My MEL Experiences

• Student/Teacher Relationship: My fifth grade teacher, Ms. Weston, was an excellent example of an educator who understands the importance of a strong student/teacher relationship. With her bubbly demeanor and welcoming tone of voice, coupled with her sharp (Yet always clean and age-appropriate) sense of humor, she inspired loyalty in her students and faith that whatever she was teaching us was worthwhile.
• Hands-On: Many of my best educational experiences have involved hands-on work. There's nothing like looking into a microscope in a high school biology classroom and realizing, having known it before but finally realizing, that there is an entire world that exists which we can't see with our naked eyes.
• Interest: Any student who has a preexisting interest in a topic will already have a place in their brain to which they can connect any new information relating to that topic. As that is the case, their learning will come easier if the content can be related to something which has already caught their interest. For instance, the freshman English classes here at UMF are generally themed. This is an attempt to gather the interest of the students, and in my case, the theme of the Beatles definitely worked to hold the interest of my fellow learners.
  
• Connections: Relating to how prior interest helps learning, connections are vital in the classroom. The brain seems to be in a never ending process of pruning information, and the data that make it always seem to be the ones that have the most connections. For example, I found it much easier to learn about human anatomy and physiology after I made an effort to relate it to other subjects that I already had learned about independently, such as evolution.
• Autonomy: Autonomy has not always seemed to be a positive force in the classroom for me. Oftentimes, being given too much freedom has made my learning experience feel unstructured. Some of my most memorable experiences in elementary school involved teachers who told us exactly how to organize our work, rather than leaving us to figure out a system on our own. That built-in structure lets me know how to structure the information in my own brain, and I find that valuable.