Bb1259block's Blog

a unique experience

bb1259block — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 12:44:05 +0000

As we were leaving the cafeteria, after meeting with our ELL buddies on Wednesday, I stopped and spoke to Mr. R. We discussed what a unique and valuable experience we had been fortunate enough to be a part of this semester. Sure, there is the obvious side, the chance to sharpen our skills when dealing with students who have a language barrier, but also the chance to mentor a student one on one. As the semester went on, I began to care about my ELL buddy as a friend, a young man whom held such potential. I offered advice, both academic and some aimed at reaching his future goals. In our second to last meeting, this passed Monday, Julian shared with me that he is considering taking summer school to finish high school early (yay!). The reason is because he wants to go back to his hometown in Mexico. There is gang violence and corruption and he wants to join the Mexican Army to try to help make a difference. I was devestated to hear this. A bright young man with a passion for auto mechanics and a genuine smile sat before me, contemplating a choice that sounded to me like a 50% chance of suicide. Of course I explained to him that I understood his reasons for wanting to help those his family had left behind to come to the United States, and I truly respect his feelings. He wants the generations after him to have a safer place to live. An admirable goal. However, I also shared with him that he deserves to live out his dream of becoming an auto mechanic, working on hot rods. His younger brothers deserve to have a big brother to look up to and provide a positive role model. And his parents deserve the respect of watching him live out the dream of a better life, the entire reason they picked up and moved to the U.S. in the first place. As of Wednesday, nothing was decided. I gave Julian my email address and asked that he keep me updated on his life. I want to know if he decides to go back to Mexico, or if he does fulfill his dream of bec0ming an auto mechanic. Whatever he decides, I know that I will not forgot him or this unique experience. Through this time, I have learned a lot about what caring for your students can do for them and for yourself. I truly feel that I have grown as a teacher and as a person.

Blog #9…it’s coming to an end…

bb1259block — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:55:45 +0000

My time here at AHS is coming to an end. I have learned a lot along the way and feel that this has been a valuable experience. I have improved upon my classroom management and withitness. I feel more confident preparing lesson plans and assessments and feel more at ease in front of a classroom full of students. Some areas I feel I am still struggling with are time management and student engagement. I want so badly to bring creativity to the classroom, yet the topics I have taught have proved a bit challenging. I certainly have learned that to truly be prepared, engaging and hold student interest, a great deal of prep work is required. As a new teacher, I plan to spend a lot of time before the beginning of the semester familiarizing myself with the textbook and finding ways to incorporate real-world and relevant activities that students will enjoy. This semester I have had the opportunity to observe some wonderful teaching as well as teachers that seem to have lost their spark. I have gained some techniques that I plan to incorporate into my own teaching, like Ms. Z’s enthusiasm, student centered teaching style. I feel that this semester has really prepared me to do my student teaching and I am really looking forward to getting out there and applying my new skills.

Portfolio Meeting Blog #8

bb1259block — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:59:25 +0000

After meeting with my colleagues for a Portfolio Meeting on Monday, I am feeling much better about the steps I am taking toward meeting my professional goal. Adam, Ashley, Holly and Ben offered some useful advice and were very supportive of the ideas that I shared with them. I also feel that the practice I am getting from preparing an objective assessment this week will serve as an artifact as well as a stepping stone toward meeting my goal of designing a quality comprehensive exam. My cooperating teacher has also provided me with some great tips to use when assessing students through quizzes and exams and he has given me useful ideas to cut down on grading time. Some of these ideas include using shorter sections for matching on written exams to utilize scantrons instead of hand grading and also to enlist the help of students through peer grading. In conclusion, I feel that I have received a great deal of useful information this semester from Dr. B, my cooperating teacher and through feedback from my colleagues and I have a lot more confidence in creating quality assessments.

Blog #6…Mrs. Z

bb1259block — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:00:08 +0000

Today we had a guest speaker whom I felt was amazing. She did a wonderful job of explaining what we could expect as first year teachers, the application process and how to deal with difficult students. She gave us some great tricks of the trade and appears to be quite an effective teacher. She certainly seems more confident and self assured than one might expect of a first year teacher. I really liked the idea she shared with us about using a gimmick to keep students interested and on task. Being that I have a goofy, boisterous personality I think that is something I can easily incorportate into my classroom.

Mrs. Z stressed the importance of gaining a rapport with your students and even encouraged us to use our Me Poster with our students. I think for students to feel more comfortable it is important that they realize that you are human and that they can relate to you. From what Mrs. Z said, it sounds like she uses a variety of teaching methods and strives to keep the students interested and motivated. I am definitely looking forward to observing her class and feel encouraged as a prospective teacher to see a first year teacher being so successful.

Blog #5

bb1259block — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:39:09 +0000

Description: On Monday, March 9, two of my colleauges and I led the Foundations of Personal Fitness class through a series of exercises. I took the class through a warm-up and explained what we would be doing for the day and broke the class into two groups. Miss Barnett took one group and Miss Martin took the other group and I was her assistant. While Miss Barnett was taking her class through their workout, she noticed one of the female students was especially strong and our cooperating teacher had just implemented a power lifting team. She called the teacher over to discuss the student’s strength and suggested she join the powerlifting team. He agreed.

Analysis: The exchange that took place on Monday was particularly poignant because the student had been disrespectful and unmotivated all semester. She never wanted to do her work and frequently talked back to the teacher. Watching her go through the lifts, she seemed to have a new found purpose. Miss Barnett was able to build a rapport with the student, find a common interest, and encourage her to become a success. It was truly awesome to witness.

Reflection: This experience really emboddied the reasons that I think most people become teachers. To share a passion with a new generation and to encourage and support youths. Watching this lost and disillusioned teen find a positive path was inspiring and it made me feel glad to be entering into the teaching profession.

Blog #3

bb1259block — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:47:00 +0000

Description: The ELL student that I am working with, Julian, is taking his TAKS writing portion exam this week. Last week he shared with me that he had trouble writing essays and expressed an interest in my help. I decided to walk him through writing an essay using some of the skills that I have acquired through my AHS Block instruction.

Analysis: To help Julian learn how to set up an essay, I drew a Graphic Organizer to explain the steps. I first showed him how to set up the introduction, including a thesis sentence. I then explained the kinds of information and support sentences he should include in the body paragraph(s) and finally, I showed him how to wrap it all up in a conclusion paragraph. I also armed him with a few common transitional words and phrases to help his essay “flow.”

Reflection: At the end of our meeting, Julian appeared to be a bit more comfortable with writing essays and he was very appreciative. He told me that he felt that my explanation would help him on the TAKS. I was very glad to be able to help him and truly hope that he did well. I look forward to meeting with him again to find out how he felt he did on the TAKS writing exam.

Skill-related and Health-related Fitness

bb1259block — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:46:01 +0000

Description: I taught my first lesson to my cooperating AHS classroom, Foundations of Personal Fitness. The subject of the lesson was skill-related fitness and health-related fitness. I briefly introduced the information on Monday, so I recalled the information discussed with the students, elaborated on it, then engaged them in an activity. The activity that I chose was a few beginner yoga poses to focus on a few of the components of skill-related and health-related fitness: balance, flexibility, endurance and strength. Some of the yoga poses I included were the Warrior pose, Sun Salutation pose and the Tree pose.

Analysis: I chose to teach the students a few yoga poses because I wanted to not only lecture about skill-related and health-related fitness components, I wanted to give them a more interactive lesson and to possibly introduce them to a new physical activity. My rationale was that if they were involved with the lesson, they would take more away from it. The lesson was then more personalized to them. By providing a lecture and activity I was able to engage both auditory and kinesthetic learners. It was also a way for me to pre-assess whether or not any of the students had practiced yoga in the past (prior knowledge) and to assess their interests, specically if they would be interested in doing more yoga poses in the future.

Reflection: I was pleasantly surprised by the students participation. For the first few poses, all the students were actively involved. During the last few poses, some students had stopped participating. For my video teach, I plan on incorporating an entire yoga session. The students expressed an interest doing more poses, so I am thinking about bringing in a yoga video and using mats to get the visual learners involved and making the lesson more interesting and appealing. Hopefully this will keep the students who quit early today engaged for the whole lesson. I also think that relating some history of yoga may make the lesson more interesting and exciting for the students. I am definitely looking forward to my next teaching lesson since today’s lesson was so well received.

This week at AHS…

bb1259block — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:52:40 +0000

Description: This week at AHS my colleagues and I met with our English Language Learner students (ELL). After meeting with the student that I was paired with, Julian, we told each other a little about ourselves. I learned that he is interested in auto mechanics and has a desire to move to San Antonio. I thought that was interesting since I am originally from San Antonio. I was able to tell him about the city and offer some insight into the culture and general atmosphere. He appeared to be very interested. We also discussed some of the subjects he was taking this semester and I asked if there were any he wanted for us to focus on improving his grades. I thought it was kind of funny that he said that we could work on chemistry. He thinks he has about a 90 average and feels he could do even better. The irony is, he could probably teach me a thing or two about chemistry!

Analysis: After meeting with Julian on Monday, I decided to do a little internet research on high schools that offer auto mechanic programs. I was disappointed to only find one school in San Antonio and one in New Braunsfels. I copied down the information for Julian, including the name, address, phone number and contact information of each school. I am looking forward to sharing this information with him this afternoon.

Reflection: I feel that Julian and I had a great first meeting on Monday. I will be meeting with him again this afternoon and sharing the information I copied for him. I also hope to learn more about him and continue to gain a “buddy” relationship.

Hello world!

bb1259block — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:52:43 +0000

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