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.

Eric Kruger - Student Teaching Week 7

As I am getting closer to the end of my stay here, I am becoming increasingly more comfortable at the school and with the students. One of the big things that stuck out this week was one student that had not been participating in class much at all. In P.E., the vast majority of the points you gain and grade is from participation. We are currently in a floor hockey unit, which calls for the students to move up and down the floor throughout the game while either playing on offense or defense. This really falls under being psychically active every day (19.A.4b). I spoke with the class before the unit started and addressed on hoe this is just another creative way to get your daily physical exercise in. At the end of the two week grading period, the student saw that his grade was suffering and spoke to me about it. I let him know that he actually had to be moving in the game and not just hitting the puck if it came into his 3 foot radius. I told him that if he starts doing that he will be able to pull his grade back up, Needless to say, the next day he did the same thing as usual. This seems to be a challenge that I need to undertake. Finding ways to let students know about how important physical activity is on their health (20.A.4a) and find ways to motivate the students that do not want to be active.