Fitzpatrick Student Teaching Blog Week #8

This week was an easier week in regards to planning for me. Last week we introduced and practiced the skill movements of the short jump rope. This week, the students practiced their movements in strategically placed stations around the gymnasium with partners, peer assessing each other and giving feedback while I observed and assessed the students in a formative manner. Beginning Wednesday, I completed my summative assessments of the students' abilities to complete their necessary skill movements in relation to their grade level.

            The first-grade classes demonstrated a surprising ability to jump rope accurately, with 24 of the 43 students being able to complete 10 forward jumps consecutively. Of the students, all but 9 were able to accurately place their hands in the correct position and jump vertically while being able to time the jump to accurate pass over the rope when the rope hit the floor. While this may sound low, this is a surprisingly great feat for students at this grade level.

            In 3^rd grade, I have one student in my 3^rd period who is showing dramatic growth than she has over the past two years. Looking over her previous years’ assessments my cooperating teacher has held onto, said student had not yet been able to jump backward 10 times, which is a basic expectation of students beginning in 1^st grade. Recognizing this, I made sure the student spent the majority of her time practicing in the mirror near the GIFs and paired her up with a student of mastery when peer evaluating. It was difficult to cope with throughout the unit as it appeared the student was showing no growth through passive observations. I spent a lot of my time demonstrating and instructing this student and giving more feedback to this student than any other in the class, to what appeared no avail. The student was also getting down on themselves. It was not until I paired the student up with another student that information began to click. I paired them up on Tuesday after I had assessed my mastery students in order to have them assist me in the beginning skills assessments. The student with mastery was able to understand how to reach my own student better than I could, and I have no problem with this. They were paired on Tuesday; by the time I performed the summative on my struggling student on Friday, not only was she able to go backward, but she was also able to complete every skill on the assessment.

My personal favorite moment was the bright smile she gave when she was able to complete her Double side swing and jump 5 times in a row. On our word wall I introduced the word challenge and challenged each student to create their own challenge for the week to accomplish and hers was to complete this skill level.

Last week I mentioned that I wanted to create a GIF powerpoint that was relatable to my students specifically in hopes to help them in their learning. I am happy to say I did create my PowerPoint, and I am very happy to see how well my GIF PowerPoint was able to aid with the students. First off, the 1^st and 2^nd graders (and even some 3^rd graders) though it was “so cool” to see their school and their teacher on the big screen. The 1^st-graders especially got a big kick out of it. This was fun, but the connection to the videos seemed to make them more appealing and thus, the students were more engaged in following them. Each class period there were at least 2 or 3 students watching the videos trying to mimic the movements. During my closure, I have begun asking what the students have improved on and what helped them the most in improving. The third b most popular reason behind timing and listening to friends was the videos in third and second, and second behind timing in first-grade.

Through my students’ reflections, one insight I had that I began speaking of during closure to my students on both Thursday and Friday is that the most reliable resource a student has to utilize is the insights of their peers. Students who are struggling will learn more from their peers than they ever could from their teacher. The peers understand which challenges the struggling students are going through, and how to overcome the challenges because they were in the same situation. Teachers cannot relate to the students as well as students can to themselves.  

One regret I have from this week is that I did not take the chance to try a simple game I had created to encourage the students to work to the best of their abilities. The game is called “Levels.” Simple enough, in order to pass level 1, each student must complete 1 repetition of each skill level in order. To pass level 2, each student must complete 2 repetitions, and so on, trying to complete as many levels as possible in the allotted period time. It is my belief that this game could help the students improve their abilities because it challenges them to work hard, and allows for a higher ability of emotional positivity as opposed to practicing to reach an ultimate goal of 10 repetitions of each movement. For example, I have a student in 4^th grade that has never been able to reach 10 repetitions of forward jumping, however, he has increased his reps from 3 to 7 reps before failure. Even when he reached 7 reps in assessment, he felt the need to make excuses as to why he could not reach the full 10, instead of recognizing his personal gain of reaching 4 more reps than he had the previous week. By playing my game, instead of always being stuck at lower reps, by gaining that one extra, he would be able to “advance” to a new station, encouraging accomplishment. I would have liked to have seen if my theory of the game would play out in fruition.

            To the idea of my college professor, I believe this week I am going to begin phasing out of the teaching role and allow my cooperating teacher to begin taking back a larger role in the teaching process. It is truly saddening to know this coming week is my last week at my current placement. I have had a wonderful time getting to know the students of the school and their personalities. After teaching mainly adults for so long as a fitness instructor, the experience truly has given me an opportunity to learn to connect with the younger generation. I have been able to learn to relate to their needs and interests, and in return, the students have gained trust in me and have adapted to my teaching abilities.

            Regarding Standard 2 -  Content Area and Pedagogical Knowledge, I utilized my class time to teach my students not only how to jump rope, but I spent portions of my class period relating specific terminology of jump rope to the students to broaden their knowledge of the lesson, I went into detail of the physical know cognitive benefits of learning how to jump rope (increases physical activity, ignites cognitive activity by have to be mentally aware of the rope placement in relation to the timing of the jump, increase in rapid sequencing ability, increased balance and coordination, etc.) I incorporated ideas such as forcing students to stand on lines and use them as reference points to gauge weight transfer when performing certain moves and gave students the opportunity to use a pulse monitor to gauge their activity level while participating.

            Regarding Standard 8 – Collaborative relationships, I utilized the abilities of my students who demonstrated mastery of the jump rope in 3^rd and 4^th-grade by allowing them to assist me in assessing their peers during summative assessments. I explained to them the enormous responsibility they were given and the reasons why I felt confident in them to be able to act responsibly when assessing and giving proper feedback for positive outcomes. I had the student initial their assessments so that if I chose to review their assessments I would know who I was reviewing. By doing this, was able to work with my students on an equal level, working together for the better of the classes and ensuring that all student had an equal opportunity to be successfully assessed.

            My goals for the coming week are to complete tasks 1 and 2 of my edTPA, continue building emotional relationships with my students even when not in the role as teacher, have a mock interview with my school’s principal, and contact my next placement to discuss expectations and units I will be teaching.