The teaching continues...

This week we have continued to watch our fellow classmates teach us a lesson and some of them have been real interesting but some of them have kinda bore me. We also went over integration this week in class and I didn't realize the huge role it played in teaching. As teachers we have to learn to integrate different subjects in different ways so that it will all connect together. If we as future teachers put integration at our goal then our students will leave your class knowing that they can use what they learned in our classroom and apply to the rest of their school. In PE we can use literacy to help integrate different subject in our classroom. I went to observe an elementary class this week and they were playing a matching game in PE. There were different words and pictures on the cards and the students had to use motor skills to get to the other side of the gym and pick out the picture that matched the card they were given. The students loved this game and the game taught them words that some of them didn't even know. This teacher had integrated different skills all into one lesson and done a fantastic job. That is what teaching is all about is to take different lessons and apply them to things that the kids will understand and how they could apply it to their lives. I hope that when I enter into my classroom this will be the focus of mine and the students  and if it is my classroom will be filled with learning.

Let the Teaching begin...

In this week's class my classmates have been teaching us lessons on the subject and grade they plan to teach when they graduate. The lessons have been very thoroughly taught and I have enjoyed all of them. I will have to present my lesson on Monday and I have been kind of nervous on how I should approach my lesson, but watching everybody teacher this past week has given me a little confidence seeing that it isn't that bad. Each student that has presented has done something real well such as working one on one with a student that didn't understand something to using games or real life examples to help guide their lesson along. Also to see how some of the students are acting in class according to the grade the teacher may be teaching is kind of nerve racking.
          This week has got me really excited for when I go into the school and teach PE. Each student has taught a different subject and a different grade. This has broaden my perspective on what each grade will be like and how the students are going to react at each age. For example in the 3rd grade lesson students were acting like they didn't know anything and asked tons of questions compared to the high school math lesson when students were playing on their cell phones and throwing paper balls across the classroom. I didn't really take the perspective when I was those ages about those things happening but now that I will be on the teaching side of this I see all of this in a new way. It drives me crazy when my classmates were asking all these questions and playing on their cellphones, but that was me 3 years ago. My perspectives are changing everyday about education and how to approach being a great teacher.

Always Learning More...

In class on Monday and Wednesday our class went to very in depth conversations. I thoroughly enjoyed Wednesdays a little bit better because it opened my eyes on some of the diverse issues we could be faced with in our classrooms. Going into class I just thought diversity was the different backgrounds and the different social issues kids faced, but our class came up with a whole list that I didn't think would be considered diversity, but after we discussed it for a while I had pretty in depth knowledge of what all diversity was and how it was going to affect us in our schools. One of the examples used was about a kid who had behavioral issues and how the teachers had to accommodate to his needs. I learned what least restrictive environment was when I had never heard that term before.
The teachers of the near future need to have the 2015 mindset of diversity not of 20 years in the past because our society has evolved and we are seeing issues I thought we would never encounter. I didn't think I would face that many diverse issues in a PE setting, but when I thought about it I will just as many as a normal teacher would. Kids not having enough money for PE clothes, kids fighting in the locker rooms will be tests to prove how I will handle diversity in my PE class. Diversity is something that will occur in every classroom its how well you adapt to it that shows what kind of teacher you really are.

Journey to a PE Teacher...

This past week's class I went into class not knowing what we were going to do, but I can tell you this that it was one of the best classes I had been in a while. I took away information that I had never even thought about before. One of the main concepts that I found intriguing was that teachers try to cram all the information in during test time at the end of the year, but if they would have taken care of the gaps during the school year they wouldn't have to be filling in the gaps in the end. Dr. Parker used the analogy of having a cavity and if you let the problem you will eventually have to get a root canal. I had never really thought about this idea before because when I was in high school this happened every year and crammed so much at the end of the year. When we crammed like that we couldn't remember all of the information, but if the teacher would have taught us all the info and made sure there were no learning gaps there wouldn't be as much stress at the end of the year. There were many other concepts talked about during class, but this one really stood out to me. I hope to fill all the learning gaps in my classroom and have the kids learn the most they can.

Moving up...

             This past week we went to the high school. Going into the high school I had already made my mind up that I wanted to teach a middle or high school PE class. After we got done at the high I am think I want to be in a high school setting. The kids seem to be a little more mature when they reach the high school level than at the middle school. I sat in a Junior Chemistry class and it was a very interesting, but boring at the same time. The students in the classroom seemed very mature, but liked to have fun also. The teacher did a very good job of keeping the students attention and he had a way of reaching the students on their level. When we got to the classroom he was putting problems on the board while the students were answering the problems on their individual white boards. The students were working with each other to try and figure some of them out. When a student would get a problem he would talk them through the problem to see where they went wrong. The only thing that I didn't like I about the class was at the end he had given them a worksheet prior to us coming to class and they were to work on that packet for the remaining thirty minutes of class. The students got restless and so they just started talking and playing around the rest of class, while some students were still working.
              The teacher of the class was also an assistant football coach, which I enjoyed very much. When I go into teaching I also want to be a coach because when you have a coach figure in a classroom the students have a sense of respect and the coach can build a certain relationships with other athletes. You could just sense the presence of a coach in a room when I was in there and the students had respect for him when he talked. I really enjoyed the visit because it showed me what a coach in a classroom effect has on students, which I had never really thought about before. It was a eye opening experience from my standpoint and justified what I really want to do in my career.

The Journey to a PE Teacher....

This past Monday we went out on another school visit this time it was to the middle school. I thoroughly enjoyed this visit and it opened up my eyes to what I really want to do in life. Before I went I was contemplating on which grades I wanted to do, but after visiting the middle school I know that I want to teach the middle and high school age. These students seemed to be a little bit more mature and will not need as much instruction as the kids in elementary school would need. I also want to be able to coach a sport especially softball and it would be a lot easier to develop those relationships already with the students that way when they play sports they might have a little bit more respect for a coach.
When we got to the school we met with one of the assistant principals and she was going over some of the instructions what we would be doing. I was the first in line when we went down the sixth grade hallway, so I went to the first classroom, which was a Language Arts classroom. This class was your typical Language Arts class with your vocabulary and writing in your own personal journal. One thing that I really liked that the teacher did was she used a fun vocab game known as mad libs to help them learn the parts of speech. She then took her students down to the computer lab to let them be interactive and help them learn at the same time. The kids really enjoyed this time and while I was walking around the kids were working with each other to figure out what figure of speech was what and they were actually using very descriptive words that some high schoolers wouldn't even think about. I don't want to teach Language Arts and was wondering why some of us couldn't go to a PE class. I also didn't understand what this class was going to do to help the PE majors, but it wasn't so much the type of class that taught me something, but the environment we were in is what really opened my eyes to my future.

The Journey to a PE Teacher....

This week we have been doing a lot of work on our own and learning what the life of a teacher is going to be like. Creating lesson plans and working on the content knowledge part of teaching is just a small part of what we are learning to do. I had to create my first lesson plan this week and while I sat down to start them I learned that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I actually enjoyed writing a lesson plan it taught me more about the standards for my area of concentration. Many people think that PE teachers lesson plans aren't going to be that difficult, but I am planning on teaching high school students and if you know anything about the teenagers of todays you know that they are lazy and most of them are very stubborn. PE teachers in high schools today are not teaching what they should, so the teachers of the future are going to have a little pressure on them to make sure these kids are staying active and get them involved. I personally feel like the lesson plans for a Health and Physical Education class is going to be just as difficult as a lesson plan for a high school English class.

 When I become a teacher I want to put a lot of effort into my lesson plans for my students that way when they walk away from my class they can say that it taught them something they can use for the future. I may not reach every student that walks through my door, but I want to make an impact in some students lives and that is my main reason why I want to go into this profession. I cant wait until we dive straight into more of the needy greedy parts of teaching.