Week 16

This past week has begun to slow down. Since I have phased out, I have only been teaching a few classes a day. During this past week I was wondering how students would react to my cooperating teacher rather than me.  I wondered if students would still keep to my expectations and rules for behavior. I also wondered if my students cared if they had five minutes of health or not. As the week went on, I was surprised at many things. The upper grade students that I struggled with behaviors were curious if I could teach health education the following year and the lower grade students wanted to know if they were still going to get rewards when I was gone.  

Another great thing that I noticed was when my cooperating teacher was instructing I noticed many instances where he referred back to my teaching or said something that I had said to students in order to calm them down and get ready for an activity. Even though he never said good job or good idea, his teaching that incorporated my ideas showed that he did appreciate the things that I brought to his classroom. Also, this past week he gave me a recommendation letter and I was very grateful and felt appreciated by all of the kind things he said and the things he indicated that showed his appreciation for taking over his classes for my student teaching placement.

 I spent my entire 17 weeks teaching at this placement. Earlier in the semester I counted down the months, weeks, and days. I wanted it to be over so I could have my own classroom. Even though I still am eager to have my own class I realized that without my experiences I had at my placement I do not think I would have been as prepared as a first year teacher. I feel more confident than I did before and I truly am ready and up for any challenge that comes my way in the future. Their where time when I had whished for an easy placement where behaviors were not an issue, but I think if I was not challenged I would have been board. I have come to a point where I know that if I take a job where it is easy I will become board because I won’t have much of a challenge.

It truly feels surreal that this is my final post and my final days of student teaching are ahead. I will miss the students that I have worked with and I am very appreciative that I was able to try and experiment with many new ideas and strategies in my cooperating teacher’s class. I am hopeful that I have made a difference at my placement; my objective this semester was to make a difference and be a role model to the students. Many students made me think on my feet, frustrated me, and made me laugh, I truly appreciate what the students taught me, because what I learned from them has shaped me into the teacher that I have become (Standard 10 reflection and personal growth).  

“Great Teachers are Equal Opportunists” Chapter 12: Schmidt

I really enjoyed this chapter on lifelong learners. Currently as a student, I mainly think about taking extra courses like a master’s program, attending seminars, or becoming a member of an educational organization.  After reading this chapter Schmidt opened my mind to other unique ways that teachers can continue to become learners. Even though Schmidt did suggest joining organizations and reading journals, I liked how she talked about collaborating with other teachers is a way to become a lifelong learner within the school. I never really thought about a lifelong learner as collaborating, but as I read it made more sense when teachers collaborate and join classes or even share ideas across other curriculums.

As a future educator I hope to be able to integrate other units within my physical education class, and hope to find a teacher that would like to integrate physical education into their classroom. Together I feel that both teachers and students would benefit from collaborating and learning together listing and learning to appreciate different ideas and opinions.  

Another section I found interesting was becoming a cooperating teacher for a student teacher. I feel and hear often that teachers leave the class or become disconnected with the students and student teacher, for the student teacher to teach full time. I believe that may be effective for a day or two, but in reality a student teacher is supposed to be learning from a mentor that has experienced teaching and can teach and model best practices in the classroom to the student teacher. With my experience, I hope to have a student teacher one day when I feel that I have many good experiences as well as strategies to really help a student grow. I feel that at some point I would be able to take responsibility as a cooperating teacher and provide a student teacher with the experience they deserve to become an effective teacher.   

I have every intention as an educator to continue to learn and grow in order to stay current with the always changing students and units being taught in health and physical education.

Week 15

During this past week, I have been reflecting on my whole experience as a student teacher at my placement. In the beginning of my experience, I really wanted to be placed in an environment where I had an amazing cooperating teacher and really great students that enjoyed physical education and did the best that they could do. I felt that the best way to learn how to become a good and effective teacher would be to learn from the best. When I began at my placement and met with many students and my cooperating teacher, I felt like I had been placed in an environment that was the complete opposite of what I wanted or thought that it was going to be. Talking or I should say venting to teachers, peers, and friends I was jealous of the student teachers that had been placed in an environment that they loved and learned so much from. As I was feeling and thinking many different things, I still knew there was a reason for me to be placed in that school and it wasn’t just a jinx.

Since their was no curriculum in place or even a concrete weekly schedule of units or activities, I began to start taking the initiative and creating an environment (as much as I could) that I would like in my own gym. I began to start thinking like a first year teacher rather than an unfortunate student teacher. As a first year teacher, from what I understand is exhausting, challenging, at time frustrating, stressful, time consuming, and exciting all at the same time. I felt that my situation was quite like a first year teacher where I needed to come up with my own activities and lessons from scratch with very little materials left from the last teacher. Having this opportunity helped me become more creative as a teacher, have high standards for myself, passionate, have an open heart for students, and motivated to make a difference (even if it is small) within the environment that I have been “blessed with.”  I started small even though I had a million ideas that I wanted to do all at once. I began with the basics, I began teaching what I have learned, what I know is important, and what I know will impact student learning.

Once my ideas were taught and implemented is when I noticed that other teachers and the principal was beginning to notice me and students were reacting to the change. Students were becoming more interested in what was being taught and the social worker wanted me to become more involved. That is when I was given the opportunity to be a coach for girls on the run and later implement health education within other classes after a grant was passed for the month of April. I began to notice that I was the only student teacher in the building staying after school and volunteering. I was beginning to see that my time and effort was appreciated and welcomed.

As I look back now, I do not think my placement was a curse, but in some way a blessing. I also believe that even though my placement has been a challenge, that maybe I was one of the few that received a placement that really challenged and made me work hard as a teacher and not just a student teacher. I know I still have a ton more to learn about teaching and myself as a teacher, but I believe that I was able to truly get a feel for creating and implementing, managing a classroom and the behaviors, learning about diversity, and forming collaborative relationships with other teachers because I first hand experienced each teaching component myself. According to the IPTS, I believe that my placement has prepared me appropriately plan for instruction by planning and designing instruction based off of students and the community IPTS 4. Also, I have had the opportunity to learn more about diversity by understanding and creating different approaches to learning for diverse learners IPTS 3.   I have also created an environment that encourages social interaction, motivation, and appropriate behaviors IPTS 5.

For this upcoming week, I plan to talk with the assistant principal about the interview process and my placement and to also see what he looks for when looking over a first year teacher’s resume. I know that that opportunity will better prepare my during my future interview process. I also plan to submit more resumes to school with physical education and health education openings. As for teaching, I am beginning to phase out and give back my cooperating teachers classes. I am curious if he is going to change his teaching now that he has seen a positive change within his gym over the last few months.  

Week 14

Over the past week, I have been spending much of my time teaching health education to grades 1^st through 8^th grade. The school administration decided to choose their heath education time focusing specifically on a nutrition unit. Since I have been teaching health education, I have learned a few things that are a bit different since I have been in a gym.

I decided that I wanted to focus on the food plate and goals with the lower grades and nutrition labels for the upper grades. Connecting with IPTS one, I wanted to be sure that I chose central concepts and methods that would be most meaningful to all students.   My main objective was to teach students something new; I did not want time lost re-teaching students something that they have learned previously in their science classes. I made sure to bring in visuals and discuss realistic issues regarding nutrition with the lower grade students. I created a work sheet, which was a fill in the blank sheet. I wanted students to create realistic goals, which included trying new food that they never tried before and illustrating a “perfect dinner.” When asking students to list foods in the different food plate categories, I only wanted students to list veggies, fruits, and grains that they actually liked to eat. I knew that they knew that spinach, broccoli, and peas were vegetables, but I wanted to focus on creating new goals that were realistic for these students to be eating at home. It seemed that students did enjoy the activities that were planned for their nutrition unit.

For the upper grades I decided to use the nutrition labels. I am continuing to get a ton of questions from my students about the food labels. I focused this week on trying to be as realistic as I could with nutrition. I know that students do not do the grocery shopping, but I challenged students to go to the grocery store with their mom or dad to help educate their parents on what they are learning at school and begin to start on the right track to eating healthy. Having students create goals for healthy eating I told student to share those goals with their parents. My hope is that parents will see their children want to begin eating healthy and in turn they may see that they can make a few small changes to be a little healthier by changing their diet. Using the nutrition labels, I also expanded by talking about how many foods are marketed. Even though foods say they are “health,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are. Also, I brought in the book “Eat This Not That” By David Zinczenko. I used this book because it has many popular chain restaurants that the students tend to eat at. I know that students will continue to eat tat Wendy’s, McDonalds, and Burger King, so I wanted to at least share with students what are some of the healthier choices they can make at the popular fast food chain restaurants. Using the book also grabbed the attention of students when they were surprised that a Big Mac from McDonalds was fewer calories than a Whopper with cheese at Burger King. Highlighting these restaurants and their foods made the nutrition unit more realistic to what middle grade students are interested in eating.

Aside from the health education, the bowling unit has been going really well. I was surprised to see how well students were growing from week one to week two. I feel that I have given a variety of instructional strategies that encourage the student’s development in the bowling unit with skills, vocabulary, and knowledge of the game, IPTS six. To make it easier, especially for younger students to remember the correct fingers for bowling, I introduced it as Spiderman fingers (the fingers used to spread the web) and rock star fingers were another easy way for students to remember the correct fingers for holding the bowling ball. Having a bowling word list and a visual of the correct positioning of the bowling pins has really created an learning environment where students have become more independent. I asked students to use the terms on the list to become more familiar with the terminology used in the sport of bowling. Next week, I am going to start having students keep score of their bowing game in order to understand scoring of the game.

I am looking forward to the week ahead to complete my final observation as well as begin to phase out of full time teaching. I am getting very excited for graduation, and it has been great to see the development and growth of my students and myself. 

“Great Teachers are Equal Opportunists” Chapter 7: Schmidt

In this chapter, Schmidt illustrates the importance of using the community as your classroom. In the reading she gives strategies on how to take advantage your local school community and create learning opportunities for students that can be supplemental to the classroom work as well as giving students real life experiences that the classroom cannot provide for students. Creating community-based projects will allow students to grow in all of their intelligences by investigation issues and creating solutions to issues. Not only will this create an opportunity for students to be more familiar with their surroundings but also be aware of what their community can offer them as well as what they can offer their community. These skills that students will practice working in their community are very important for students to learn to become critical thinkers, understanding and application to current issues, and opportunities for volunteering to help their community.

As a physical and health education teacher, I have the ability to create many opportunities for students to work within their community. Taking advantage of the park district alone would allow students to experience many aspects of their community. Students can become familiar with recreation programs and other facilities in the community where they can go for sports and learn about other recreational games that the school many not provide. Being involved with the park district can give students many opportunities to volunteer for any events within the community. An example that I could use as an assessment for students to work with the community, I could have students first volunteer for a running event/race. Here students would observe and understand the work and planning it takes to run an event successfully. Once students understand the budgeting, marketing, theme, and an idea of the reasoning for many races, I would have students as a whole help me put together a race that would benefit the community within the school. The race/event would take place at the school but students would have to give ideas for raising money, where the money would go, how it is beneficial to the school and the community, who is involved, where students are going to recruit other volunteers, and a reason for having the race. This assessment would be beneficial for both health education and physical education.

Another community based project for students in the subject of health education would be to investigate the environmental health of the community. Students would investigate the hazards of air, water, and soil pollution. In determining the finding, students will understand the environment that they live in effects their quality of life. During the investigation students can keep journals, take photographs of environmental hazards with in their community, and chart data of what they have researched about pollution in their community.

I truly believe that taking students into the community gives students an opportunity to learn and experience issues that are within their own community and how they can impact the issues that concern them. As Schmidt stated in this chapter, it is essential that teachers continue to create opportunities for authentic assessment that creates authentic learning opportunities. 

Week 13

Returning back to teaching this week was nice, after a week off for spring break. I started teaching health education to one class each day for the Health Education Grant. I also began a new unit of bowling for the younger grade levels (kindergarten through third grade). This week, I had the opportunity to reflect better on my teaching and how my teaching was delivered by editing my student teaching video. Even though I am going into my 14^th week at my placement, I am still learning more and more about myself as a teacher each week.

When I began teaching and preparing for the Health Education Grant, I was surprised to see the amount of freedom I was given teaching a 40 minutes class solely on nutrition. I was told to follow a health curriculum that the school had for health education, but most of the lessons that were provided were outdated with the lessons focused on the food pyramid. Since the nutrition lessons were outdated, I followed the basic outline but I was able to incorporate the food plate rather than the pyramid. Following the IPTS one, content knowledge, I made sure to evaluate my resources that were available in the school for comprehensiveness, accuracy, and usefulness for student to get the most information in the 40 minutes dedicated to nutrition. Each class I taught was a bit different the lower levels I focused on the food plate and the upper grades I focused on nutrition labels and facts. I noticed a change in behaviors for both grade levels, high and low. It seemed that the upper grades were more focused and interested in the health education in their classroom, while the lower grades seemed distracted with the fact that I came to their classroom to teach rather than in the gym.

From my own observation, many of the students eat flaming hot snacks and pop for a snack, before school and after. I really wanted to get the students to really understand how unhealthy and poor their choices were without saying “hot chips, Cheetos, and pop are bad for you, you need to change that.” I decided instead to enter my health class munching on a bag of flaming hot Cheetos and a 16oz bottle of Dr. Pepper. Almost instantly, I had a reaction for my students. “That’s not healthy!” “Your not suppose to be eating that for breakfast.” Were just a few of the comments I received from my students. I really wanted to create a clear and accurate presentation of what the students do daily, rather than just giving an example. Even though I had to begin my day with a 650-calorie breakfast, it was worth it when I was able to get the reaction I wanted from my students. Using a different approach to the introduction of my lesson I met the IPTS six for instructional delivery.

This past week, I have been watching hours of my teaching for my student teaching video. At first, I felt a bit overwhelmed with the amount of clips I had to go through, but once I began to see my own teaching from a different perspective gave my the opportunity to reflect on what I have been teaching for the past few weeks. I noticed that I tend to give student very detailed instruction. I felt at the time, that it was needed in order for students to stay on track and needed to eliminate confusion. I feel after reflection on the lessons and some classes, that I can give a less detailed explanation to allow much more time for the students to be active. It is funny, because I know from past classes I have taken at Trinity I know that their should be more doing than talking, but I did not realize that I was doing more talking than I should have been doing. Since reflecting on my teaching I now take the introduction down by half in order to give students more opportunity for practice. Since I have become aware of this, I noticed that my students are able to follow direction and follow rules, because they have become familiar and aware of my expectations for their class and the students as individuals. Following the IPTS ten, I have been able to accurately understand method of inquiry through self-assessment. 

This next week, I want to continue to observe student behaviors in order to deliver a better nutrition lesson to each of my health education classes to come. I want to be sure that the time that I am given is most beneficial for students to learn something new, and have student begin to develop goals for themselves and their nutrition. I will continue to be an advocate for health education and physical education even if I have to take one for the team by eating a high calorie breakfast to impact the learning of my students.  

Week 12

This past week, I continued to move forward in each of the two units. I have noticed that some students are improving and moving on the right path of progression on skill level and the general rules and procedures while other classes are not as advanced. I am now at a point where I have developed a few different activities for the same grade level because of the difference in growth of the students learning. I have been giving students extra time for practice, constant feedback, and modifying equipment in order for students to gain a better understanding of the activity and the skills required to actively participate with others. According to the IPTS 2, I have supported the understanding of student development and the individual growth of students by observing all classes and students on an individual basis.

Last week, it was a goal of mine to develop a collaborative relationship with my cooperating teacher that would support my own learning as well as the students learning. Despite the great difference in teaching styles of my teaching philosophy and my cooperating teachers philosophy, their should be a joined agreement that we are both teaching students to create a learning environment that support individual, intellectual, and social growth in students. In that agreement and alignment with the IPTS 9, there must be a mutual respect of one another in order support each other and their decisions for the well being of the students. I feel that I have shown my cooperating teacher respect, commitment, and leadership in being active with communicating with him and other teachers to support student learning.

This past week, I noticed a flaw directly between my cooperating teacher and myself in our relationship to cooperatively teach. All my life I have worked in a team setting, whether it is in a sport, at school, or amongst my family members. I have always worked with others and learned how to respect others ideas and opinions, even it they very different from mine. I noticed that my cooperating teacher is not being a supportive team member in our co-teaching relationship. For instance, a student walked up to me near the end of class and asked to use the water fountain. I replied, “we are going to wrap up in a few minutes, and we will take a water break as a class.” The student nodded with the understanding that we would take a water break as a class. As the student returned to activity, my cooperating teacher approached the student and asked him what I said he could not do. The student replied by saying “I asked to get water.” My cooperating teacher then said, “Well, I said it is okay to get water, so go ahead and get water.” The student turned and looked at me, unsure of what to do. Of course, I told him he could go since my cooperating teacher wanted him to have a drink of water. Now, my issue is not about the student getting water, but the fact that I gave a student instruction, and my cooperating teacher went against my word and allowed the student to get water. I am not a teacher who does not allow water breaks or rest during activity, I make sure that I manage my class appropriately so large numbers of students are not asking to use the bathroom or water fountain, just to get out of class. This particular student that asked for water student did not seem exhausted or desperate for water. I was bothered that my cooperating teacher tries to step in at any time he can to go against my direction during the time I am teaching and tells a student to do the opposite of the instruction I give. Since I am a team player, I will continue to respect my cooperating teacher not only as a teacher but also as an adult.  I can now see why many students do not listen to all teachers in the building, it seems that they have an understanding if a teacher is not their teacher then they don’t have to listen to their instruction. 

Because of my reflecting as a practitioner I have been able to better evaluate how specific choices made and the actions given affect the students and their learning. Reflecting a bit deeper this week has allowed me to come up with different strategies I would like to use in the class. Also, I want to communicate with my cooperating teacher on the issue of working together as a team. I feel that is important that students respect me as their teacher even if I am only at the school for a few more weeks. At that time, I could ask my cooperating teacher what I can do to help if he would like me to do something more, less, or not at all to work better together while we are co-teaching. With my refection and growth I am meeting IPTS 10, I feel that I am beginning to grow as a professional by addressing my concerns or worries directly, in order to create more opportunities for learning and growth.

This next week, my teaching placement will be on spring break. I am going to take this time to relax, reflect, and plan creative lessons for a bowling unit when I return from break. I am hoping this week off will give my students, my cooperating teacher, and myself a fresh start to the last five weeks of my student teaching experience.