Stability Ball Routine

For my lesson I prepared several upper body and back exercises to perform with the stability ball. Several of the skills were prepared on a video I made for the class to watch and several were not. I had some technical difficulties to deal with the projecter and the laptop skipping the video. I'll admit I didn't polish my lesson so something like that didn't happen but I worked with it and knew the skills with the cues to teach them anyway. My time coding score was rather poor since I had to explain the instant activity since no one had played it before. Also, the students sat on the ball and watch the video, to increase my activity time I could of had them perform the task along with the video. Also my lesson was shorter than the designed 15mins because I was already going over the class period time. Those missed minutes could of made my instant activity go longer and the activties for the stability ball. With that extra time I could of given more personal feedback to the students instead of trying to cram all 4 tasks in a short amount of time.

Shinny Backhand Pass

For this lesson I feel I used the advice I was given and improved my lesson. I had my back less to the class, although I still did occasionally, I made sure to give specific congruent feedback, checked for understanding of the lesson, and simplified the lesson by eliminating unnecessary cues. I also spread the class out to give them plenty of room and I didn't give anyone a chance to act up or be disruptive. Some things I need to work on for future teaching days are hands in my pocket and to slow down and don't speak too quickly. I thought I managed my time well and got most of the points for the time coding sheet. However, I did worse than I thought and need to get my students into the activity faster.

Shinny Forehand Pass

To be honest I was not comfortable with this lab because of trying to intertwine Chinese customs into the class which showed since I didn't touch on that at all and will have to work towards that for my next attempt. As far as my transcript goes there are several words that I am continuing to say such as 'alright', 'guys', 'uhh' but not as often as before. In regards to my lesson some feedback I received was that my back was to the students a few times, I should use more of the gym to spread out the students, and after listening to my recording I sounded rushed and spoke quickly. I focused a lot on safety and control of the hockey stick because I am sure for my next lesson there are going to be some curveballs coming my way in regards to safety and behavior.

ACHOOO!

Recently received an email from GNC about a new discovery by webMD. Thought I would share the article with all my lovely readers. Now we have more ammunition to fight these Cortland colds. Some good ol milk and some sunlight which is rare these days in Central New York. Enjoy everyone and stay healthy!

Lets Gator Chomp It!!!

After listening to myself perform my catching the Frisbee lesson there are a few positives and negatives that stand out. Starting with the negatives, I counted several words that I said a handful of times. Words like 'alright' and 'thing' are words that aren't powerful, and don't precisely identify the point i am trying to make. Those words are said by habit and it is a bad habit I will work towards kicking to the curb. Another word I say a lot is 'guys'. I said it when speaking to males and not speaking to males which is habit yet again. I can stop this from happening by saying names or 'class' in general. A major negative that slipped my mind was a safety statement. Some of the positives from my transcript and my lesson in general is linking a not so popular sport TV wise, with a popular sport on the TV to try and spark interest. I also gave a lot of positive feedback to the students. However, it did sound like a broken record in the recording because I mainly said 'nice job' or 'good job'. This can become more specific if I comment on the specific action they are doing a good job in such as "nice job attacking the Frisbee" or "Awesome gator chomp". Something that I thought about was giving the students a challenge (complete the most amount of successful passes without the Frisbee touching the ground) that had no limit. It wasn't first to ten or twenty wins, it was plain and simple but still a challenge for the class. I also touched on intratask variation with several groups by having them catch the Frisbee with one hand. This, along with feedback to a majority of the class were huge goals that i wanted to succeed in, in the lesson.

Use your time wisely

After watching my football catching lesson and focusing on how I managed my time there are things that are obvious elements in my teaching style that I need to polish. During my lesson I spoke to Ricky about volunteering because I knew he had played football before and could throw and catch. While I knew this information I wasted a few seconds going to get a football to demonstrate instead of having Ricky grab one as I continue with my instruction. Another aspect of my lesson that made my management time be longer than it should have been was the students walking to go get a football and line up. This is PE class and it is expected that students will get sweaty running all over the place and in this lesson they walked and I failed to address this and failed to get them to hustle. The activity time just met the minimum 50% of the class time and during this time I walked around and gave feedback. I gave feedback to most if not all of my students correcting minor errors, encouraging, and positively reinforcing . However, I noticed I stayed on the same side the entire time. In the future when I am teaching I cannot do this because being close to a student as they perform the task at hand or giving them feedback face to face may be more important to them that providing feedback from several feet away.

Feedback

Feedback is an important aspect in students learning. From my own experiences I learned the best and stayed on task the most when i received positive feedback. An example of positive feedback is when a teacher compliments a student on how well he or she is doing at a specific task. Neutral feedback points out something the student does well and then gives him or her something they can work on to do correctly. Finally, negative feedback does not point out anything done correctly and focuses on what the student has not done correctly. People typically view negative feedback as being rude and belittling a student but I see otherwise. Not all students are going to respond to positive feedback and not everyone learns the same. Its up to the teacher to get to know their students and find out what feedback works for each individual student.

In regards to my lesson I did not provide my class with any feedback. It is something I am now aware of that I have to address and I am going to make a conscious effort to reach at least 50% of my class with feedback from here on out.