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.