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.

Watch and Learn

At St. Mary’s I observed a six year old boy named Shamus who is in first grade. I also observed a five year old girl named Kasey who is in kindergarten. These two individuals were both able to perform the locomotor skills of running, galloping, and hopping. Even though Shamus was only one year older than Kasey it seemed to have a very big impact on the differences in ability. It seemed like Shamus was able to perform the locomotor skills more consistently and for a longer period of time. Kasey on the other hand would start out doing well but her movements started to break up after a little while. Shamus was overall more coordinated with his steps throughout the three locomotor skills. I also saw that both of the students were making mistakes similar to one another. For instance, on the Gallop, the foot trailing was not always at a position adjacent to or behind the lead foot. But overall both students performed well.

The effective teaching strategies that I observed on Monday were using music, dressing up, acting out all the different parts, and just being really enthusiastic with all of the activities. It seemed like the more excited we were to explain the game, the more they wanted to play it. I used music and being really enthusiastic towards all of the children playing our game. These teaching strategies made all of the children really want to play and be a part of the Stink Letter Stew Game. We also had the chefs that were stirring the stew wearing aprons so the kids felt that they were giving ingredients for the stew. This really made the kids feel like they were all helping to create the end product of the stinky letter stew. I felt like each game had different strategies that worked better than others but one teaching strategy that always must be present, in all games, is just being very enthusiastic and eager for the children to be playing the games. This will make them want to play that much more and by the end of the class you want them to be excited for the next time we play.