Title: Little League Baseball Coach Date: Summer 2010-2011 Description of Educational Experience/Artifact Description: I have included a schedule

of my little league coaching experience for this experience. This experience started the summer of 2010 and began again in the winter of 2011 through the summer. It is more of an ongoing project with fundraisers and team outings, as well as practices and games/tournaments. I worked with 11 year olds this year, the very same group of kids the year before. We practiced for 4 hours a week and had games/tournaments every weekend with time put in dependent upon our success in each tournament. Wisconsin Teacher Standard Alignment: Standard ten of Wisconsin Teacher Development and Licensure Standards states: The teacher fosters relationships with school colleagues, parents, and agencies in the larger community to support students learning and well-being. It is aligned to and addresses this standard because I not only worked with the 11 year olds, but also with their families and the community as sponsors for our traveling select team. I developed the belief in personal relationships through this experience and through interacting with parents, colleagues, and the community. Through strong relationships with the parents and community, I was able to always ask for help whether it be monetary support or help in staffing a local fundraiser. Knowing that the parents and community are on your side allows you as a coach to trust in your decision making and gives the coach a certain confidence in his tactics and techniques. I was able to foster these great relationships with the parents, players, and community by being genuine in everything I did. The parents bought in to my system when they heard great things about what coach Travis taught me today. Parents and the community saw that these young men were excited to come to practice and rejuvenated about the game of baseball. The fact that I was a twenty year old that came from the hometown growing up playing ball made me a role model to the young men. I gave them a view of what they could become as a man on and off the field. I was able to broaden my horizons as a coach, with the players, because of the relationships created between myself and the general community. Resulting from this experience, I am more competent because it forced me to interact with the 11 year olds, foster relationships with parents and the community members, and accomplish the goal at hand. This goal was to grow as a team and compete while having fun. This experience not only gave the boys a chance to be physically active, but also a different aspect of learning as opposed to inside the classroom. We all can look back on past events such as athletics and see how it gave us a different way of learning. This experience taught the boys as well as me valuable life lessons: how to win, how to accept defeat, and gave us the desire to always chase perfection. UW-Platteville Knowledge, Skill, Disposition Statement Alignment: KSD4.c.

This artifact best aligns with this KSD4.c of the UW-Platteville School of Education Knowledge, Skill, and Disposition statements which states: This candidate is able to provide frequent, sensitive and appropriate information to parents and students about students positive and negative progress within the instructional program and successfully engages families in the educational process when appropriate. This aligns with this KSD because I frequently engaged in conversations with the parents in between games and after practices. I was able to keep the parents updated with the progress their child had made, along with what we still had to work on in the upcoming practices. I became more competent through learning about my students and what instructional techniques worked best for them as an individual. It was a general consensus that my team respected me as a coach, while I respected them as a player. The tournaments at the end of each week allowed us as coaches to exemplify the skills we had taught and evaluate the teams individual performance.

Secondary Alignments: KSD2.a. Creates and Environment of Respect and Rapport KSD3.d. Provides feedback to Students Reflection About Teaching/Learning: What I learned about teaching/learning from this is the importance of the parent and coaches to communicate effectively and often to ensure that instruction from both parents and coaches remains consistent. There is nothing more difficult than being questioned by a student because dad told me to do it this way. Consistency in instruction allows for both parents and coaches to be on the same page, and not be conflicting which hinders the childs performance. Reflection About Myself as a Prospective Educator: What I learned about myself as a prospective teacher is the critical nature of timely feedback. When an educator can assess the students and provide feedback in a timely manner, it allows the students to correct their mistakes and put them into practice. I learned when it comes to students correcting their mistakes; immediate reinforcement works the best.