Coaching Class Archives - Eagle Rock Blog

Eagle Rock’s 79th Trimester Begins with Some Unique Class Offerings

A quick look at a few of the classes available in this, our 79th trimester, shows that Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center continues to stand at the forefront of an approach to education that uniquely encourages students to become actively engaged in their own education.

No cookie-cutter classes here. It’s all about leading our students into a future that they can help develop — free of nonsensical edicts, outmoded education models, and unimaginative curriculum. Here on our mountainside campus in Estes Park, Colo., we put the emphasis on classes that will actually turn out to be helpful and useful once our students step out into the real world.

That being said, feel free to check out the list of class names and descriptions below for the first half of ER 79 (the 79th trimester since our founding in the early-1990s). A second list will appear here a few weeks before Thanksgiving: Continue reading…

Round 2 of Eagle Rock’s Fall Trimester Classes Now Underway

This week, we find ourselves well into our 76th trimester here at Eagle Rock School, and we’re taking advantage of this space today to describe another offering of classes in which our students are currently participating. Whether you’re a perspective Eagle Rock School student, client of our Professional Development Center, or a parent of a current Eagle Rocker, reading the following class descriptions may be beneficial to the journey you’re currently on or are about to undertake.

Since a significant portion of our focus is on delivering an education that truly seeks to engage students in their own education, we take pride in describing these topics for our many stakeholders. The idea is to keep you informed about the learning experiences offered here at Eagle Rock and hopefully, enhance your own engagement in — and takeaways from — our unique approach to education.

While we consider the basics of education to be most important, we believe students are eager to acquire knowledge through the learning of practical life tips, current social issues, appreciation of the arts, and the benefits of staying physically and mentally active. As a result, we believe you’ll find this current listing of Eagle Rock School classes meets all those objectives and more.

The most recent group of five-week courses began earlier this week and, unless otherwise noted, run for five weeks: Continue reading…

Eagle Rock’s Fall 2017 Classes Are Informative and Interesting

The summer of 2017 is history, and for new and returning Eagle Rock School students, it’s the beginning of a fresh trimester — the 73rd since our founding in the early 1990s. And as reliable as the season’s change is here in the Rocky Mountains, so to comes the promise of a progressive lineup of class offerings tailor-made for our diverse student body. Take mathematics for example. Your typical high school curriculum lists class offerings in spades, ranging from Algebra, Geometry and Algebra 2, to Pre-Calculus and Calculus.

But how does this sound as a more engaging alternative: The mathematics of casino gambling? We’ve got that class already underway for those who like to have fun with their numbers while learning.

Or how about chemistry? Most high schools feature classes that entail a lot of memorization, periodic tables, and some lab work. Unless it’s a class about the chemical changes that take place when preparing a meal. Now we’re really cooking. And the “final exam” for that class revolves around a student-hosted food fair.

Below are descriptions of a number of class topics offered this trimester — most of them unique and all of them designed from the ground up to be both interesting and engaging:

Borders & Identity: In this class, students are exploring their own identity through the lens of the U.S.-Mexican border and the human stories, learning and reflecting on the visible and invisible borders we each confront every day. Learning Spanish is a goal, in order to build bridges between people and community, and compare, contrast and write from multiple points of view. During the first five weeks, participants are diving into the world of migration and identity, formulating their own informed perspectives through video and field work — all the while communicating in Spanish. During the second five weeks, they will continue to explore borders and identity and develop a culminating action-project that propose solutions to the immigration and border debate.

Chemistry of Cooking: In this unique chemistry class, students are studying the chemical changes that food undergoes when it is Continue reading…

Eagle Rock Students Learn Valuable Coaching Lessons And Skills

Earlier this week we told you about some of this trimester’s more unique class offerings. Today we’re diving deep into one class that didn’t make the list: Coaching.

Eagle Rock Coaching Class Studentt You can talk about on-the-job training all you want, but here at Eagle Rock, our five-week coaching-focused class puts our students on the front lines, planting them firmly on the soccer field with a bunch of rambunctious, overactive kids who are eager to learn the sport, courtesy of the Estes Valley Recreation and Parks District.

The focus of the class offering is to teach and facilitate the difference between good coaching and bad coaching, and our fledgling practitioners soon learn the virtues of patience, and that while there is indeed power in being a mentor to youngsters, it’s important to know how to interact with kids — even when they’re annoying.

Our students participating in the coaching class have the additional benefit of giving back to the local community by not only coaching the youngsters, but also by helping the parents out as well as the kids’ regular coaches. And it’s a demonstration that Eagle Rock School is a good neighbor and an important part of the Estes Park community.

These Eagle Rock students have the opportunity to hone their people skills, learning to introduce themselves to strangers and connect with people from completely different backgrounds.

One of the objectives of the program is for our students to teach kids how to refine and improve their soccer skills and gain a depth of knowledge about the game. As a part of that process, our students learn how to create a coaching lesson plan and how to engage and help youngsters regardless of their skill levels.

Twice a week, students in the Coaching class visited Estes Park’s soccer fields for a practice session and then a game on Saturdays — all under the supervision of Anna Magle-Haberek, our Human Performance instructional specialist, and Niko Viglione, our Human Performance Fellow.

This trimester’s student coaches include Continue reading…