Create a Challenge

        Today was a classroom day for EDU 255. We got started by doing some fun little word puzzles! Dan and I were partners and we did pretty well! This was a fun way to get everyone engaged cognitively into the lesson! After that we got right into the important stuff. Professor Yang stated to talk about how to find and properly fill out the lesson plan. Also he talked about the activity progression form, which I didn’t even realize existed until today! The activity form seems like a great way to really organize your thoughts for your progressions.

            One of the biggest things that I got out of today’s class time was when we talked about good ways to increase difficulty and challenge students. One thing he talked about was intratask variation. This is when you go up to some in the class who may be excelling but the rest of the class isn’t ready to move on so you give then a person challenge or goal to achieve. When you do this intratask variation you must do it so no one else knows or they could feel left out or even bad about the level they are at. Some things to challenge a whole class that we talked about were concerning the environment, number of players, time, skill level, and movement. As a teacher you can create a more challenging environment by making the space smaller or bigger, also by changing the equipment, like lowering it or raising it.  Increasing or decreasing the number of players can be a challenge depending on the amount of space and time that is allowed. Also challenge students to use their non-dominate side! All of these challenges help students improve their skills because it involves more practice but the don’t notice it because they are trying to execute the task you put before them. This can be a great way to have students stay engaged if they are getting bored.

Chapters 4 and 5 Questions