Reflection on Week 2

Week two and I have survived thus far!  This was another fantastic week.  I am coming home and wanting to straight to bed every night just because I have so much to process each evening, I need the extra sleep just to sort everything and reboot for the next day and I am loving it.
I am fortunate enough that David has the same background as I do, going through the P.E. program at Cal State, coaching and what not.  I am also fortunate that he is willing to sit and listen to be  blab about my teaching every single day, giving me advice and support.  As a result, I feel that most of my reflections and bouncing of ideas happen with David.  I feel so lucky to have him! 
Because of that, I would like to focus a lot of my reflection posts on highlights, or things I would like to do differently in the future that I have already brainstormed with David.  It helped to type a list of positives at the end of the week to start the weekend on as well too :)
Let's see... what are the highlights of this week...  
We are completing the state testing requirements right now in class. Its long, involved, and takes the energy out of everyone in class.  Its a little frustrating because keeping interest in P.E. is often very difficult.  Having students complete uniform mundane tasks to meet standards takes a tole of student motivation and enthusiasm for fitness.  Yesterday they had to complete yet another mile time for the fitness test.  Despite the frustrations and disappointment that surrounds having to complete another mile time, students still did awesome and put their best efforts in.  Many students have already passed, or have received state presidential or national awards for their efforts in class.  Despite the fact they have already achieved the expectations, they still try their best.  Scores continue to improve and so many students are amped when it happens.  Its a really gratifying thing to see as a teacher, especially on a subject that is so difficult to complete week after week.  I was so proud of all my students and what they achieved yesterday.  There was one student in particular that was the highlight of my day, and taught me a lot about coaching and teaching as well.  This student has difficultly completing the mile.  He has a barrel chested frame to give a perspective, making him very out of shape and provides great difficulty to running.  Often, as the day continues and more students find out there is the mile run in P.E., our students who are like this one, suddenly go home sick after lunch or something of that madder.  Its really upsetting, but not this student.  He is the last class of the day and by-golly he is going to be there.  He does his best not to walk at all during the mile, he just does his best to keep on moving.  He is sincere, and always smiles.  On his last lap yesterday he had 3 minutes left to make the last lap to pass the mile exam.  He comes around my corner, and I ask him if I could run with him.  Still moving forward he huffs a yes and we jump in together.  All through the lap its giving advise, how to breath, keep those arms moving for momentum, and the "you can do it"s.  At the last straight away I say to kick in all he has left, go as fast as he can to the finish were the teacher is waiting for him, and boy does he kick it in.  He gives every last ounce of energy he has into getting to that finish line.  Not only does he pass the exam time of 12 minutes, but he comes in at a 10:30.  He was so happy about his accomplishment, and his peers were so excited about his efforts you would think he would have come in first place with a record, not last. With a high five, he says thank you for helping him finish.  It wasn't me though, it was his efforts and determination to tackle that mile.  I just helped bring his confidence around the track.  I have never seen him walk off to the locker room standing so tall despite the fact he was probably dead tired.
Its students like him that make me feel like I am accomplishing something as a teacher.  He sets an amazing example I wish all of my students would follow.  Here is a student who is not set up for success in state regulated fitness testing, but he overcomes it.  Meanwhile I have more capable students who could achieve great things, gain awards for only putting in minimal efforts.  In physical education he is my star student, not the one that came in at a 6:30 without even trying to bothering to push himself further.     

The Frustrations of Website Banning on Campus

Since I have started my second clinical practice, I have run into a problem.  I cannot get any university work, lesson planning, or resource learning done during my prep period.  Why is this?  Because the school has blocked access to many things I need access too.  I cannot load any social media sites, no Youtube, and many educational sites as well.  If a site has any form of video link or forum to it.  Forget, don't even bother.  It has become very frustrating!  I type in "Youtube, Ipads in physical education", blocked.  I try "twitter educational chats" on Google, but I'm blocked because I typed in "Twitter"!  Then I just got curious and started typing in URLs to see what I could get.  I have access to Ebay, Amazon, and Craigslist, but I cannot access Diigo, Youtube, or PEcentral.com.  Which of these has more educational resources...?  I was really excited to be able to use some of my prep time to save, develop resources and learn new ideas but nothing works.
I understand that banning sites on a school campus is important.  There are many things online what students should not have access to on campus.  But to block out so many resources that could be used as learning tools is very upsetting.  



Articles about schools limiting web access
http://dmlcentral.net/blog/s-craig-watkins/what-schools-are-really-blocking-when-they-block-social-media
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/education/29banned.html

Reflection Week One

Week One Reflection

I am really liking my new school site for clinical practice one.  The department of physical education here carries a tight ship.  As a result the school has a slightly more militaristic style, but transitions are faster, chaos is kept to a minimum and in the end students achieve 3x as much as they would in other schools I have visited.  The class is student run and routine based which relieves the teacher of the beginning warm ups to move about the students, talk, and create connections.  The students carry a larger respect for the teachers because of this.  The students gain individual attention from the teachers which creates a larger respect and better cooperation. 

In this first week I have been able to practice teaching in a ‘mirrored’ fashion.  I will watch my cooperating teachers teach a class in the morning, and then copy it for my assigned classes in the afternoon.  I am scheduled to take the class over at the end of the unit, but this opportunity allows me to continue practicing managerial routines and instructional lectures.  What the teachers plan I know the level of success it has from the morning class in which I can compare it with my own performance in the afternoon.  I am learning a new challenge for physical education.  We move around the campus constantly during class, and we don’t always have the option of handouts and white boards because of the nature of the class.  I am a little frustrated by this because this results in limitations in how I am able to differentiate my content for my students.  We have a sportfolio that we truck around from one location to another but with middle school students they often leave them laying around, get stepped on, and if papers are not stapled to the folder it is a guaranteed mess with paper flying around the field.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  I am thinking about relying on a blog and twitter to help for long term instruction, but daily instruction still presents a challenge.  Does anyone have any ideas?

Thoughts on Twitter

 

You know, I have to admit, I am one of the people that have bashed Twitter since the beginning of its existence.  I do have to say my only past experience with Twitter prior to this class was my cousin sending me constant tweets about what he does doing, including the mention of bowel movements.  The idea of just announcing body functions or who someone just saw walking down the street was not of any interest and quiet annoying really.  So this class has given me a new perspective on the business of Twitter.  I love the idea that people can use this source professionally to send out or retrieve information.  Will I ever use it after this class is the big question.  I have to admit, I do not like being linked up to all the constant chatter, it’s too much to sort through, I would much rather use a search engine to find something.  But the sharing of information is awesome.  I would rather use a source like Diigo and Pinterest to find sources shared by others, but let’s face it, Twitter is the only social network I’ve found so far that has an established physical education gathering.  Until other sites become established, Twitter is all I’ve got.  I am grateful there is at least one social network but I hope to see more development.  So that is for my personal use to information gathering with Twitter, now what about in my classroom?  I hate to admit it, as I hate to admit that Twitter is useful after so many years of making fun of it… but I could use this in my classroom.  One of the difficulties I have had so far in my teaching is reminding students and relaying written information to them.  They do not bring reminder binders to physical education.  Often, a reminder of a test is verbal which does not take into account all my types of learners.  As a result, students forgot about assignments and tests, results were lower than they could have been.  I think the use of a blog and Twitter can help this problem.  A blog is something more in depth for students to refer to while I can use Twitter to remind students of assignments.  “Remember to study for the test tomorrow!” or “New post, check the blog!”  It’s a way to stay connected outside of class as well as a way to help the fact we often do not have paper available to write with in class.

 So all in all…. I’m stubborn, I don’t want to like Twitter, but let’s face it, this thing is darn useful for P.E.

Disrupting Class

Questions for "Disrupting Class"

1.  Explain the difference between interdependence and modularity.   How is education currently organized?

Interdependent is standardized and monolithic.  You get it or you don’t.  Modularity is about the experience and giving responsibility to the students.  The school struggles to teach differently because they follow an interdependent design.  Teaching monolithically is the more simple way to blanket over material in one strategy.  Unfortunately it does not cater to all students’ needs and styles of learning.  Thus in the system, many students do not have access to their learning potential because they do not learn how to conform to this blanket form of teaching.  Then there is modularity teaching.  This style presents different learning intelligences giving different students access to the material.  This form removes responsibility from the teacher and places more of it on the students.  It is based more off of the experience and process than the end result. 

2.  Explain the disruptive innovation theory.  What does this have to do with schools? 

The market must be modified to reach those who are non-consumers to survive.  Disruption is when non-consumers enter the market.  This disruption is not a break through improvement but reaching out to those who previously did not consume.  The shift to online courses is a disruption to the school market in which it provides students a different form of learning.  Those students who were non-consumers in Arabic or Mandarin because the school did not have the means to support a teacher, now have the option to take the class through online learning.  This online learning is disruptive in offering new courses to students who were previously non-consumers.  New disruptions need to be implemented into the school system.  There are too many students who can be considered non-consumers to the traditional form of teaching because they are not benefiting from the traditional teaching style.  To disrupt the pattern of traditional teaching we could potentially reach out to those students and create more consumers in public education.  

3. Why doesn’t cramming computer in schools work?  Explain this in terms of the lessons from Rachmanioff (what does it mean to complete against non-consumption?)

Loading a room with computers that are going to collect dust and never be used in the back of the classroom is not going to improve student’s teaching.  It is how the teachers are going to implement the computers in the classroom that is going to make a more effective classroom.  Teachers need to be able to utilize them in effective ways, to use them to implement student centered learning.

In the past if someone wanted to listen to music, they had to go to a music venue.  Then RCA created a way to bring music home to non-consumers creating a new market.  As a result this new form of produce dominated the industry and became much more effective and convenient for music listeners.  Music venues still exist, but RCA created a new dominance.  The same needs to happen for computers to work in schools.  In the preliminary stages of introducing computers right now, they are not creating a flip like RCA created.  Once computers have become more effective and “user friendly” to the classroom environment, they will have the same effect as RCA has on music.  It is just a matter of time till computers are able to reach students who are not benefiting from traditional teaching.    

4.  Explain the pattern of disruption.

The start off is always slow, and then increases dramatically until it reaches a ceiling of 100%.  To gain more consumers from non-consumers always has a little bit of a slow starting point.  Once this foundation starting point is finished you can see the S curve begin to form when more non-consumers are becoming consumers at a rapid rate.  Once the growth has leveled out, and new competitors enter the market the curve begins to flatten out creating the last loop of the “S”. 

5. Explain the trap of monolithic instruction.  How does student-centric learning help this problem?

Monolithic is teaching is not teaching to multiple intelligences.  It means that there is only one teacher to a diverse group of students that receives one teaching strategy from the teacher.  Student centered approach is taking different learning intelligences into account and creating an individualized approach to learning.  Students receive education in this form more as individuals.  The difficulty that arises with this approach is that it becomes much more difficult to accomplish with growing class sizes.  Take for example by class, I have 62 students each period all with different backgrounds and learning styles.  With a class this large it is extremely difficult to cater to a student centered learning style, but can be done with precise planning multiple intelligences can be presented.

6. Explain public education’s commercial system.  What does it mean to say it is a value-chain business?  How does this affect student-centric learning? 

The way we approach learning and school procedures is very linear and systematic.  The way students are lined up constantly, organized, shuffled, and directed to do tasks is very systematic.  They begin in kindergarten, and systematically reach standards for each year until they hit the finish product of graduation from high school.  This system’s term in the market world is a value adding process (VAP), when a product is added or modified on an assembly line and then graduated to be consumed by consumers.  This student/product is upgrade while moving through the system with a “value-chain” number attached, known as a GPA.  The value of the student’s school ability is the GPA, and the value chain of the school system.  All learning in traditional teaching is based off the GPA in terms of value and thus affects learning on a huge level.  Students are thought of as product with a value number.  If a student it just a product they are not seen as an individual with different needs, but another student with the same defect as the last and the same approach to improvement is taken.  By adding on this value marker we degrade the process of learning enrichment.  We lose the true reasoning of education in a society.  

RR 21

RR21: IDENTIFY how you can use these assessment strategies in TPA Tasks.

All three of the suggested assessment strategies could be chosen to use in TPA 3.  The first would be the most difficult because all I could only demonstrate for the students' performance through checklists, but the true demonstration of skills performance is observation and hard to document for the TPA.  The second could be a good assessment tool because if give variety and assesses with multiple intelligence.  As long as it was acceptable to turn in students assessments where each one could possibly be different.  Choosing any one of the assessments that is included with the multiple intelligence choices and focusing on that assessment could also be a good summative documentation.  The third progress assessment suggestion was the one I ended up trying to use in for the TPA.  Unfortunately in my learning experiences as a new teacher I made the assessment too complicated in which students where not accustomed to so much higher level thinking at once.  I feel the handout overwhelmed them a little bit.  Adding higher level thinking questions needs to be added slowly throughout the year, and build up to what I presented them with.  I had my expectations too high and ultimately received bad results because of it.  Students were not able to demonstrate their understanding to me because they did not understand what I wanted from them.  Instead I ended up using a diagnostic assessment that tested what students knew before I began the unit to scaffold from.  I would like to revisit the peer evaluations again with something a little more simple than I can build onto later in the year.  

RR 20

RR20: IDENTIFY 2-3 assessment strategies you can use in your unit.


In my unit of fitness I could use a variety of different strategies to have students demonstrate their learning to me.  
-One could be based off of skills performance where they do the exercises we reviewed and explain to me verbally or in written form the techniques they did and the ones they feel they still need improvement on.  
-Another could be the choice of how to demonstrate their learning at the end project of the unit.  Students will be presented with a variety of different end project that each uphold a different multiple intelligence.  For example, I could give students an option to demonstrate their ability to create a fitness program in song for audio, or a film for visual learners.  The artistic/spacial learners could choose to complete the project in an art form that demonstrates the proper components of a fitness gram.  
-A progress assessment strategy in this unit could be peer evaluations, where students evaluate each other's performance to check for their own progression in technique and recognizing technique.