maslow’s hierarchy illustrates, safety is imperative, on all levels, for self-actualization to occur. In accordance with this philosophy, Vygotsky emphasizes the importance of social interaction through his concept of scaffolding, and how it is essential to cognitive development, especially throughout adolescence.  Using the various philosophies of Maslow and Vygotsky to guide our design...

On Monday, February 5th, I went to the showing of "Screenagers" at Shelburne Community School. The movie discusses the usage of screen time for adolescents and its negative impacts. The central storyline revolves around the filmmaker's own experience of deciding whether or not to give her 12-year-old daughter Tessa a smart phone. The trailer for the film is below. The film explores the ways in which adolescents are addicted to their devices and the impacts it can have. On average, adolescents spend over ten hours a day looking at a screen. This does not include the time they spend doing homework. Another interesting fact that the movie discusses is that students who are on their phones during class are actually distracting the students next to them. Sitting next to a classmate that is on his or her phone can be more distracting than being on your own phone. During adolescence, the prefrontal cortex is still developing. This is the part of the brain that is in char...

Throughout the course of the semester, each PLC group will read three YA novels. The first novel that my group is reading is titled  Dumplin' by Julie Murphy. The novel revolves around the life of "self proclaimed fat girl" Willowdean, nicknamed Dumplin by her mother. Willowdean is comfortable in her skin until she falls for Bo, a private school boy who she works with. As her positive self image begins to crumble, she distances herself from Bo and from her best friend Ellen. Willowdean's mother is known for running the local beauty pageant that captivates the town for half of the year. Although her mother never says she should enter the pageant, Willowdean decides to register in order to regain the self confidence she had before meeting Bo. The novel teaches adolescents to be happy in their own skin and that a good self image is important.  As of right now, we are currently through the first third of the book or so. Throughout the novel, strong connection...