Aloha and Welcome!
My name is Brooke Rehmann, and I will be your instructor for this
semester. This post will serve as an introduction to myself as well as
the course. I will be blogging alongside you throughout the course - I
am a strong believer that as an educator, we need to understand the
experiences of our students. This applies to both young children, and
adults as well. Challenging ourselves to understand what it's like to be
an emergent reader, writer or speaker by engaging in activities, such
as learning a new language, or engaging in writing beyond our classes
here at university, help us to better understand the processes we ask
children to do everyday. It also helps us better understand when those
children are struggling, because we have experienced the same struggles
ourselves.
I have worked in a variety of early childhood settings, from an infant/toddler classroom working with teen moms, to private preschools, to Head Start, and an inner city kindergarten classroom in NYC. I am also a graduate of UH Maui College and UH West Oahu, having taken these same classes that you currently take. I received my bachelors degree here in 2010 and worked with Dr. Susan Matoba Adler and Dr. Jeanne Iorio, who were both very influential in my work with young children. They were incredibly helpful in charting my own ECE career - I hope I can be at least half as influential as they have been to me. If you ever have any questions about this course, or any facet of the field, I hope you will free to reach out to me.
It is just my husband Ben and I, plus our cat. We don't have children, but we have plenty of children in our lives, from friends and family. We both love to travel and experience the challenges of immersing ourselves into foreign cultures. One of my favorite areas of travel have been to the islands of Polynesia - I truly love seeing the similarities and differences between the different island cultures. My travels through New Zealand/Aotearoa influence my own research into their study of ECE, as there are major similarities between Hawaii and Maori struggles in education. We will briefly examine some of those areas this semester.
I teach both at West Oahu and Kauai Community College through distance courses. When I'm not teaching, I write for and edit a local magazine here on the Big Island. I share stories of the people who call Hawaii Island home, as well as explore the various historical and cultural facets of my home. I also really love to take pictures, and the magazine publishes some as well. These skills match up quite well with the material we will be discussing this semester - how do we tell the stories of each child that we work with to outsiders. In other words, how will our work make their learning visible?
My blogs will serve in place of a lecture or Power Point. I will be writing them as necessary, when I see that further information needs to be addressed. Please be sure to read these postings as they will go more in-depth than just what the readings cover. Sometimes the blog postings will discuss your upcoming assignments. There may not be a blog posting each week - I will send an announcement when one is available. You are not obligated to comment on these postings, though you may if you'd like. Please address any of your thoughts into your own postings after you've read mine. I hope you will challenge some of the things I bring up - I do not have all of the answers, and because this is a class where the Socratic Method is at the forefront, we need to challenge each other, myself included, in order to keep our knowledge moving forward
I have purposely chosen to have you blog instead of using Laulima to give you the space and freedom to explore your thoughts in a less structured way. This is my seventh time teaching this class, and each semester I am excited to see how the students use this space to really explore the materials. Because we are a small group, I want us to really get to know each other. Feel free to include personal artifacts from your life, like pictures or video. Do any of your personal experiences tie into this subject matter? This blog is your personal space - please feel free to add personal touches to it throughout the semester.
That being said, each blog should incorporate the following: A response to your partner/peers/my responses to you, a break down of your thoughts on the readings (please make specific references to the readings/my postings so that I know for sure that you did, in fact, do the readings), as well a questioning of the materials. What intrigued you? What surprised you? What did you agree/disagree with? Why? Points will be deducted if any of the above parts are left out.
There is a lot of material to cover, and it will be incredibly easy to fall behind - please try not to. Your partner is counting on you to have your blog posting up in time for them to respond, and your other peers will likely miss out on your unique perspective if you do not have your blog posting up in time. As a community of learners, it benefits us all to be able to hear each unique voice that you all bring to this class. Your postings will be due before midnight each Sunday according to the syllabus, and your peer responses will be due that next Wednesday before midnight.
Introduction
I was born in New Jersey at the Jersey Shore and spent the first twenty years of my life there. Since then, I have spent the majority of that time in Hawaii, both on the island of Maui for six years, and now on the Big Island in Kailua-Kona for about eight years. I left for a couple of years to attend grad school in New York City at Teachers College - Columbia University, before quickly returning to Hawaii because this truly feels like home.I have worked in a variety of early childhood settings, from an infant/toddler classroom working with teen moms, to private preschools, to Head Start, and an inner city kindergarten classroom in NYC. I am also a graduate of UH Maui College and UH West Oahu, having taken these same classes that you currently take. I received my bachelors degree here in 2010 and worked with Dr. Susan Matoba Adler and Dr. Jeanne Iorio, who were both very influential in my work with young children. They were incredibly helpful in charting my own ECE career - I hope I can be at least half as influential as they have been to me. If you ever have any questions about this course, or any facet of the field, I hope you will free to reach out to me.
It is just my husband Ben and I, plus our cat. We don't have children, but we have plenty of children in our lives, from friends and family. We both love to travel and experience the challenges of immersing ourselves into foreign cultures. One of my favorite areas of travel have been to the islands of Polynesia - I truly love seeing the similarities and differences between the different island cultures. My travels through New Zealand/Aotearoa influence my own research into their study of ECE, as there are major similarities between Hawaii and Maori struggles in education. We will briefly examine some of those areas this semester.
Exploring New Zealand/Aotearoa
I teach both at West Oahu and Kauai Community College through distance courses. When I'm not teaching, I write for and edit a local magazine here on the Big Island. I share stories of the people who call Hawaii Island home, as well as explore the various historical and cultural facets of my home. I also really love to take pictures, and the magazine publishes some as well. These skills match up quite well with the material we will be discussing this semester - how do we tell the stories of each child that we work with to outsiders. In other words, how will our work make their learning visible?
Introduction to the Course
The main thing that I will be asking of you is to approach the materials from a critical perspective. You will be asked to critique the readings, the materials, as well as your own practices and the practices that you have witnessed. It is easy to say that you already know how to do documentation and assessment, but you will likely be introduced to practices that exceed what you thought possible. You will be introduced to both noteworthy practices, but also some practices that are not as ideal. You may currently be engaging in practices that you do not agree with, or you may be working in a setting that currently employs exemplary practices. Both of these instances require critical approaches - how can we improve our systems? Are the voices of the children being heard? Are we making their learning visible to outsiders in an authentic way?My blogs will serve in place of a lecture or Power Point. I will be writing them as necessary, when I see that further information needs to be addressed. Please be sure to read these postings as they will go more in-depth than just what the readings cover. Sometimes the blog postings will discuss your upcoming assignments. There may not be a blog posting each week - I will send an announcement when one is available. You are not obligated to comment on these postings, though you may if you'd like. Please address any of your thoughts into your own postings after you've read mine. I hope you will challenge some of the things I bring up - I do not have all of the answers, and because this is a class where the Socratic Method is at the forefront, we need to challenge each other, myself included, in order to keep our knowledge moving forward
I have purposely chosen to have you blog instead of using Laulima to give you the space and freedom to explore your thoughts in a less structured way. This is my seventh time teaching this class, and each semester I am excited to see how the students use this space to really explore the materials. Because we are a small group, I want us to really get to know each other. Feel free to include personal artifacts from your life, like pictures or video. Do any of your personal experiences tie into this subject matter? This blog is your personal space - please feel free to add personal touches to it throughout the semester.
That being said, each blog should incorporate the following: A response to your partner/peers/my responses to you, a break down of your thoughts on the readings (please make specific references to the readings/my postings so that I know for sure that you did, in fact, do the readings), as well a questioning of the materials. What intrigued you? What surprised you? What did you agree/disagree with? Why? Points will be deducted if any of the above parts are left out.
There is a lot of material to cover, and it will be incredibly easy to fall behind - please try not to. Your partner is counting on you to have your blog posting up in time for them to respond, and your other peers will likely miss out on your unique perspective if you do not have your blog posting up in time. As a community of learners, it benefits us all to be able to hear each unique voice that you all bring to this class. Your postings will be due before midnight each Sunday according to the syllabus, and your peer responses will be due that next Wednesday before midnight.
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