Highland high school experience

Day One

The first day of the field experience went well; I noticed a few things have changed since I was in high school.  The students are always on their phones, all day long! The students are also a little disrespectful to teachers, when I was in school when a teacher said something we listened.  Maybe it was because I was there and they were showing off, the host teacher Mrs. Bowman said they are usually like that though.  I was very surprised the way the students talked back and how much they were on their phones.  If I taught at the school I would go to the principal and explain a rule about cell phones needs to be in place.  First period I was in a health class with all juniors with a few seniors.  The class was watching the video/audio of their projects on mental illnesses. They used a program called photo story, this was a slide show they made with a recording of themselves in the background.  This was very interesting and I liked the project idea.  The students had to write every illness’s definition down as the projects were played; this was going to be collected for a grade later in the week.  Some students did not even write or watch the slide while other watched and took notes.  I observed four health classes; each class was watching their projects.  Every class a student was talked to about their cell phones, sometimes multiple students. The students did the reports on illnesses like Clinical depression which is a mental disorder characterized by all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self esteem, by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities.  Another example would be Bipolar, mood swings, periods of very good or irritable mood depression.  Seasonal affect disorder, which is types of depression throughout a season, usually winter.  Other illnesses the students did their projects on are, anti-social disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, dependent personality, narcissism, histrionic personality disorder, dementia, amnesia, autism, ADD and hypochondrias. The periods I observed the health classes were 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and 7^th. 

            During my free periods I went to the main office and got a copy of the student handbook.  I asked Mrs. Bowman to print a copy of a lesson plan which she did.  I also asked her to print out of the grading policy of physical education and health. I am trying to do as much work in the begging so I do not have much work at the end of the week.  I felt I did a lot of work for the first day; I am on the right path.

            8^th period I finally had a physical education class!  I was very happy to get out of a classroom and into a gym.  The students were finishing up fitness test and picking new sports to play for the upcoming classes.  The fitness testing was on sit-ups, curl ups and a pacer test. The grading sheet I copied also had pull ups and mile run on there, but I don’t know if they were actually tested on those.  After the students picked their sport it was free play basically, students grabbed basketballs and footballs and played.  The teacher walked around and tested the students who still didn’t test their fitness.  I played horse with a student for awhile, and then played knock out with a bunch of students.  We were having a great time! I noticed the students were much better behaved inside the gym then inside the classroom.  All the students enjoyed a new face and were asking me questions all day long, they really like young teachers. The class flew by and before you know it the bell rang and they had to go change, I talked with my host teacher and she told me a lot of students do not like to dress out.  She pointed to a student on the bleachers and explained he is one that never dresses out.  I knew I had to do an interview with a disengaged student and I asked Mrs. Bowman if I could ask him a few questions.  While the other students were changing I was interviewing the student on why he doesn’t like to change. The interview went well and I felt accomplished. Tomorrow there are three physical education classes so I am excited to be in the gymnasium more.    

-Albert A. Mercado

Prezi

http://tinyurl.com/AlbertPrezi

Prezi about my low and high times in my life, in relation to movement.   Click the link to watch!

Last St. Mary's Experience

This was a very sad day, this was the last time our class would be visiting St. Mary's school.  Our theme was Christmas! For the second time in a row my group was the "gym" group and we did the first few activities with the children.  I am so thankful for being the gym group twice, it was such a great experience and I had a blast.  For my game, I tweaked a game I learned at a mini conference here at Cortland.  I named it Santa's run away present.  I used a huge medicine work out ball as the present, of course I spiced it up a little and wrapped the ball in wrapping paper and but bows all over it.  This was the runaway present!! The story behind the game was Santa’s sleigh was very packed this year and one present fell off this year. The present was a massive ordainment for a huge Christmas tree, so if this present hits the ground it will break.  Santa needs everyone’s help to make sure this doesn't hit the ground and it gets the proper house.  After the explanation and story behind the game I demonstrated the game. After the demonstration I partnered the students up and showed them where the starting point was.  How you play the game is, partners lay on their back feet touching.  Two more partners lay on their back feet touching right next to the first partners, so on and so forth. So we have all the students paired up and laying down making a path.  Now the tricky part, I roll the present over the student’s feet, once the present rolls over one group’s feet they have to get up and run to the end of the path of students and lay down again and wait for the present to come.  Basically they have to make a never ending path so the present doesn't touch the ground.  I used partners in this activity because we had so many students; usually each student just lies side by side. This is a great game because it really gets the students moving, it always works on teamwork and flexibility. There are many adaptations a teacher can do to this game, allowing the students to push the ball along themself and time how long it gets from one side of the gym(Santa’s sleigh) to the other side (home where present is going to).  This allows them to use communication skills, saying speed up or slow down the present.  If a teacher is working on a skill like skipping, the teacher can say once the present rolls over you, skipping is the only way to get to the end of the path.  I would use this when I know the students can do the skill because they will be rushing so you want to make sure they have the proper form before.  This will challenge them because it is a race against the clock; the ball rolls fast so it is fun.  Also changing the theme up is a possibility, saying runaway train is a great idea, say the breaks went out on the train and we need to make sure it gets back to the station safely.  There are endless opportunities with this game, just use your imagination.  The students at St. Mary's loved this game, the only problem was the first time the ball went a little fast and it got a little crowded at the end of the path, so start very slowly so the students understand and learn a nice flow to their movement.  Using props like a present really works wonders; they are so drawn to anything I make.  It is very simple to do and allows the students to really get into the game.  Their imagination flows when they actually see a huge present or see a turkey hanging from the basketball hoop. I cannot wait to have my own gym so I can make stuff daily, I would love to dress my gym up so the students just enter a whole new world when they come to my class. I am sad we will not be back to St. Mary's this semester, but I will definitely be visiting next semester. This winter I will be observing at Highland school district, I will be in the middle school for a week and then the high school for another week. I am so excited to see another district and watch how these teachers run their class; I will be taking a lot of notes and have a binder full of work to do about this experience.  Thanks for reading about my St. Mary experiences!

-Albert A. Mercado

Happy Thanksgiving Experience

This was the day I was waiting for all semester.  Finally I was designated to teach the gym group, which is the largest group and the rest of my class assess the children’s skills. All eyes are on you and I love a challenge so this was one of my favorite days.  I was all prepared and ready to teach and I look around and notice more children then usually.  Here comes the curve ball, usually there is only 15 students to teach, the day I had to teach there was 40 students ranging from kindergarten to 5^th grade! My professor walked up to me and asked me if I can handle all these children, without thinking twice I said without a doubt! Like I said before I love a challenge and I knew this would be a great experience for me.  Not only was there 40 children, girls basketball practice was going on and we only had half the gym!  There was also a pie sale on the gym which just added to the chaos. Going outside of your comfort zone is how you learn; everything can not be nice and easy all the time.  I had such a cool game planned for these kids I was ready to start. A few days prior to class I made to turkeys out of one huge balloon and one small balloon, I wrapped these balloons in brown felt and made feathers out of index cards.  These look very cool and when the children laid their eyes on them they couldn’t wait to play.  Our objective in today’s class was to analyze the students kicking and dribbling (basketball dribbling) with proper form.  I made up this awesome game in my head one night.  I hung the turkeys from the basketball hoops about 6 inches off the ground.  One turkey on one side of the court and one on the other, I placed polly spots in a semi circle around the turkeys and placed a ball on each.  Not knowing there were going to be 40 kids I set up for 20, but thinking on my toes I paired an older student with a younger student and we did the same drill.  Being located in upstate New York I knew a lot of these children were exposed to hunting, so I designed a hunting game.  We were going to hunt this turkey and our weapons were our feet.  We had to kick this ball at the turkey, then run after our ball, and dribble it back to our partner who kicks it and repeats it.  The students had to count how many turkeys they have hit.  In my head this was a perfect game, but with 40 kids it was a little crazy, balls were flying everywhere! They were having a great time and really working up a sweat.  Then I started thinking, lets do a game where they have to retrieve the turkeys, I wanted them to work on dribbling more because they were so excited to hit the turkey they were skipping the dribbling part.  So thinking on my ties again, I blew my whistle and explained that now we have to go find the turkeys we have hunted and pick them up and bring them home. We are going to do this by dribbling up to the turkey, dribbling around the turkey and dribbling back to our partner. This worked well, and was a lot calmer.  If knew there was going to be this many students I would have made at least 2 more turkeys and made four groups but I think I did really well considering my situation.  The students loved the game and my costume. I dressed up as a Native American which really helped with their imagination.  I learned a lot from this experience and I was happy I was thrown a few curve balls.  I am very excited because I get to teach the gym group again next class and its Christmas theme so I am going to have such a fun game planned. Also I am going to think about variations of the game I have planned just incase I have anymore curve balls thrown at me.  I have such a love for teaching, I love standing in front of these children and teaching them skills and watching them have the time of their lives.  I love impacting people’s lives; a physical education teacher gets to see 30 children a class and multiple classes a day.  We are so lucky because we can impact so many children’s lives in one day, this is the best profession in the world and I can not wait to start!      

-Albert A. Mercado

Turn a negative into a positive

"Everyone has had the experience of sharing life long goals or even simple ideas with someone and being denied of your rights to dream.  These people will disagree and shun well thought out goals. Most avoid these situations and allow that negative experience to alter their perception. Unlike most I thrive off these people and consider it a challenge....."      -Albert A. Mercado

St. Mary's Halloween Experience

This week was Halloween theme!  All the students really enjoyed seeing people dressed up in costumes.  I was a boxer, I had boxing gloves draped over my shoulder and I made a heavy weight title belt around my waist.  The students thought this was funny because the belt had flashy colors on it and it really stood out.  When all the students were lined up waiting for the first game to start a few students yelled, “Your Mr. Fit right?”  This made me very happy because the week before was super hero theme and I dressed up as Mr. Fit. They really remembered my costume! I was so excited when they said this and that feeling is why I love teaching.  I love impacting student’s lives, even if it is by dressing up as Mr. Fit and educating students about being fit.  I can’t wait to graduate and have my own gym and affect children every day! Some teachers don’t realize everything you say students really listen, you have to be positive and always be a role model.  After I did my game, I was playing football with a few of the students.  They were all on the football team and were very skilled. I noticed they had a lot of football knowledge; they must have a great coach.  Their record was 6-1 this year; I wish they were still in season so I could watch a game.  I was running some plays with them and informing them on some information that would make them better.  Simple things like a receiver’s foot closet to the ball should be on the line and the other foot, away from the ball should be back.  So if you line up to the right of the center and qb, your left foot would be on the line.  I told them this information once and then ran plays, they got it first try.  I even switched their sides to see if they fully got the concept and they did.  I was very impressed and I am looking forward to coaching football in my future.  St. Mary’s experience is very helpful to me and I can’t wait to go back, I wish we went every week.  Next week we go is thanksgiving theme and I have a great game ready for the students.  We are going to work on kicking and dribbling during my game. 

(click Lab Assesment to veiw the data I took on two students)
Lab Assesment

 -Albert A. Mercado

What Would You Do? Remix.

An informational video we made about stages of a baby from conception to an infant.