Genius Hour Blog Welcome Post - Blog Post #1

 Hello there! 

Welcome to my first blog post in the Genius Hour Project series. My name is Emily Glencross and I am a first-year Consecutive Education Student at Brock University in the Primary/Junior stream. While I am new to teacher's college, I previously completed my undergraduate degree at Brock University. In 2019, I graduated from Brock University with a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology. 

Before I get down into the "nitty-gritty" of what I will be discussing and exploring in my Genius Hour series, I would like to spend a few more moments introducing myself and providing a few more details about me. So without further adieu, I will re-introduce myself as Emily! Hello and nice to 'meet' you. I am a 25-year-old female living in St. Catharines, Niagara. I was born in Ottawa however, I moved out to St. Catharines with my family around the age of 10 so I think of Niagara as 'home' (but Ottawa definitely has a huge place in my heart!). My hobbies include playing volleyball, trying new restaurants and bars, being with friends and family, and spending time outside whenever possible. 

In addition to my personal life/interests, I have volunteered and worked in the field of Special Education since 2015, making this area a huge passion of mine and something that I would like to focus my Genius Hour blog series on. Specifically, I would like to focus on the area of literacy in Special Education. My driving question for Genius Hour will be: How can I, as a future educator, integrate literacy strategies into the regular classroom that equally benefit all types of learners? My main goals of the blog and Genius Hour project will include the following:

• Find hands-on, integrative literacy exercises that can be adjusted in the regular classroom for students with exceptionalities (including giftedness)
• Explore ways to incorporate interactive strategies for literacy in both the virtual and face-to-face classroom 
• Provide resources for other teachers hoping to create a more inclusive, equitable literacy and language arts classroom 

In order to ensure that I am meeting my goals throughout the course of Genius Hour, ongoing self check-ins will take place. In addition to this, I will also refer back to the Genius Hour website to ensure that I am meeting the requirements of an effective Genius Hour project. Lastly, I will refer to the rubric provided on the Genius Hour website which outlines how to sufficiently mark the progress of a passion project. 

I am looking forward to exploring this passion project further and hearing your thoughts. Please drop your questions below and I will gladly get to them in future posts. :) 

Until next time,

Emily