1st Day at J. M. McDonald!!

       I was so excited to get a chance to help work with kids in the CHAMP (Cortland/Home Afterschool Mentor Program) today through my PED 201 Lab! This program is at the J. M. McDonald Sports Complex right here in Cortland. Today was mainly introductions to the kids and observing how the program runs. Right when I arrived they were headed right to the turf to play a game! Today’s schedule was a little different because some of the kids had half days or the whole day off from school because of staff days. But once they got the turf they began a game called “Builders and Bulldozers”, which is a game I had never heard off. This game was a move little way to get the kids moving while concentrating on particular movements they had to do to either “build” or “bulldoze” the “buildings”. The instructor would give then certain cues like you only can tip over the cone or tip the cone back up with your left knee or something like that, which is a good way to have them work on their left and right. Next we all went to the classroom where the kids were supposed to be working on homework or worksheets if they didn’t have any homework. This is when all of us mentors moved from table to table meeting all the kids. Some of the kids were shy at first so it took a little work to get them to open up but other kids would be willing to tell me their life story! The last table I was at was with Luke and Jonathan. By the time I got to there table it was time for a quite classroom game. John and Luke pick Jenga to start with then we eventually got to play with Legos.  They all seemed like great kids and I can’t wait to get to know them more and more as the semester goes on. It was a lot of fun having this opportunity to be with all the kids. Right before we all had to leave all the mentors got assigned 2 to 3 kids for the next classes. I got assigned Jonathan and Vinnie.  This was a fun opportunity to have and I’m excited to see what next Tuesday will bring!!

Getting Jumping Rope!!

         Today in EDU 255 was a super fun but a sweaty day!! For basically the whole class we got to use jump ropes! This was really fun because I hadn’t actually played around with a jump rope in a while!  At first we just warmed up and used them however we were most comfortable. Then Professor Yang challenged us to try a different way than we originally were. Eventually we were moving forward, backward, sideways, jumping low and high. This made it interesting but was a fun challenge. After we got longer jump ropes and were in groups of 3 or 4. We were asked to make a small routine to Beyonce’s “Move Your Body” (which is a great song!!). Some of the groups came up with some pretty cool routines! This was really fun and forced us to work together and be creative and may I add got your blood pumping.

            After class I looked up a little bit on jump roping and it surprised me how good it can be for you! I was reading that jumping rope doesn’t just increase your heart rate for some good cardio work but it also strengthens bones, muscles and even improves your balance. This seems like a great activity for physical education teachers to have in some of their lesson. It’s a very inexpensive way to let the students have fun and be active. Jump roping seems like it could be used as a different way to get the kids warmed up or you could even do enough creative things with it to use it as a whole lesson!

The Second Time Around!

         Today in EDU 255 we got a chance to redo our 4-minute lesson from the first day of class. The lesson that I had taught was soccer passing. I feel that for overall I did make some improvements from the first day. My main goal for teaching today was to get the students more involved and not have such a “typical” passing drill. I believe that I did accomplish those two things today in my lesson. Also I feel that I looked pretty confident in what I was teaching which is a plus! I started off my lesson by asking what they already knew about soccer passing. Then going off their knowledge I didn’t have them practice the passing movement with the ball, I just reviewed it quickly without a ball because they seemed to pretty much know the basics. From there I went right into the drill. I chose to do a different type of passing drill to get more people involved and to stray away from just passing back and forth with a partner. During the drill I gave some good feedback to the group and tried to keep them motivated. Then I ended with a few questions to make sure that they grasped the main cues from lesson.

        Right after I was done teaching I had realized that I had forgotten a few important things: a safety statement and a cue for attention. Four minutes is defiantly a short amount of time to fit everything you want. I was worried about rushing for time so I feel like everything I had gone over prior to class just seemed to disappear. This was overall only like my fourth time teaching a lesson so I was still kind of nervous about it. Also I observed from others that adding a hook defiantly makes your lesson more interesting! Next time I’m going to make sure to be more creative and add one to my lesson.

       Overall I feel today was defiantly an improvement from last time I taught but next time I teach I will be sure to be a little louder, include a hook, a safety statement, and a cue for attention. Talking to Professor Yang helped me feel a little better because he was telling me that you don’t learn much from succeeding. So I now my mind set it that I can only get better with experience and observation! Also as a teacher candidate I catch myself when watching others teach making mental notes of what is really neat to add to a lesson!! Hopefully each day my fellow classmates and I getting closer to teaching like a ROCKSTAR!!

Transcription of Lab A2

“There Ain’t No Bugs On Us!”

Today in EDU 255 we started class by showing off you “best dance moves”. Everyone was in a circle and one or two people would go to the center and everyone else would have to repeat him or her! This was a funny and different way to get everyone moving! Then we did a tag game that had to do with remembering people’s names! Professor Yang told us on the first day it’s very important to know everyone’s name, so we have been working on that a lot!

            For the core of the class we focused on key elements that should be included in a lesson. Then found out that we would have another chance to teach our lesson that we had taught on the first day! We talked as a big group on things to improve our 4-minute lesson. Then we were all divided up into groups of 4 with a teacher assistant. She helped us think of some great ideas to add and encouraged us to really be creative. I really enjoyed the chance to converse with a few others and a teacher assistant about our mini lessons. It was helpful to talk to them because we all are feeling the same way (a little nervous) and so it was easy to give and take advice.

            Lastly, Professor Yang wanted to make sure everyone knew that being LOUD is important as a Physical Education Teacher. When speaking loudly to the class there is not need to pull everyone back together if they are spread around the gymnasium. This is a definite time saver! The way Professor Yang demonstrated this was by splitting the class in half. Next we all stood in a line face to face with the other half of the class. We were asked to yell “There ain’t no bugs on us, there ain’t no bugs on us, there might be bugs on you guys, but there ain’t no bugs on us!” We ended up having to do it a few times till we got to the level that he wanted. This was kind of a silly way of making his point but he sure did make everyone realize it!

Gong Hey Fat Choy!

            We got right into an instant activity as usual today for EDU 255 working with Frisbees. Then Professor Yang brought us back together as a group and informed all of us that today is the Chinese New Year and it’s the year of the Dragon. He taught us how to say “Happy New Year” in Chinese, which is “Gong Hey Fat Choy”. In the celebration of the New Year they hand out little red “lucky envelops” to children and fireworks are used to ward off bad spirits. This is what led us to our first activity! He called it the “firecracker” to relate it back to the theme of the Chinese New Year. This drill is usually called tabata training, which consist of 20 seconds of movement then 10 seconds of rest for 4 minutes. Everyone was in groups of four with 2 offenders and 2 defenders with the Frisbee. We were asked to see how many passes we could get in the 20 seconds. This really got everyone moving. I’d like to think I’m in pretty good shape from being on the Track Team but I was sweating from this! It was a fun short activity that gets everyone moving! After this we did another drill/game for ultimate Frisbee skills. This focused on getting 4 to 5 passes then scoring with and without someone defending the goal. We ended today with some light stretching/yoga. I always enjoy this part of class because it’s different then just the normal static stretching way of “cooling down”.

            After watching Professor Yang teach two classes and looking over the evaluation form we got in class today, looking back on the first day of class I realized that I had missed some of the elements of a good physical education lesson. I’m happy there is plenty of time to learn and improve!! Professor Yang usually starts with an instant activity then pulls everyone back together for his introduction, signal for attention, hook, safety, visual aids. Then he demonstrates and explains the tasks. Before he sends everyone off the practice he checks for understanding by asking some of the details of the task. Then while everyone practices the task he walks around and gives positive and constructive feedback. Then while we were playing he lessoned the amount of passes need to score. He always ends the lesson by recapping about the skill and reconnects the theme back to the lesson.  For my first teaching lesson I didn’t start with an instant activity and just went right into the introduction, safety, demonstration and explanation. I didn’t have a visual aid obviously because it was a “surprise lesson” so I didn’t have much time to prepare. Also that had an impact on my ability to create a hook or theme for the lesson. I did forget to apply a sign for attention and the check for understanding. While they were practicing the soccer passing I walked around and gave a little feedback. I should have interacting a little more now looking back. After they passed with both feet I asked them to move farther apart for more of a “challenge” for passing accuracy. I unfortunately ran out of time for a closing. I feel that my lesson was ok but I should have had more movement and not so much of just standing and passing back and forth because that gets pretty boring and doesn’t require much activity. So for next time I now know some things that I can work on and add into the lesson to make more interesting and more movement!

No Equipment No Problem

Day 2 in EDU 255 we worked up a sweat! Surprisingly we didn’t use much equipment at all but yet we were moving the whole class! We got started by warming up by throwing a Frisbee around with a partner with the same color piney. I partnered up with someone I didn’t know in the class; his name was Pat. We ended up having some similarities, one being we love KanJam!! We stuck with the same partner and started off with some basics of Frisbee throwing then advanced to different techniques of throwing. Eventually we had to try and complete 10 passes on an Ultimate Frisbee type of court with one defense player. Adding the defense player really increased the amount of effort you had to put into completing passes and that’s when I started to work up a sweat and have some fun. To take a breather Professor Yang included a good concentration game, which was a good cognitive activity. Next we got into some yoga! I really enjoyed this part of class! It surprised me how much I was actually working up a sweat during this yoga!

            When class was just about over Professor Yang talked about how we had a pretty solid class today. Everyone seemed to really get their blood pumping.  Then reflecting back on class he pointed out how we used very minimal equipment. Therefore there should never be excuses for physical education to not get kids moving. Today all we used is the gymnasium space and Frisbees, but really we didn’t even need the gymnasium because we could have done these things anywhere! I thought this was a great point and I never really thought about how many things you can have kids do that will still get them moving and having fun without much equipment. So really there shouldn’t ever be much of an excuse for a budget cut or small budget to limit or eliminate a Physical Education Program (well that’s what I believe).

            Lastly at the end of class we did a name game to get to know everyone. I was the lucky one that was toward the end of the circle so I had to repeat everyone’s names expect one person!! I had a moment of panic at first because I tend to not be that good at remembering names but I was surprised how well I did!! The good this is that I think I will remember almost everyone now!! I really enjoyed today’s class!!

Surprise on the First Day

For the first day of classes I typically think of going over syllabi and the basics of the class. SURPRISE! This is not how the first day of Basics of Effective Instruction in Physical Education goes with Professor Yang. When I was sitting and waiting for class to begin I noticed some equipment on the gymnasium floor along with four teacher assistants and two video cameras. My first thought was “Oh maybe there will be a demonstration of how the class is typically run”. Nope. I was wrong. Professor Yang began to explain that we would be splitting into two groups and everyone would be teaching a skill for four minutes. That’s when my mind started to panic a little trying to think of what skill and all the keys to teaching. I ended up thinking about teaching passing for soccer because that’s one skill I was pretty comfortable with. I felt a little nervous at first because I didn’t feel very prepared but after I got talking I got more comfortable. In the result of being split into two groups and having to share equipment I got lucky! As soon as I had to start my lesson the other half of the class just had ended their lesson on soccer and were putting the balls back! After today I guess practicing thinking on your feet is defiantly a good think to practice!! Overall I felt like I did pretty well with my four-minute lesson. I explained the main cues and safety for the drill. Although after reviewing the video I have already seen things I should really improve on.

            I am excited to see what is in store for this class.  I’m hoping this class will really help improve my confidence for teaching that way my teaching enthusiasm will increase! When I eventually get to the point of actually having my own class I want to be that “Rock Star Teacher”. I hope that I will be able to, at the least, help a few students realize that living an active life is FUN! My goals as a teacher is to show students skills and activities that they can enjoy and do all through school and sometimes carry on for lifetime hobbies!!

New Semester New Experiences

Before today I had no clue what blogging was. Therefore I felt totally clueless trying to set one up! I’m always up for a challenge so after about half an hour I finally got the hang of things. I’ve never really thought about blogging before, especially for a class! After looking around that other blogs for PE I ended up thinking it is a great idea! Being able to post thoughts and videos after each class or lesson seems like it could be helpful! After seeing and reading what others think it could help you adaptive and improve yourself.

            After just returning from winter break thinking back on what I did, I feel that I made improvements on being a better role model. As being a PE teacher I feel that staying active and being healthy is a KEY element because if you aren’t or can’t be active why would the students what to be?! Over the winter break I concentrated on keeping in good shape and eating pretty healthy. My main concentration for working out was staying in good shape for track. I currently run on the SUNY Cortland Women’s Track and Field Team. Eating healthy and working out was difficult at some points of winter break because there is so many holidays, but I made sure to make time! I believe that staying healthy helps makes me a better teacher.