Cooperative or Not-So Much Cooperative

Throughout the years of being in school I have had many positive and negative experiences with Cooperative learning. When thinking of this assignment, my examples came from the more recent past rather than when I was in High School.

Positive: While studying abroad in London, my friend Natalie and I were assigned a group project in our Sociology class. The assignment was to pick a borough in London and study the aspects like culture, tourism, and people throughout different areas of the borough. We began by working together to visit the borough and collect our data by taking walks and counting people in the borough. We then decided to split the task to complete the project. Since Natalie is a great writer, she chose to actually write our findings and the final research paper. As Natalie wrote the actual paper, I did the research aspect of the paper because I love to research and get information, but do not enjoy piecing it together and writing. In this case my cooperative learning was great because we worked together to complete our task, but used the strengths of each member to complete it.

Negative: Recently I was put in a group assignment for my Winter Term pre-course for Australia. Our group was in charge of reading a chapter of a book, and reporting on the findings about Urbanization in Australia. We decided to meet a week before the project was due to start working. When we met, one of the guys in the group showed up, assigned us all a section to read and make powerpoint slides for, and then left. Our meeting was exactly five minutes and no longer. The night before our presentation we met again in the library. Once again we handed in our slides and the guy said we were done and everyone left. This left me stressed and worried how the presentation would go. As expected our presentation was not very functional and many items were repeated because as a group we did not take the time to work with each other and talk through items.

Cooperative learning can be something in the classroom that can go really great for some people, and be really terrible for another person during the same assignment. As a teacher, our goal is to make cooperative learning something that is beneficial to all. Using my good and bad experiences I can find ways to develop cooperative learning assignments to fit the needs of every student, and not just the students that enjoy working with others.

The Best I Ever Had!

Many teachers have had an impact on my views of education and my decision to become an educator. There was Mrs. Davis, my first and second grade teacher, Mrs. Palmer my Third Grade teacher and Mrs. Aydlett, my senior year AP Calculus teacher. However, the teacher who stands out in my mind as the one who really impacted me and my decision to go into teaching was Mr. Duncan Moore. Known around the school by students as Duncan or Coach Moore, he was a high energy, down to earth teacher. He cared about his students, taught the mandatory material in Physics and Chemistry, and he made it fun for all students, even those who struggled through the material. With test scores always over 70 percent of students passing Physics and Chemistry EOC's, Mr. Moore had free reign in his classroom from administration to do whatever it took to learn the material. This is one of the reasons I liked Mr. Moore the most. He was not afraid to go out of his way to apply what we were learning to our lives and give us real world examples. If it meant he was going to ride on the front of a grocery cart down the hall and have someone stop it immediately and him jump of because of the force caused, or that he was going to play baseball with skittles in the classroom to prove momentum, Mr. Moore wanted us to learn the material. I use this inspiration as a way for me to think about teaching and finding ways to involve my students in the learning process.

A great aspect of Mr. Moore's classroom was that you knew what you were getting when you walked in the classroom door. He was not shy about making the work first and play second in his classroom. Coach Moore started the school year always by taking a day to get to know the students, talk over class rules, class procedures, and the syllabus. This allowed students to become relaxed in his classroom and understand who he was. From this point on he expected you to respect him and he would respect you. He talked to the students as if they were adults and knew how to take care of themselves. If we needed to ask a question about the material there was no need to be afraid because he made it very comfortable to be open and learn from him as well as other peers in the classroom. Most of this classroom management and climate was created on the first day when he took the time to get to know us an individuals rather than trying to rush into the material and letting the student to teacher relationship come later. His management was driven by the way he started his classes each semester and they tended to be the better and more managed classrooms of my high school.

One item that I would maybe not borrow from Mr. Moore would be his crazy tangents away from classroom material. While at some points these are needed for students to relax and take a break from the material, they sometimes came so often that there was material that did not get covered by the end of the semester. On the other hand one item I would borrow and like to take from Mr. Moore was his willingness to go the extra mile to have students understand some of the material covered. Even things like taking a trip to Busch Gardens so we could time and use gravity formulas on roller coasters to better understand the material. Yes, there was obviously fun involved in these extra effort assignments of learning, but we better understood the meaning of the concepts and their relation to real world happenings. Coach Moore was a great teacher and he is by far the best I have ever had!

School Autobiography

Preschool
For preschool I attended Blackwell Memorial Baptist. I attended school every morning from 9am-12pm and then my mom would come pick me up and take me home. My teacher Mrs. Sandy was the greatest and I will never forget the day I played Joseph during the Christmas nativity and one of my good friends Asheton Ballance played the part of Mary. Although preschool was a long time ago I will always remember the day I graduated when I wore a sear sucker suit and my teacher gave me a kiss on the cheek when she handed me my diploma.

Elementary School
K-3rd
My first four years of elementary school were spent at Pasquotank Elementary in Elizabeth City, NC. Here I had Mrs. Thomas, Mrs. Davis (who is now my next door neighbor), and Mrs. Palmer. Our school had what I would consider one of the best mascots ever, the Road Runners. One unique aspect of Pasquotank was that the special education department for the school system was based at this school. When I was younger I really did not see that these older students were different than we were and most students at our school became friends and buddies with these students. Thus, when we got older and realized the actual disparity between the two of us, we better understood and had connections with the special education student. Also, Pasquotank was a predominantly African American student base because it was situated only a block away from the projects. This allowed for a different type of education, because I was in the minority which helped me to better understand and relate to the issues we face today because of multicultural issues in education.

A common memory that everyone in my family and my teachers have of my elementary years are my excellent report cards except for the area of classroom talking. No, I was not the student that got a U (unsatisfactory) for not talking enough, I was the student that got a U for talking too much. Not once, not twice, but three different report cards were sent home during my first four years of school that had a U for talking in the classroom, with a note that stated, "Sam is very much a social butterfly, but needs to learn when it is appropriate to talk and when talking is not appropriate." What can I say, I just wanted to be friends with everyone that school took a backseat. However, this backseat for education was not something my parents enjoyed and there were multiple conversations between myself and my parents on how to behave at school.

4th-5th
After 3rd grade my parents decided to build a new house across town. We were being annexed by the city and they did not want to pay city taxes so we moved further into the country. Since we moved, I was redistricted to a new school. Therefore, for 4th and 5th grade I went to JC Sawyer Elementary School, Home of the Dolphins. Here I was tested and placed into an AG program, which is now known as AIG (Academically and Intellectually Gifted) in North Carolina. This program consisted of twice a week pull out groups where we went beyond the classroom material and learned how to challenge ourselves with regular classroom material. Before this time in elementary school, I loved to read. Unfortunately, when I was forced to read, gain points and maintain a certain grade level of reading through the reading program Accelerated Reader, I was turned off to reading. My mom, an elementary media specialist, was really upset over how much this program had changed my view of reading, but as most people who know me know, once I have made up my mind, it does not normally change. Thus, I began to focus on something I loved more and that would be Math, which I still love today.

Although I stayed in the same school system, moving to a new school with new people was really hard for me in 4th grade. It was hard to make friends and to fit in because most of the other students had already made relationships and adapted to the school. To get involved and try to fit in, I joined a club, S.A.V.E. (Students Against Violence Everywhere) and met a group of three friends that I would remain close to throughout the rest of elementary school and into high school. Also, when we were regrouped for 5th grade and the AG students were all placed in the same classroom I had a better sense of belonging and began to fit in and become more comfortable at JC Sawyer.

Middle School
6th-8th
I was finally comfortable and then it was time to move on and start a new adventure of life at River Road Middle School. Here is where I really found who I really was and found a group that I could hang out with and be close with throughout middle and high school. River Road had the proud mascot of the Rockets. Although I am not exactly sure how a rocket can intimidate other schools or people, we were loud and proud about blasting away from our opponents. Yes, middle school would be the crazy life of awkwardness, but we were all awkward and fit in together.

One important aspect of middle school for me was joining the band. As you will learn later, band was a very important part of my life and has developed me into a leader. I played trombone in the band. Originally I wanted to play a woodwind, maybe a saxophone. However, when we tried every instrument the first week of school the trombone and trumpet were the only two instruments that I could get to make a noise. At this point in my life, I was a person who wanted to defy the popular choice of people, so I chose to play the trombone rather than trumpet because most other wanted to play the trumpet. Throughout 6th, 7th, and 8th grade I remained first chair and section leader of the trombone section. I had one other guy, Daniel Ferland, who I knew on Monday was always going to challenge me, but I somehow always managed to win the challenge and remain first chair.

Another aspect of middle school that defined me was the track I took in mathematics classes. Being identified as AG, I was tested in the core subjects to see where I needed to be placed. Being that I excelled in mathematics, I was placed with two others in a 7th grade math classroom as a 6th grader. The three of us were given a different schedule and had to make the venture every day into the 7th grade wing, which was a big deal as a 6th grader. Following the same pattern, the two other students and I took 8th grade math in 7th grade. Because the schedules of the two grades were so different we got to spend about thirty minutes everyday in the library which was lots of fun and games. In 8th grade we rejoined our peers who just skipped 8th grade math and took Algebra I. Having an experience like that is just another add on to why I love and look forward to teaching mathematics to students everyday.

High School
9th-12th
With my middle school being only ten minutes down the road from my house, it was an abrupt change when I had to drive twenty minutes to my high school. I attended Northeastern High School, Home of the Mighty Eagles. As a freshmen I searched to find where I fit in and wanted to thrive. As with my elementary school, I went to a high school that was predominantly African American, and this was a barrier (being a minority) that had to be crossed and challenged everyday. Education wise, I began to take all core academic classes along with agriculture vocational courses and of course band. As far as academics went, I did enjoy all subjects, but math was of course my favorite. In English I enjoyed the occasional book and one of my favorite books ever I was The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. History and Science were just classes to sit through and try not to sleep for me because they did not engage me as much as the math classroom. I looked forward to the period I could walk along the math wing and talk to all my favorite teachers and learn about things I was interested in.

On the academic side, my senior year I was named Salutatorian of my senior class. I was also awarded the math departmental award, the band departmental award, and the Cooper McClease award, which is the faculty and staff's vote for best male all around. For me, I think these awards define who I was in high school, and how I have modeled and improved through the years.

As far as other classes go, I was really involved with band after joining high school. I took marching and symphonic band all four years of high school. I was drum major for three years, and was captain of the band (leading student) my senior year. This organization is where I learned what it meant to be a leader and helped me to develop the skills it took to be a leader. I also learned organization, punctuality, and discipline from band. Unlike other high schools, band was a place that fostered the improvement and growth of students at my high school. I was also a two sport athlete at Northeastern. My brother had already been good at cross country and baseball at my high school, so I chose two totally different sports as to not follow exactly in his footsteps. My two sports included swimming and tennis. Of the two, swimming was my better sport and my relay team placed fifth in the state three years in a row.

Over the past few years my high school has had vast improvements in their test scores. When I graduated from high school Northeastern was at a 65% school passing rate. I am proud to say that because of administration and the teachers that I have seen return to my high school and others who have stayed and remained dedicated to the students, Northeastern scores last year were at the 74%. Although they did not meet AYP, the school met 13 of 17 goals, where in the past they had never achieved over 10 goals being met. Judging by these scores, I do not come from the most affluent high school, but I am proud of where I have come from, and where it has propelled me to be today, at Elon University.