Blog Reflection

When I read we had to do an assignment over a blog I was in complete confusion. I had never created, kept up, of even really knew what a blog was. After, doing some research I gained a little better understanding of how a blog works. Once I gained that understanding I then tried to create my own. Before I began I thought it would be a piece of cake, but more into the project it began to get more confusing to me. The items that confused me were the gadgets in the editing of the page, I would think they would do one thing, and they would do another. I never really got the finished product that I wanted on my blog with the gadgets, but I am still working.  Since I am an active computer used I would get aggravated at myself because I thought I knew what I was doing, but I really didn’t . This is my own fault for not researching it more, but maybe if it was at a different time in my life I would love to blog and figure out how to make it look great. Also, during this assignment I moved to a different location that had no internet connection available, and my school blocked the website. I know this all sounds like excuses, but I wanted to explain on why I had trouble.

Overall for the blog assignment I really did not like it because of internet connection problems, blocked sites, the fact that it is basically an online diary, and it was very time consuming to keep up. Maybe if I work with it more, figure out a way to get internet to my home, and completely understand how to work with gadgets, I may begin to like to blog.

As I began to self evaluate myself I rated my blog as a 5 from a one to ten scale. In some to the rubrics requirement I rated myself as exemplary, but majority of other requirements were rated competent or needs work. Overall I did an OK job on the blog considering it was not my favorite. Maybe in the future I will have better resources for internet,  more understanding of blogs, a lot more time on my hands, and can have a chance to like blogging.

1st observation

A few weeks ago I completed my first observation and  everything was going great until I got to my activity. My activity was called I have who has, and it is played with index cards. The front of the index card would have a question and on the back would be the answer to another question. The index cards must be numbered so the stack of the cards will go in a big circle throughout the class.  Some how or another I numbered my index cards wrong and the game did not got throughout the whole class, it just went through two people then quit. As soon as this happened I began to panic, but came up with a solution to call on people so they could all participate in the game. Overall the observation went well, but there are still a number of things that definitively need work with so with the help of classes, my mentor, and co-workers I think I can get it all straightened out.

1st Basketball Game

A few weekends ago we had our first basketball game and boy was I nervous. I have not been around basketball for the past 5 years and have a  lot of learning to do to get back in the groove of helping with the sport. I was probably the most nervous person on the bus headed to the game and I wasn't even playing. After watching the first quarter from the bench I was ready to get out on the court and play with the girls,but there was a problem I am now a coach and not a player. :( This made me sad at first, but I then realized that I can now teach these girls what I had once learned at their age. It may take me a little bit to get back in the groove of basketball, but no doubt will I try my best to help the girls better their game.

Softball Tryouts

Not only do I teach health and P.E. I coach basketball and softball as well. The other night was the first night of our softball tryouts and boy was it crazy. There were girls and balls flying everywhere, but I loved every minute of it. I love to be around the sport of softball and was lucky enough to get a job that enables me to be around the sport and gives me the opportunity to help people learn more about the sport.

6th Grade Lesson

The last lesson I did with my sixth grade class was hygiene. The first day we went over how to properly take care of your teeth and skin so I decided to let the students teach. This lesson went very well because the students loved being the teacher; they made up their own worksheets, tests and even made posters for their fellowclassmates to look at while they were teaching the lesson. This lesson went super well and I am definitely going to use this teaching strategy more often.

Professional Development Learning

This past week I got the opportunity to participate in a professional development class. Our school participates is the sim development which consists of different parts, such as: comparison tables, unit organizers, course organizers, and frame. The topics we discuss were the unit organizer and the comparison table. The unit organizer was a very helpful guide for the students and I. This guide gives a schedule of what would be going on that day and the days to come, explanation to what will be learned from the unit, and how the lessons will be divided throughout the unit. The next topic we went over was the comparison table. This will be a great thing to use in the classroom to get the student more involved. The comparison table has 9 steps to which you follow. You start the table by coming up with two concepts, then step two is deciding an overall concept. Once the concepts and overall concept is decided you can now list some characteristics of each concept. Once the characteristics are listed, then place the like characteristics together and come up with like categories, then place the unlike characteristics together and come up with unlike categories. Once the categories have been made you now must make up a summary of the lesson and put and extension to the lesson. An example of the comparison table would be comparing alcohol and tobacco. Alcohol would be a concept, tobacco would be a concept, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle would be the overall concept. After a lesson this would be a great activity for the students to complete to show what they had learned from the lesson. In my opinion, by getting the students up and moving around will help get them more focused on what the lesson is about rather than making them sit there for the full ninety minutes.

I Never Knew Teaching Would Be So Hard!

At the beginning of college I knew that I wanted to be a coach/ teacher, but never knew how hard it would be after graduation. I never put that much thought into what teachers do until I became one and realized the stress and hard work that has to be done. It is not a simple job where you go to work and come home and relax, it is so much more. You have to know your content, organize your lessons, be prepared for anything that will come to you in the classroom, always be prepared in case you run out of time, and so much more. By no means is this a seven to three thirty job.