I don't really think that I have specific moments during my externship that I'm grateful for as everything was just amazing. I had a blast working with all the grades and seeing all the work they put into class. The thing that was the most satisfying was that today was their Engineering Exhibition and seeing all of the work they've accomplished over the last four weeks was absolutely phenomenal!
______ Mr. Riley, Thank you. You made the entire experience a blast and I am so grateful to have you as a mentor. You are a fantastic teacher and a wonderful person and I wish you the best of luck! Thank you for everything, Anastacio Malave IV
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During high school I've really learned how to diffuse situations between peers while also strengthening my patience and resolve. There have been many times during my high school career where I have had to be patient with the people that I've been working with, or when nobody seemed to come to a conclusion on something I have had to step up at times. Here in the Engineering class at HTe since I work with all of the grades there come times where people don't want to work, or are playing around, or are giving others a difficult time, or what have you, so I've had to step in and see what the problem is. The kids here don't always want to do what you say right away, so I have to be patient with each student because they don't all act the same so they all require a different tactic sometimes. And it is very similar here to high school is because it is a High Tech school, but since it's the Engineering class there is a lot of planning, sketching, and building during this class for various things. At HTHI we are constantly doing something, and that's how it feels here. It is different in a sense because even though it's one class since Mr. RIley has all the grades we are always doing something different on day as we have Kinder, 4th, and 2nd on Monday and Thursday while 1st, 5th, and 3rd are on Tuesday and Friday. The first picture is of one of the fifth graders as they learn to change things in the program Scratch by working on the Google logo, the second picture is of third grader Arianna with her paper prototype of her mechanism that they're designing in class, and the last picture is of the construction of Light Boxes that are for the upcoming project for the first graders.
While trying to edit this clip anything I did wasn't exactly going the way I wanted it (i.e. Narration), so I just uploaded the raw clip itself. I'll most likely change the video once I can get it properly working the way I want it. What is happening is me panning through the class during the Fourth Grader's time. What they are doing is working on the game they are building within the program Scratch. They all got to choose what kind of game they wanted to make- Platform, Quest, Role Playing, etc- and either went straight into working or found videos that relate to the type of game they want to make. While it seems some aren't working- and some might be-, a lot of them are playing game that relate to the type of build they want to do and are "play testing" to see if this is what they want to do as they can change the type of game they want to make. Some of the challenges that I face here at my Externship would be trying to trying to keep myself busy. Don't get me wrong I do plenty of stuff here in Mr. Riley's class to get ready for each of the grades, but there are gaps in between classes that I've struggling to fill. To prepare for each grade it take about 10- 25 minutes to set up there's still 50- 35 minutes are kind of... empty. What I've done to try to combat that space of nothing happening is I work on stuff to get ready for TPOL's like my letter and taking plenty of pictures that that will go along with my TPOL. I also work on the Externship blog post and assignments so I don't have to worry about it and the end of the week. During class I do struggle in doing something with the class, so what I do is whatever assignment they are working on and do my own, and if I can't do that then I start some writing on some personal stories. These three pictures here are images of the paper prototypes of mechanisms the third graders might build, the carved out designs for the fifth graders, and the Easel program that I put all of the designs into so that the CNC Router could cut out the fifth graders designs.
Even though it has only been two days so far into externship I would have to say that some new knowledge that hit me, especially the first day, is the importance of patience. Since my externship is working with the engineering teacher at HTe he works with EVERY grade, so some of the grades are going to be more rowdy than others. The fourth graders from Monday were a bit harder to "tame", as it were, because they couldn't to sit still or stay quiet enough to get through instructions. Today all of the grades (1st, 5th, & 3rd) contained throughout class-time, however, during the fifth graders time some of them were a little rowdy and messing with each other, so I had to intervene while Mr. Riley was helping other students. All of the kids have their own kind of energy, so I have learning to work around or with it during class so that they actually get work done during class. This is just how kids are, so I have to be patient during my time here: who knows, maybe I'll catch some of their energy and feel less tired during the day! These three pictures from today: The first is an assignment for the first graders on seeing if they know how rainbows are made. I decided to make my own and show the students. The second & third pictures are from the fifth graders as they learned to use the CNC Router by designing parts for it to cut.
I will be working over at High Tech Elementary with Riley Meehan, the Engineering teacher. I will be working with all grades there and helping out with whatever they're going over in class- an extra mind and set of hands if you will. What I am most excited about it just seeing all the kids and seeing what they are able to come up with in class; Kids have a knack of coming up with extraordinary ideas that most adults don't come up with, and it's amazing! Though, since I have never worked with kids lower than the 4th grade, I am worried that I'll be a little overwhelmed with how they'll act, but that's something that can be ironed out throughout the entirety of externship.
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