Stress Test/ Health Domains

Today in class we took a stress test that reflected on our different domains of health. I thought the test was very useful because it made me aware of areas in my life that I thought were stress free, that are not. For the most part, my health domains were stronger than the class average. My physical, spiritual and social domains seem to be my strongest areas. However, my numbers for emotional and mental are higher than the class, making them areas I should really concentrate on improving on. Reflecting on my results, I think that for the most part, this test must have been pretty accurate. Before the test, I would have said that all these domains in my life are stress free for the most part, and I have nothing to work on. However, some of the questions that this test asked, really made me think that I could work on a lot of things when it came to dealing with my mental state and emotional health when dealing with stressful siutations. The way I usually react to stress is by pretending it doesn't bother me and brushing it off. This test made me realize that I problaby don't brush it off, more or less I bottle it up. This is unhealthy because it eventually causes me to act irrationally. However, now that I know what my "problem areas" are, I can use some of the techniques we've learned in class to target those health domains. For instance, if I'm feeling upset about something that happened in school that day, I could go home and write in a journal as a way of getting it off my chest instead of bottling it up. Other things that I might do would be exercise, meditate, or listen to some of my favorite music.

My "Stress Free Place" North End of Baxter Park

Every summer, a group of my closest friends and I get away from the stresses of work and take 3 nights to go camping in the woods of T6r8, just a few miles of the North End of Baxter. Here we spend all weekend relaxing, canoeing, swimming, cliff jumping, making fires, and just enjoying the outdoors. It is a place that we look forward to going every year. The minute we leave, the countdown to the next time we'll be back to T6r8 starts.

This is my "stress- free place."

Chapter 10 QR

As students we are constantly trying to make connections with the content we are learning to the real world. Some students struggle to find the importance and disregard school as important, when in reality it is vital. This chapter gave suggestions that teachers could do when trying to relate their material to the outside world, creating more meaningful learning experiences for the students. In high school I learned the most when the teachers took us out of the classroom and brought us to a different environment.
Sometimes all it takes is a new atmosphere that can spark student interest. For math, a teacher could go outside and use the distance formula by measuring meters and how quickly a student can run from point a to point b. Or for a health class, the teacher could take a field trip to the hospital and see a cadaver’s diseased lungs and liver during a the substance abuse portion of the course. If students can make connections to what they are learning to the outside world, they will enjoy learning, welcome it, and see it as something that is important to them.

Chapter 9 QR

Chapter nine is about dealing with when things go wrong in the classroom for the teachers and students. When students feel discouraged, it is important that we know some of the reasons why they are feeling this way so that we can help them create a better attitude about school. Incoming freshman are dealing with huge changes in course curriculum, work load, new social groups, etc. As teachers, we should make their transition easier by making sure they feel like they are in comfortable environment as well as communicating with them early on and often about how they are doing in the class. The book suggested showed a list of questions that the teacher can give out to the students before the grading period ended that involved their performance. The questionnaire also included questions that refer to the teacher’s performance and how they could do something differently. As a professional, I think that being able to take constructive criticism from your colleagues as well as students is vital to the learning process. When student provide feedback, teachers can evaluate how they’ve been doing and change accordingly to the class needs. As a new teacher, this process will be extremely valuable!

Chapter 8 QR

Chapter eight gives ideas and suggestions for teachers who have students in their classroom that are still learning English. I think the most important piece of this chapter was the general idea of getting to know these students as much as possible. If teachers can make connections between things kids already know and what they’ll be learning in class, the process will be much easier to them. Like the book stated, it’s much easier to remember new words and ways if student can compare to experiences that they have already had. The second suggestion that the chapter made that I thought was valuable was drawing students into conversations about their attitudes and experiences in relation to their culture. Anytime a student has an opportunity to share details of their lives, they are more than willing to, making it important to make sure we make every student feel like they are able to do so. Later in the chapter, it talked about how we could provide students who are still learning English different ways to present their knowledge of the content that is being taught. It suggested that instructors use not just language, but math, computers, video, music art, and movement as ways of assessment. I think this is a great idea and as far as implementing something like this would be easy because if teachers are involving the multiple intelligences in their lesson, they should have already have some of this in their lesson plans.

Chapter 7 QR

Chapter seven mainly talks about how to approach teaching difficult academic material. Most of the chapter is students describing tactics that can help teachers approach difficult material and what techniques have worked for them in the past. The first thing you must do before teaching difficult content area is determine what the students already know about the topic. If they know very little, you may want them to do some independent research or reading for homework so they are somewhat familiar to the subject and feel comfortable moving on to the more difficult aspects of the content. To make the harder parts of the lesson easier to learn, link it to previous knowledge or breakdown the lesson to several parts. If the students still don’t understand what is being taught, it may be because they’re learning style is not being used, so try approaching the lesson in a different way. I think this part of the chapter was referring to using as many multiple intelligences you can in a lesson so that it is easier for every individual, know matter what learning style. The last part of the chapter describes the importance of knowing if the students understand what has been taught or not. In order to move into more sophisticated material, we must evaluate if our students are really getting an understanding of what is being taught, and they want and expect teachers to do this. Providing them with things simple as feedback or quizzes can determine if we need to spend more time on the material or if we’re ready to move on.

Chapter 6 QR

Chapter 6 talked about students and keeping them interested in what you are teaching. Most individuals realize how important school is to their futures, but they don’t always know how what is being taught relates to the real world. In creating our lessons, it is vital that we know how to answer the question if asked, why are we learning this? We have to be able to explain why learning Pi will benefit them in the future. If we can’t do this, they won’t think what we are teaching is important, and won’t bother to learn it. Another issue that this chapter brings up is motivation. For different reasons, students will lack motivation to learn the material, so as a teacher it is critical that we facilitate them to be motivated about every content area we teach. A good way to do this is to show how passionate you are about that particular subject, even if you have to fake it! The part of this chapter I found most helpful was when it spoke about how timing was everything. Scheduling schoolwork carefully can greatly influence the performance and motivation of students, therefore contributing to a better learning environment. The chart given on page 112, “When Should We Do That?” was very helpful and would change some of my instructional strategies throughout the day.

Chapter 5 QR

The first part of this chapter talks about the “types” of personalities in a classroom, and divides them up into seven different personalities. I can relate to this, not only because when I was a student in high school I remember each type of personality, but just a few weeks in my placement you can pick out these students almost right away. I think these types of personalities don’t hinder the learning environment but only help it because it forces teachers to differentiate their instruction so they can hit all these learner and personality types. The second part of this chapter talked about why some students may or may not participate and why. I think this part was insightful and eye- opening because it gave a lot of reasons and strategies students use to get out of participating. Knowing this, I think it will be easier to get around this type of problem, and start getting everyone involved. The last part of this chapter is about advice when putting students into groups for activities. I think in a younger classroom, it is important to divide up the responsibilities and assign spefic roles among the group so that work is being equally distributed. Working with a few people, it is easy for students to sit back and get away with doing nothing. However, groups are meant to strengthen interpersonal learning experiences and allow for a deeper understanding of the material, so explaining how groups should work and what roles each person will be taking. I think that this strategy is a great way to get the most out of group work. In practicum, we have practiced this for interpersonal group work and it has proven to be a much more valuable practice than just regular grouping.

Chapter 4 QR

Chapter four talks about how to create a classroom “culture” of success. Teachers have the ability to control the environment and if they create negative experiences for the students, some may become convinced that the school offers nothing worthwhile. The broad message I got from this chapter was to show that you believe in your students and their ability to achieve. As educators, we can start providing students with the steps to a greater sense of self- efficacy by first believing in them. Push the students to work harder and encourage them to improve on their work. By doing this, you show the students that you care about them, and want them to do well. In my first three weeks of placement, I found that my mentor teacher was able to create this “classroom of success” fairly easily. She made it clear that she wanted every student to achieve in health class and always showed how she cared about each individual. From this, I noticed that students wanted to be in the classroom and were excited to learn.

Chapter 3 QR

This chapter is mainly outlines what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior is in the classroom, both for teachers and students. The beginning of the chapter really stressed how important it was to start out on the right foot in your classroom in order to have a successful semester and learning environment. One important aspect of this part was following up promptly when addressing students who misbehave and break the set rules made by the classroom. I feel that if the students take part in creating the rules and guidelines in a classroom, they are more likely to follow them as well as accept the consequence for their actions. One part of this chapter I could relate to after being in the classroom for 3 weeks was deciding on a consequence based on that individual and their behavior. As a practicum student, I was able to see how my mentor teacher disciplined her students and how each consequence was different based on that particular student. Our students are not the same, and they all have different needs, including different disciplining. I valued the way she did this because it not only worked, it was one of the most effective styles I have seen. Lastly, my mentor was able to show me how just important it is to keep the students learning and not alienate them when they misbehave, a point that this chapter made.

Taking Middle Schoolers out of the Middle

This article mainly covers the debate whether there should be a middle school or just K-8 or 6-12 school systems. One side argues that getting rid of the middle school would be beneficial because it already poses as a traumatic time in their life, so introducing another change like middle school would just be even more harmful. If they stayed in the same school from kindergarten on, they would have the comfort and support of the teachers and environment that adolescents at that age need. The other argument says it would be more favorable for these middle aged students to attend a 6-12 school. By having the younger students attend a school with older children, they are more likely to have positive role models to strive towards and an environment that promotes excelling in activities like sports. A part of this argument was that if we could get the students in the high school longer, they could work with developing their skills for college longer and it would help increase the number of students who attend continued education. However, what the students really need are not a reconfiguration of schools, but an affective curriculum with smaller class sizes, personal attention and teachers that are understanding, enthusiastic, and prepared.
I think that getting rid of middle schools is a terrible idea. I can’t imagine sending one of my sixth grade children to a school with 11th and 12th graders. We have considered the idea that they will have greater opportunities to start their college counseling earlier and will be influenced to excel in particular areas, but have we thought about the negative consequences? As a health educator’s perspective, I would be nervous about the younger children being introduced to and participating in risky behaviors earlier on like drinking, smoking, and partaking in sexual relationships. School systems can say they will control the environment but there is only so much they can do to prevent such occurrences. If we eliminate middle schools, teen pregnancies will increase and alcohol and drug use among adolescents will sky rocket! (A little radical I know, but to get my point across, it would not be a good environment for younger students!!!)
This would affect me greatly as a teacher, especially considering I’m going into health education. Not only would I have to start teaching subjects I wouldn’t normally teach earlier on, but I would probably be faced with dealing with these problems with students I wouldn’t normally have to worry about.

QR Podcast

I don’t have an Ipod but I was able to access podcasts through the Itunes music store. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the assignment, but I came out with a completely different opinion about podcasts. I love fitness and nutrition, and I was impressed with the wide variety of podcasts they had involving this topic. I found one in particular, Endurance and Nutrition, that spoke about how to eat in preparation for race days, what foods to eat after a high intensity workout, and how to restore glycogen levels quicker after a workout. Podcasting is definetly something I will be using in the future!

Podcast Response

1.) What is a pod cast? A podcast is like the combination of an Ipod with broadcasting. Using podcasting, you are able to publish files to the web, allowing other people to view or subscribe to the material. You can download podcasts onto your Ipods, however you do not need an Ipod to view or listen to these files, just a computer.

2) Podcasts have many advantages over other technologies. An example would be the radio. Producing a radio show is expensive and time consuming and takes a lot of specialized equipment. However, a podcast is just the opposite. You can create a broadcast in little as five minutes, and they don’t cost a thing to publish. Inexpensive and fast, couldn’t ask for anything better! Also, with the radio if you want to listen to a show, you have to be listening at the exact time and station it is playing on. If you miss it, you miss it. With a podcast, you can download what you want, and listen to it days later. You can listen to a podcast wherever and whenever!

3) There were a few examples given of how one could use it in the classroom.
One example was a kindergartner who showed she understood the basic ideas of shapes by going around her house and taking digital pictures of each object that exemplified that a particular shape. She then added in her voice in the video with an explanation. This assessment of her knowledge is just as foretelling as any other type used in the classroom.

Another creative way the presenter used podcast in the classroom was for her special needs students. She taught to blind and visually impaired students, so when she came back from vacation in Berlin, instead of showing them pictures she used a podcast. When she was in Berlin she recorded the sound of the city so that when her students listened to the broadcast they could get a good picture of what the city was like.

One of my favorite strategies you could use podcasts in the classrooms was for creating note cards. She suggested using them in a foreign language class to help learn vocabulary words. The students have a picture of the item and then record themselves saying it out loud, using sentences and examples. This is better than the traditional flashcards because students will want to listen to it over and over again. They’ll want to show their parents and friends, and by this, their skills are being reinforced without nagging them to study. They won’t even realize they are studying!


4)If I were a teacher, I would definitely use it in the classroom not only because it’s a great strategy, but like the presenter said, when students find out they will be broadcasting to an audience other than the teacher, they will work harder and produce better quality work!



5)Before this podcast, I only had a small idea about what they were and how they could be used. However, after listening to the presentation, I now have a pretty good understanding about what they are and how they can be used in a lesson. I like the fact that you can incorporate these so easily in the classroom, but I also like how they are great for your personal use.

Copyright and Fair Use LR

A student film buff downloads a new release from a Taiwanese Web site to use for a humanities project. As long as the student gives credit to the sites from which he's downloaded material, this is covered under fair use.

#8 I feel like this situation would get me in trouble. If the student gave credit to the website and only used this new release for a project, I probably wouldn’t have seen a problem with him using it. The question responds that educators may use “legitimately acquired” material without permission, but how is one suppose to determine what is legitimate and what is not? They say to use your common sense in determining if the peer to peer resources are pirated or not, but I don’t have any type of sense when it comes to issues like these, and I can guess I’m not the only one! Evaluating the whole quiz, I wasn’t surprised to see that I only got a few right. I know very little when it comes to copyright use and “fair game”, I’ve just been taught how to properly give credit to resources when using them in papers and projects. How can anyone possibly know all of these rules and regulations anyways? There seems to be way too many of them and not to mention hundreds of situations could arise that one might question what fair use is. I guess I better start studying up on The Educator's Guide to Copyright and Fair Use!

QR, Intellectual Property

#4. The answer to this question didn’t really surprise me but if the state mandates technology proficiency for all high schools, then it should also pay for such software if the budget can’t afford it.

#6 In previous presentations I was taught that no matter where you took your pictures from, you have to site that source or give them credit.

#10 I like how these sources are available to teachers to use, and it seems fair that you they aren’t able to redistribute the source, there has to be a way of determining whose work it actually is.

#12 I really wish I knew what digitize meant, then I might have been able to answer this question a little more accurately!

#14 Really?? This question doesn’t make any sense to me; I thought daycares were allowed to show whatever they wanted if the programs were PG? Looks like summer daycare programs I use to work at broke the law.

#15 This one surprised me, if you can compile parts of music clips why can’t a teacher do the same with video clips?

#19 Oops! Looks like my high school is in trouble, we used full songs throughout our entire video yearbook. Who actually follows this rule anyways?

#20 This one made me laugh. Does anyone really think they could burn a multimedia CD-ROM and sell it legally?

Net Day Results

After reading the results of the National Report on Netday’s 2005 Speak Up, I have came to the conclusion that in comparison to other students in the U.S., I am closer to that of high school students. Since I was about ten, I have been introduced to things like cell phones and computers, but I didn’t religiously using them until I was at least in 6th grade. (In fact, I didn't get my first cell phone until my sophomore in college!) Though I know more than my parents do about computers and internet, the generation behind me is already surpassing me when it comes to technological knowledge. I have a lot of work ahead of me if I’m going to teach.
As far as teaching in a high school within the next 3 or 4 years, I believe technology will have an immense impact on how individuals teach classroom instruction. I classify myself as a digital immigrant; therefore I believe I will struggle when it comes to involving technology in the classroom. When a teacher is hired into a district, they should look into what technologies the school works with, and if they are unaware how to use them, it should be their responsibility to learn how they work before entering the classroom. I feel that understanding how these technologies work and how to incorporate them into your curriculum is vital to your student’s success, because they have been growing up in a world that has always had such things like computers, cell phones, and internet. They are digital natives, so they don’t just have an understanding of how these devices work, they can’t possibly picture their lives without them. When I teach, I will be using a number of instructional strategies that involve using technology. I might assign projects that require the students to go on the web and research, or have them create a power point for a group project, and maybe creating charts and graphs using an excel program. Though it will not be my first choice for instruction, I will involve it as often as possible.
I believe technology is a great tool for enriching student teacher learning experiences. Technology has gives us the ability to communicate better and offer students with thousands of research tools. We no longer have to search through a library to find an answer to a question one might have, we have direct access and information at our hands. However, being a health major I am somewhat torn when it comes to using technology. For classroom use its great, but when it takes away from children’s physical activity, it becomes something that is no longer positive. Today, adolescents spend more time watching T.V., talking on AIM, and playing video games than ever before. Before the age of technology, kids would spend their leisure time outside riding bikes and playing sports, now their time is most often spent inside doing things like Madden tournaments with their classmates. Technology may be creating greater minds, but we it is also creating unhealthy individuals. I strongly believe technology is a major contributing factor to the rise of our obesity epidemic in this nation.

QR: Chapter Two

Chapter 2:

The part that really spoke to me in this chapter was actually the introduction, because I was able to relate to it with personal experience. It describes a track coach who let the runners stop when they were tired, and bought them pizza after practice. He was considered a fun coach and the team liked him, but they didn’t have to work hard. Therefore, their team never won when it came meet time. However, when the new coach was hired, he made them work hard, and when they were tired, they would still have to keep running. If they complained about running fifty laps, he made them do fifty- two. They all hated him, but when it came meet time they started winning. I think this can be paralleled easily to teaching. You don’t have to be their favorite teacher, you just have to be someone who is fair, and they’ll work hard for. It may take students time to realize it, but you are benefiting them in the end. When they eventually come to this understanding, they will work harder for you as well as respect you more.

QR: Chapter One

Chapter 1:

There is a fine line between your students and yourself. How well do you get to know them and what do you tell them? This chapter did a good job explaining when and what is appropriate to ask and tell your students, but at the same time the responses the students gave seemed contradictory to me. In the beginning one student describes how he doesn’t want the teacher to be singing happy birthday when he comes in the room, but he still wants the teacher to know his birthday. However, the general idea I got from this chapter was to connect to your students and let it naturally occur. Your relationships can’t develop over night so don’t try to force things out of them right off. As a student I didn’t like when the teachers tried to force a connection or relate to you, it seemed ingenuine and made it actually harder to take the professor seriously.
The sample questionnaires in this chapter are a great idea, and it would definitely be something I would consider in a new class of mine.

QR: Intro

Introduction:
The part that jumped out at me the most was the situation with the inexperienced pre- algebra teacher. I was surprised to see that students would actually organize a walk out like they had. In all my years of education, I have never seen or experienced a situation like this one. If we thought a teacher wasn’t prepared enough to teach the material, students would usually just sit back, complain, and do nothing about it. In a way this story excited me because I can’t wait to have students that are enthusiastic about their work, and have the want to learn. At the same time however, something like this scares me. It made me think, what if I am that inexperienced teacher? What if I don’t know enough of the material and keep my students from learning things they need and want to know? Knowledge comes with the more experience you have, but how do you teach and keep student’s interest when you yourself are still learning? If this walk out happened in this one school, it could happen in any.