Final Reflection

I just had my last meeting with my class yesterday and concluded my Junior Achievement experience.

I enjoyed doing the sixth lesson plan with my students than the previous two. The fourth and fifth lesson plans were the most tedious and complicated lessons in the Economics for Success (8th Grade) packet. However, this last lesson plan was a relief for me and my students. The instructions were easy: just hand out Risk Scenario cards to each group and have the students role play the scene. It was fun to watch the students work together and show their creativity to the rest of the class. In one of the scenes, one of the characters gets in a car wreck. So to play this scene out, one of the students got on a chair and "crashed" by falling out of the chair and on to the floor. It was really funny to watch. Although, the students and I were bummed out that we couldn't have all of the groups role play, because time ran out. I should have managed time better earlier in the class while I was going over the purpose of insurance with the kids. The students had so many questions about insurance (probably because many of them will be 16 in the next two to three years and will be driving cars soon).

Looking back on this Junior Achievement experience, I really enjoyed doing it because I learned a lot about myself and how to reach kids in the classroom. I initially took Economics 349: Economics for Teachers at the suggestion of my adviser Dr. Putko. She told me it was a brand new class and that it would fulfill the upper division Economics section of the Social Science - Single Subject Teaching course requirements. I walked into Professor Imazeki's classroom without knowing what to expect. As soon as I read the syllabus and saw the JA requirements that said I had to volunteer teaching a class at a school far away, I thought about dropping the class and taking something else. I eventually want to go on to become a teacher, but at the time I didn't feel like I was ready to start teaching a class on my own. Plus, my sister and I shared a car so it would be difficult arranging our schedules. After thinking about dropping Professor Imazeki's class, my conscience chimed in. If I want to go on to teach in the Social Sciences, that means I might have to teach Economics. So I thought to myself, "What the heck? Just give it a try." I was worried about driving to a school far away because of my class schedule and having to share the car with my sister. Thankfully, my JA mentor helped me find a school that wasn't too distant with a really helpful teacher and a wonder group of bright kids. Overall, the experience was very rewarding because I learned more about myself and teaching kids.

One thing I learned about myself is that I'm am too nice most of the time. My physical presence is strong because I am much bigger and stronger than all of the students. But as soon as I start talking and answering students questions, the kids start to realize that I am a non-confrontational type of person and they continue to chit-chat at their desks while I am still talking. My teacher that I worked with suggested ways that I could work on my decorum while teaching in the classroom. It's always good to be nice and courteous to people, especially your students. But it's also OK to be assertive too, because the students have to be courteous to the teacher too. I think I will be a much better teacher once I am able to improve on my assertiveness, while at the same time being a nice person too.

Last Two JA Sessions

As this semester comes to a close, that also means that my JA sessions are almost up. I think Professor Imazeki said we only had to complete five or six JA sessions. So if I were to do only five, this Wednesday would mark my last one. However, I think I'll go ahead and complete all six instead. The teacher I am working with originally planned on me coming in six times, so that means she would have adjusted her classroom's schedule all the way up through the 17th. Also, I think the kids really enjoy having me come in to see them. I'm sure that they want to complete all six activities written in their workbooks too--or not. Either way, the kids seem to like me, so I will try to uphold my fulfillment to complete all six JA sessions.

Fourth JA Session and Third Lesson Plans

Today marked my fourth JA session down. The kids got the entire week off last week for Thanksgiving, so it's been two weeks since I last saw them. It was an unusual day because there happened to be a field trip that half of the class attended. So I only had eleven students in my classroom for this lesson. I have to admit that I was relieved that I had so few students to work with for today because the fourth JA activity, which involved the gross and net income figures, was really confusing for the kids to grasp. Since there were only a handful of students for today's class, I was able to go around the classroom and help each one individually. Although, I didn't feel that today's lesson plan was as effective as I should have made it, because many students were still confused about what they were supposed to do after I explained the instructions to each of them individually. I think next week involves a shopping spree exercise, so hopefully I will be able to explain it better so that all of my students can grasp the concept firmly.

Today also marked the third and final lesson plans and presentations. I am very relieved that all of the lesson plans are over with. Coming up with original ideas for lesson plans has been like pulling teeth for me throughout this semester. I never want to be accused of plagiarism, so I always try to come up with the most original ideas I can think of for assignments. Right now, it's that time of the semester where my brain is completely fried and original ideas don't come quite as easily to me. I thought the content in my lesson plan was fine, especially the video, I'm glad most of you folks enjoyed it. However, I should have spent more time rehearsing because I felt like I was reading off my paper and I went over my time limit. Sorry about going on for too long folks, my bad. Aside from that, I thought everyone else did an excellent job on their lesson plans, particularly the groups-of-threes. You all deserve an A for your third lesson plans and presentations.

Third JA Session

I'm a little late posting about my third JA session from this past Wednesday, November 19th. This past week turned out to be very busy.

At first, I thought I was going to have to cancel my third week of JA because my sister got in a car accident this past Monday. The two of us used to share the car, which meant she got it 90 percent of the time and I got it 10 percent of the time. Anyways, nobody was seriously hurt and my sister was not at fault. However, the car is history. Almost all of my friends live in different counties or states. The few friends that I have down here in San Diego are either full-time students or work full-time, so they would have been too busy to drive me all the way to Poway and pick me up. Luckily, our insurance company covers the cost of a rental car for the time being, so I went and rented a PT Cruiser.

My third JA session went well. This time, their teacher was there, so the kids were on their best behavior (unlike last week with the substitute). We played the same game as last time, but this time I tried explaining the point of the game before I handed out the materials. That way, they would all pay attention to me without fidgeting over the materials. All of the students understood the point of the game much better this time around and they had fun with it.

My next session with the class won't be until the first week of December. Mesa Verde Middle School gets the entire week off for Thanksgiving, instead of the usual Thursday and Friday for the rest of the country. Lucky kids...

Observation Paper

This weekend, I worked on my classroom observations that I completed last semester (Spring 2008). At the time, I observed two classes at Hoover High School. One class was a World History class, which was made up of mostly sophomores. The other class was a hybrid for seniors; for the first half of the semester is was US Government, the second half of the semester was Economics.

As I was looking through my notes from my observations, I thought about Professor Imazeki's Economics for Teachers class and my student teaching sessions with Junior Achievement this semester. I thought about all the hard work and research it took to put together a good lesson plan in Economics, especially for today's high school students. As I was reading my notes, I wrote down that many of the students in the US Government and Economics class had no clue what economics was. When the teacher went over the term scarcity and what it meant, almost all the students couldn't even pronounce the word correctly. That's how much they knew about economics.

When I become a teacher and I begin the first lesson plan for economics for my students, I'm going to have to do a good job of making it easy to understand for my students, because many of them might not even know how to pronounce "economics" correctly.

Second JA Session

Well, today I had my second JA session with my class.

Today's lesson didn't go exactly as planned, but in the end everything worked out well and the students and I had fun. Originally, I wanted to spend about 10 minutes with the students reviewing last week's lesson, begin the discussion on decision-making and consequences of choices, then play the board game for about 30 minutes. I ended up spending too much time with the discussion because the students were coming up with so many good examples of decision-making and consequences of choices in their lives. So we ended up only having about 15 minutes to play the game.

The students were really confused over the game. They didn't understand the point of it and it was difficult to explain it to them. Once I started passing out the game supplies, the students began to get really excited and noisy. Every time I tried explaining the rules of the game, half of the class would continue talking. Also, their teacher was out on jury duty, so the substitute teacher was the only one there to back me up. So I guess the students felt they were a little more free to be noisy during class. I did my best to get the students to quiet down and play the game without having to yell at them. I went around to each table and explained the rules to each group to make sure everyone was on the same page. Towards the end of the period, all the students were playing the game correctly and were on task. However, the period ended a little too soon for a winner to be decided.

The only part I didn't like about this lesson plan were the game cards. They wouldn't tear so easily along the lines, so my students got a bunch of torn up cards. There were so many cards to tear too.

Being A Teacher Is Like Being A Bodybuilder

This past Wednesday I finally got my first JA teaching session done. It was my first time teaching students, ever. I'm glad I finally got to test the waters and see what it's like to be in the teacher's shoes, because it's a lot more difficult than I had originally thought. It's not like standing in front of your peers in your class and giving a presentation on a subject you researched. It's much different than anything else I've tried. Although, it was a very rewarding experience for me, because I learned a little more about myself and what I need to improve.

In one of my original statements or blogs, I listed a few reasons why I chose to pursue a career in teaching. One of those reasons was because I had a few teachers who were very bad at their job. Some were like robots on auto-pilot; they only cared about getting through the subject matter or curriculum as fast as possible. They didn't care about students. Some of those teachers didn't know how to make sense of the material to their students, nor did they care. A few of my teachers didn't like students in general; they should have chosen different professions. That's why I wanted to become a teacher, so that my students wouldn't have to go through the same batch of bad teachers that I went through. I wanted to be an example of a good teacher, the exact opposite of a bad teacher.

The first thing I noticed about myself when I began speaking to the students was that I didn't feel quite like myself. When I am with my friends, I feel like myself. When I am at home, I feel like myself. When I am in class, I usually feel like myself. While I was commanding attention and speaking in front of a bunch of strangers who were my students, I felt very awkward. It's probably because it was my first time doing something which I have never done before. With more practice and time, I should be able to overcome it. The closest feeling I can compare this to is the first time I competed in a bodybuilding show. I was almost naked, with fake spray-tan all over my body, oiled up, and wearing nothing but a teal-colored Speed-O. I had to go on stage with a bunch of other competitors who were just like me and flex for a handful of judges and a big audience in an auditorium. Not only did I have to do that, but for the individual posing round, I had to pose to my own music during my posing routine

Being a teacher is like being a bodybuilder: You have to make sense of something that people don't understand or care about. In a typical bodybuilding show, there are four rounds. The first round involves comparison and call-outs in the "relaxed" posture. This simply means that the judges compare all of the competitors to each other while they are just standing on stage with their feet together and arms to their sides. The second round involves the same thing, but with the mandatory poses. The judges will call-out several mandatory poses for the competitors to perform (Front and Back Double Biceps, Front and Back Lat Spread, Side Chest, Side Triceps, Abs and Thighs, and Most Muscular). The third round involves each competitor posing on stage one at a time to their own routine and music. The fourth is called the posedown; it involves all of the competitors posing on stage at the same time.

It's the third round of a bodybuilding show that makes me think of my teaching experience on Wednesday. The individual posing round is a chance for each bodybuilder to go on stage and show the audience their creative and artistic side. They choose a piece of music to pose to, and the audience is supposed to enjoy it and become inspired. For my first show, I picked Andre Rieu - Bolero De Ravel, and I had 90 seconds to pose to it. To get an idea of what I was doing, download and listen to the song, and while listening to it try to picture a bodybuilder flexing and performing aesthetic poses which synchronize to the music. The song I chose was a slow, beautiful, yet powerful classical music piece, so my poses and transitions were slow. To the people in the audience who had never been to a bodybuilding show, they probably didn't fully understand what I was doing on stage. But to the few people in the audience who knew what I was trying to do on stage, they were the ones who were able to fully appreciate what I was doing. Now try to picture yourself being in the shoes (or Speed-O) of that bodybuilder on stage who is doing this for his first time. It must be very confusing at first and awkward to that bodybuilder to do this in front of an audience and make sense of it.

Teaching a bunch of strangers in front of a classroom felt kind of like posing as a bodybuilder to a wide audience on stage, to me. I didn't feel like myself at first; I felt very awkward and unsure of myself up there. Also, I wasn't sure if I was making sense to my students (audience). Some of them could probably understand what I was trying to do and appreciate it. Others probably had no idea what I was doing or talking about, and were confused. In order for me to become the best teacher I can be, I will have to make sense of the material to my students so that they can fully understand it, much like how a professional bodybuilder with a powerful and monstrous physique can pose slowly to classical music and make it look beautiful.

Getting Ready For My First JA Session

This Wednesday, I'll be doing my first student teaching session with JA. It took me a while to finally get started with this, because my JA representative couldn't find a school and a teacher for me to work with. About three weeks ago, my JA representative finally found me a teacher to work with, but the teacher asked me to start coming in on November 5th. So I will be getting ready for my first session on Tuesday night. I'm a little nervous and a little excited. I'm nervous because I will have to teach for an entire 45-minute session, once a week for the next six weeks. In the past, I only had to observe classrooms, this time I'll actually be teaching a class, so there's a lot of responsiblity on my shoulders. I'm excited because I will finally get a little taste of what my future career will involve. I've chosen to pursue a career in teaching, so this student teaching session with JA will help prepare me for my future career.

That's about it for this past weekend. I had a pretty boring weekend. I didn't do much on Halloween. I just passed out candy to kids that stopped by for trick-or-treating then hung out with a friend for a couple hours afterwards.

The most exciting thing I did was complete my mail-in voting ballot and mailed it. Two of the most important issues to me on my voting ballot were the presidental election and Prop. 8. I decided to vote for McCain and Palin. I trust John McCain with the presidency the most out of all the other candidates. He has good character (one example is when he chose to stay as a POW during the Vietnam War, when he had the option to be snuck out earlier). He also has a lot of experience as a politician (26 years) which makes him qualified to hold the highest office in the land. I identify more with John McCain than the other candidates. I'm also the type of person who votes more on the character and qualifications of a politician rather than what they say they'll do once they're elected into office. Any politician can change their mind about what they said they were going to do once elected into office (remember George W. Bush?). But their character hardly changes.

The other issue that I felt was very important to me was Proposition 8. Marriage between a man and a woman is a very important issue to me, because only a man and a woman combined are capable of PRODUCING a family. Ask all of these gays and lesbians where they came from, I doubt any of them will say that they came from gay or lesbian couples. So I definitely voted Yes on my ballot for Prop. 8. I believe that all of the gays and lesbians in California who are fighting on this issue are viewing this issue the wrong way. They say that they want equality; but equality is not the issue here. The issue here is the sanctity of marriage; marriage has always been between a man and a woman for as long as history can remember. Changing the way marriage has always been would be like changing Thanksgiving Day dinner with vegetarian food instead of turkey because the vegetarians want "equality." Being gay or lesbian is a choice that goes against typical family values in our society. I believe that this issue goes even further than just marriage alone. Gays and lesbians want the state to recognize their status so that they can save money on taxes and be recognized as a couple by the state. If gays and lesbians didn't care about saving money on their tax forms, then they wouldn't be making such a big deal about marriage and equality. Gays and lesbians make up a very small fraction of society, they are not the majority so why should they ruin something which the majority loves so much just the way it is? If they want to experience the same joys of marriage as the rest of society does, and have the state recognize it, then they need to revert from their lifestyle. I also believe in the slippery-slope argument. If we allow gays and lesbians to marry in California, where will it end? Will pedophiles with underage lovers spring up and say they want the same rights too? Will people who practice bestiality suddenly say they want to marry their pets too? Will people be able to marry lifeless objects too? Where does it end? If we don't draw a line somewhere and put it in writing, there's no end to it.

Aside from everything I just said, I will admit that I am a Christian (non-denominiational) with Christian values. So I find homosexuality to be disgusting and wrong to begin with. I also think that gays and lesbians who are trying to push their lifestyle and this issue in our faces are being selfish too. If married couples couldn't save money on their tax forms, then they probably wouldn't be pushing this issue at all. Also, if having a gay or lesbian lifestyle is your thing, then keep it in the privacy of your own home. The rest of society doesn't need you to rub it in their faces. I have a friend who went to Disneyland last month with his girlfriend, and they were shocked and unprepared to see that there was a gay pride parade at Disneyland. Of all the places in the world to have a gay pride parade, Disneyland?!?!

First Book Report

Over this weekend, I finished reading the book, A Deadly Indifference, by Marshall Jevons. It's a Henry Spearman mystery, a fictional character who's a professor of economics at Harvard University.

The book was about 179 pages and it was a fairly easy read. Most of the story takes place in Cambridge, not the one in Massachusetts but the other one across the pond in Great Britain. The main plot in the story involves purchasing a house that used to be the home to the famous economist, Alfred Marshall. This mystery has many different characters (most of whom are economists) as well as an unsolved murder.

I won't give away the ending, but I can say that I enjoyed reading the book. The ending had an interesting twist and made perfect sense after piecing together the events and characters. Aside from the entertainment value, this book also involves many economic principles. From elasticity to trade-offs, the author cleverly fits economic concepts within the story.

As a future teacher of economics, I would probably have my students read particular sections of the book that involve economic principles that we are covering in class. They can help serve as examples or analogies of what is being covered in class. However, I wouldn't assign the entire book to my students, unless it was an extra credit assignment. The reading to too long to cover briefly, and many of my students probably wouldn't enjoy reading mysteries either.

The CCEE Website

I checked out the California Council on Economic Education website for my first time. It's a really nice site, nice layout, and looks professional. I visited the section called "Teacher Guide to California Economics Standards." Within that section, there's a link that you can click on which opens a .pdf file and explains the California content standards to teachers. Also, there's an example assessment at the end of the guide, with sample multiple choice questions (with answers). I found it to be really helpful.

Still Waiting On JA

Well, not much happened this weekend. I'm awaiting a response from my representative at Junior Achievement. Last week, I connected with a teacher in Poway who teaches in middle school. She seems like a nice lady, and said that I could work with her on Wednesdays starting November 5th. However, my JA representative has been out of town for the past week, and I need to get my teaching materials from her. Hopefully, she'll respond to me soon so I can get started with my student teaching when November comes around.

Other than that, I had a pretty depressing weekend. I'm still working on my assessment for my lesson plan. When I decided to go with an easy grade level for my first lesson plan, I didn't think about making an assessment plan afterwards. It's kind of difficult to "assess" first graders, so I guess I'll bump the age group a grade level or two for this time.

Economics 349 Progress Report

So far, I like Professor Imazeki's class: Economics 349 - Economics for Teachers.

I like the concept of having a class designed around teaching future teachers concepts in economics because I may end up teaching an economics class in the future. Since my major is Social Science - Single Subject, I must be prepared to teach in the following subjects: history, political science, geography, and economics. Economics was never one of my strongest subject areas. But with the help of Professor Imazeki and her class, I think I'm gaining a clearer understanding of economic principles and how to teach them to a class of students.

On Monday, we went over externalities. I have to admit, that I couldn't quite remember what exernalities were and I was afraid to raise my hand in class. But once Professor Imazeki went over some examples of externalities, I finally remembered what it was. I remembered them being like "extra costs." The example we went over in class was the production of cashmere sweaters and dust clouds. Here in the United States, we purchase cashmere sweaters from China. Business is good in China, because we have plenty of demand for their cashmere sweaters here in America. However, cashmere is made from goats, and the hooves from their goats (which are like stiletto heels) produce huge dust clouds which drift all over China to Oregon and Washington in the States. Obviously, residents in Oregon and Washington don't appreciate these dust clouds from China. So in this case, the externality is the dust clouds from China annoying the residents of the Pacific northwest. Chinese manufactors charge a price for their cashmere sweaters, which American demanders pay for, but both don't realize the extra cost of having dust clouds hovering from China due to the goats from China--unless you're a resident of Oregon or Washington. Should we as demanders reduce our demand for cashmere sweaters, so that residents of Oregon and Washington can enjoy fresh clean air? Should manufacturers in China reduce their supply of cashmere sweaters (and goats) and raise the price so as to not produce such huge dust clouds? Or should either side not care about the issue at all, and let the invisible hand work things out on its own?

First Week of Presentations

I thought the first week of presentations went well. Everyone appeared to be slightly nervous while presenting, but that's normal considering it was probably the first time most of us had to present our lesson plans. I thought the content in everyone's lesson plan was through and well planned. I didn't see many lesson plans that were incomplete or unclear.

For my lesson plan, I decided to present on the use of money in a first grade classroom setting. I know I picked kind of an easy one. This was one of the first times I had to create and present a lesson plan in class, so I wanted to make sure it was good. Everyone laughed and seemed to enjoy my presentation, so I guess it was aight. :P

Personally, I would prefer to have more of these oral presentations than written assignments. When I'm a teacher, I'll have to speak in front of students all day. Speaking is not one of my strengths right now, so I want to get all the practice I can get.

I had a really busy weekend, which is why I am posting this blog right now instead of earlier. One of my friends who is my workout partner and gets me in shape and ready for my bodybuilding and fitness modeling shows just got married on Saturday. He got married in that beautiful Mormon temple near the 5 freeway. I'm not Mormon, so I couldn't go inside. But I was able to go to the ring ceremony in Orange County, and it was great. On Sunday, another friend of mine called me and told me that he had an extra ticket to the Patriots vs Chargers game. So heck yea I took that offer! The game was great, the Chargers dominated the Patriots the entire game, 10-30. The fans were even more entertaining, there were two fights between drunks in my section. The first one wasn't near me and was more like a pillow fight. But the second one was about two or three rows behind me, and the drunks really got after it and got beat up with blood all over them. It was really funny to watch.

That's about it for this week (last week). More to come later this week and in the coming weeks when I do my first student teacher presentation with Junior Achievement.

Active Learning

My first official post will be on the topic of active learning, based on my thoughts after reading the article "Using Active Learning Techniques in Large Lecture Classes" by Stephen Buckles and Gail Mitchell Hoyt.

Basically, this article is about incorporating different methods of teaching in large classrooms by having the students getting actively involved with the lesson plan. Some ways to do this is by motivating students, splitting the lesson into small sessions, getting students to learn from each other in groups, using experiments and simulations, brainstorming, and creating a course website.

My views on the article's methods of active learning:

A teacher is like a DJ, and the students are a crowd of music-lovers. A good DJ will grab the crowd's attention by playing the right music and make good transitions between songs/tracks; a poor DJ will stumble and lose the crowd's attention. Therefore, if a teacher is going to incorporate "active learning" into their classroom, he or she must know how to administer the method effectively to his or her students. If an inappropriate method is used for a lesson, or if the teacher does not administer the method clearly or effectively for his or her students, then the students will not work efficiently and the lesson of the day will be lost. Just like how music-lovers are at a DJ party to listen to good music, students are in the classroom to learn lessons; and if the method used for that day's lesson is not carried out correctly, then that day's lesson will be lost.

In the end, I believe that in order to learn one must actively participate in the lesson mentally (i.e. paying attention). In contrast, there is no such thing as passive learning. So in my own words, active learning is paying attention to the teacher and the lesson being taught, whether the work is being done in groups or not.

Thank you for visiting my blog. My name is Will and I am a student at San Diego State University. I am studying Social Science and I plan to become a teacher after I graduate. If I end up teaching students in high school then I will probably be a coach as well. Good and bad experiences have influenced me to pursue a career in teaching. As a teacher, I will strive to be a good influence in my students' lives. I will inspire my students to think clearly with their heads and think thoughtfully with their hearts.

Aside from being a student, I am also an amateur bodybuilder and an aspiring fitness model. I compete in local bodybuilding and fitness modeling shows. I enjoy working out in the gym and exercising outdoors. When I am not working out, I am usually on the computer working on my websites, moderating forums, or playing first person shooters.

The original purpose for this blog is for one of my classes. It is a course in economics and it is designed for future teachers. Part of this course involves the class with my professor, the other part of it involves student teaching at local schools. Throughout the semester, I will be posting blogs about this course and student teaching. If this blog grows, I can include other parts of my life as well.