1. EDU673: Instruct. Strat. For Differentiated Teach & Learn Instructor Racquel Bovier Paula Maloney August 3, 2015

2. Hello class and Instructor Bovier!!! My name is Paula Maloney and I am looking forward to spending time with all of you to learn some excited ways to help the children in my classroom. I have two grown children and two grown stepchildren. I have been married to my wonderful husband for four years now and he is the one that encouraged me to go back to school. I have a beautiful one year old grandson that spends his weekends with his Nannie and Pawpaw and two spoiled dogs.

3. I live in a very small town in Southern Illinois called Eldorado. I have lived here since I was eight years old and I have left a few times through my past jobs but always return. I am 30 minutes from Kentucky, one hour away from Indiana, and two hours from Missouri.

4. I received my Associates Degree in Early Childhood Education back in 1993 at our local college. I did not decide to go back to school until 2012 to earn my Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education as the Head Start program that I work for was starting to require that Lead teachers have a Bachelor’s degree. I earned my BA in January of 2015 at Ashford University. After a few months, I decided to go back to Ashford to obtain my MA in Early Childhood Education because I learned so many things obtaining my BA that I want to know as much as I can to help the children in my classroom.

5. My passion has always been to work with young children. I took early childhood classes in high school and have known since a very young age that I wanted to work with young children. I started having nieces and nephews since I was nine years old and babysat as soon as my mother would let me. When I started working at the Head Start program back in 2010, I knew it was the right fit. I love working with the children in the classroom and their families.

6. I grew up in the local public school in Eldorado, Illinois. My favorite teacher was Mr. Henry. He was a strict teacher as far as he made everyone work hard and did not like slackers. But he was very inspiring about creativity and did not make you feel bad for something not working quite right as long as you tried. He encouraged me to keep trying and helped me solve the problems I was having. I remember a teacher (no name) that always made children feel bad for giving the wrong answer. She made children feel awful for not getting something quite right and quite honestly made fun of you in front of the class. I will never forget what it felt like to be wrong.

7. The potato is the food I would choose if I had to choose one food to eat for the rest of my life. I like different variety of food in my life and this is the one food that I could think of that would give me the most variety. You can bake it, fry it, mash it, and even have chips so this is why I chose the potato.