Visit Two

Mr Jorgeson's metal shop

Mr. J was first an automotive dude before becoming a drafting teacher at the high school. Then when they cut his program he moved to the middle school to fill the shop position. Now he teaches middle school metal's 7 periods a day. At first he didn't like it, working with younger kids in a program that he didn't really have a passion for. Now three years into it he's established some consistency and modified the class to his liking.

I noticed that the girls generally did better than the boys. The boys didn't pay attention to detail and were sloppy with their cuts and welds. The girls, however, were almost perfectionistic with their projects. With the exception of a few that were scared of the spot welder, most girls had better looking boxes than the boys. It's funny how a few short years later that the high school tech classes are stereotypically weighted with boys.

Mr J said that he got a raise when he moved to the middle school. In my mind that was completely opposite. So - I called my dad again. In his school district it didn't matter what school you taught in. The pay scale was contigent on your level of education and years of experience.


Camera

This week I got to check out a really nice camera from the school. At first I was afraid to touch any buttons for fear that I would mess up the settings and not be able to return them to normal. I was surprised initially how difficult it was to shoot pictures without some sort of automation. It took several moments to focus on the shot I wanted, and then took several adjustments to get the right lighting. I think that it's a good thing to be able to manually tweak the settings to get a special shot, but automatic settings and focus do me just fine for the type of pictures I take.


Doc C Open House

Doctor Christensen invites his students over to his house for an opening social, of sorts. I really liked the approach, allowing students to see their professor on a more socialable level. Doc C appears to be a somewhat humble man, and often will try to level the playing field, encouraging students to be teachers and teachers to be students alike. When teaching kids in public schools, however, there does have to be some line drawn. I really think that there is a difference between being a 'friend' and being a positive mentor and educational facilitator.

A day with Mr. Hunter

Terry Hunter is a middle school teacher at Oak Canyon Middle School in Lindon, UT. He has been teaching middle school for over 30 years. I asked my dad, also a middle school teacher, how someone could last so long at that level. His response, "I work with rowdy rotten 7th and 8th graders every day, and I love every one of them."

As per assignment, I visited Mr. Hunter's classroom for a couple hours to observe his teaching style. I took a few notes and had a good time. :)

Notes:

After passing back their latest test, Mr. Hunter asked students to raise their hands according to the scores that he called out. "32, 31, 30, 29, 28, 27..." Then he had students stand up, "26, 25, 24... You that scored 26 and below failed."

- The kids didn't seem to mind the public display of their performance. Maybe it was because they were used to it. I'm betting that some below par kids would try to improve so that they weren't publicly embarrassed, however, some excelling students may not want to appear too smart in fear of losing cool-ness. "Bunch of smarties," one girl said to her friend who scored 32/32. "I am not," the girl responded as she sat down.

"10 seconds to be seated. 10, 9, 8, etc."

"You have one minute to put your folders/calculator/etc away and return to you seats. 15 seconds! 10, 9, 8, 7..."

-It was nice to know what was expected of the kids and how much time that they had to be seated.

Mr. Hunter had a lanyard microphone that projected his voice over a set of speakers mounted on the walls. It was really cool. Cheap, easy, effective.

There was cool stuff all over the classroom. Astronaut posters, model planes, flags, rockets, trusses, bridges, etc.

Activity: Build a cylinder 3" high and 1" wide using a piece of paper and glue. We tested them in class two days later to see how much weight each could hold and it's efficiency rating.

Follow up questions after a stress test activity. "How many of you are better technologists and engineers now? Technology is the science of improving life."

Job Shadow: Kids take a day off and shadow someone in the work force, usually a parent or relative.

Discipline: Students carry with them a Blue Sheet that records their behavior. Teachers mark their blue sheet when they break rules, are disrespectful, tardy, etc. The Blue Sheet is then calculated in with the students finally grade at the end of each quarter.

- I asked several of the students about their Blue Sheets and what they were for. Most of them could only give me partial answers and said that they were overall confused to their purpose. The system seems to be effective, however, because no student wanted to have their sheet filled out. Mr. Hunter didn't give warnings before marking their sheets, so the rules that they had broken must have been known expectations with zero tolerance.

Mood shift. Mr. Hunter was more irritable with his second period than his first. The kids were a little more rowdy and didn't perform nearly as well. Mr. Hunter was quicker to fill out their Blue Sheets and gave the class two 'strikes.'

-Again, the students had no idea what the strikes were for, just that they were bad?

I Love It, I Love It Not

Bro. Wright gave a 'holistic' lecture in class today, and it was the best lesson I'd had at BYU. When you can change your mindset or have a paradigm shift to an Apotheosis viewpoint, then all all people matter and all information becomes pertinent. "I was born of a god, therefor I am a god (in training), and I need to learn this and love that and ultimately - become." There comes about a very urgent need to improve! You can't remain mediocre when on the quest for greatness! You have to raise the bar and start pushing yourself on all levels!

One of my football coaches in high school coined a phrase that relates to this idea. "Tough Skills." When we asked Coach Baker why he was wearing a sweatshirt in the middle of August, his reply was, 'Tough Skills." The same response came when asked about his flip-flops nearing December. Baker was stepping outside of his comfort zone to increase his ability to handle adversity. Bro. Wright suggested we choose an area to improve in, like waking up 15 minutes earlier for additional scripture study. Not that we need an entire overhaul, or are even capable of a successful one, but that we can evaluate where we stand and improve upon our standing.

A few other notes that I took from his lecture involved the framework for good Reflection: Capture, Critique, and ACT. When we intake information it needs to be concise, complete, correct, and connected (to something else). We can then analyze the information for its value to us and apply it to hypothetical and realistic situations. Finally we put the information into practice and act upon what we've learned. Search, Ponder, Pray. (2Ne 4:15, Mosiah 1:6-7, Moroni 10:4-5)

Either you love it or you hate. If not then you're indifferent and you don't remember it. That is why you need a Framework for Knowledge.

- Purpose: Understand what the problem is.

- Central Message: What are the themes?

- Validations/Applications: Where will this work? Where is it represented?

- Values: Where does this fit in with my beliefs and rational?

If you can address every piece of information as if it were life saving, then you will love it and recall it with ease.

Week 2 Reflection - Teach Something, Consistency

'Teach Something' was an assignment where we chose something that we were an expert at or knew about and taught it to the class. I wanted to present something exciting and practical that would (hopefully) be different from everyone else. After shifting through a few ideas Wilderness Rice seemed to be the answer.

I presented rice as a cheap alternative to expensive Emergency Essentials food storage packages. Rice is healthy, abundant, lasts forever, and is very affordable. A 50lb bag of rice can easily sustain a single person for six months!

Power Points make every presentation easier, so I put together a few pictures of my wilderness experience to give some background. Then I pulled up a custom spread sheet that calculated how-much-of-what and the total cost. Turns out you can save yourself literally hundreds of dollars.

I felt like the presentation went well. The information was simple to follow and very useful. I know that I have an active and aggressive teaching style. I often feel that I'm attacking the information and burning through it as fast as possible. Some of that is from nerves, usually a few minutes into a presentation my pace will slow down. Another reason is that I feel like I need to capture my audience and entertain them. Golden information is rarely the only reason that someone is paying attention to you.

Overall presentation - I give myself a 4.5 out of 5.

Teach Something, round two. This time we had to choose our topics from a list of Technological Standards found in our online textbook. I chose Standard 7 because it involved the use of energy and power technologies, which highly interest me. I wanted to involve this hydrogen cell that I've been learning about at home and show everyone that it's totally possible to make your own hydrogen energy that could one day fuel the world! But I failed miserably and gave a terrible presentation.

First off, I had three different angles that I came in at which confused people and killed my flow. I started the presentation by saying that I was going to talk about HHO Energy and showed off my fuel cell. I then went to a PowerPoint presentation to show a few quotes from the book. In the presentation I had a short video of a fuel cell in operation, which was more of a commercial than instructional. Then finally I ended the presentation with a picture of the lighted earth. It was really bad. After I had talked myself silent in front of the class, I finally said that I was done and sat down.

What I should have done was first talk about hydrogen as the fuel of the future and a few of it's uses, then reveal my cell and show that anyone can make one basically for free.

Maybe next time.

3 out of 5.

Harry and Rosemary Wong offered a thought about consistency:

Just Think...

• Just think how much easier life would be if the teachers supported each other with routines that were consistent from classroom to classroom.
• Just think what the achievement of these students would be if this were the prevailing culture of the school.
• Just think how effective the schools would be if this were the prevailing culture of the entire district.

I think that the spread of the gospel and general church growth can be partly attributed to global consistency. Manuals, conferences, ladders of leadership, etc all make it possible for our world-wide church to be on the same page and make learning eternal truths that much easier.

A school district programed with a similar core structure would have enormous benefits. Granted that every individual has their own style, consistency could be established through core expectations and program structure.

A potential barrier (especially in a public setting) could be individuals who wouldn't conform, either because they simply don't want to or believe that their way is better. Group collaboration should be the answer, establishing the best standard, followed by consistency.

Week 1 Reflection - Starting a blog

For one of my classes we have to write a 'Weekly Reflection' covering teaching styles and content in relation to Technology Engineering that we observed that week. The easiest way is to build a blog and have our instructor, Dr. Wright, subscribe to it.

Hands On: Our first day with Bro. Shumway was not a typical first day experience. Instead of handing out a syllabus with rules and deadlines, he passed around a single wire, battery, and light bulb. He charged us with the task of simply lighting the light bulb. After everyone accomplished the task we watched a video of MIT graduates face the same problem. A third of the students surveyed couldn't figure it out. :)

I really liked having an active first day. It communicated to me that we were going to have an active semester, which I prefer. The Wongs suggest in their book that the first week of school be set aside to establish rules, expectations, patterns and routines. Bro. Shumway covered that on day two. :)

Finding Home

I transferred to BYU and changed my major. I always knew that I wanted to be in the education field, but I was struggling to find a major that really called my name. First, I studied Spanish Education at BYU-Idaho. I thought that Spanish would be a smart move, having just returned from a Spanish speaking mission. I attended three straight semesters in Rexburg before deciding to take a break from school and work full time.

I worked as a field guide for a Wilderness Therapy Program for troubled teens. We'd wander around the desert with a few rations of food storage, trying to address everyone's debilitating behaviors. I probably learned more about myself than I did anyone else.

Coming back to school I knew that I no longer wanted to pursue Spanish. I declared PE when I transferred to BYU and took a few Summer classes. Two weeks before Fall classes were scheduled to begin, my wife directed me to the School of Technology website. I loved what I saw and instantly started aligning my 'just-for-fun-on-the-side-projects' with my academic goals. I set an appointment with Sister Harmon in advising and scrambled to piece a Fall schedule together, resulting in having to quit my current full-time job.

Electronics, robotics, video editing, wood working. :) Awesome.

Everything seems to be falling into place. I'm actually excited for all of my classes. For now, I'll describe the feeling as simply coming home.