Course Synthesis

I have really enjoyed attending this course over the last semester. It has given me a much broader view of how I can structure my curriculum to be more effective and also more engaging to my students. All of the strategies that  we have learned can really help our disciplines come alive and be more motivating for our students as they help establish an environment that is learner friendly. Some of my favorite include ways to improve vocabulary instruction, comprehension, critical literacy, and differentiation for diverse learners.

For vocabulary instruction, I think a world wall is a useful tool that could really be beneficial to my students. I would add to the word wall by not only placing words there that I felt were important to understand but also allow my students to place words there that confused them. They would then be instructed to create their own student-friendly definitions that included the subjects of "you," "someone," and "something" to really help the definition be understandable and relatable to the students. I would also try to really highlight these words with their definition multiple times throughout lessons, texts, and homework assignments.

I've learned that one of the best ways to increase comprehension of one's instruction is by implementing different comprehension strategies throughout a lesson. I really like the before, during, and after concepts of dividing a lesson up into three parts to help broaden student's understanding. Examples of this are listed below as I explain further teaching tools.

I think critical literacy is a valuable tool that is so important not only for my discipline in health and physical education but also for a student's life in general. There are so many concepts such as media affects and perceptions, body image, applying healthy eating strategies etc. that require critical literacy in health. One example of how I can teach my students critical literacy in health is by focusing on how media can distort and change the messages that it sends to young adults. There are multiple ways that I can do this. First I could introduce multiple health products to the students that are commonly advertised (pre-lesson activity). Then I could collect multiple advertisements from the internet, magazines, or off of TV and then have students analyze the messages that are being sent (during lesson activity). What is this advertisement trying to sell? Who is it targeting? How is it portraying the product and the product's users? What are the hidden messages?  Are these hidden messages true? A follow-up to this activity would be to challenge the students to devise a counter-ad to a particular ad that challenges the hidden messages that are trying to be sent (after-lesson activity).

Another example would be for a lesson on body image. The main idea would be to help students see that what the media portrays is not always reality. Again we could look at magazines with their picture perfect models and movie stars that are often held up as the perfect standard. Questions that I could ask the students include: What makes these models/movie starts desirable? How are they portrayed to be perfect? What does the fashion industry want you to think is the definition of beauty? (pre-learning activity). Then I could include a lesson on body image, its influences, perceptions of body image across different cultures, and ways to develop a positive body image. I could also include a youtube clip that shows the truth behind picture perfect models and how this is not a reality (during-learning activity). To culminate the lesson, I would have the students reflect on their thought and feelings towards their own perceptions of body image and how they view themselves. I would ask them to explore how the media influences them and ways that they can combat those influences (post-learning activity).

Some of my favorite clips off of youtube pertaining to this topic that I would include in these lessons to really help my students see and understand are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

I've learned that differentiation is something that not only helps ELL learners but all learners as I consider all learners to be diverse. Everyone of my students will come from a different background with a different culture than their classmates. The more differentiation that I include the more I will help all of my students succeed. Ways to do this include implementing different activities that include different learning styles. I can use different forms of presentation such as lectures, PowerPoint presentations, Prezi presentations, guest lectures, YouTube clips, and internet based learning.  I can also include hands-on activities that involve creating something, getting up and actively participating, or allow students to express their creativity. I can also allow choices on assignments or presentations such as what is presented or what type of presentation is given. Not only does this make these assignments fun for students but it also allows them to utilize their strengths while they learn.

There are many tools that I hope to implement from this course and overall, I have found this class to be a very helpful in developing ways that I can make learning in my classroom more interactive and productive.

Affective Dimensions of Writing

 I look at myself as an individual who does pretty good in most classes. I attribute this to high expectatons...except in math. In math I just focus on passing the class. But in the others subject areas while I might not be the highest scoring student I still aim for an A and get upset with anything less. English and writing are not exceptions. I wouldn't really classify myself as a writer, its not something that I choose to sit down and do if I have free time, but now that I think about it I wonder if I am more of a writer than I first would have thought. Given a choice between drawing or writing I would choose writing as a way to express myself. Even when I scrapbook I incorporate a fair amount of writing in the captions, descriptions, and memories that I include. I do have a journal but it has been months since I have updated it and even in the past when I have been more faithful in my entries the entries always tend to be big chunks of writing where I catch up on everything that has happened since the last time I wrote. As a child, recreational writing consisted of a few journal entries here and there, a pen pal that I had for a few months, and of course the frequent secret letters and notes that I passed on to my friends in the hallways or in class. Now days my recreational writing is a bit more extensive but definitely not formal. I use texting on a regular basis to stay in contact with family and friends and email is used weekly. I have facebook but I don't update my status very often. I use it more as a way to stay in contact with family and friends than I do to express myself.

 The majority of the writing assignments that I remember from school all kind of blend together as research papers, reflections, or essay type discussions but there is one writing assignment from high school that stands out to me. It was a relection type assignment in my history class in 11th grade. We were studying the Holocaust and my teacher assigned us to write a paper pretending we were someone involved in the Holocaust. We could choose to be whoever we wanted and we had to describe our thoughts and feelings about concentration camps or ghettos or something like that. There probably was more factual information required but I don't remember. I thought long and hard about this assignment and about what we had been discussing in class. I think the overall thought process of the assignment was that we would write a reflection from a Jew's or other victim's point of view but I decided to try something different. Instead, I wrote my reflection from the point of view of a Nazi soldier. I do not believe that all of the soldiers in the Nazi regime were bad people or that they all enjoyed what they had to do. I believe there were some lower enlisted soldiers who had been forced into the military and who carried out atrocious orders because they believed they had no choice. It was either follow orders or be inprisoned/killed themselves. This was the point of view I expressed. A soldier who woke up every morning choking on the smoke and grime of the concentration camps and who hated doing what they did everyday. I don't remember what I wrote exactly but it was pretty much of that nature. When we submitted the papers to our teacher, he breifly went through them and began to read some of them outloud, without disclosing the author. He read mine to the class and it was interesting to see the reactions of students to a viewpoint that they hadn't really considered. It helped to put a different light on the topic that we were discussing.

To me, this can be a powerful tool that we as teachers can use in our classrooms. We can use writing assignments to get our students to think more deeply about a topic and to maybe even think outside the box and look at different perspectives or ideas. What ever our individual content or lessons might be, assigning thought provoking writing assignments can serve as a tool to get our students to internalize and to personally connect with what they are learning. In my own discipline I think this can be used by asking students to reflect on topics that directly influence them such as a health issue that their family has personally experienced or in resolving personal conflicts that are prevelant in a teenager's life. The key to these type of reflections would be to allow the students to take the assignment in their own desired direction.  

My Teaching Philosophy

ITLS 4015
My teaching philosophy stems from a love of the subjects that I want to teach. Health and Physical Education are two subjects that I feel are so important and applicable to everyone. Everyone of us has a body through which we experience life, and our lives are directly impacted by the health and strength of our bodies. The knowledge of how to care for our bodies in a physical, mental, social, and spiritual way is not always intuitive and it is my job as an educator to help my students learn how. My intent as a teacher is to be able to present the knowledge of how to care for our bodies in a way that is interactive, enjoyable, and memorable. I want to help children see the importance of being physically active and to understand why and how it will affect them in the years to come. I want my P.E. classes to be more than just playing basketball or dodge ball. I want my classes to be opportunities to learn and experience and to set a precedence for a healthy life. In the classroom I want to explore the masterpiece that the human body is and to help my students understand why they should be willing to make taking care of themselves a priority. I want to become a teacher to help my students see that learning can be fun and useful.

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/feed/

http://paulmcguire1.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/ecoo13-blogging-in-the-classroom/

http://blog.web20classroom.org/2013/04/soyou-wanna-use-blogs-in-classroom.html

Motivation and My Discipline

 

 

How do my eyes work? What is happening on the inside of my body when I get sick? How do I get a strong body? Why does it really matter that I eat more fruits and vegetables?Are drugs really that bad for me? Why are vaccinations a big deal?

 These questions and more are examples of what we will be learning in this class. The human body is complex and facinating. We will not only study how and why our bodies work but also what factors influence it and how we can live healthy and productive lives.

What do you want to do after high school? Do you want to travel? Do you want to build things? Do you want to meet diverse people? Do you enjoy exploring the outdoors? Anything you can think of in answer to this question is dependent on you. And a huge part of you is the health and strength of your body. That is why health education is important to all of us.

We all have a body and how we treat it influences what we are able to do and how we are able to do it every day. This class is designed to teach you how to care for your body and the relationships you have with others that will influence you as an individual. In short, this class is for you as an individual. What you learn here will directly impact your everyday lives.

So get ready to join me as we delve into the exciting realm of health education and explore the topics of drugs, human anatomy and physiology, nutrition, exercise, and mental and emotional health!

Check out this link to a fun website that will give a taste of some of the exciting and interesting subjects that we will be discussing in class:
http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/interactives/science/brainandsenses/eye/

And of course, we all know that a little humor is good for us too :)  
http://www-library.ncifcrf.gov/jokes.aspx

Connecting School and Home Experiences in My Classroom

 

Connecting School and Home Experiences in My Classroom

As students come into my classroom they will be bringing in a plethora of life experiences. My job as the teacher is to help them connect those experiences with what I will be teaching them. I feel that each state and national standard in health education that I will be basing my curriculum on has aspects that will pull from the background knowledge of my students. All students will enter my classroom with their own body. They will have all experienced, in varying degrees, sickness, injury, and health. They will have experiences with past education and maybe even real life that has taught them a bit about drugs, stress, nutrition, disease, some forms of relationships, etc. I hope to be able to delve into those experiences to help my students explore how they feel about various health topics and then to expound their knowledge about those topics so that they feel confident and able in caring for themselves.

Some ways that I might help students draw from their personal experiences is by incorporating assignments such as student journals, family interviews, exploration of family history pertaining to health and disease, and projects that are diversified to allow them to pursue their own interests.

One particular tool that I would like to implement are student journals. A student journal would allow students to reflect on a personal issue or experience in their own words. They could respond to a prompt that allowed them to share their personal opinion instead of textbook answers. They could then back up that opinion with reasons that have been created and experienced outside of the classroom. The tricky part as a teacher would be developing the trust in the teacher/student relationship that would allow for true thoughts, opinions, and desires to be shared. But once that relationship is established I think it could be a helpful tool in extending learning beyond fact memorizing. This could be used to establish a base for which classroom curriculum and standards are built upon.

My name is Jessica Harper. I grew up in the small town of Preston Idaho just north of Logan. As a small girl I grew up learning the importance of living a healthy lifestyle. My mother is a registered nurse and she integrated her knowledge and ideals from that profession into raising her children. There was always an emphasis of eating breakfast in the morning, healthy lunch and dinner choices, and maintaining an active lifestyle that included lots of outside play. My father ended up going back to school when I was a teenager to further his interests in emergency medicine to become a paramedic. As I went through jr. high and high school I found my science and health classes to be my favorite. I developed a love for learning how the human body worked and what an amazing masterpiece it is. In my mind, there isn’t much more amazing than how the human body functions as its own organism. Not only can it heal itself from illnesses and injuries but it also performs the amazing tasks of sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, and reproduction. There is a beautiful line of harmony that exists inside the human body allowing it to perform amazing things.

            Because of this intrigue I believe it is important to learn how to take care of our bodies, to keep them strong and healthy. After high school I went through emergency medical training and became an Emergency Medical Technician. I then attended a nursing program in El Paso Tx. After completing these programs I spent a few years working in various hospitals and clinics. I obtained experience on a medical/surgical floor, an emergency room, and in a clinic performing basic sick call and patient education. As I worked in these areas I discovered that I loved the teaching aspect of it all. I liked educating my patients about their bodies and teaching them how to care for their bodies so that they can feel good and complete their daily tasks with a strength, health, and competence. Other factors such as money, time, and family desires also played a strong role in helping me decide that I wanted to ultimately become a teacher. Naturally I chose health education and physical education (P.E.) as my areas of emphasis.

            My hopes as a teacher in health and P.E. are to be able to teach children about their bodies and the amazing things their bodies can accomplish if properly cared for. I am a firm believer that we only get one body in this life and it is our individual responsibility to care for it. How one cares for their body when they are young and capable will greatly impact how it will last through time and the stressors of life. If one expects it to still function when they retire then they need to take care for it as adolescents and young adults. I hope to be able to pass along the love of learning and caring for our bodies to my students, to show them the amazing thing that their bodies are and what it is capable of. I believe that this knowledge and the application of it will be a contributing factor to a person’s overall happiness.

            My current definition of literacy involves being able to read and write but also being able to effectively communicate what one reads and writes with others, being literate means being able to manipulate aspects in one’s life, family, and community to accomplish one’s desires and needs.  In the areas of health and physical education, being literate means being able to read information about subjects and not only understand it but then be able to evolve it to fit one’s own needs. I want my students to be able to draw from a basic understanding of their bodies to be able to answer their own personal health questions. I also want them to have the tools and abilities to research out valid and competent resources to answer their questions when more than a basic understanding is needed. In order to do this, skills in reading, writing, critical thinking, using resources such as pamphlets, books, the internet, and using community resources such as doctors, nurses, medical clinics, gyms, and recreational activities are important. Literacy to me is taking information from reading, writing, and basic communication and then using it.