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.