Final Reflection

Over the course of the semester I have gotten really close to L. We have been working on him conquering his fears on land and in the water. Flashback to the first couple weeks, L would not go into the water, he would stay on the stairs. I felt at that time that we were never going to get off the stairs because Williams said last semester there was a girl that got in the last day of class. I felt defeated because L was getting baptized and his mom wanted us to be the ones to help with his fear of water. So we worked at it every week. And soon enough we were in the water up to his shoulders. But like Jerilyn said he would cling and would not let go. That's when we had an idea that Jerilyn would work with L and I would work with B. I loved working with B he was so optimistic and just such an amazing kid. We worked on floating and by the last day of CAPES! he was floating on his back ALL BY HIMSELF!! I was amazed! L and B are truly amazing and hold a special place in my heart forever! They make me appreciate the small things in life and bring excitement to my life when I feel like nothing is going right. I will miss them but like Victoria said it hasn't really hit me because I will see them for graduation. Thank you Dr. Z and Dr. Williams for giving us this opportunity to be apart of something so special and amazing. We are changing lives! And I hope that my schedule allows me to be apart of CAPES! for Fall semester.

Blog Post 9 Final reflection

Time flies! It seems to me that we just had our first CAPES! night with students not long ago, but actually we have come to an end of this semester’s lab. But children’s life and learning experiences continue with or without CAPES! As well as my practicum go on.

I remember myself feeling lost in the woods at the beginning of the lab. It was during the first time of lesson planning, when everyone was left, I sat on the floor with an IPad in front of me, had no idea what to prepare for the next night. Thanks for Jerilyn, she took me to the store room and gave me some suggestions for the next lesson plan. And Dr. Williams waited for me patiently until I finished the plan. As the lab went on, I realized I just need to try out various ideas and design different activities to see how they work. Some activities worked really well with some children; others did not go that smooth. But the key point is to TRY.

Without trying, one can never improve planning skills and guidance strategies in teaching. Without trying, one cannot move forward and discover potential talents in learning and development. It was interesting in the last lab at the rock wall place; I witnessed two totally opposite reactions from two children. L, a very obedient and caring child was so afraid of height, had an unhappy moment when he was “forced” to get up the rock wall. While, M, the boy I was assigned to that night, for his very first time, went all the way up to the wall excitedly. How different! However, I find the same element in both cases. For L, every step he makes in order to move up on the rock wall is a big challenge. If L keeps on trying and not giving up, he might make a big improvement in the future. On the other hand, we had found a potential talent that M had! M is good at rock climbing. He is a fast learner and physically strong for this sport.  

Playback the entire experience in CAPES! I am appreciate for the opportunities I was given to work with many individuals; the chances of seeing the differences from every one of them, and implementing different ideas and strategies in the practicum. Interacting with children, I believe for many of CAPES! students,  CAPES! foster positive attitudes of experiencing new environments and taking challenge to finish some tasks, which will contribute to their future life- long learning .  

 

Final Reflection

After a few weeks of working with BE I realized his most important skill development was going to be fine motor skills. So, I spent the last 4 weeks working on those. I came up with a lot of different activities and ideas to try to work on them. Then in the pool, my main goal with working with both L and BE was just to be able to get them comfortable to be unassisted in the water. BE was much further ahead of L in that regard because of L fear of water, but I worked really hard just getting BE to be able to float on his own. Not that he might need that skill in a life and death situation, but maybe its a step in the right direction. He made a lot of improvements in his ability to float unassisted. L was a little more difficult, because I had to just get him to get his head under the water. I saw SO MUCH progress in that over the 4-5 weeks I worked with him in the pool. At first he would scream and cling when we would go under. Then he stopped the screaming and just stuck with the clinging. Slowly we worked on him not clinging to me but plugging his nose, and last week I got him away from me and he was no longer clinging, and I got him floating on his back without clinging to me. L made LEAPS AND BOUNDS in the pool. He worked REALLY hard to be brave and do things that made him super anxious. So I am super proud of his progression in the water.

As far as saying goodbye, I knew that I would have more time with each of the children, whether that be next week at the party or next semester as I plan to be here working with them again. But saying goodbye was still tough. Saying goodbye to BE because he might not be there next week was the most difficult. He is just a sweetie and he is so optimistic and has such a great personality. I think that is why it was difficult. He was not my challenge student. He was pretty easy to think of things to do with, and he was so easy going about everything that I didn't have to worry that he wouldn't like something that we had planned. L was definitely my challenge, but I only really worked with him in the pool. And if that would have been goodbye forever it would have been super hard on me, but I already know I will see him again, as he is inviting me to some future events that he has and his parents would like me to keep working with him in the pool over the summer.

CAPES! has been a positive experience and I really love what I am doing. It has confirmed that this is what I want to do with my life.

Final Reflections....

During my time with B.V. I tried to incorporate a few different things while having a good time as well. During land-based activities I would try to help him read and identify different objects before we used them. I also tried to really get him to communicate better with, not only myself, but with the other kids in our group as well. I would get him to give encouragement to the other kids during activities, and during the last few weeks I could see that he would do it by himself sometimes without me needing to say anything. For both land and water-based activities I tried to incorporate math lessons as well by having him count everything; we counted how many times we did something, how many rings we recovered in the pool, and things like that. It was really neat how much of an improvement I could see in B.V. from the first week to this last week, especially in his communication with others and following directions.

I was really sad that this was our last week, but it hasn't really hit me yet. I know that I will see the kids next week fro our graduation, so I'm trying to not be sad until then. I knew this would be a fun experience, but I didn't realize how much I would learn from working with these kids and how much it would affect me. I enjoyed everything so much and because of this program I have realized that this is the area I want to teach. Although this semester might be over, I am already looking forward to working with the kids again next semester. Even if it isn't the same group of kids, I know it will be an awesome experience again!

The End is Near...

I don't feel that I have gotten in a rut with the plans I make for BE, and I don't feel like I am personally in a rut. I attribute this to several things, first of all BE has fun with everything and he has such a great attitude about it all that anything that I have tried with him he has enjoyed. Secondly, I have had several ideas that I may not even get to because we only have one week left. So that has been a bonus. I think that if I struggled coming up with things for us to do I may get stuck in more of a rut. Since I have so many ideas I don't feel like I've been stuck in a rut.
I think what the others' have said about letting our participants have some choice in the activities they participate in has a lot of pros and helps us stay out of a rut. I was planning on doing that with BE last Tuesday. I had 3 ideas I was going to let him choose from. He ended up not coming, so 2 of my 3 ideas will still be available to us this Tuesday when he comes and I plan on letting him decide between the two of them.
He likes the rock wall so that is one option
The other option will be to put a puzzle together, I also have some modeling clay we will make things out of, and then we can put shaving cream on the table and "paint" on it. All activities that will help our FMS. I know that he will enjoy all of those options.
Honestly, there are so many options with BE which makes it a bonus for me. If he didn't like so many different activities I think I would have a much more difficult time staying motivated.

I don't want this to end!

So we have this next week left and then our party. And I must say I am going to be pretty sad when this is all over. I think I fall into the trap of getting in a routine and just wanting things to be done/over. But I don't think I feel this way about this. I am actually enjoying myself. I have learned so much from L and about myself while dedicating my Tuesdays to CAPES!. I usually always have a contingency plan if L doesn't want to do what I have planned. This has happened on more than one occasion. I really thought he would be interested in climbing the rock wall but long behold he was not interested in the least bit. But we pursued it once more and this time he was very interested so this next week we are going to get him to climb the big wall because he really wants to. I decided I was going to let him choose what he wanted to do the last night and this is what he wanted to do! We are so excited for this :) I can't wait for the last night! It is going to be fun!

Oh No!! The End is Near...... ):

I have really enjoyed working with B.V. and I can't believe time has gone by this fast. I love coming up with new activities to try with B. Sometimes, though, I see that when I find one he really enjoys I kind of want to just stick with that one activity instead of continuing to introduce new things. We usually end up doing the same activity two weeks in a row, so that he can really get the hang of everything, but even I feel like things would get a little boring if I kept in the plan longer than that. In order to keep things fresh and exciting, I like to write out my lesson plan for one idea, but then over the next week I come up with a secondary lesson plan. This way I have something to fallback to, in case B.V. just doesn't seem interested with the original plan. Two weeks ago we did the rock wall. I was a little apprehensive about how it would turn out, because last semester the rock wall was not a big hit for B.V. This time, though, he seemed to really enjoy it and progressed pretty far. We weren't able to do it this past week, so I have put it on the lesson plan again. However, I have a backup plan of activities in case he decides he doesn't want to do the wall again. I think it is a good thing to have the participants involved in some of the lesson planning so that they can feel more confident about the upcoming activities. This also being the last week coming up, I want B.V. to have a big say in what we do so that we can end the semester with a BANG! instead of just another, "boring," every week activity. The energy B.V. brings every week keeps me excited and motivated, the least I can do is something to keep him engaged and excited as well.

Blog Post 8 The End is Near

Recalling my own learning experiences, even at the college level, I know that I am more motivated in learning and actively involved in class discussions by interesting learning materials and activities. Similarly, our students enjoy learning if the experience brings accomplishment, self-esteem, and self-confidence. On the other hand, as a teacher, seeing students’ improvement and progress is the best motivation for keeping the enthusiasm in teaching continuously. So I think keeping the motivation in teaching, the very first step to make is providing meaningful, intentional and joyful learning experience for students. L was afraid of getting into the water at the beginning of CAPES! My group members and I have been working with him to overcome the fear. In the last lab, L was able to go under the water with Jerilyn’s help. He was so excited for what he has accomplished: “Mi, I did it!” For me, seeing the student’s improvement really motivates my teaching, because I feel rewarded.

I think it’s normal for us feeling like getting trap in a situation of “no new ideas” in the practicums. And I think that is what I need to work on my own for my progress: be more creative in activity planning.  One thing I appreciate for working with different groups in the past few weeks is I had the opportunities to participate in other groups’ activities, and share many of their bright ideas. The maze activity would be a good example. I wouldn’t have thought of using those form mats to set up a maze and have students walk through it. Like walking in the maze, often we are stuck in our ideas, and slowly we run out of them. It is important for teachers to collect new ideas from colleagues, books, any other sources from life. And then refine those ideas for implementation.

Disaster....

Our group wasn't affected by the chaos that everyone else seemed to experience. Our night actually went incredibly well. We got our kids to the rock climbing wall. I was actually so happy and impressed with B.V., because he actually got up and climbed and really seemed to enjoy the experience. So far in CAPES I haven't had a chaotic night. Plenty of stressors, mostly in the beginning with trial and error, but still nothing I would consider chaotic or even close to disastrous. I teach a Sunday school class for 2/3 year olds, and the very first time I taught it was actually really chaotic, super stressful, and very much on the verge of what I considered disastrous. I had my lesson planned out, and it was going to be great. I had never met the kids before though so I wasn't sure what to expect, and I naturally expect all kids to act similar to my nephew (he's almost 5). I just figure all kids will be like him, which makes me confident because I know how to react to him and what to expect from him. This was not the case at all on my first Sunday of teaching. These kids were easily distracted and their attention spans were about ten times shorter than what I expected. I was a mess. The kids wanted to talk about their own topics, do their own activities, or even just start babbling nonsense for no reason when I was trying to tell a story. I was so stressed out, even more so about what the parents reaction would be. I was afraid of failing at this "simple" task. It only took a moment or two for me to switch gears and completely change how I got the kids to interact with the story, but in the back of my mind I was still stressing about "this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing..." I realize now that sometimes lesson plans are only good for rough outlines, and sometimes the approach is going to be completely different from the original plan.

Disaster?

Last night was not chaotic for our group at all. We have three participants and mostly always four teachers. Last night it was 3 on 3! It was nice! Thinking back to a time where I was "thrown to the wolves" would have to have been in the children's school here at Weber State. It was one of my first times being in there. So I wasn't really familiar with the children or the student teachers. There is this child in there N who is very naughty to say the least. He is 3 years old and knows more swear words than I do.. (not really but you know what I mean). He is disruptive, he hits people, calls them names, etc. And then we have A who is overly emotional and will cry at the drop of a hat. This is a very diverse group of children. Being thrown into that with no warning or background information was crazy to me. I know going into this field of work I am going to encounter this more times than none. And honestly I am looking forward to it. I do lots better and learn tons more when I don't know what I am getting myself into. I am not the type of person that gives up without a fight! I am willing to be put out of my comfort zone to learn something I am not familiar with. I am just thankful I was not one of the groups Tuesday night affected by that chaos! But I think it just sounded a lot worse than what was actually there! What I saw was some improv and the other groups in my opinion handled it VERY well!

Disaster is always at the door....

I was not affected by the chaos from Tuesday night. Our group is one of the good ones. We rarely have a participant or a WSU student missing. Tuesday was no different. So, I can't say that I have worked well with disaster at CAPES! but I have had several teaching situations that I would consider to be a disaster.

Typically when I have chaos around me- I just try to survive it. I check my watch every 15 seconds and just pray the bell will ring soon. I suppose this is the weaker thing to do, that I should challenge myself to still think skill development and getting my original plan to work despite the challenges in a disaster, but at this point in my teaching experiences I am having a difficult time thinking back to a time in which I have done that.

I feel way more accomplished as a teacher when I have a structured, well designed lesson plan and then the implementation goes off without a hitch. But then again, I can't say that I have an experience to compare it to in which I not only survived chaos, but I did it by coming up with a great lesson plan on the fly and being able to implement it, survive AND teach my students something. I think that when the time comes in my career where I can do that, I will really look at myself and think- I'm a darn good teacher!
As Dr. Z is well aware of, I tend to panic when my plan does not go accordingly and when I panic I get self conscious and I am unable to really think through to a solution. This is certainly something I am working on, and Dr. Z has taught me the coping mechanism to get through it: STOP, BREATHE, THINK!! Usually, when you can just stop yourself, breathe to clear your head and forget about the panic in your head, thoughts will follow. And good solutions will find their way to your brain.

From here on out instead of survival mode checking my watch constantly, I am going to Stop, Breathe and Think about how I can implement skill development instead of just surviving. I think that situation will be much more rewarding to me than those lessons that are well designed and go off without a hitch.

Blog Post 7: It was not easy at all…

So, it was my second call to work with other team in two weeks. And last night was not easy at all. I felt I was not sure about what I supposed to do with this new “child”. I had no clues of her situation: what she interested in and her needs. Neither other team members knew anything about the children in our team, because we were all pulled from other teams. By just observed J running and hitting when we were playing with baseball, I thought her needs would be developing gross motor skills. So, I decided to use the materials around for her to play. For the land activity, we jumped with the rope, hit the baseballs, and kicked the footballs. And I invited her to make the decision: she got to choose one activity from two options I gave her. I thought since I didn’t know what she liked to do, it would be better if she had some authority in choosing the activity. J seemed enjoying her time, but I felt I wasn’t doing much to help her reach her goal in CAPES!

I felt I was more frustrated than feeling rewarded. Not because I have no ideas of conducing activities but more likely I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing for her. We know whether it is a suitable activity for the child; or maybe some steps need to be adjusted only when we carry on the experiment. Therefore, I think everyone needs some degree of consistency in learning or teaching in order to conduct an effective progress. Frequently meeting and working different children may help me develop teaching skills, such as quickly building up connections with new students, fast adjusting program if unexpected situations aroused, etc. And they are important skills for teachers. However, in a long term, students and teachers need consistency to support a steady learning environment.     

The art of it all!

So when it comes to being artsy I am no where close to being that! Victoria had created an awesome obstacle course that the kids just love! They are able to get physical and at the end they get to dig through a treasure chest! It's so awesome to see how involved they become when we get involved as well. It is important to become creative when you are a teacher because some students learn better when they are able to express themselves through art as well. jerilyn also came up with an awesome creative game that we are going to do on the rock wall. They are fire fighter cadets rescuing animals out of the trees! During this time in a child's life I feel it's important to express creativity! It makes things less serious and more fun! And who doesn't like to have fun?! I do have a Pinterest and I post a lot of creative things but after CAPES! I think I may actually have to start making and doing some of the things I have to step up because of all the awesome student teachers I am surrounded by!

Blog Post 6: The Art of it all

I believe everyone from our group enjoyed the activity of “Treasure Hunt” which Victoria designed in the past two weeks. Not only the children, but also us student-teachers like the idea of creativity from this activity. It was interested for children, because they had a task to finish and it was playful.  We student-teachers like it because we were able to embed our goals in the activity. For instance, following directions and staying focuses are two main goals for L. We had some chances to practice some of these skills for L through the activity. Comparing the last lab to others in the past few weeks, surely, the “Treasure Hunt” was a better experience for both students and teachers. Our goals are still the same, but its creative form brings more entertainment and engagement for students acquiring new skills.

I feel my CAPES! experience reflects the theory of Play often. Play is in children’s nature. Either a child is gifted or needs extra support; children like playing and want to play when they are allowed. I was assigned to work with KE for this lab. He talked very little to his peers or teachers. He was not interested with activities their team set up. Instead, he held three stuff toys and kept himself in the corner. But guess what he was doing? He was playing with those stuff toys! I sat closely to him so I could hear what he was mumbling. I found out he was role-acting three animals’ running and tracing in the wild. His words were full of imaginations. How creative he was! I asked to have one of the stuff animals, and joined his play. At the beginning, he just ignored me, and even got up and ran to the other side of the room. All I could do was being patient and wait for him to come back. Whenever he came back and tried to grab the stuff animal from my hand, I pretended as the rabbit (the stuff toy) and asked him different questions: where did you go? Did you see the big bear? Can we play hide-and-seek? And towards the end, he was feeling comfortable enough to sit down and play with me for a little while. And I think at that point, we practiced few social interaction skills. For this lab experience, I wasn’t the one being creativity but the child was.   

Creativity is an important element in teaching for it establishes meaningful and engaged learning experiences. Creativity can be a thoughtful planning from teachers as well as inspiration from the children.

Maybe my past learning experience impacts my teaching style leaning towards more structuralized. Creativity is something I need to work on more to become a better elementary teacher. For young children and students in grade schools, I think they would like to have a teacher that is more artsy. My reason will go back to the Play theory. Children construct knowledge and develop skills when they are engaged in play. A teacher who is full of fun learning activities will be able to draw more attentions from students, and eventually develops more learning opportunities for them.

The ART of it all!

When we first started CAPES I was a little unsure of how to approach things because I wasn't familiar with the kids we'd be working with. So the first couple weeks I was just trying to get an idea of who BV was, what he liked, what he needed to work on most, and how to approach those areas. Once I felt like I had a good grasp on all this, I began to feel really comfortable with letting my creativity flow. I love trying to create fun and "artsy" activities for kids. I like going online and looking up activities, and I even bought a book to get some more ideas. After I find some a good base for these activities I had so much fun altering the activities to fit our kid's better. The resources and equipment we have available to us for CAPES has made it so much easier to let my creativity out.
The week before last I came up with an obstacle course/treasure hunt based off the equipment available to us. Before I started putting the course together I was a little worried about how it would turn out. But when I began I started thinking about our kids, B and L, and the things they like, and I just got so excited about everything. I found that once I started making the directions it was a lot easier than I expected. B and L seemed to really enjoy the course, so we decided to do it again this past week. This time I found some more things to add to the course to make it a little more difficult. I like being able to be creative when teaching things to kids. I have a great time, the kids have a great time, and they learn things without it feeling like a lesson. I'm really excited about the next time we meet together so that we can use Jerilyn's creative idea with the kids and the rock wall. The kids will be firefighters trying to save the animals from the "tree." We even got them little firefighter hats to help them imagine the situation. The last time BV tried the wall, he wasn't too fond of it. But he said he wants to try it again, so I'm hoping this will help.

I think I would definitely prefer a teacher who is "artsy." I have always learned better when it feels like the teacher is also having fun. Artsy lessons also seem to be more flexible when needed. I know that with our obstacle course, we ended up having to add another person and it was a lot easier to include them without having to completely change the plan. I think "sciency" type teachers are good as well, but sometimes I can lose focus pretty easily and find it easier to focus on more artsy lessons.

The ART of it all.

Being creative with my teaching isn't something that comes very easily to me. I typically have to spend a good hour researching ideas online and then adapting them to my teaching situations. CAPES! wasn't much different. Especially in the land based portion of things. I have taught swimming lessons for several years and have picked up a ton of "artsy" techniques from other teachers that I work with. I have used those all the time in CAPES!. One of the most successful was when I was trying to encourage BE to float on his back. Now, he doesn't have a fear of water at all but he didn't enjoy floating. I think it was somewhat uncomfortable for him, but mostly I think it was because he would get cold by being up like that and having a large part of his body out of the water. However, one technique I started using was while he was floating I would either tell him a story (Goldilocks and 3 bears, little red riding hood etc) to keep his mind off things. Usually that was just the trick he needed. He was able to float much longer when he did that. We have also used different techniques like, I have a pet goldfish that lives in the pool. I let BE name him, and he named him Goldie. So, he gets to talk to Goldie (by blowing bubbles) and then he has to listen to Goldies' response (putting his ear in the water) I have found over my years as a swim teacher that those kind of techniques do wonders, as they have with BE. I think those would all fall under the "Artsy" creative category.
On land, I am not as creative, but Victoria created this amazing scavenger/treasure hunt for her students to work together, follow directions and stuff and it was BRILLIANT. It was a blast and grew into more than one week's activity. That is probably my favorite "artsy" experience thus far. Next week we also have a "fire fighter cadet training" activity for the rock wall. We are hoping BR is more interested in the rock wall because of the creativity.
Which leads me to answering the question, which is better, artsy or science? I would have to say artsy is better. And it doesn't matter if you are teaching kindergarten or college. My most memorable learning experiences and favorite teachers have been more of the creative teachers that are able to present something enjoyable for me to do whilst I am learning.
I think artsy teachers are more able to teach on the fly if their plan fails (which happens all the time in PE.) They are also able to adapt and make changes to their plans with ease. I think being artsy is more valuable to me as a PE teacher. I wish I was more "artsy" by nature but I also think with practice and experience I will get more artsy.

Halfway done ALREADY?!

I can't believe we are almost done with CAPES! it has gone by so fast. I definitely will miss the optimism and positive attitude of my student L. I will be sad when we are all done for the semester. The only time I have had to make an adjustment for lesson planning was when Victoria was out sick so we had to care for B. It wasn't bad actually. It was a little chaotic at first but we adjusted well. As for the time, we have never gotten done earlier than planned. It does take L a little longer to understand directions and get on task (he has a hard time staying focused).  But we do use the entire time and I do believe that they actually enjoy themselves. They are learning new skills every time and learning how to socialize with the other children. If a situation did arise where we had to include another student I would always have a contingency plan where we could include more than just one student. I would bring extras of whatever we were doing that day. It's better to have more than to not have enough.

Blog Post 5 Prepared the night before or always be prepared for uncertainty?

I could not stop thinking about the smiles on K’s face every time when I wrote a lesson plan for her in the past several weeks. She was such a charming girl when we had our first activity night together. Unfortunately, she did not show up any more after the first CAPES! So when I prepared a lesson plan for her, also guessed I wouldn’t use it in the next lab. Most likely, I would work with another child or help my team mates with their students. Although it was not an ideal situation as expected, I still want to be helpful and prepared when other students’ needs arise. First thing I did was observing other children besides K, and keeping in mind of their needs and interests when other team members talked about their experiences. I believe that I need to know them well enough to be able to adjust or quickly come up with a new plan for them when unexpected situation happens. One night, when one of the team members could not come to the lab, I was told to work with her focused child. I introduced myself to him and chatted with him for a little while. I knew that not only I but also the child B was unprepared for a new teacher to work with him for that night. I wanted to make sure he was comfortable with the changes. When we were in the pool, B was quite nervous. Try to calm him down, I talked to him gently but firm, and let him know he is safe around. When he was settled a little bit, we played a few games in the water. I did not prepare those games ahead of time, instead, those ideas quickly pop into my mind, and I adjusted a few steps for B. Later, his mom told me he was so excited about the experience in the pool last time and talked about it often at home.

I think for a teacher, observation, collecting ideas, and organizing lesson plans are some work to do all the time from day to day. We observe children who around us, students who currently in our own class, and students in other grades. Children take years to develop in their life spans. To guide and teach them successfully, teachers should observe students often so they know students’ current development levels accurately. One thing I learned from the past educational lab experience was learn from teaching. We all experience successful and not so great teaching moments. It is important to collect the successful ideas and lesson plans, organize them and keep them in mind. Knowing students well and having a rich education resource in mind, we are prepared for uncertainty all the time even thouth we did not plan for it to happen the night before.

Halfway Already?

I personally have not had the situation where a lesson plan that I created for a kid at CAPES! was not used for that kid. BE has been to CAPES! every week. I also have not had a child show up that I have not planned for. So, I don't have any personal experience for having a child show up that we have not written a plan for either.
However, I do believe the most important thing to know and be prepared for in potential situations like this is very simple. If you know your students you should be able to make up a lesson plan on the fly. You need to know what kinds of things your students are working on. What their strengths and weaknesses are. As long as you know your students, know who you are teaching, know your goals with each student, know their goals. If you know your students, really know them then you should be able to come up with a pretty good lesson plan on the fly. You should be able to make accommodations and modifications pretty easily.

Halfway There......

I can't believe that we are already halfway through CAPES! It has gone by so fast, and I am not looking forward to it ending. When we first started our group decide that we would each work with one child the whole time. We figured it would be easier to connect with the child and really stay focused on what areas need to be worked more. We have run into a few set-backs with having a child who is no longer participating in the program, as well as a couple of times that children or students were absent for a night. Because of this we have had to move things around a little.

I, myself, haven't run into the problem of having a child I didn't make a lesson plan for. We usually do our lesson plans together as a group because social interactions are a big focus among our kids. This makes it easier to adjust when have to help with another kid. This coming up week I know that we are adjusting our lesson plan to allow for another group's kid join us. When we make our lesson plans, the ideas that we come up with have been things that we can be flexible with. I think this is a big thing to remember when making a lesson plan. It is a great thing to make a plan that is set, but is easily rearranged when needed. We also have little "side" lesson plans, like a back-up plan, in case the kids don't take to what we planned, or if the activity doesn't take as long as we anticipated. By having these back-up lesson plans, it has made it very easy for us to transition into a new activity when needed.

I think as a teacher, if you have kids with special needs in any of your classes, then you should be prepared to always have them in your class, regardless of their regular class schedule. Make a back-up plan. It doesn't even have to be a full lesson plan, but perhaps just a style of teaching reserved specifically for when the lesson needs to be altered due to a change in a special needs student's schedule. You could change a lesson into an active response activity. Or perhaps just slowing the pace of the lesson might help. A big part of how to be flexible is going to be based on the exact needs of the student. Know your student's needs. Then based on their strong points in the learning environment, alter your lesson to accentuate those strengths so that the lesson is still taught, without leaving that student behind, but rather allowing them to excel with their peers.

CAPES! 4 Establishing an Effective Learning Environment!

From my understanding, an effective learning environment of CAPES! at least contains two aspects: physical environment and interactions between teachers and students. Both of them serve important functions to help meeting the students’ needs and interests. The experiences in past CAPES! nights have clearly indicated various physical environments can lead to different reactions and results with the same child. L’s performances would be an example. In the last CAPES! we did three land-based activities. He followed the directions and understood the instructions pretty well when we played the bowling ball game and sand bag game. He was on task and actively engaged in these two activities. These two activities took place at the eastern end of the Gym, against the wall, and far away from other groups and disturbs. Five of us stayed within 3 to 5 feet space from each other, and the equipment was right next to where we stood. I think this size of open special is within L’s comfort zone, and it is an area that he can handle without any assistance. In contrast, the baseball game wasn’t that easy for him. I felt I lost L’s attention in this game. The baseball game took up 3 to 4 times’ bigger space compared to the other two, and it was a new game to them. L was not fully engaged, and often he was called to be reminded of his turn. Although the result was not as good as what we expected, but I strongly believe that it would have been a great activity to meet his needs if we can provide some effective teacher-student interactions to support his learning. I remembered L did fair enough work in the foxtail game. It was also an activity that designed for a more open space. So, to help him gradually learn some skills to stay focused and follow directions or instructions in a wider special, I could use one-on-one strategy with him which worked well in the foxtail game. If we redid this game, I would have explained the game to him face to face. I would have given him 2 directions each time, and walked through the steps with him; and had him pre-play the game to make sure he knows his roles. To get him back to the game if he started wandering off I could gave him some hints then. And my feedback to him would have focused on how well he stayed on tasks.

Learn from teaching, this is what I have learned from the CAPES! experiences. Either special ed. or general ed. an effective learning environment should always take into account. Therefore, better educational outcomes to be performed and observed.

Week 4!! Our Learning Environment

In the past couple of weeks we have been trying to figure out how our kids work best, whether in groups or not, the environment, and what kind of activities. It has been a little bit of a struggle, but we are now starting to get a really good grasp at what is needed. We have realized that L would do a lot better in a smaller environment, perhaps using the racquetball courts, or by just directing his focus away from the other groups by having him face away from them while we give instructions. I’ve noticed with BV that, although he could use some focus on social interactions, perhaps a large area isn’t the best setting. It would be better to have a smaller setting and fewer people to slowly get him better with social interactions. After noticing this, we have decided to try something completely new this coming up week. We are going to take L and BV to the racquetball courts. This way they can still learn how to interact with other children, but they don’t have such a large room with so many unneeded distractions. By using the small area of the court, we can focus more on their interactions with each other including encouragement, communication, teamwork, and even following directions. I am really excited about trying this new approach. I really think it will help both kids to improve a lot.

                I still feel like I am struggling a little in the pool with BV, but because I think I am getting a better handle on the land-based activities, it will give me more time to focus on how to get him to pay better attention in the pool. BV absolutely LOVES diving for rings I want to be able to just let him dive the whole time, but I know we need to try and work on some swimming skills as well. I can get him to do a few things, but I can tell his focus is on “when can we play with the rings?” Last week, however, I feel like he began to show some improvement. I got him to go around on a kickboard for almost half the time. We just practiced kicking; little kicks, big kicks, slow kicks, fast kicks. I want to try and do the same thing again this week, but hopefully try and do it so that he pays more attention to his surroundings at the same time. Maybe we will try a game of Red Light/Green Light.  

                During the first couple of weeks I was worried about not meeting the needs of the kids of our group because of their disabilities. I was worried I wouldn’t know how to implement the “right techniques” or learning styles in order to be the most effective. However, I have realized that all the techniques I would use for “regular” students are the same techniques we use for the kids in our group. We use simple instructions, make eye contact at eye level when giving instructions, we promote encouragement between the kids. These are all things that are very helpful with students, no matter their learning ability.

 

ESTABLISHING AN EFFECTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT!

I have to admit, I did not really notice this shift in CAPES! that you mentioned. I think after it was over we had a few epiphanies as a group and next week we certainly are going to be shifting our learning environments, but we had a week delay. :) A few of the things that I tried with our group this week was with L. He is a very obedient kid and super quick to please. If he is not following directions I think it is totally and completely because he did not hear or register them. He also has a tendency to have his eyes wander. So getting down on his level and having eye contact while giving him directions/instructions was much better. Also, asking him to repeat what you would like him to do (check for understanding) totally works with him. (BR wasn't there so I am wondering if the same methods would work with him??? Not sure) But I had L pretty successful at playing the rules of the game and cleaning up by using that method. We discussed ways we might help him and BR with their easily distracted little abilities and we have decided to try out the racquetball courts next week for them so that it minimizes distractions. Also, not sure about BR but L is a GREAT reader. So our idea was to have some kind of obstacle course or challenges for them to complete but the directions will be written on signs with pictures possibly. This way L can go to the challenge, read it, and complete it then move onto the next one. Hopefully the same method will work with BR but I am less familiar with him.
BE is so good at following directions/comprehension. His biggest challenge is fine motor skills, so I think for the remaining weeks I am really going to try to focus on different ways to improve that. I would like to take him down to the rock climbing wall and see if he can grasp his hands and just see what he can do. I think he would LOVE to get out of his chair and climb the wall. We will see if we can get his parents on board with that.

As far as learning environments go, what I have learned is really its a case by case basis. Which does NOT make my job any easier as a PE teacher. But just with my experience with L on Tuesday, I am pretty certain what will work for him. I don't have as much confidence with BR. So, what I personally have learned is learning environments are individualized. And that transfers over to a "regular" student learning environment in the same way.

Capes! 3 Let's talk behavior.

I believe that our 3^rd night of Capes! was much better than the previous weeks. Cheers for us! The time went very fast when children actively engaged in the activities. The first activity, “Catch the Fox”, really helped them practicing some important social skills. As I mentioned in the last post, I think of improving the efficiency of communication and making sure they understand the instructions will be the first step to help us carry on the activities. The difficulties we have experienced in the past Capes! are holding their attention for a long enough period of time; so, they can follow the directions and carry on a certain activity. Our children were lack of those skills. As a result, they lost their attention with us and quickly started wandering around. So this time we changed our strategy to “one on one” by having one student teacher stand by a child to make sure he pays attention to the instructor—Jerilyn. Secondly, the student teacher models a behavior one at a time so the child can observe and duplicate the behavior. We threw the foxtails through the hoop, and so as they did. Feedback was given frequently during the activity so they know what the teachers' expectations were and what they were supposed to do. Overall, we have reached the objectives for the land time.

Getting into the pool was another story. L was afraid of water. When we got him into the water, he held on my neck tightly with his arms, his legs were twined around my legs, and repetitively said “wow, wow” in a shrill voice. I understand his fear of water, but his overreaction in the pool was inappropriate. He did not take any notice of his surrounding in the pool. Every move we made only made him became more nervous. Towards the end of lab, he was feeling more comfortable in the water, and he was able to play some games with one hand. “I did it, I did it!” L was very excited about his progress. I think the achievement he made and the confident he gained might help him improve his behavior; but I also guess he might go through the same emotion and express similar behavior when we meet again next time. Be, another child in the group, who loves the water, shows no fear in the water. So I think I will have L watch Be play in the water to help him overcome his fear. Also, I think we will use “one on one” strategy in the water. I will need Jerilyn to demonstrate some movements in the water for L.

I am looking forward to playing with them on next Tue.    

Week 3

Tonight was my second night with BV because I was unable to attend last week. I am still trying to get a feel for  the biggest difficulties I will face with BV. I am noticing that he has a difficult time staying focused when we are doing land-based group activities. He has a harder time listening and following directions. I feel like I should take him off so that we can do our own thing, but I know that social interaction is something that his parents want us to work on. I think that maybe instead of trying to do so many interactions with the other kids we will limit it to one activity as a group and then work on our own to try to get him better at following instructions without getting distracted. Then perhaps in a couple of weeks we might be able to become a little more involved with the other kids of our group.
BV also tends to get a little over excited during the water-based activity time. He has a hard time accepting that there are other people in the water. He likes to do his own thing without any regard to who might be around. I want to work with him on being more aware of his surroundings, perhaps with a type of red light, green light game to signal when people are in our immediate area. Hopefully this kind of fun activity will help him be more aware of his surroundings and begin to consider those around him more.

Week 3.. Lets talk about behavior

L is awesome. He is so optimistic, he is smart BUT he has a really hard time listening and following directions. I love him to death but that will be the death of me, HAHA. I can tell it bothers my classmates when they ask him to do something and he just ignores them because it bothers me. This could be a huge setback for him if this behavior isn't corrected early on. His mom actually came up to me at the end and asked if he was listening a little better because she had talked to him about that. I kind of told her a white lie, that he was getting better.. I probably should have straight out told her that it was the same but I didn't. Oops.
I am hoping that by having the other kids around him when we do our group activities he will strive to be more like them. I know they all have somewhat of a hard time with this particular thing but L for sure has the hardest time.
To help him with this behavior I am going to break things down into smaller steps/instructions so that he doesn't have a chance to just run off and ignore me. I might even get down on his level and tell him to look at my eyes while we are communicating to each other. I feel this might help because I don't like looking up when people are trying to give me instructions. We will see how this attempt goes! I am sure in time L will correct this behavior!

"Lets talk behavior" week 3

I can tell you right now what BE's inappropriate social behavior is, which breaks my heart that I need to try to curtail... He SCREAMS when he is excited. He SCREAMS when he is successful at something, when a peer is successful at something, when he or a teammate even attempts something, when he wants to do something. He is a screamer. It is so flipping cute that I don't want to tell him to stop, but I realized it was a problem twice this week. Once when our group was bowling. BE knocked a pin down (only one pin, he is seriously the most optimistic kid!) and he SCREAMED in excitement. His peer, L then covered his ears and made a comment that it was really loud.

That is when I realized expressing his excitement like that doesn't bother me and plenty of people probably think it is super cute, but it does bother some people and he should probably work on a more appropriate volume. The second time was when we were in the pool. BE loves to play this game called motorboat where I spin him around really fast and really slow. He never knows what speed is coming so he gets super excited in his anticipation. I use it as a reward after he has worked hard to accomplish something he doesn't love doing. We were playing it on Tuesday and he was SCREAMING again in excitement and I probably had 3 WSU students look at me like, "what are you doing to this poor kid, you must be torturing him." Because it sounded like he was screaming out of terror or misery. That is the second time that I realized that his screaming can easily be misinterpreted by people who don't know him and don't know his personality to scream when he is excited.

When he screamed and L made the comment and covered his ears I tried to get BE to realize that his volume was a little loud and I had him say something to L to apologize or something (I can't remember now what I said exactly) and then in the pool I explained that people thought he was screaming because he was upset and I asked him if he was upset or excited, and he replied that he was excited. So that is for sure something we have got to work on. I love that he gets so excited. I love that he is so optimistic. He could get that excited about a fly landing on him. He just seems to love everything about life. So I hate the thought of trying to calm him down when he gets that excited because I don't want to curtail that. But in all honestly it is an inappropriate social behavior. He needs to find more appropriate ways to express his excitement.

SO that was one of my objectives for this week... To try to get him to express his excitement at the very least at more of an appropriate level.

Night 2!

Communication in our group is going to take some time. My participant L has a really hard time following directions, which is something his mom wants us to work on. He is not very good in social situations BUT he is so cute because he HAS to know everyone's name and is so friendly. He just doesn't have the communication part down.
I believe as a teacher for L I can try different approaches to maybe help him understand the directions of the games we play. And I could communicate on a more in depth level than I have been.
It was so fun and rewarding this time because we were able to play real games with them. Our group participants are so cute and the look on their faces when they accomplish what they set out to do is the best! BE gets so excited he screams at the top of his lungs. B is so hyper and just wants to constantly run around and L is so optimistic, he's so down to earth.
I think next Tuesday I am going to try to visually communicate with L. By showing him exactly what I want him to do, not just by telling him. We are going to play a team bowling game, so hopefully we are able to get some good social communication in!

CAPES day 2

Communication was a challenge within our group although not with my participant specifically. BE is by far the best at sitting still and listening to instructions while BR and L have a very difficult time stilling still and listening to directions. And it was tough because we would have BR paying attention and L gone off somewhere and then when we finally got L back ready to listen we had lost the attention of BR. So communication as far as getting instructions through to our group was a challenge. 

One of the goals we had was communication and we tried to play Telephone. That was not so successful. I can't really decide if the concept of the game was too confusing for them or the understanding of the "message" but when I said my declarative sentence as "I like chocolate ice-cream" BR took it as "I like everything" then BE passed it along as "What do you like" and L then just tried to answer it. That activity was way over their heads, and again, I can't decide if that is a game we keep trying to play until the concept is understood or if that was just way over their heads. 

Those were the two biggest challenges I would say with our group. 

On a 1 on 1 level BE is pretty good at communicating all around. He pretty much understands what I say and he is able to communicate what he wants pretty easily. I would say that he is above average in his social development. However he is with 2 other boys who are below average in their social development, so the 3 of them were really not able to communicate well as a group. That is something I am going to have to think about... How do we get BE to understand the level of communication both L and BR are capable of and then have the 3 of them communicate well together???

Experiences, trials, and breakthroughs in communication??? At this point I would say we have not had any great breakthrough moments, but we have only had 2 hours with the kiddos. And we have only spend 30  minutes as a group. 

At this point I have far less solutions than I have conundrums but it gives me things to think about. How do we improve the communication within the group? 3 boys on 3 very different levels understanding and being understood? And how do we improve the comprehension of our instructions? 

An obvious answer in how to improve our communication would be to demonstrate more, but again, that only takes us so far when L is paying attention but BR is not or when BR is paying attention and L is not... 

KISS...(Keep It Simple Stupid) Maybe we need to simplify the instructions. Only give one at a time. 

Here are some new ideas: 

SIMPLER instructions. 1-2 words/phrases

Demonstrate more (Maybe have each group leader demonstrate to each kid individually so we don't have to try to get the group to cohesively watch the demonstration) 

Create a reward system for positive behaviors (Staying on the polyspot, INTERACTIONS with each other in general etc) 

Keep working on ways to get them to COMPREHEND our instructions (I think that is the biggest barrier we are facing currently) 

What do  ya'll think??? 

2nd night, it was so fun...

After the first night’s playing and interacting with K, I was looking forward to the second night of CAPES!  And to see how my lesson plan would go with K. Unfortunately, she did not show up last night. However, it gave me an opportunity to meet with other children in the group. I truly enjoyed the time B and I spent together. B loved playing in the water.  It was cheerful to see him accomplish his task in the water. L’s big smiley faces keep coming to my mind as I think of the last CAPES! experiment.  B was so excited just about everything we did. His enthusiasm motivated everyone who was around him.

Consider what we did in the experiment, I think our team could set improving the efficiency of communication as our common goal for the next night. I like those activities we did together a lot because they are designed to meet their needs and interests. “Passing the secret” would be a great activity for them if we scaffold few more steps to help them understand the game. Maybe we can start the game with a declarative sentence instead of a question. In such a way that children don’t get confuse by arising questions like should I tell the next person the question, or, answer the question and tell the next person my answer. I think this activity is great; it will help them develop and practice active listening skill.

For the next lesson plan, I reorganized the last one and added some more activities including a bowling game with team members for K. The purpose is for her to develop some friendship with other children meanwhile not too boring for her. I hope she will come and have some fun with us next time.

CAPES! Day 1

B was a blast. He is so optimistic and so cheerful and gets so excited about everything that we did. I was perplexed as to what to do with him because his mom asked him not to get out of the wheelchair because he has recently had hip surgery. I was planning on having him get out of is wheelchair and see if he could play with the fine motor skills objects and see how well he could stand (if at all) and how well he could move his  body in general but we were not able to do that very much. So I was challenged to find things to do but honestly B just feeds off excitement from anyone. If I sounded excited about an activity he would get excited. If he sounded excited about an activity and I got excited about it, his excitement would multiply. He was super friendly and outgoing and excited to show me what he was capable of doing in his wheelchair. His mom was super fun and friendly but his dad was a tad on the grumpy side. So I feel a bit of pressure from his dad.
The pool was awesome... B was FEARLESS, maybe a little too  much. He had a hard time following directions in the pool, he just wanted to do his own thing so getting him to focus on skill development will be my other challenge.
Overall the night was great. I LOVE B. He is super adorable and I really enjoyed meeting him and getting to know him. It will be interesting to see what we can work on together.

reflection --!st Gym CAPES

 

K was lovely! Although it was the first time for both of us, I felt our conversations were carried on easily. She told me she played basketball after school, so I thought it might be a comfortable zone to start with. We spent some time at station 5, where the basketball hoop was located. K could dribble the ball nicely with one hand while drive her wheel chair with the other hand. I was impressed by her skill! She also said she has been practicing basketball for a while. I put this information in my note, and thought we might do basketball as our warm-up activity next time.

 She was open and friendly. During our breaks, I asked her about what her favorite subject was at school, and she told me she liked all the classes. She said she enjoyed going to school, and her dream was to go see different places and things. “I am not like some kids who sit in the wheelchair and don’t want to do anything” she said, I was amazed by how openly she talked about the situation she was in.

So, I determined that a more challenging task would be a fun activity for her. In order to see her balance and fine motor skills, I lay down forms, stones, and rocks on the ground to construct a path. In between, I put some stacks of cups for her to manipulate. I asked if she was comfortable to get off her wheelchair and move through the path and finish her task. K got off the wheelchair by herself, and she did a fabulous job. It was not so easy for her, but she showed great strength in finishing her goal.

Practicing balancing skills and sorting out patterns will be our focuses in next CAPES.

CAPES Day 1

Wow! What an experience! I was pretty nervous when I first showed up. Because it was the first night, and we didn't have a lesson plan to go off, I wasn't really sure if I would be able to find enough to do with B. Then we went out to meet the kids and I'm pretty sure I didn't stop smiling because of how awesome all these kids were. I would have been more than thrilled to be paired with any of them.

When I first met B, I knew we would have a great time. He was so energetic and just ready to have some fun. His parents were awesome and all about just letting B and I go out and have fun. After that I felt much more confident and a lot more at ease. We did land-based activities first, so I started by just trying to get to know him a little by asking what grade he's in, what his favorite part of school is and other things. He was pretty easy to talk to and it helped me kind of figure out which things he would like most. I found that he loves to build and run. Then when we went to the pool, I found that he loves going under the water, and diving for the hoops was his favorite part.

Although this first night wasn't very structured, which made me nervous at first, it really helped a lot in finding the areas that should be focused on while hanging out with B. He's very capable in all the physical activities, but I found that I want to focus more on social interactions and following directions. He seems to be a very intelligent child, and I want to try and help him become a little more comfortable interacting with other children as well as help him become better at focusing on instructions.

Tonight was a blast! I look forward to seeing B. and all the other great kids next week!