Author Archives: mccartycm21

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

May 4, 2020

Posted under

Partner Inquiry

Comments

Leave a Comment

Final Reflection

Entry 4 (Blog 7/ Final Reflection)-

This semester was a mix of emotions. It was the semester after ring figure, so my brother rats and I were calming down from the culmination and realizing that we have to make our grades better. Then COVID-19 struct and sent us all home for the rest of the semester, so this has been a confusing time but has impacted me with an abundance of learning and knowledge. In ERH 411 particularly I learned a lot about collaborating over an online environment and learning how to make an in person interaction with the kids in our class and change that to an online interaction. After class on Tuesday and Thursday I would create a Zoom meeting for Sam, Matthew, and I to complete any work we needed to. This allowed us to work on assignments and ask each other questions. The collaborative working and Zoom meetings allowed us to finish assignments even quicker because we were working on shared documents and would assign parts of the assignment to eachother and work on it to finish it quicker.

Cadets are used to a rigid structure and not used to working on class work from home in a distance learning structure. It has been a struggle to create my own structure and schedule once I got home. I have never done this, and I just figured out what works best for me to complete assignments and study at school. So I had to start from square one and add more items to my schedule, like chores. It took me a while, but I got a routine figured out. I would wake up in the morning around 0800 and get my coffee then I would make a list of the assignments I had to complete that day, then I would begin working on them and have them finished around lunch time or a little after that. Then the rest of the day I would work on chores or any other responsibilities I had that day. In some cases I would save time after dinner to work on bigger assignments like papers, speeches, etc. I was able to succeed this semester due to the discipline and maturity I have gained at VMI. This was a trying time, but I was able to figure it out in the long run.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

April 30, 2020

Posted under

Partner Inquiry, Uncategorized

Comments

1 Comment

EAGLE ACADEMY AT MRMS WITH DAVIDA STATON AND BOXERWOOD’S ELISE SHEFFIELD (Blog 6)

Classroom Portrait
Outside Views:

Rockbridge County is a relatively small county with only around 20000 residents. The two largest cities, Lexington and Buena Vista, are enclaved within the county. What this means for the students of the county is that there are separate school systems for the county and for the city schools. This means that funding for the schools is coming from the county or the city. While schools like Maury River are within the boundaries of Lexington, they are still a county school. All the students from the relatively geographically large county are bused into a central school. However, The county and city work together to create a shared high school for students within the geographical bounds of the county.

According to school quality of Virginia, they rate Maury River Middle school with a level one science achievement. This entails that Maury River prepares their students in the sciences which allows for groups such as the Eagle Academy to develop and discuss ideas such as the environment and formulate solutions that would help the society adapt and fix necessary areas to improve the environment around them. Eagle Academy was able to form because of the level one education the Maury River is providing.

Inside Views:

We have spent the beginning of semester with a group of middle schoolers who decided they wanted to help the environment. These kids, although they are not the best academically, they are the best when it comes to thinking aloud and discussions. These are some of the brightest kids we have ever met. They developed ideas that inspired thought and deep conversations on how to improve their environment. Project Based Learning has really allowed the students to think for themselves and gather as one to develop ideas that would and possibly bring change to a society. We believe that all institutions across the country should think about and at least look into what project based learning is.

If we had PBL during our time during elementary and middle school it would have been better at academic thinking. PBL from our experiences so far enables students to gather into groups and think about an issue and develop solutions that would fix what the problem is.

It has allowed for students in our classroom to take ownership of their own learning from their class charter of shared values to their participation in NEST FEST (See Lexington News Gazette article) with all the other middle schoolers.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

February 17, 2020

Posted under

Classroom Observation

Comments

1 Comment

First Eagle Academy Visit

When I first got into the school I felt a wave of flashbacks go through my mind. It felt like just yesterday I was a student in my own middle school. Nothing much had changed since I was in their shoes. Once getting to the classroom, the first thing that happened was the morning announcements. We did a moment of silence followed by the pledge and then the lunch menu. The class then went in a circle introducing themselves and something we enjoy doing. A lot of them enjoyed various sports, video games, and being with their friends. Something that I didn’t know was that the first class period in the morning was their homeroom, I don’t recall having a homeroom until high school. Another thing I was unaware of was these sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in the Eagle Academy class are the struggling readers of their grades.

This was only their second time meeting so they decided to make a charter that will outline how they want to accomplish any tasks for their project. They decided that they wanted their workplace to be fun but serious and working in a group atmosphere. So we asked them each to tell us what fun meant to them. All of them generally had the same answer: confidence, trust, everyone being involved, and working together. We then asked them to define serious this one varied a little more: focusing, being courteous, respect, getting along with one another, and welcoming all ideas. I was very surprised by these kids answers because even though they are the struggling readers of their grades they put a lot of thought into their answers. The kids were then split into three groups called the “three w’s: waste, wildlife, and water”. Each group had to discuss and write down how their “w” was affected by pollution and how they could help fix the problem.

These kids are really spectacular and I am looking forward to the rest of the visits with them. I am hoping that my group and I can take their desire for confidence and understanding of each other and apply that to the project we create.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

February 5, 2020

Posted under

Expectations and Inspirations

Comments

2 Comments

Expectations of Mrs. Staton’s Eagle Academy Class

After emailing Mrs. Staton she informed me of her class and other details regarding the course. There are eight students in this class and they “each bring something unique to the class”. Given that I am in a group of three and the class is so small, I believe that there is room for success because the student to teacher and cadet help ratio is 2:1. I expect this class to be ran together as a whole because of how small it is.

This class is dedicated to a plastic collection project developed by Eco Eagle Council Students. This sounds like a club because it is a small council of students that most likely came together to tackle this project of plastic collection. Since these are 6th and 7th grade students I believe that Mrs. Staton will be facilitating the tasks and the overall progress of this project because of the age group. However, I expect the students being the ones developing strategies, ideas, and plans for this project. I feel like there is also room for gaps in this group, because of the size and age. There will be eight different ideas thrown out into the group and this could provide them with a chance to demonstrate some skills that come from major of English. They could have the opportunity to defend their ideas or present their ideas to be more appealing by using rhetoric. I would love to observe the use of rhetoric with this age group of children just to analyze their claims and reasons for why the group should choose their idea to run with.

Like Loretta Brady and Ron Berger in Journeys through our Classrooms I hope I get the chance to help these kids in any way I can. Mrs. Staton’s expectations for my group with the kids is to “have [us] be a role model for them.”

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 23, 2020

Posted under

Learning Philosophies

Comments

5 Comments

First Learning Experience as a Teacher

When I was in the Boy Scouts, I had the opportunity to work at a summer camp and my job was to teach merit badges to classes with a variety of ages ranging from 11 to 17. This was very difficult strictly because the varying ages. The older kids wouldn’t care about anything I was saying, they just wanted to get the badge without doing any work. Meanwhile I was trying to keep the younger kids from bouncing off the mountains. However this challenging experience helped me because, “learning happens best with emotion, challenge, and the requisite support” (El Education Core Practices).

I had several different classes and they each were a week long then the next week I would get another group of kids. So after the first day of instruction I had to assess how the rest of the week was going to be. Most of the kids enjoyed walking around and me using physical real life examples to teach them the requirements for the merit badge. The younger kids were able to move around and would pay attention when I would stop them. The older kids didn’t complain much because they weren’t just sitting there listening to me lecture. I would also get the students involved by quizzing them after the lesson by having them point out examples of plants or whatever I taught that day.

As John Dewey said, “every genuine experience has an active side, which changes in some degree the objective conditions under which experiences are had” (Dewey, 109). I believe what Dewey meant by this is every experience we have with one thing changes our perspective on that subject each time we are involved with said subject. Given that this was my first and only experience with teaching, as Dewey stated, the experiences I gain in fieldwork will change my perspective on teaching. This first experience I had with teaching was good for me, EL Education says, “People discover their abilities, values, passions, and responsibilities in situations that offer adventure and the unexpected” (EL Education Core Practices).