Friday, April 3, 2015

Week 15 - Student Presentations: Justin, Sarah, Meiya, and Me

Slow and steady wins the race.

Justin and Haiku
Sarah and Yoga in the Classroom
Meiya and the Chinese New Year
Me and Mindfulness in the Classroom

I love how the presentations this week have such an unified and Eastern theme; the content was so different from the previous weeks' presentations.

My Haiku: Tiger stalks at night,
                   swims the purple darkness,
                   within the canyon.

OMG, I made a Haiku. I was so thrilled because I have been fascinated by Haikus since I was a teenager and never understood the format or the ideas behind their creation until Justin's presentation.
Justin provided all the needed information and encouragement to feel really comfortable exploring Haikus.

Justin asked us to post a favorite animal, location, color, and meditative pass time to the homework forum in preparation for his presentation. Having the answers to these questions made it easier to create my Haiku. Thank you Justin.

Sarah lead us into a discussion and video on Yoga in the classroom and its benefits for both student and teacher. She spoke of how a number of her friends were teachers and how they had utilized Yoga in the classroom with great results. Sarah also discussed some of the concerns teachers and parents have about Yoga in the classroom. Although I could understand the concern over the unknown I thought that waiting until the children were "mature enough" was counter intuitive to the idea of yoga creating self-awareness and helping children self-regulate.

Sarah used the puzzle making software to create puzzles of a few yoga poses which I thought was amusing. I know people who won't try yoga because they think you have to bend into a pretzel shape.
Puzzles and pretzels and well.......that's my mind at play.

And Meiya's presentation tonight was all about playing. Meiya had previously given out Red Envelopes with riddles inside that had to do with the Chinese New Year. I love a good riddle and had lots of fun trying to figure out the two I had plus the other 18 Meiya provided for our review; you would have thought the class was on a game show vying to win a new car. .

Meiya showed us a video on the origins and practices of Chinese New Year and then quizzed us with the software program......, which was new to me. After understanding that you need to look at the computer screen to see what answers the colors on your phone related to, I was good to go.
I think Meiya had the same experience more than a few presenters had, including myself, which was just how quickly 35 minutes can be when presenting. While in the dentist chair 35 minutes can seem a lifetime, but when you're presenting time does seem to fly.

And even though I presented second I've saved the write up of me until last. I wanted to savor the feeling of being done with the presentation and the class right up until the last possible moment;
I'll own it, I'm tired.
Between school and my new business, The Divine Peace Reiki & Wellness Center, I've been stretched in a few directions. I love the graduate program in Educational and Instructional Technology and am doing well but....I've taken in and put to use a lot of new information in the past year.
Yes, I am savoring the moment and taking a victory lap or two.

My presentation was on Mindfulness in the classroom.

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