Semester Recap

Here is a video that I created using Picasa. It is a video of all my pictures from this semester through PED 201 and EDU 255.

10 hours of Field Experience

For my 10 hours of field experience required for EDU 255, I worked with pre-k through 5th grade children at the St.Mary's Cortland. I did this apart of my lab for PED 201. There was a total of 6 labs that were 2 hours a peice. This experience was a great opportunity for me to develop as a physical education teacher. I really got a great chance to practice all the skills taught in EDU 255.

Last Lab at St. Mary's

Our last day of lab finally came and it was a fun day. My group, the goonies, were assigned to organize the equipment rooms and label everything in the room. Organizing and labeling took the majority of our time during our last lab but what a difference it made. We were able to organize everything in the closet and make the equipment that is used frequently more accessible for everyone to get to. Even though this organization process took a good amount of time, our group still got the chance to conduct the closing song of the lab. Amanda had a great song for that that she knew off the top of her head. She changed some things in the song around to make it more suitable for the Christmas theme of that week.

My experience at St. Mary's couldn't have been better. I have learned so much about myself and my teaching has greatly improved. I was able to bring in teaching techniques from EDU 255 and implement them when teaching the children.

Thanksgiving at St. Mary's

November 11th was another successful Wednesday at St.Mary's. For this lab, my group was assigned to play the game "MUK" in the gym with the children to get the lab started. Prior to this lab, I tried to find the artist in me and make up some visual aids. I was trying to make them informational about the game as well as festive for the Thanksgiving theme that we were going for this week. I ended up making 2 visual aids that presented the rules of the game and the correct cues for dribbling the basketball which is involved in the game. This was a fun game to play and was a great game to showcase the children's dribbling ability. When setting up and presenting these games to the children, Im constantly using many techniques that I am learning in EDU 255. I like this a lot because not only is it practice for 255, you can also see how well all these techniques work in a real life situation when working with the children. Overall, I think that this game went well for the most part. Mostly all students were involved and having fun with this game. There was only a few students that didn't find the game that entertaining and wanted to be doing something else.


The second part of this lab, we ended up going out on the playground for a while after the children finished eating their snacks. This was another great time with the children. Right from the start, the children and I got a game of tag going. Once again the kids never wanted to stop running around and playing, which made it fun. After getting sweaty running around with the kids on the playground, we all came back into the gym to close off another fun time at St.Mary's. It's hard to believe that next time will be our last lab visit to St. Mary's. It has been an awesome time so far, and I am looking forward to the next time.

Surviving Lab D

Wednesday November 11th, marked the completion of all the teaching labs for me in EDU 255. What a journey it has been, and it has flown by. For my last lab, we had to teach in an environment that we were not used to. I was assigned to teach in the pool, so I decided to teach the class a survival stroke. That stroke was the elementary backstroke. Since this is a complicated stroke, I thought it would be best to break the stroke down into parts and teach all the parts individually. My content development form also shows exactly how I broke the lesson down. I think that this way of teaching worked out well. I broke the stroke down into 3 parts for the class. The first part was just getting the students used to being on their back, so I had the class do the back float for 30 seconds. Then, using four simple cues, I taught the arm action then the leg action of the stroke. I was also able to use pull buoys in my lesson to help isolate the arm action of the stroke, which will make it easier for the students that are first learning this stroke. After that, I got in the pool and demonstated what the full stroke should look like, and then had the class practice the whole stroke. To finish off the class, I had the class do a "survival stroke" relay race.

I think that overall, this lesson went well. Comparing the first day teaching to this lab, I can tell that I have grown greatly as a teacher over the course of this semester. I try to use all the tools and techniques of teaching that I have accumulated throughout this semester and implement as much of them as possible into my lessons. My time coding form shows that I kept the class active for the majority of my lesson plan, and had minimal wait and management time. Even though I have greatly improved since the first day, there are still some things I need to work on. One of those things is providing feedback to more people. That is evident when looking at my feedback anaylsis form. Also, when looking at my C-9 evaluation, I missed another couple key teaching techniques like providing a safety statement and checking for understanding. A safety statement is especially important when working in the pool because theres so many different things that can happen that can result in someone getting injured if your not careful.



It's crazy that this semester is just about over already. I feel that I have learned a great deal this semester. All the videos of our teaching labs, and these blog posts will show how much I have learned and improved throughout this semester. EDU 255 was a great epxerience and I'm looking forward to continuing learning and growing as a teacher during my time left here at SUNY Cortland.

Morning fun at St. Mary's

On October 22nd, I was able to work with the children at St.Mary's in a totally different atmosphere. This time I observed them first thing in the morning. Before I came, I expected the kids to be a little different. When I got there and starting interacting with the children, I noticed a huge difference in how the kids acted. I was working with the pre-k children, and helping them with a couple different activities. That day the students were learning their "4's", so their activity was to color in and decorate a number four. I helped the students color in their fours and glue on some Halloween themed decorations. During these activities, I noticed that the kids were much more calm and well behaved then when I worked with them during the after school program. This might be because it is still early in the morning or they know to be on their best behavior for the teacher. They also listened to me much better when I would give them instructions. During the after school program, the students are more hyper and tend not to listen to everything I have to say when giving them instructions. I think the reason they are so much more active after school is that it is their chance to let loose and play games after being in school all day. It was a good experience to work with the children in the morning to see the change from then to the after school program.

The circus comes to St. Mary's

This week at St. Mary's it was a circus theme and once again it was a ton of fun. This week, my group got to work with the pre-k kids once again. We started off in the classroom with the kids, doing all kinds of different activities. I started off with an icebreaker activity that the teacher had provided me with. I went around to each student with masking tape and marker, asking everyone their name and having them spell it out for me. This was a great first activity because I got to meet and talk to all the children and learn their names. After that, I went around and the room and tryed to conversate and have fun with as many children as I could. After about an hour and numerous little games here and there, it was about time to head into the gym for some real fun! While Dan read the children a great story, Amanda and I headed to the gym to set up our game that we had planned for the kids. The game we went with for this week was "Messy backyard". Even though this game was noted in the PE Hall of Shame, we still felt it was appropriate for this lab. Since we were trying to watch the children throw and catch, this game worked out great for that. To tie into the circus theme for the day, every time a child caught something that was thrown over the wall, they had to make an animal sound of our choice. I noticed that only a select number of children followed that rule, but I think the majority of the kids were too pre-occupied with their task at hand of keeping their backyard clean. It's amazing that we only have 1 more lab session left at St. Marys, this semester has flown by. I've had a great time so far at St. Mary's and can't believe it's coming to a close soon.

A little taste of Cricket

On Wednesday, November 11th, I got the opportunity to teach something completely new to me. My partner Dan Barcavage and I decided to teach a lesson on cricket. This is the lesson plan that we created for this lab. Before this lab, I've never played or even know how to play the game of cricket. For my lesson, I decided to focus on the batting aspect of cricket. More specifically, I focused on the defensive side of hitting. To help the students learn the aspects the defensive hitting, I created three short and simple cues that the students could easily remember. I demonstrated the forward type of defensive swing first, then I had the class get partners and work on that specific defensive hit. I think that this method of teaching worked well, and I was able to keep and good eye over the whole class to minimize any distractions that could happen during the activity. After giving both partners a couple minutes to work on the forward defensive hit, I called the class together and demonstrated the backward defensive swing.



After I demonstrated the backward defensive swing, I had them practice that with the same type of activity as the first type of swing earlier in the lesson. During this activity, I was able to provide some inter task variation for a couple groups that looked like they were understanding both types of swings. To modify the activities for those groups, I told them they could use any type of hit they wanted to in order to stop the ball from getting past them. I think that overall this lesson went very well. After completing my time coding form, it was evident that I had enough activity time going on during my lesson. The form also shows that I needed to cut down the waiting times before activities. I think this could be done by putting more urgency in getting the students back to their activities quicker, after I'm done with my instruction. Through my time coding analysis, I can see that I did give a good amount of feedback, but could of used a little more. I might have given more feedback, but the video makes it hard to hear what I am saying when I was on the other side of the gym. The lesson as a whole went very well and I had a lot of fun teaching this unit but also learning things about cricket that I did not know. I will be looking forward to my next opportunity to showcase my teaching abilities that I have learned so far this semester.

Lab 3 at St. Mary's

On Wednesday, October 28th we got to go back to St.Marys for lab #3. This time around my group got the chance to work with the older kids in the cafeteria. That was a great time, I got to test out my checker skills against some of the students. During our time in the cafeteria, I noticed the older students that my group was working with listened to instructions better then some of the younger students.




After about an hour in the cafeteria, we moved up into the gym where things really got interesting. At first i started playing that required you to jump, catch the ball and immediately pass it to another student in the circle. That was a fun game to play with the students, and you could really see how well each student could jump up and pass at the same time. I noticed many students would just jump up and hit the ball with their hands instead of catching then throwing. That game lasted for another couple minutes and kids seemed to not be so interested in it. At this point, I started to play a little basketball game with 1 other student. This game grew to numerous students, a lab assistant and people from other groups. At this time I named the game "small ball". I think that this game hit it off with the students so well was because I was down on their level the entire time. This was a very successful game for a couple reasons. One of the reasons is that it really got the students moving, and kept them on the move the entire time the game went on. Another reason was that, the game worked out in like a play, teach, play method. It was like this because the students and I would play for a couple minutes, then I would explain to them correct defensive form and then go back to playing. I was able to do this a couple times to explain to them things like defensive, offensive, and dribbling. If I learned one thing through this game, its that these students will not stop and make sure that you don't stop moving for the entire time. It was a very fun game and a good workout as well.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane....ITS SUPERMAN!!

On Wednesday October 21st, we were able to visit St.Mary's school once again. This time was a lot of fun because there was a superhero theme for this lab. For this theme I wore a superman t-shirt. That day my group got to work with the pre-k children for the whole two hours. For the first part we were in the classroom helping the kids with different activities like coloring, and playing with blocks. During the last part of our classroom visit, I got the opportunity to read the children a story called "Stanley the Stinkbug". This was a great story to go along with the superhero theme. I had a lot of fun reading the children this story and watching all their reactions when talking about Stanley the Stinkbug and how stinky he is. I could tell the kids enjoyed it more when I got into the book with them by faces and plugging my nose.





The next part of the lab, my group and I went into the gym to play some games with the children. For the game, we had chose to play "people to people". This was a great game to play with the pre-k kids because of all the variation that I could put into the game. Every time the kids had to run around when the music was playing, I could switch up how they moved around the gym. I was switching it up frequently by telling the kids to do things like hop, skip, jump, and get real low and walk around. This was a good tool because you could really see all the children's different skill levels with things like skipping and hopping. I had a great time working with the pre-k kids and loved all their reactions when you got down to their level and worked with them.

PE Hall of Shame

When I saw that dodgeball was inducted into the PE hall of shame, I can't say that I was surprised. Even though I did play dodgeball in my PE classes all through high school, this game is not thought to highly of by many people. People who don't think this game belongs in PE think that this game can lead to injuries and secludes people who might be in not as good of shape as some of the other kids in class. Another problem people might see in this game is that once your out, you just stand there until you get the chance to come back in. Those points might be true, but I think that adjusting the rules or changing up the game slightly can make the game safe and fair to everyone. I think that if you change the rules to use a lighter ball and have students only throw at the waiste down, that will eliminate the safety concerns that are involved with this game. Also including an activity for the students to perform once their out the game, to get back in, is a good way to make sure students are moving at all times. Once the initial problems with dodgeball are addressed and taken care of, dodgeball becomes a useful PE activity that can help with things like agility, power, and hand eye coordination of the students

Video of St.Mary's and 255

Lab 1 at St. Mary's

Lab one at St. Mary's was a ton of fun. For this lab, my group and I set up a game called hot feet for the kids to play. This was a simple tag game where every student gets a bean bag and has to run around and throw it below the knees of another student. If a student got tagged by a bean bag, they had to go to a re-entry station to perform some sort of activity in order to get back into the game. During this game, I noticed that the majority of the kids were having a great time and were really enjoying the game. There were a few students, some boys and some girls, that did not want to participate at all and said they would rather be doing something else. Another problem that I noticed with this game was, the boys, always tried to throw their bean bag as hard as they possibly could. I think that this game was a success for the most part with the students. We played this game for a good amount of time and the majority of the students stayed with it and kept playing.

After playing hot feet and another game from the other group, we moved down to the cafeteria with the students. Since there was snacks waiting for the students, they quieted right down and focused on their snacks. After they ate, students had the chance to play with a variety of different toys and games. I sat down and started playing a game of checkers with a student that was not a big fan of the hot feet game and was a little hard to control in the gym. When we started playing checkers, I noticed that this student calmed right down and had no problem sitting quietly and playing. This surprised me at first but I just went with it and kept playing checkers. After the cafeteria, I got the chance to play a little game of duck, duck, goose! with many of the students. They loved this game and had many different varieties of this game, all which were fun to play. I had a great time playing games with the students for this first lab, and I can't wait to go back.

Getting into the End zone!

This past Friday, the class was able to do another mini lesson. This time it was just teaching one drill or activity involved in Ultimate Frisbee. For my lesson, I taught a drill called the end zone drill. This drill works on the student's ability to effectively move the Frisbee down the field and eventually get it into the end zone. It was a complicated drill, but after extensively going over it with the rest of the class, they finally got it down.

After listening to myself teach the lesson and writing out my transcript, I figured out what I still need to work on. One big thing that I noticed was, when calling on students, I rarely used their names. That can become a problem because using students names, when calling on them, gives them a feeling that the feedback is more personal. Using student's names also makes them aware that you are talking to only that student. Another problem I noticed is that I did not give much feedback. Since it was a complicated drill and it did take up the majority of the gym, I found it hard to move back and forth between groups to give specific feedback. One thing that I was able to do, was give a good inter-task variation. After noticing most of the students were able to perform this drill, I had them count out loud how many passes they could make to each other without dropping the Frisbee. I feel that I am constantly improving and becoming more enthusiastic every time I teach.

Teaching Round 2

For my second teaching experience, i was much less nervous, and more prepared than the first time. I decided to teach how to correctly throw and catch a football for my mini lesson. This time around I provided a couple good cues for both throwing and catching. During the throwing and catching, I provided feedback to the students who looked like they were having some trouble. After everyone looked like they could correctly throw and catch, I made things a little more challenging by having the students switch to their non-dominant hand. Since playing throw and catch can loose its excitement very fast, I decided to make things entertaining for the students. I had them combine groups to form two groups of four. With that, i had the students run short routes, with defenders on both the passer and the receiver.

Overall, I think that this mini lesson went a lot better then first, but there were still some things I need to work on. One thing that i did not do too well was hooking my students into my mini lesson. The other things that I need to work on are using a louder voice and showing more enthusiasm when teaching. I think that over time, the more practice I get, will help me correct those flaws that I'm experiencing right now. I am excited for my next opportunity to teach again.
Here is my time coding form to break down my mini lesson to show activity, instruction, management, and wait times.

Teaching on the First Class.

To get the semester started off right, Professor Yang had us students get right into teaching for our first class. At first it came as a little bit of a shock to me, but once we got started it didn't turn out too bad. After watching the video of myself teaching for the first time, i noticed some things that could use some changing. Even though i was excited to get right into teaching, i was also nervous. That nervousness showed in my body language and my voice. Through this class, and given more time to prepare, I wouldn't have been quite so nervous. As time goes on, I will be able to gain confidence in myself so I can show more excitement and enthusiasm in my teaching.

When it comes time to teach my own class, i plan on making the class as enjoyable as possible. I plan to do that using things such as music and getting involved with the students as much as possible. Also, being more energetic when teaching will keep the class exciting and help students stay alert and attentive.