Week 13

Week 13








This week my both my classes got a briefing from the Colonel and a Reserve Recruiter on there options to become officers in what segment in the US Army. Afterwards my morning class took their Final and then left for the semester. The afternoon class continued with their presentations after their brief then we moved on to discussing grades and extra credit and finished with them taking their final. There Final is created from the ROTC command but can be adjusted. I took the main points we focused on this semester as well as points they covered from their Leadership Labs and made their Final Exam off of that information.

The MSII taking their Final Exam

The Struggle is real

Week 11

Week 11

This week I focused on finishing the students presentations as well as conducted another group discussion on the Five bases of power. The cadets from both classes seemed to be very heated on this topic in regards to which bases of power is more important. This is why I had them write a short essay on any of their student leadership in the program describing which power bases that student uses and how they felt about it. They then as a group discussed their essays and tried to see if they could guess which student they wrote on. This worked out because it helped show them what is useful to use and not use as a leader. Some students wrote on strong student leadership and others complained about their student leadership that is weak but in the end they all applied the bases of power. I had them do this last lesson since next year they will be in the student leadership positions and will be running into the same issues as their current student leadership. The main point of this lesson is for them to understand the bases of power and how to use it to develop their leadership styles as future leaders. The cadets needed to present in any way they wished to but many  created slide shows for their presentation. One example is a  slide show that was created on 

U.S. Army Psychological Operations (PSYOP) by David Jackson

There was no class on week 12 since it is Thanksgiving day and the following week is their final. That way they can study for their other finals and not have to worry about the ROTC one.




 

Picture of CDT Balitaan giving his presentation on Korean language

CDT Motzel giving his presentation on Ranger School

Week 10 Leadership Lab

Week 10 Leadership Lab

This Leadership Lab is one that many of the Cadets had to prepare for all semester since it is a qualification they needed to pass. It is the Combat Water Survival Test(CWST) which is broken down into 5 categories they must pass all of them to become qualified.They did this training at NEIU since Loyola does not have a pool. We headed over at 5am and did not finish till 8am.

First event is 10 minute Swim.

The Cadets had to Swim 10 minutes without touching anything

Some Cadets are weak swimmers so they choose easier methods of swimming

Second event is 5 minutes of Treading Water

All the Cadets treading water

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Third event is Underwater Gear Ditch

Cadet Park about to jump in for the Underwater Gear Ditch

Fourth event is Gear Swim with Weapon

Cadet Alvarado doing the Gear Swim

Cadet Motzel struggling to swim with a Weapon

Last event is  10 Meter Blindfolded Jump with Weapon.

We helped guide the Cadets off the board so that they would not fall wrong

Me helping guide a Cadet off the board

Week 10

Week 10

This week I created my own lesson. For the past few weeks the lessons focused on leadership and different factors of it. In my opinion one of the most important factors of Good leadership is understanding your power bases. There is Five bases of power that make up a persons overall power base. They are Expert/Knowledge, Referent, Reward, Legitimate/Legal and Coercive. I had the cadets for their homework research the 5 power bases in order to participate in a class discussion.

Expert/Knowledge = The power derived from the leader's accumulation of knowledge, skills and capabilities. 

Referent = The power derived from the leader's personality and is effective as a means of influencing soldiers to the extent they respect and admire the leader.

Reward = The power derived from the capacity of the leader to provide desired rewards to a soldier for good performance.

Legitimate/Legal = The power derived from law and regulation.

Coercive = The power which influences a person to perform or behave in a manner contrary to how that person desires to behave at the time.


I had the cadets as a class discuss what order of importance these should be placed in.Two factors, that are important to understand is first, you use all five as a strong leader and second, you need to look at this model from top down not bottom up. They discussed and argued which is more important and which are not. In the end it is up to the individual to develop their own leadership style off these bases of power. Some are weaker than others. Referent and Expert are the two that should be relied on most and Legitimate and Coercive should not be relied on as much.

Veterans Day

Veterans Day Ceremonies

The ROTC program conducted several ceremonies throughout the varies school that participate in the ROTC program on Veterans Day, Tuesday November 11th. They did one at De Pual, North Park University and NEIU. They also performed a ceremony at Loyola. I helped out with ensuring that the students at Loyola would be ready. They conducted a dress rehearsal on the Monday before around 4pm. I watched them as they went through their rehearsal and critiqued them on it. I helped them with any questions they had as well as any thing I seen that could be done better. One major contribution I had was making sure they conducted the drills right. For example, making sure they saluted at the right time or marched the right way as well as the commands. They also did another dress rehearsal on the day of the event at 8:45am and then another at 11am. The actual ceremony began at 11:15am.

Right before they raised the Flag

Close up of the Flag raising

Everyone Saluting

Week 9

Week 9

This week I was doing a charity event through Pepsicola in Chicago and was not able to instruct my class. Instead I needed to prepare the class and ensure the instructor that was going to teach my class was set to. I had sent the other instructor the lesson that needed to be taught as well as dropped off a stack of quizzes that needed to be taken by the students. I also explained what was my grading criteria for the presentations. One of my students was also doing to speech at a ceremony for Veterans day the following week so she needed to first present it to the class.

I also missed the Leadership Lab that week because I was at the charity event. The students did pugil bouts. This is where they spar with pugil sticks. They wear protective gear and the sticks are padded. They were able to call out each other and spar.

Here is a example of what Pugil sticks looks like.

Week 8 Halloween

Week 8 Halloween

Friday was Halloween and the ROTC program coordinated a fun run on the lake shore path. We ran a total of 3 miles in costumes to celebrate Halloween. Everyone was strongly encouraged to dress up for the run. The cadets started out singing cadence and the cadre finished up the run with cadence. Running cadence is used to stay in step when running as well as motivator. Even companies such as Gatorade use US Army running cadences in their commercials. This cadence is known as "Hard work work" and audio from the commercial is actually a US Army basic training unit on a run.

Here is a few pictures of us running.

The guy on the left is calling(leading) cadence

We did a best costume award after we finished running then took pics of groups and of classes.

The whole ROTC student body

He is one of the winners for his costume.

Another winner

Village people