Saturday, August 11, 2012
Robert Gordon Teacher Candidate Blog: Short Story Reflection of My Reaction to Hateful W...
Robert Gordon Teacher Candidate Blog: Short Story Reflection of My Reaction to Hateful W...: Friday, May 18 On Wednesday May 16, I was the "sub" in the 1st period Geometry class, as I was left alone with the students because the ...
Friday, June 1, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Playing baseball in class. 3 strikes and you are out!
This is my new classroom management strategy for my geography classes. 3 strikes and you are out the door to OCR. After a few rough days of trying to compel my two freshmen geography classes to display some level of respect for others when they are talking my C.T and I came up with the baseball game as we call it. I have a seating chart transparency on the overhead and when things become to rowdy, instead of raising my voice I simply turn on the overhead. This is the classes warning that they need to be quite and get back to work or show more respect for whom ever is talking. If they don't, I then start handing out strikes to students that interrupt, say things not related to the topic, or are just simply being rude. As I said earlier, this is a freshman geography class, the sad thing is that the most disruptive students are 10th and 11th graders. My CT has said time and again, this is the most challenging class he can remember; he has been teaching for 30 years so that either says they are really challenging or he has forgotten some that were harder. Either way, these two classes, especially 5th period are really putting me to the test as far as classroom management. For me, I look at as a real opportunity to learn. I had two students on Friday ask me if I really want to be a teacher, and why would I after having to deal with their classmates. I told them that part of my job is not just teaching content material, but also teaching certain students how to be better students and how to learn and that this class was giving me a real opportunity to practice that. They looked at me like I was from Mars and said I should just kick them all out of class because if they are not going to listen to Craven, my CT, they sure are not going to listen to me. In reality only time will tell so I will just keep trying to teach them content and how to be good students.
Lastly, I had a student in 5th period, my toughest class, ask me last week why I always dress like a "closet pimp". My first response was to ask him what that means and he said he thought that I dressed really nice all the time. A few of his classmates chimed in and said I was easily the best dressed teacher on campus. I thanked them and continued to hand out some papers. However, the first student said to me, "You didn't answer me. Why do you dress like that when nobody else does?" So I went "Gooch" on them, although I was very sincere and meant what I said. (Many of you will know what I mean by that, some will be left wondering and I think that is funny.) I told them that teaching is a profession that requires me to interact with important people, them, everyday and that I have been taught that if you are meeting with people of importance you should dress like they are important. I almost got a standing ovation. One girl said something to the effect of that being the coolest thing she has ever heard a teacher say. What will the net effect of this, I don't know. But it certainly cannot hurt for my students to know that I take my job seriously and I take my time with them and their learning just as serious.
Lastly, I had a student in 5th period, my toughest class, ask me last week why I always dress like a "closet pimp". My first response was to ask him what that means and he said he thought that I dressed really nice all the time. A few of his classmates chimed in and said I was easily the best dressed teacher on campus. I thanked them and continued to hand out some papers. However, the first student said to me, "You didn't answer me. Why do you dress like that when nobody else does?" So I went "Gooch" on them, although I was very sincere and meant what I said. (Many of you will know what I mean by that, some will be left wondering and I think that is funny.) I told them that teaching is a profession that requires me to interact with important people, them, everyday and that I have been taught that if you are meeting with people of importance you should dress like they are important. I almost got a standing ovation. One girl said something to the effect of that being the coolest thing she has ever heard a teacher say. What will the net effect of this, I don't know. But it certainly cannot hurt for my students to know that I take my job seriously and I take my time with them and their learning just as serious.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
One more week under the belt.
Having completed my first week of CPII was both energizing and exhausting. Between observations, being observed, one day of getting to school at 6:45 in the morning and not leaving until after open house at 7:45, a few late nights of planning along with all of the other incidentals of teaching I am exhausted. On the other hand, having one class of completely compliant and eager learners, another class full of energetic and excitable freshmen and a 5th period class that my C.T. may be the squirreliest class he has ever had all adds up to three really cool classes.
My first observation was in my U.S. government class. While the lesson was not perfect it went really well all in all. At my old company we had a saying, if you really want to impress a customer, make a mistake and blow their mind with how well you recover. I know it sounds odd but it is true. While I did not make a mistake in my lesson, there was a portion of the lesson that was beyond some of my students. When I realized this, I made a slight change to what they were doing that allowed those students to fully access the material. I did not think much of this adjustment, it just seemed to make sense to me. However, it did not go unnoticed by my U.S. and she thought it was a great adjustment. She also really liked the use of PollEv.com as discussion generator. More importantly than that, the students love it and buy into it. The use of PollEv.com and Socrative.com have both a lot to energize the classes. I really recommend the use of them.
My challenge this week and likely for the rest of the semester will be my 5th period geography class. Oh my! To be fairly blunt, many students in this class have very little sense of what respect is. They have little respect for themselves, no respect for classmates and a few of them have an equally small amount of respect for me or my C.T. Some of these students are so defiant, you can ask them to sit down/ return to their seat and they will look you in the eye, smile and act like you did not say a word. Or tell you that they will sit down in a minute. Needless to say this is not something my C.T. or I will tolerate and we address it outside. Yet it does not change the attitude. I have taken the approach of just trying to lift them up when I have my discussions with them I am also using one of the techniques from the Cooperative Disciple approach outlined by Linda Albert. In particular, the Target-Stop-Do. In this approach, you target the student by name, tell him/her to stop "ABC" and do "XYZ". I have seen some improvement with a few students but I have a long way to go. While, I suppose I could let this particular class get me down; I see it as a great opportunity to learn how to get these students back in the groove. Not to mention, although some of these students are often disrespectful, when you talk to them one on one, you can see that they are for the most part really good kids that just need some help learning boundaries and don't need anymore negative inputs in their lives.
My first observation was in my U.S. government class. While the lesson was not perfect it went really well all in all. At my old company we had a saying, if you really want to impress a customer, make a mistake and blow their mind with how well you recover. I know it sounds odd but it is true. While I did not make a mistake in my lesson, there was a portion of the lesson that was beyond some of my students. When I realized this, I made a slight change to what they were doing that allowed those students to fully access the material. I did not think much of this adjustment, it just seemed to make sense to me. However, it did not go unnoticed by my U.S. and she thought it was a great adjustment. She also really liked the use of PollEv.com as discussion generator. More importantly than that, the students love it and buy into it. The use of PollEv.com and Socrative.com have both a lot to energize the classes. I really recommend the use of them.
My challenge this week and likely for the rest of the semester will be my 5th period geography class. Oh my! To be fairly blunt, many students in this class have very little sense of what respect is. They have little respect for themselves, no respect for classmates and a few of them have an equally small amount of respect for me or my C.T. Some of these students are so defiant, you can ask them to sit down/ return to their seat and they will look you in the eye, smile and act like you did not say a word. Or tell you that they will sit down in a minute. Needless to say this is not something my C.T. or I will tolerate and we address it outside. Yet it does not change the attitude. I have taken the approach of just trying to lift them up when I have my discussions with them I am also using one of the techniques from the Cooperative Disciple approach outlined by Linda Albert. In particular, the Target-Stop-Do. In this approach, you target the student by name, tell him/her to stop "ABC" and do "XYZ". I have seen some improvement with a few students but I have a long way to go. While, I suppose I could let this particular class get me down; I see it as a great opportunity to learn how to get these students back in the groove. Not to mention, although some of these students are often disrespectful, when you talk to them one on one, you can see that they are for the most part really good kids that just need some help learning boundaries and don't need anymore negative inputs in their lives.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Yeah for the first day!
So today was my second first day student teaching. What a difference eight weeks can make. No nervousness, no sweating palms and pits!! Just me talking to some really great students. It was a great day for an introduction. Short classes today, covered some news paper articles, introduced myself and Socrative. The students loved Socrative! I explained the rationale for using it in the class. I told them it was a tool for me to use to assess the level of comprehension from the days lesson and that I will primarily use it as a formative exit assessment. I also told them it was another tool for me to use in an attempt to hold them accountable for staying engaged in the activities. All in all they really liked the idea of being able to use their phones during class and seemed to appreciate the reasons we were going to use it. I also had them fill out the student questionnaires and received some really good information to use in guiding my instructional strategies.
I also attended the schools open house tonight (long day, got there at 7am left at 7:30 tonight!) It went really well and they had more students than most people expected. I had the opportunity to talk to a number of incoming and current freshman and their families about the geography course I am teaching regarding the course structure and material. It turned out to be a well received event and I am glad I went.
I also attended the schools open house tonight (long day, got there at 7am left at 7:30 tonight!) It went really well and they had more students than most people expected. I had the opportunity to talk to a number of incoming and current freshman and their families about the geography course I am teaching regarding the course structure and material. It turned out to be a well received event and I am glad I went.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Mistakes happen, it is how you respond to them that can make the difference
As you may or may not know, I am a teacher credentialing candidate about to start my last round of student teaching at Cal. State University San Marcos and as part of our program we are required to make weekly observations of other teachers. This week one of the things that caught my attention occurred at the beginning of a class when a student was reporting on a newspaper article that he read. This particular student is a Latino and although I don't know if he is an EL he does have a particularly strong Spanish accent. The article he was reporting on was about the opening of a new bridge allowing easier access to one of the other local high schools. This student used the word bridge a time or two, when he said it his accent made is sound vaguely like he said fridge. The teacher said, "They opened a fridge?" I am not sure if he was being condescending, I don't think so, but I could tell it had an instant affect on the student. His entire demeanor changed. His expression changed, his voice lowered a bit and he looked down for a moment. the teacher seemed a little uneasy as most of the students remarked about whether the student sounded like he said fridge or bridge, Which seemed to make the young man even more uncomfortable. My heart broke for this young man. He was dong his best and made some strong points about the article, and yet they were lost in the shuffle because of the comments about his pronunciation of a word. The thing about it is that I am sure that at some point, in what I hope is a long career in the education world, I will inadvertently say something that is going to embarrass or otherwise make a student feel uncomfortable. The odds are simply stacked against anyone that works with students for a long period of time that they will either say something to embarrass or upset a student. There a few important things to remember though. The first thing is to apologize for the action, whatever it may have been. Secondly, do not repeat the offense, learn from the mistake and apply what you learn so you don't put another student in the same place.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Methods Class Goodness
Tonight in our methods class we spent a good amount of time watching YouTube. Yeah, I know us social science nerds have it easy! We looked at a number of videos that have been done about world history. The is a group of history teachers that have taken a bunch of popular songs that any, or at least a great deal of our students would recognize, if not know word for word and turned them into songs about historical events or periods. The lyrics are catchy and some of them are really actually content heavy. I think they will be a great tool in the class as a way to get students motivated and show them that history can be fun.
Here is the link to see a list of the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=history+teachers&oq=history+teachers&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=2074l5649l0l6665l16l16l0l7l7l0l108l579l8.1l9l0
Here is the link to see a list of the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=history+teachers&oq=history+teachers&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=2074l5649l0l6665l16l16l0l7l7l0l108l579l8.1l9l0
Getting "out there"...
So here I am some six weeks into trying to establish myself in "outer space" and while I am not sure I have been very successful yet, I am certainly feeling more comfortable about it. I have had a few "discussions" on Twitter with others on topics ranging from technology to curriculum to songs to use in the classroom. While I have not had any ground breaking discoveries, most great discoveries are made as a result of many small steps being taken to put that person in the position to make that great discovery. I feel that I am making some head way, I have a few non-CSUSM followers and not the weird ones that just pop up as followers. I have always been comfortable leaving comments, however, now I am more active because I am more aware of the benefit that it serves both the original poster in the form of feedback and the "simple hey someone read this" and myself in that it forces me to digest the information a little more, and then process it to the degree to hopefully post a coherent well thought out response. So I will keep on chipping away and eventually carve out a small place in the world of the PLN.
Post TPA Weekend
For all you out there that know what a TPA is I just finished #3 last Friday. For those that don't know, it is a series of 4 state assessments that teacher credential candidates need to pass to get their credential. Not sure how many hours I spent on it, but it was easily 20+. I think I am pretty deliberate (read as slow) when it comes to these things. It should be about a week before I get my grade back. I am pretty confident I will pass, we will see. Anyway, between the TPA, school stuff and my shoulder issues I have not had much time to just play with my family and get and have fun. So essentially that is all I did this weekend.
Saturday morning I met up with Chris, a classmate of mine, and he myself and my son went for a ride around lake Hodges. I could not believe how crowded it was! Place was packed out because Trek had a demo day going on. The weather was awesome and we really had a pretty good ride. Nothing to exciting, except the old guy that came around a corner out of control and ran into me and Aaron causing us a small crash. But we were all ok, although I was a little irritated at him for hitting us. As crowded as it was he should not have been riding so fast and out of control. After the ride, my son and I went to a friends house and spent a few hours working on pine cars for his pine car derby which is next Saturday. We really had a fun time shaping and painting, we still have some work left on it but so far so good!
Sunday was great. I went to church with my family and the message was really strong and the kids had fun in their classes too, which is important for us. They have fun and they away come away learning something. We left church and went to Santa Rosa Plateau and all rode bikes for few hours. Aaron and Hanna did great! Aaron rode his BMX bike and Hanna went over some pretty rough stuff on the tag-a-long, she can barely touch the pedals when they are in the down position so she bounces around a lot and just holds on for life. She was laughing and singing the whole way! After the ride we came home played some games and did some on the pine cars, still did not finish! All in all it was a great weekend... Now I am two days behind in my school work!
Saturday morning I met up with Chris, a classmate of mine, and he myself and my son went for a ride around lake Hodges. I could not believe how crowded it was! Place was packed out because Trek had a demo day going on. The weather was awesome and we really had a pretty good ride. Nothing to exciting, except the old guy that came around a corner out of control and ran into me and Aaron causing us a small crash. But we were all ok, although I was a little irritated at him for hitting us. As crowded as it was he should not have been riding so fast and out of control. After the ride, my son and I went to a friends house and spent a few hours working on pine cars for his pine car derby which is next Saturday. We really had a fun time shaping and painting, we still have some work left on it but so far so good!
Sunday was great. I went to church with my family and the message was really strong and the kids had fun in their classes too, which is important for us. They have fun and they away come away learning something. We left church and went to Santa Rosa Plateau and all rode bikes for few hours. Aaron and Hanna did great! Aaron rode his BMX bike and Hanna went over some pretty rough stuff on the tag-a-long, she can barely touch the pedals when they are in the down position so she bounces around a lot and just holds on for life. She was laughing and singing the whole way! After the ride we came home played some games and did some on the pine cars, still did not finish! All in all it was a great weekend... Now I am two days behind in my school work!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
2 weeks post-op
About two weeks ago I had shoulder surgery on my right shoulder. It had been hurting me for about 2-3 years, maybe longer, and it had finally become such an issue that I had to have it fixed. I would wake up numerous times during the night unable to move my arm because it hurt so bad. I had already tried two cortisone shots and taken a total of about 6-8 months off from rock climbing and mtn. biking in that 2-3 year time span. So I really just needed to have it operated on and get it fixed. In talking to my surgeon he said that it would be about one month before I would be able to comfortably reach out and grab anything and another two months before I could mtn. bike ride, and yet another month after that before I could get back to climbing. So all in all about a four month recovery. I figured no problem, this is a great time to deal with that since I have no life during the credentialing program anyways. So a few weeks back I underwent the operation; a subacromial decompression. Basically, he was going to relieve the pressure on the tendon in my shoulder by shaving down the bone and smoothing out the tendon. That was two and a half weeks ago and I was on my mtn. bike today for about 2 hours! It was an easy ride at the Santa Rosa Plateau, but I was out riding for about half an hour when I realized that my shoulder did not hurt at all. So much for waiting three months to ride again. I think I will give it another few weeks before I hit the climbing gym just let it recover some more, but I am really amazed. I am completely pain free and sleep better than I have in years. So, if you need a good surgeon for shoulder injuries I have the guy for you! I would recommend him in a heartbeat.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Meeting Joe Jones
For those of you that do not know who Joe Jones is let me fill you in. He is a fictional student that drops out of H.S. in the ninth grade at the age of 17. He has essentially been let down by everyone in his life that could have been a support mechanism. I met Joe as part of an activity I did in my credentialing program at CSUSM. We read a short story about Joe and the many things that led to his dropping out of school. After the reading we were asked to rank from 1-11 the factors that were most responsible for his dropping out. The factors included his mom, Joe himself, his teacher, his first grade teacher, his principle, counselor, society, curriculum, etc. After we ranked them individually we had to form groups and come to a consensus on our rankings. To say we were in the spread formation would have been an understatement. My group of three had one item that was ranked #1 on one sheet and #11 on another so coming to a consensus was difficult. The real value in doing this exercise for me is in looking at all of the times and people in the educational "system" that could have made a difference and for one reason or another didn't. Joe was failed at at every level. As a teacher, as a person, I can only be responsible for my actions and I know that some day Joe is going to walk into my class, possibly late, and I sure hope I greet him with "I'm glad to see you today, let's get you up to speed!" I hope you do too!
Saturday, February 4, 2012
About Me
Rookie Blogger Alert!!!
The author of this blog is not responsible for boring or useless information. Actually I am, but I am not responsible for you taking your time to read it!!!
Now that I have that out of the way here I go...
My name is Kevin Eagleton. Hence, the name of the blog. So why a blog? Well it is pretty simple. I am currently a student at California State University San Marcos pursuing my teaching credential and as part of our course work we are required to create a blog. The intent is for this site to become a place that I can reach out to and interact with the education community beyond my limited personal location. Beyond this, I would like to be able to integrate, if not this blog, a separate blog into my everyday classroom teaching. It is my belief that as teachers we need to be able to keep up with our students and right now our students are on the cutting edge of technology usage. We need to integrate this technology into the classroom daily as a means of making not only the information relevant but also the method of delivery. I hope the tools and skills from this course will help me do this in an effective manner.
I am married to a beautiful woman that has given me two beautiful children (all of which you can see in the sidebar), ages four and seven. My family loves to be outdoors. We especially love to camp and rock climb, which is what we do whenever we have the opportunity. My son and I love to backpack and I can't wait to get my wife and daughter going with us. My son Aaron plays the piano and my daughter loves to do ballet and tap.
I am married to a beautiful woman that has given me two beautiful children (all of which you can see in the sidebar), ages four and seven. My family loves to be outdoors. We especially love to camp and rock climb, which is what we do whenever we have the opportunity. My son and I love to backpack and I can't wait to get my wife and daughter going with us. My son Aaron plays the piano and my daughter loves to do ballet and tap.
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