Growth: Through the Good and the Bad.

Here's a Snippet of my Semester

I learned a lot about myself this semester, and I think everyone else did too. From the first day of class, we learned how to be flexible and go with the flow. Teaching isn't easy, and it's something that I am going to be working at my entire life. I learned how to loosen up a bit and try and bring my personality out in my teaching more. There were so many activities that I didn't expect us to be teaching, and I thought that was really cool. Parkour was definitely my favorite lesson all semester, because it was so DIFFERENT. I learned that planning is so crucial in making a successful lesson plan. Also, adding exciting elements to my teaching, like having cool visuals and special guests, made is more experiential for my peers. I need to work on believing in myself and not relying on cue cards, but rehearse my lesson enough to where I am sure that I am able to deliver my lesson. I can't wait until 355 and 356 next semester, and use the tools and experience I have gained from this class. Word.

Some of my FAVORITES :)

We were asked to teach some pretty unique activities this semester. So many kids grow up in Physical Education class with those "cliche" sports and don't ever really experience the infinite number of UNIQUE activities out there. There is bound to be something for everyone. Whether it's curling, disc golf, or Hip Hop, everyone can find a lifelong activity that they enjoy. :)

 

If I had to pick a favorite activity we learned this semester, it would have to be FREE RUNNING. It was so much fun. Look it up.

Michael Phelps Who?

So, I taught my final lab today and I was anxious to teach swimming, because I am not the best swimmer in the world. I thought overall, it went pretty well. I felt like I started off with good energy and had a healthy control of the class, but I think I fizzled a bit towards the end. It's pretty obvious when your students understand what your talking about and the directions your giving. I made the mistake of ending with a peer assessment, instead of with a fun handball game that I had planned. I definitely should have skipped the peer assessment and gone with the game, because I was not clear with the directions and it's just not a FUN way to end a class. It became more "drill" like at the end of my lesson, and I was not shooting for that.


I am learning SOOOOOO much from this class about myself. I still have so much left to learn and I plan on doing that my whole life. I genuinely love teaching and being at the center of kids having fun and being active. Can't wait til next semester!!!!

Here's my swimming lesson :)






Time Coding Form
Feedback Analysis Form
Verbal Transcription

Speed Skating. Dun Dun Dun.

*This is the visual aid I made for my speed skating lesson*

So when I saw that I was given speed skating for my lab C I was a *little* nervous. I am not the best ice skater and when you add "speed" to the front of that, I had some doubts in my mind. All in all, my partner Gino and I came up with some great progressions for speed skating. I was really happy how we divided up the basics of the sport, because it can be difficult for beginners to grasp. With this teaching experience, I felt like I was again way too wordy in my instructions. I had more instruction time than activity time overall. Not by much, but still my goal for every class should be over 50 percent of students active at all times. Also, I need to work on saying my safety statement more clear. I need to get in the habit of saying a safety statement all the time, because we need to be mindful of our student's safety and our own safety, when it comes to lawsuits and all that jazz. One thing that I am going to take away from this lab experience would be the importance of teaching my classes through culture. I think that's something I want to incorporate a lot in my classes because I know I was lacking in the culture department when I was in school. Culture is such an important aspect to life, and I think physical education teachers need to start being more creative with how they portray "being active" in their teaching, and I think this lesson made us think "out of the box".

Here are the videos of me teaching speed skating :)





Here are links to some of the documents that break down my teaching:

Activity Progression
Time Coding Form
Verbal Transcription
Feedback Analysis Form

Second Time Around

It's funny because I feel like I did a better job teaching the first day of class when I was caught off guard than the second time we had to teach. When I watched the tape of me teaching I was still too wordy and needed to have less "Instruction" time in my lesson and more "Activity" time. I was also told that I was a little too tense and I need to loosen up, which I definitely think is true. I want my bubbliness and excitement about P.E. to come out through my teaching and it didn't really this time around. I know it will. :)

Being able to see how I divided up my instruction, management, activity, and waiting time from Lab 1 has been really beneficial. So for lab two I wanted to set aside way more activity time. Great Physical Education teachers are able to divide up their time wisely and hopefully try to get the most activity time for their students as possible. I did the Time Coding Analysis Form for my second teaching lab and I think I divided up my time wisely. I had WAYYYY more activity time than my first teaching experience. Take a look :)

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZ03EU4y2g4EZGdtcHRmem5fMzhkdHBkM2M5&hl=en

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZ03EU4y2g4EZGdtcHRmem5fNGZmdzh3NWhz&hl=en

Less Talking, More DOING :)

For class today, we had to assess how much time we spent on management, instruction, activity, and waiting on our first day of teaching (The video is 2 posts back). We were given roughly four minutes to teach a skill. At the time, I didn't realize how much time I spent on instruction and demonstration. Going through, second by second, was incredibly helpful for me to make my lessons more centered around "ACTION" rather than "INSTRUCTION". Ideally, in Physical Education, you want to have your students being active as much as possible. I spent more time giving instructions than my classmates spent in the activity. Next time I teach (which is today :) I want to have my classmates participating in an activity at least 50 % or more of the time. Let's see how it goes....dun dun dun :)

Here is my "time-coding" analysis from my fist day of teaching volley ball.

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZ03EU4y2g4EZGdtcHRmem5fMWMzajM1a2c0&hl=en

We also were asked to transcribe every single word that came out of our mouth for the entire lesson. It's scary sometimes reading what you say. It is a really good way to see the specifics of how you talk and to whom. I caught myself saying "guys" to the entire class, which is a generalization that I don't want to hold on to in my teaching career. I also noticed that I didn't give as much feedback to my classmates as I though. I spent a lot of time talking. Blah blah blah. That's why I entitled the name of this post "Less Talking, More Doing" :)

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZ03EU4y2g4EZGdtcHRmem5fMmZtZHR6M2Nj&hl=en