An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away

This past Friday we continued teaching in class where each student received six minutes to teach. Continuing our unit of ultimate Frisbee I taught a game called "Apples". This activity consisted of breaking up into groups of three having a thrower and two receivers. The thrower was to release the Frisbee using the overhand throw and the receivers had to try and come up with it. The receiver that gained possession of the Frisbee became the thrower and now had one "apple". We played this game for a few minutes to see how many "apples" everyone could get. After everyone seemed to be getting comfortable I threw in a little challenge. Now you could only catch with one hand and that one hand had to be their non-dominant hand.

This activity was a lot of fun and really kept the interest of all the students. I think the most important thing in an activity is that the students have fun, and with this activity everyone was smiling and having fun. I'm feeling like each time I teach I feel more and more comfortable. I felt like I explained the activity clearly and had a good demonstration. This time it was a lot easier teaching something that I was prepared for compared to our first lab where I wasn't prepared at all. One thing I may have done a little different is to have everyone throw the Frisbee starting on the same side of the gym rather than a staggered setup. Also I may use a whistle as my signal for attention. Although I have a good gym voice it is still no match for a loud echoing gym. In order to keep track of the feedback I am giving to the students I have completed a feedback sheet. I also have written out every word from my lesson to see exactly what I am saying while I teach. Listen

Take 2

The first day of class was a surprise to all of us. For most of us it was our first times teaching, so many of us were caught a little off guard. Last Friday we had the opportunity to go back to those mini-lessons and teach them over again, or continue on to another lesson. I think everyone felt a little more comfortable this time around. We knew about this and so we were able to prepare a little for it. Although for some reason it always seems like you have to change something one way or another during the lesson. But it was much easier with the heads up.
I decided to continue my football lesson, of catching and throwing, and teach the students how to run a slant route. I demonstrated the route and then had them break up into groups of three and run the route having a quarterback, a receiver, and a defender. The lesson went well and I felt I did a much better job this time around. I was able to see the things that I did better the second time around, like adding an inter task variation to throw with the weak hand. By doing this, it helps make the task a little more challenging and the students seemed to enjoy that. I have created a time coding form to show how much time I spend on management, activity, instruction, and waiting. During my leeson I tried to give feedback to as many people as possible. You can watch this mini-lesson right here.

Time To Teach

After a busy summer, it's great to be back in Cortland. On my first day of the fall semester I walked into EDU 255, never thinking that I would be teaching. Well I was wrong. Everyone taught a 5 minute lesson on whatever skill they wanted to using the equipment that we had. At first I felt a little nervous because I'm still in summer mode and not yet in school mode. This 5 minute lesson exercise quickly put me into school mode and allowed me to teach a mini lesson on catching and throwing a football. In my initial micro-teaching episode, I looked a little better than I had expected, but I definitely need some work. Although I was a little nervous throughout the lesson, I do see excitement and enjoyment while I'm teaching. To convey my interests in helping my students learn, I feel that being enthusiastic and confident are essential in teaching a Lesson. If I look like I'm not into what I'm teaching or aren't sure what I'm saying, chances are the students won't either. To make students want to come back and participate I feel you have to make class comfortable for everyone. When I say comfortable I'm talking about allowing everyone to participate and creating a fun environment. Next lesson I plan to improve my organization of the drills and how I can better use the space in the gym. Overall I was happy with the lesson and I am looking forward to correcting my mistakes. Here is my lesson for you to watch.

Last Visit To St.Mary's

I have really learned a lot about young children through my experiences at St. Mary’s. These young children are very funny and very unexpectable. One second they can have something hurting which causes them to sit out but once a fun game comes around, that has all disappeared and they are fine. I have witnessed this many times. Some activities that I felt were appropriate were ones that involved props and using imaginations to add something extra to the games. It’s amazing how the children respond to these sorts of things. Some activities that were not as appropriate were ones that resembled drills. Most of these games that were similar to drills were not very fun for the children. There was no imagination or creativity and that is what the children love about games.

With the PRE K program the children were much easier to work with because they weren’t as hyper as the older children. It was different with the older children because they would just want to go crazy, and it was hard to keep them organized. I really enjoyed working with the younger children. They listened very well to what you had to say and they had a greater sense of appreciation towards the activities. I also felt that there were many more activities to come up with when you are working with the PRE K.

In the Cafeteria some fine motor skills that I observed were building with the leggos, and drawing pictures. These were the two most creative fine motor skills that I had observed. The children would draw many different things and create many different objects with the leggos. Having children work on these fine motor skills is something that should definitely be worked on in Physical Education. It is very important for children to do activities involving this because it forces them to use their imagination and to strategize what they want to do. These are aspects that carry over into physical activity. Using your imagination and being creative come in handy when playing sports.

From this experience I have been given insight on my individual teaching style. I have found that I like to put myself in the shoes of the students, or simply think like an elementary school student would. I take the activity that I plan on doing and see if I would enjoy from an elementary school students point of view. My teaching style has definitely emerged through my experiences at St. Mary’s. I realized that the most successful games are ones in which the children can relate to, like super heroes or the Easter bunny. So by thinking like a child helps me to see what games will be best. This is how my teaching style has been developed through my experiences and interactions at St. Mary’s Elementary School.

Dribble and Kick

I feel that the activities and games that we have been utilizing so far at St. Mary’s have been for the most part appropriate for the student’s. Every game and activity that we have done with the children in the labs has been very successful. They have made the children interested in playing and also made them move around and get a good workout in. The hardest activity came last week in lab 5 when we had to get the children dribbling and kicking. It is very hard to have a game where you can see these skills being done correctly by the children. It seemed more of a drill than anything but we were able to assess the children easily with the zig-zag soccer. It may not have been the best game but it helped our class in assessing the movements.

Some limitations to games involve taking the movement in the game and having the students perform them where that is the only thing they are doing. For instance if you have a game that involves the movement of dribbling, you may want to have the student dribble stationary instead of on the run. This allows the people assessing to get a clear look at what is being performed. It may not be as fun for the children but like I said before it helps the observers get a good understanding of the movements being performed.

Can You Catch and Throw?

At St. Mary’s I have definitely faced some challenges and difficulties. What I am proud of is how I have found ways to overcome them. One challenge or difficulty that I have faced was working with children that didn’t want to cooperate with the activities. Not every child wants to play the game that we have chosen. Most children do enjoy the games but there are always those few kids who must be difficult. Not that this is good but it does help you get a feel for it because I feel as a future teacher we will undoubtedly come across some children like this. Another difficulty that I have faced is the issue of having enough space. One of our activities had to be moved to the cafeteria because there wasn’t enough room. This wasn’t a big deal because we just adjusted a few things and continued on with our activity in a different location. It wasn’t the environment we wanted but it worked out fine.

Some ideas or suggestions that I have to resolve these difficulties are to: manage my games according to space and time, and to also find games that seem suitable for children of all skills levels. This will help to keep more children into the activities and eager to play the games. Managing the games according to time and space would consist of keeping the movements of the game more controlled so that you determine where the children will move compared to having them running all over gym.

Leap over, Jump on, Slide across

On Monday I observed 6 year old Anthony and 6 year old Rowan, who are both in Kindergarten. Anthony is a male and Rowan is a female who both had differences in their ability levels. Both of these students were able to perform the locomotor skills but each had different forms while doing them. There were things that Anthony did better than Rowan, and Rowan performed other things better than Anthony. We observed these two students perform the locomotor skills of leaping, jumping horizontally, and sliding while attending the super hero training camp. It was interesting to see all of the different abilities within these children.

Since I worked with the older kids today some of the teaching strategies that I used were different then what I would use with the younger ones. We played kick ball and what I thought worked very well was to just be encouraging, partly participate, and just let the students play the game with minimal interruption. The kids really like kick ball and enjoyed having us participate as well. Overall the activity went very well and it was a great day.

There were many strategies that I have used these past couple of weeks to capture the children’s attention and keep them on task for the activity. Acting parts out and dressing to the role always had a great response for the children. I also enjoyed doing demonstrations because I fell like the students enjoy watching us participate as well. The last one is to always be encouraging no matter how bad things are going. As long as you are 100% into it, then chances are that the will be as well.