Sunday, November 5, 2017

Introduction

My name is Courtney Lucero! Before this I went to California State University East Bay, in Hayward, California and got my Bachelors in Physical Education with a teaching option. That teaching option was the best thing ever because it allowed me to automatically pass the CSET, meaning I did not have to take it. 😀 I graduated from East Bay in December of 2015.

I started National at the end of 2016, I wish I would have started as soon as I finished my bachelors degree, but I was not sure what program was the best fit for me. I had applied to many different schools and had orientations with a few of them, I was even signed up and started week one at another school when I knew it just was not the right fit. Luckily I found National and it has been the best decision I have made for my future as a teacher.

I am pursing my single subject teaching credential to teach physical education. I am not sure what grade level, elementary, middle or high school I want to teach yet. I will just be happy if when I am done with this process that I can get hired and start my job! 

I have known since middle school that I wanted to be a PE teacher when I grew up. I have always been extremely passionate about sports and trying new adventurous things and with that I knew I wanted to share what I was learning and loved with others. I also wanted to be a teacher because I wanted to have a positive influence on my students like certain teachers had on me. Those positive influences in my life helped shape me into becoming not only the person I have become but they showed me what it is like to be an amazing teacher, and I can only hope to come close to that!

Currently I am a para-educator at an elementary school in Sunnyvale, California. Simply put, I am a credentialed teachers aide in a physical education class. I help assist the teacher with safety, rules, keeping students engaged and on task along with many more duties. I am so fortunate that I have such a great teacher to learn from and look up to because he has helped me along this journey with National so much. It is a fantastic job to have and get experience from before being a credentialed teacher, and I really know it is what I am meant to do because I have never had a "bad" day. 


In a PE setting I believe it is the best environment for all types of learners because there are elements of everything in a regular PE lesson. The students are active, hands on with equipment, visually watching demonstrations, sequential steps are taken in the skills, the activities or sports can be related to different sports around the world exposing the students to a global context, verbal in the sense that students can communicate with one another, intuitive since the students will be also playing game like activities and have to act on instinct and reflective because the students will reflect on their activity for the day, how they did in it and how they can be successful next time. Everything is touched upon either in one single lesson in PE or over the course of a week and even though there is communication and instruction is sometimes done verbally, the students who do not understand English can see live demonstrations and visuals and then use their body to execute the skill. Language isn’t so much needed in PE because movement of the body is universal and it allows those students who don’t understand English to be free of language and just use their body to execute it.

My learning style is mainly visual and that makes sense because I like to see things done and that is how I remember them. I know all students do not learn the same way but I think that is why I was so drawn to PE when I was younger because it is visual. I could see live demonstrations of how an activity was supposed to be done and I executed it. I use live demonstrations in my PE class now at the Elementary school but I have to remind myself that not all students learn that way and sometimes I will switch it up and write a list of instructions that the students can read, or I have them help me create cues for them to remember while they do a skill. There are many different ways for the students to learn and be engaged and that is something I always have to remember. 

I love quotes and when posting on social media, I like to post a lot of pictures and instead of writing about that picture I like to put a quote and throughout my blog I would like to share those posts with you. All photos are taken by me with my phone. I need to get myself a real camera 😃
Quote by: Ralph Waldo Emerson

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