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.