Eric Kruger - Student teaching week 15

I am closing in on my final week of student teaching and it is surreal to say the least. This has been such a quick 16 weeks that I do not even know where it went to. Over this past week, the cooperating teacher has started to work back into the lessons and we have been co-teaching throughout the week. It has been weird to not be in full control of the class anymore as I pretty much have taught all of the classes since week 2 of my first placement. We are transitioning into games and full soccer games, so we are making sure that the students have a full grasp of the skills needed to play the games (IL 19.C.2b). We want to make sure that the students are not just wildly kicking the ball and have some stratigy behind their methods. Along with this, we want to make sure the students are staying safe ( IL 21.A.2b) as with soccer, many students may be looking and the ball and not where they are going. Also, with the nature of soccer, students will be accidentally getting kicked with another student may be going after a ball. Over the next week, I want to make sure that there is a smooth transition of my cooperating teacher taking back over full time, so I want to assist him in anyway I can.

Eric Kruger - Student Teaching Week 13

This week has been an interesting one. In a handful of my classes I have had to deal with students that have been misbehaving and not paying attention. This has been a test to me and my classroom management as some of the classes where out of control. Along with this, I have to test my discipline policy as it had to be something that would stick with the students.I made several students sit out of the activities that we were doing ( IL 21.A.1a) as the students had to be held responsible for their actions during the classes. Along with this, we transitioned into a soccer unit. Some of the students have no experience with the sport, while others play competitively with teams outside of school. Making sure to find activities that were appropriate for all learners was something that I put into place as well as having the more experienced students work with the less experienced players (IL 21.B.1a). My focus over the next week is going to be making sure that the students are having a smooth transition from the skills element of the unit to the live game play of the unit.

Eric Kruger - Week 12 Student teaching

This week has been an interesting one. We have been finishing up our fitness gram testing, and the final test is one that the students hate, the pacer. The fitness testing was only done for the 3rd through 5th graders, so they are a bit older and know what to expect. This was testing their cardiovascular endurance as we talked about how that is important to their daily life (19.A.2b).  To motivate the students and show that anyone could do it, I ran the pacer with all three classes that day. I wanted to motive the students and help push them a bit farther when they were getting ready to quit. Most of the kids did great throughout the day, but we had a few that did not push themselves at all and just wanted to be done with the test as soon as they could. We talked to these students about their effort after and talked about how effort carries over into everything. Throughout the test, we also talked about how staying physically fit is very important to keeping a healthy lifestyle (20.A.2b). Overall, we were impressed on the level of effort as a whole group as we had 7 students run 200 laps on the pacer. Next week, I want to keep refining my classroom management skills and continue to keep good organization throughout the lessons.

Eric Kruger - Student Teaching Week 11

As the second week comes to a close in my elementary placement, I am finding more and more things that are vastly different from the high school setting. I am finding that you must really spell out the every direction and every step for these students to be able to really grasp what they have to do (21.A.1a).  Along with this, classroom management is something that I really have to be on top of. I have improved from last week on this, but there is still room for growth to be able to control the class. The other big thing that I have to keep an eye on is keeping the gym safe (19.C.1a). While I have tired to make sure that I minimize any risk that might be around, the students can still find almost anything that that can get hurt on or with.
One thing that I feel I am doing a good job with is keeping the students active and having very little down time. I work on trying to keep the students in the activities as much as possible, especially the younger grades, as instruction can become tedious to them and you can lose their attention very fast. Over the next 5 weeks that I am here, I know I am going to grow and improve as a teacher and definitely take away a better grasp of classroom management.

Eric Kruger - Student teaching Week 10

Well, this is much more of a change than I expected. My first week of grade school student teaching has been a whirlwind. I can tell already that I am going to have a lot more fun with the kids during this placement, but much more exhausted at the end of the day. In my high school placement, I had 5 total classes with a plan period, lunch, advisory, and homeroom duty. Here, I have 8 total classes throughout the day with plan period/lunch at the same time, lunchroom duty, recess duty, as well as bus duty. I am much more on my feet throughout the day and moving much more. The kids have been very receptive to me and it looks like it is going to be a smooth transition to when I take over after spring break, That will give me five weeks of teaching these classes. Make sure that the kids are paying attention and making sure that you are keeping them attentive is going to be the biggest struggle here. The other thing with this is that you can keep them going by challenging them much better than you could with the high schoolers. With the younger students, making sure that they have enough space and they know what is around them is something to almost handhold with (19.B.1a). One thing that my cooperating teacher has done a great job on is teaching the students about their heart rate and what exercises get it up (20.B.1a). Next week, I am going to start working myself into the lessons and we are going to adopt a cooperating teaching method. My challenge is going to be finding my place correctly over the next week. Overall, I can tell my stay here is going to be an enjoyable one.

Eric Kruger - Student teaching Week 9

This is a bit of a bittersweet week as it is my last one at my high school placement. While I am a step closer to the end of student teaching and closer to getting my license, I am leaving a place that I have grown very accustomed to and have grown comfortable at. The teachers that I work next to each day have been more than accommodating and I have gained something from each one that I interacted with over these past nine weeks. I can easily tell that getting into the teaching profession was the correct choice for me as each day that I come to school is not a choir, but something that I enjoy and look forward to each day. I have learned many things from better classroom management to finding ways to incorporate more critical thinking into the physical education classroom (24.C.4a). Moving from high school to grade school is going to be a major shift that I will have to adjust to accordingly. I have become used to working with high school students, so moving to pre-k to 5th grade is going to be more focused on classroom management. One of the things that I want to focus on more once I gain a teaching job is using a week to show the students why it is important tp be physically fit and how it affects your body (23.A.4a). Needless to say, I hope that one day I am able to come back to this school in a working position as I would be thrilled to be part of this community. 

Eric Kruger - Student Teaching Week 8

During this week, we have been closing up on our first aid unit and watching the first aid video (22.A.4c). This has been a change of pace as we have been in a classroom and not doing any physical activity. The students have become visibly anxious and do not want to be in this unit anymore. I made sure to remind them that this is important material and that one day this may come in handy for them as you never know what type of situation may come up. I used some personal experiences with some subjects that were presented in the video as well as asked the students if they had anyone in their family that had suffered from specific topics that had been brought up. This seemed to hit home for them a bit more and help refocus the students for the rest of the unit.  Along with this, it prompted the students to open up a bit more and start to have a bit more discussion pertaining to the content matter. When talking about what to do in a heart attack situation, we started the conversation on your overall health and how it contributes to something like a heart attack (23.B.4a). I want to challenge myself to have more in depth conversation within class, even in normal physical education units. The students seem to get more out of the content and it is able to resonate with them better when you are able to have those type of discussions.