journal 8

Journal #8

Megan Ball

This internship has been so good for me. I have always wanted to teach elementary and this has shown me what it takes to teach. I have also had the opportunity to meet Mr.C. He is a third grade teacher at Freedom Elementary. For my job I am a caretaker of a mentally handicapped man. I was talking to Mr.C about my job and he told me about his daughter. His daughter has down syndrome. Through meeting Mr.C I was able to get a job working with his daughter. I would never have had this opportunity if I were not interning. I have gotten to know so many people and have had so many opportunities with this internship.

            Synergy is celebrating differences, teamwork, having an open-mind, and finding new and better ways. A lot of the time I like to work independently. I like to work by myself and figure out things on my own. I need to work on my own synergy by working better with people.

            The five step plan is to define the problem, seek first to understand the to be understood, seek to be understood by sharing your ideas, create new options and ideas, then find the best solution.  A problem I have right now is that my cousin moved in with us and me and him do not get along. I need to look at this from his perspective and then figure out how I can help his transition to living with us better, find ways that me and him can get along and relate to each other, then do the things he likes to let him know that he has a friend here. I think that will help him better, and it will help me with our relationship.

            I am an orange. I love to be independent, I am curious, I love to experiment, and I love change. I do not like it when everything is the same. I love to see what would happen if I did something different, and I love to be by myself. To create synergy I need to get out of my comfort zone and introduce myself to others and do things different from the way that I like.

journal 7

Journal #7

Megan Ball

so the topic of the week is “seek first to understand, then to be understood” and this week that could not be more true. This week we were in class and I was helping with a math class, and all of a sudden this kid leans over and throws up on the kid next to him. Everyone freaked out and the kid that got thrown up on was furious. He was so angry because he was wearing a new shirt and now it was ruined. The kid that threw up was so embarrassed and felt horrible. The kid that got thrown up on had reason to be mad, but he did not need to yell. After everything was cleaned up and the class was calmed down, he went up to the kid that threw up and apologized for yelling. He had realized that he was only thinking of himself and not of the kid who was sick.

            This week was crazy. Every one was sick. The flu had hit freedom elementary, and it hit hard. It was hard to teach lessons because the kids were all sick and most weren’t even there. So we didn’t know what to do because we would have to re teach it anyway when the other kids came back. This week was crazy.

            This internship has taught me to really appreciate all of the work that goes into lessons that the teachers teach. They take a lot of time to get each lesson ready, and I didn’t ever think of that before. It has really taught me to appreciate the teacher’s lessons a lot more.

            I communicate better with my teachers and friends better than I communicate with my parents. I think I do this because with my teachers, they have control of my grades. I communicate better with friends because I care about them and they are my friends. I do not communicate well with my parents, at all. I need to improve my relationship with them. I think that I don’t communicate well with them because no matter what, they are always there. They aren’t my teachers who are in control of my grades, or my friends, they are my parents. I need to communicate better with them.

journal 6

Megan Ball

Journal #6

November 24, 2014

This week has been so much fun. I get to the school right as recess starts, so I have been going out and playing with them. I have been able to get to know the kids a lot better this week. Before this week I was just the student teacher, I was just Miss.Ball. Now I feel like I am their friend. I have really gotten to know the kids and the teachers on a better level this week.

Situations I see as a win-win is when I am teaching, and the kids understand what I am teaching. It is a win for me because that means I am a good teacher, it is a win for the kids because they learned from what I taught. A win-lose situation was a couple weeks ago when I was teaching and I thought I was doing okay, but none of the kids understood. It was a win for me because I was teaching and learning how and how not to teach. It was a loose for the kids because they did not understand. A loose-loose situation is when I am having a hard time teaching, and the kids do not understand.

The tumor twins are competing and comparing. Competition is a good thing, it makes you work harder, but sometimes it goes too far. Sometimes it gets out of control, and you need to know the line between healthy competition, and unhealthy competition. The other twin is comparing. Comparing is never good. Never compare yourself to others. No one is the same. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Never compare, it only makes you feel worse about yourself, or makes the other person feel worse about them selves. Never compare to others, and make sure when you have competition, that it is healthy competition.

A win-win for me and my mentor is when I can teach and really get my point across. That would be a win for me because that means that I am teaching as well as I can. It would be a win for the teacher because her kids are being taught in a way that is helpful to the kids, and the teacher.

journal 5

Journal 5

Megan Ball

During these two weeks I have had so much fun. I have had the opportunity to teach some lessons. The lessons that I have taught are verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs, and the phases of the moon. It has been so much fun to get involved and teach. It had been good for me to learn pacing, efficiency, and what the kids are interested in. I loved learning what the kids like; it will help me in my next lessons. I planned some activities that I thought the kids would love, and they didn’t. I have loved teaching.

“all successful people have the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do.” This quote means to me that people who succeed do the things failures are afraid to. People who succeed keep trying, they don’t five up. They keep trying, and with each failure, they learn. Failures just give up the first time. They give up the first time something goes wrong or something happens that they do not like. People who succeed learn from their failures, and people who do not succeed, give up.

I would like to think I live in the time quadrant “the prioritizer,” but I am not. I am the “yes man, “I take too many unimportant phone calls, interruptions, and other people problems. I try to prioritize, but I put other things in front of the things I need to get finished. Instead of just pushing though and writing a huge paper for English, I usually get through half of the paper and take a break, and put unimportant things in front of finishing my paper. I always get my work done on time, but I need to prioritize better. I will usually put my friends in front of my chores or family responsibilities. I wish I could say that I am a prioritizer, but I am a yes man.

One of my major time wasters is my phone. I get so distracted by it and spend way too much time on it. I need to prioritize and not be on my phone so much. Usually while doing homework I will get a text and answer it, which is not a problem, but then I get distracted and end up on twitter or Instagram. I need to prioritize and make sure that I get all my work done before I play on my phone. I am going to eliminate this time waster by making sure I am not so connected to my phone. My phone is so connected to me I swear it is another one of my limbs. I never do anything without it, I am going to start to leave it at home, or not use it 24/7. I am going to start to cut back the amount of time I spend on my phone.

Megan Ball

B8

Journal #4

            This week was so fun but so hard. It was really fun because I had the chance to teach a lesson. I taught on verbs, Adjectives, and nouns. It was so fun because I got to actually learn what it takes to teach. I loved learning and teaching. It was hard because I had 30 minutes to teach. It was hard because I had to prepare for a lot more than I expected, and I had to prepare if the activity did not go as planed. I planed an activity, and it did not work, so I was glad that I had another activity to do.

            To begin with the end in mind means to start your project with what you want the end results to be. That means to picture what you want the end of your project to be. You want to picture what you want to accomplish and learn from it, and then start with that in your mind. You want to make sure that as you are going throughout your project, you and conscious of what you want to accomplish at the end.

            How I applied “to begin with the end in mind” concept was when I was preparing for teaching this week, I started to prepare with what I wanted the kids to get out of it. I wanted to make sure they understood it. So knowing what I wanted the kids end up knowing, I was able to prepare for the whole time. That is what it means to begin with the end in mind. My personal mission statement for teaching is to learn as well as teach, I want to teach them all that they need to know as well as learn from them how to better teach the concepts.