Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Kim's Lesson

Last week, Kim taught an awesome lesson for Lab D. Her lesson had her step outside of her boundaries by moving out of the class; even outside the school. First she had us go to stations that made us use our brain, heart, and lungs. After her instant activity, she had us move to another gym where there was two sets of rope chain. She split the class into two groups and we were told that we were going to be doing a scavenger hunt around Park Center. So the groups made our way to the first clue.

{A look at the rope chains}

After both groups reached the first clue to get a handle of how we would discover the clues, the scavenger hunt began. Being into adventure and the outdoors, I thought this was a really cool teaching experience. It was cool to see the use of technology in the lessons as well. People used their smart phones to scan the card of the clue that helped us lead to the next clue. It was a beautiful morning so it was perfect to be outside as well.

{Looking for the next clue}

Kim did a really great job with her lesson and everyone had fun. Something cool that I learned was that she made everyone wear name tags with strange names on them. At the end she told us they were all ingredients in cigarettes. Not only did she get us outside but she also informed us a lot on the dangers of smoking cigarettes. You could tell Kim put a lot of preparation into her lesson and it payed off.



Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Teaching Finale - Lab D



On Monday, the day had come where I was doing my final teaching experience in 255. As I sat watching my buddy Devon teach, waiting to go next, I didn't feel nervous one bit. I think that comes down to how well my Professor prepared me throughout the semester. I have learned an incredible amount of information from Professor Yang; he is way beyond the game and his techniques are revolutionary for Physical Education. For Lab D, I decided to teach my class defense in Ultimate "Pool" Frisbee. I felt it was a risky choice due to how common Ultimate Frisbee is getting, but I felt since it was in the pool and I added a few new adaptions to it that it would be a hit. It turned out better than I thought!

{Instant Activity with the "Swinxs"}

I started my lesson with a relay race to get the class going. My Professor told us we had to integrate technology into our lesson so I took up his suggestion of using this device called the "Swinxs." It's an interactive device that has many games on it. I chose the game Swinxs Dash. It allowed two separate teams to go and than whichever team finished back first, it told them their time. All the students were definitely feeling good after the relay race. Next up, I went over classroom rules and safety than jumped into the main focus of the lesson. I was focusing on defending with the noodle for Ultimate Pool Frisbee. I had the students work as pairs so they could get used to slapping the frisbee down to the water. After that I had them work in groups of 4 (2 v 2) so they could get a taste of gameplay. After seeing excellent results, the final 6-7 minutes of the lesson were devoted to gameplay. After watching the students smile and laugh and have activity falling just short of 50% of the lesson, I am happy with how my lesson went.

After watching and analyzing my video countless times, I can confidently say this was my best performance thus far. I feel I have grown incredibly since Lab A up until this point now. Comparing my video from Lab A to Lab D you can see a lot of growth. I feel that I am a lot more confident in my teaching abilities where as in Lab A I was nervous and seemed unorganized. Throughout the labs I am able to gain and retain students attention and have them jumping into activities quickly. I noticed in Lab D students started to goof off and I addressed it quickly and kept them on target. 



Things I still want to work on though is more activity. Physical Education should be about physical activity and I want to have as much of that as possible. I noticed in my video I can cut a lot of the talking out; but I have done better with that throughout the labs and it is also something that gets better with time. I have incorporated technology better into my lessons too. Wether it be music, the swinxs, or videos, Lab C and D saw me put technology to use. Thanks to Professor Yang, I have seen myself go through a complete transformation in my teaching abilities. I am more confident, organized, prepared, and knowledgable due to what I have learned in EDU 255! Below are some links where you can watch my lesson and check out some of the analyzing I did for my lesson. I also made a video that shows my growth as a teacher candidate and my ability to make an impact and improve student learning. Enjoy!


Thursday, April 12, 2012

Green Representative

This semester, I became aware of a position called a SUNY Cortland Green Representative. I found out about this job when I came into my building one day, and there was a girl sitting down with a sign about sustainability and recycling among other things. I asked what this was about and we got talking about how she was a Green Rep. I became interested and I am now applying for a position next semester. The purpose of a Green Rep is to encourage and practice environmentally responsible living within the residence halls on campus. The goal is educate as many people as possible so that it may result in positive changes that will ultimately contribute to a more eco-friendly and sustainable campus.

I would be really excited to get this position on campus. I am really into the environment and would love to show my interest through this program. We live in a country where we could do better with how we treat the environment; wether it be through recycling or other matters. If I was a Green Rep I know I could definitely make some positive changes around campus.

Monday, April 9, 2012

ExerGame Lab

Last week, my classmates and I were able to do a little experimenting in the ExerGame Lab. It was the first time I had ever been in the lab and it was a pretty cool experience. I will say that I have never been a big believer in video games for the use of exercise. I went through a phase when I was absolutely addicted to video games when I was younger. I loved playing sports, but I also loved playing video games as well. I finally snapped out of that phase and realized that playing hours upon hours of video games was hurting my mental and physical state. Sitting in front of a screen provided no health benefits.



I will say that being in the ExerGame did change my opinion somewhat on video games for health benefits.  We are now in the age of technology and it is widely used. A lot of children love video games and a lot of children are not thrilled about sports; they have been turned off by it for some reason. If we can incorporate fitness into their video games than we are achieving something. For example, in the pictures shown, you can see us playing a dancing game. An hour of that and you will definitely work up a sweat and get your heart rate going. Your body is moving and thats what we want.



On an even better note, I played a racing game on a spin bike and my speed was controlled by how fast I biked. It was probably the best idea Ive seen yet of incorporating fitness into video games. I did one session, on easy, with medium resistance, and by the end my heart rate was really going and sweat was forming on the top of my head. An hour of that and you'll feel like you've biked the Tour de France.

At the end of the day, I love the ideas that are stemming from the ExerGame lab. People love video game so if we can incorporate fitness into them I'm all for it. I would still recommend getting outdoors and biking rather than sit in front of a screen, but if thats the only way people will get exercise than play on.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Ultimate "Pool" Frisbee

For my Lab D, I decided on going with an original game, but a different location with a new twist on it. I am in the pool for this lab and I wanted to choose a game that was going to be new and different. I decided on doing Ultimate Frisbee in the pool. It might sound like a safe pick, but I feel it is actually more of a risk. You can barely find any information on how Ultimate Frisbee works in the pool so I don't know how it is going to turn out. I am going to use soft foam frisbees and instead of players using their hands on defense, every player is going to have a pool noodle and will only be able to use that on defense. The players will have to carry their noodle with them at all times.

{http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/07/27/effective-traffic-calming-device-the-frisbee/}


I am a little nervous on how it is going to turn out in the pool but I think it will be a positive experience and something new. I just want to try something new and I am also going to be using Swinxs, a really cool device that I will use for my instant activity. Lab D is my chance to show everything I have learned thus far in 255 and I am ready to prove that.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Lab D First Day

Today was the first day of teaching for Lab D and it started with a bang. Trish kicked off the teaching with an awesome lesson on yoga. She looked professional, had awesome visual aids, and a great lesson. You can tell how much people have grown since the start of the year and she has definitely improved considerably. I actually enjoyed being in her class today and it really felt like she was the actual teacher. Well done for her.

We started the lesson with a background lesson on yoga and than moved into stations. She had every student pair up with another student and move around to each station, staying for about 2 minutes. After each student went to each station, we moved into an actual yoga session. She dimmed the lights, and we all set up mats and followed a 10 minute video that she actually made herself. It definitely looked like she practiced this repeatedly because in the video she looked like she could pull off being a yoga instructor.

Trish definitely raised the bar for Lab D but I think that winds up being a good thing for everyone. That way, everyone has to do their very best and step outside of the box.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Volunteering for St. Mary's

On a drizzly saturday morning, spirits were high as always at St. Mary's as young and old were ready to participate in the annual St. Mary's 5K Run! Waking up at 7 a.m. was tough but when you saw the energy from the kids, that energy wore off on everyone. It was cool to volunteer and help out for both races as it is something I have never done before. This was part of my 10 volunteer hours for my 255 class and this experience gave me 3 hours.

{Getting ready before the races}

The first race was designated to the younger children, although everyone could participate for the 5K. The race track for the children was a run around the streets that surrounded St. Mary's. Me and my fellow colleagues acted as flaggers in the race so that we could keep the children safe and making sure they stayed on the sidewalks. It was nice to be at the race and see the kids smiling and running furiously around the street corners. The winner was actually the same kid who won it last year and I even asked him for his autograph after the race which put a big smile on his face.

{The kids getting ready}

For the 5K race, things got serious as me and my colleagues were put at various street corners. At around 9 a.m. the race started and I stood at the street corner, waiting for the first glimpse of a runner. Before I knew it, a runner came flying up and blew by me. I looked beyond him and no one was even on the street corner. He went on to win with a fantastic time. Although he finished first, everyone that came out that day was a winner. It was cold and rainy and still people were giving their best efforts and participating in something that was bigger than everyone. It was great time for everyone to get outside, get some exercise, and to meet new people!

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Raquette Lake

Today I actually dropped a course that had me going to Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks for two weeks in August. Instead, I am going to the split session which should free up my summer schedule more and give me a winter experience as well. The split session has us go for about 5 days at the very end of August and than we go for a week in January. It should be really cool to go in winter time as that is my favorite time of the year to be in the mountains. There is more solitude and more of a risk reward factor. The mountains look gorgeous when they are snow capped and you are working through a forest and the trees are covered with snow. I like that Cortland offers a split session because it gives people a chance to experience this. A lot of people head indoors when winter hits but this will give them an opportunity to see the mountains and lakes in winter and also to learn important winter skills as well.

{Adirondack High Peaks in Winter - Taken from Giant Mountain}

Monday, March 26, 2012

Lab D Thoughts

In the upcoming weeks, I will have to do my final teaching for 255. This will be my lab D, the longest and most thorough of all the teachings yet. My teacher has put me in the pool and I am really unsure of what activity I am going to do in the pool. I want to branch out and do something different; I don't want to do swim strokes. If I do that I know the class is going to fall asleep. My teacher mentioned to me that I do something such as water polo which would be a really fun idea. I still want to present a game that is going to surprise everyone and have everyone active the entire time.

{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WaterPolo.JPG}


My teacher gave me this game called swinxs. Click on the link to check it out. I have a few ideas brewing in my head on what to use it for so I don't want to give anything away. I feel this device would be really cool for an instant activity. Time is running out for Lab D and I know I have gotten stronger with my teaching each lab so I definitely want to finish strong!

Friday, March 23, 2012

Motor Behavior Lab

In my motor behavior lab, we are learning a lot of really cool things and doing a lot of fun experiments. One of the cool things we did on thursday was working with goal setting and how it is shown to beneficial for performing and learning motor skills. We learned that research has shown that the most effective goals are those which are high, yet attainable. The task we were working with for the goal setting lab was speed stacking. I was excited to try that because it was a game I have never done.

For the lab, our teacher had us do a pre-test and it was timed so we would know what time we got. From there, he passed out slips of paper and told us what type of goal we had. There were 3 different goals: Hard , Medium, and Do Your Best. For hard, you took your pre-test time and multiplied it by .3 and that was your goal time you wanted to get. For medium, you multiplied it by .5, and for do your best, and did exactly that. We then had 10 minutes to practice cup stacking and after that we had our post test. The results were very surprising. The hard goal group improved by 42%, the do your best group improved by 45$, and most notably, the medium group increased by 55%.

This lab is very relevant in a physical education setting because we want all of our students to set goals but we also want them to achieve those goals. We don't want our students getting burned out or losing motivation chasing an unattainable goal. This lab is a benefit to all physical educators and coaches too because goal setting is extremely important.

Check out this awesome video on speed stacking!

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Growth Of An Educator Video

Today I came across a really cool piece of technology that helps showcase my growth as a physical educator thus far. In recent posts, I've talked about how I feel I am really developing skills that are helping me become a better teacher. I've recently incorporated many new strategies and methods into my teaching that I have yet to do. I incorporated technology, instant activity, better demonstrations and developing an overall comfortable sense of teaching. I feel a noticeable comfort when teaching now and am really working on having a strong presence. In an earlier post I talked about how my Professor has a really strong presence. When he talks - people listen. I feel that I am more aware of my classroom and am able to pin point areas that people need help in and I help them. I also feel my use of demonstration is one of my strong points because I like to be loud and clear and give multiple examples. The video below is meant to show my growth of an educator thus far. It's my first time ever making a video and I hope you like it!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Lab C Collage

Today I created a really cool collage of my teaching experience for Lab C. I wanted to show what new skills I have acquired since I have started teaching. I know I have grown a lot as a teacher since the beginning of the semester and this collage shows that. In the pictures, you can tell I am using really specific demonstrations. In four of the pictures, I am using different instruments such as the table or the ball. All of the students have their eyes on what I am demonstrating so you can tell that I have their attention. Another thing that is new to me that my professor has really driven into us is the use of technology. In this lab, I used a powerpoint to demonstrate my cues and than showed a video by the makers of the game Hantis so the students could get a different look at what I was teaching them; rather than me just demonstrating. In the top right photo I am using two different techniques there. At the beginning of my lesson I jumped right into instant activity - the first time I had done so in all of my teaching experiences. In my opinion, instant activity is one of the most beneficial things you can do for your lesson. It gets the students involved immedietley mentally and physically. Judging by my collage, I know I have grown a lot as teacher thus far and am excited to see how much more I can grow in the remaining weeks!



Monday, February 27, 2012

Omnikin Ball

Today in 255 Kim, Dan, and Devon taught a really cool game for their lab c. The game, called Omnikin Ball, was a game that was created in Canada. It involves a huge inflatable ball and a few teammates. The goal is to call out an opposing team and try and hit the ball and see if it hits the ground. It is really fast paced and just in a few minutes I was working up a sweat. Looking at the picture below, you can tell there is one hitter (me) and your teammates hold the ball for you to strike. It was a really cool game.



Kim, Dan, and Devon did a really good job teaching today. Kim had some really good progressions and her posters were really good. My hat goes off to Dan today though, he really did an awesome job of grabbing everyones attention. It seems that everyone feeds off his energy and the whole class got a lift when he started teaching. He provided us with ample game time to play and everyone was running around, smiling, and sweating. Devon was solid as well. He gave us a different instant activity that included squat thrusts and also taught the class something - about 99% of class learned today that the national sport of Canada is lacrosse. It just proves that as physical educators we can incorporate history, etc. into our lessons.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Lab C

On Wednesday the time came for Lab C - a fifteen minute teaching experience in which we taught a game that wasn't very common. The game I taught was Hantis. A game that involves four tables, four players, and one ball. Click on the Hantis link to learn more!



I wasn't very nervous when teaching this lab but my confidence was a little shaky due to the fact that I have had no prior experience playing this game. Its a weird experience  teaching a game that you have never played before. Nevertheless it was a growing experience because when you teach you have to step outside of your comfort zone and do things you might not want to do or do things that you aren't necessarily 100% confident doing. It would be pretty boring and unfair to your students if you only taught baseball, basketball, and soccer to your students because thats what you were confident teaching. Those are games we are trying to get away from in the physical education classroom because they aren't lifetime activities.



After watching and assessing my video for Lab C I can say that I was happy with my teaching experience. I feel that I am growing stronger as a teacher with every lab that we have done so far. My positives of my teaching was that I used technology, had music, used progressions, and actually wound up getting some game time in. I was really surprised at how quickly the 15 minutes flew by. I actually ran out of time and wasn't able to wrap up my lesson in the fifteen minutes! I wish I had more time to do actual game play at the end. One thing I still need to work on is keeping my eyesight on the students at all times. I saw in my video a few times that I had my back on some of my students and thats when bad things happen. Overall I am very happy with my progress thus far in 255 and I know I can improve even more in the next lab. Check out the links below to see my video, transcript, time coding sheet, and a review of my teaching by one of the TA's!



Monday, February 20, 2012

Preparing for Lab C

Last week on friday my Professor notified me that I would be teaching on Wednesday. We aren't given a whole lot of my time and I feel that is a bit stressful to have us prepare and teach in only a few days. There are two benefits I can see from this situation though. When teaching, sometimes you have to prepare a lot quicker than you would like too - and this is good practice for those situations. Not everything is going to go absolutely perfect so you have to be able to adjust to certain situations.



The second benefit of going second is that we will actually have more time to prepare for Lab D, our final lab. This lab is a pretty extensive one I heard, so I'm glad if my group has the opportunity to go last if we went first for Lab C.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Neubig Dining

Today I want to harp on something that has an effect on every single person - our diet. Being a college student, many feel it is really hard to avoid putting on weight and staying in good shape. Since I have been at Cortland, I am still as fit as I was before I came here. A lot of this boils down to my diet. With my mother being a nutritionist, it has rubbed off on me - and I'm glad it has! I love to eat healthy and keep my body feeling great and healthy. Nutrition is a passion of mine and the reason for this post is to tell you that you can eat healthy on the college campus, not to give you a diet plan.



Its a misconception to say that Neubig has "nothing good." In fact, its really the only place on campus where you can get real food. Corey Union has Subway and Dragon Grill, and although they are tasty, the "salad" you get on your 12" sub doesn't justifying that meal as healthy. For example, I was at Neubig tonight and I had fish, rice, broccoli, shrimp, and a salad. There are lots of sugary drinks, donuts, pizza, cookies, etc. everywhere, but there is also fruit, vegetables, and good sources of protein everywhere. I'm not here to make a diet plan, but this post is to give awareness that we can eat healthy on the college campus. As physical educators, we need to know whats healthy for our body and whats not. It's our job to be smart about nutrition as it really does go hand in hand with physical education. Healthy diet, healthy body, healthy mind!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Busy Week

This week has been a really busy one for me. This week I have had two tests, two labs due, my teaching for 255, and have had to call schools for my observation for this summer. For observation, we have to take a class called 256, and it prepares us for the observation experience. If you want to define stress in three numbers, its 256. We have to create an incredibly thick notebook, call schools, get fingerprinted, do a few workshops, etc. There is a benefit to all this though. This is a class that is, indirectly, going to help people prepare for the real world. People aren't always going to be there to hold your hand and this is a class that will really teach you that. This will help future physical educators like myself to prepare for their lessons. You are going to have to do it on your own so this will help you manage a schedule and work through stressful situations on your own.



Overall it has been a great lab B for 255 and we learned a lot of valuable information from everyone. There was some great presentations and ideas that were brought forward and I definitely learned from the experience. Now it is time to build on what I've learned from my Professor and others and apply it to the future.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Lab B

The time for me to teach for Lab B finally came yesterday. I wasn't very nervous and felt pretty confident in myself. The task that I had to teach was the "single side swing and jump." I even made two cool posters to go along with it; with one of them being the rules for that day.



This lab was meant to go on a little longer than the first one, we had about 5 to 7 minutes to teach our skill. After viewing the video of my presentation, I felt good, but once again realize I have more potential. During my video, my Professor told two of our students to horse around, and with my back turned to them I didn't even realize it! My professor also told two other students to sneak out while I was teaching and I didn't see that either. My face got a little red from embarrassment when they walked back in. I felt I had a lot of positives to my teaching but one thing I know I have to work on is scanning the room better. I definitely need to be aware of everything that is going on around me. Some things I really liked about my teaching was my use of demonstrations, I felt the students were never really confused with what activity we were doing. I also felt my voice was strong and clear and I could be heard at all times. I used a hook that people can relate to and brought it back in at the end of the lesson.



Another thing I would like to work on for next time is more activity time. My professor had a great idea. Instead of just standing there swinging the rope, I could have played music for a minute and had everyone swing the rope to the beat, that way it would engage their mind and have them moving as well. Music is a very positive thing in a lesson plan. I never really had students sitting around waiting as I felt my lesson was always flowing but I want to implement more activity in my next lesson.



Overall I am happy with my lesson but realize there is still room for improvement. Next lesson I really want to improve on my attention/scanning abilities and implement more activity time into my lesson. Below you can watch the video to my lesson. You can also view my transcript and time coding sheet. My transcript is what I said throughout the entire lesson and the time coding is what the students were doing every 10 seconds throughout the lesson.




Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Lab 2 Impressions

For todays class in 255 we saw a few people do their teaching for Lab 2. There was definitely a lot of improvement from the first lab. There were a lot of positives shown and I think the students did a great job of setting the tone for this lab. Some things that I liked what I saw was Devon's use of the cues. Instead of just quizzing people on the cues, he actually had the class say the cues out loud with him. Eric had really good energy and although his electronic presentation didn't go as planned, he adapted to it quickly. A positive I liked from Trisha is the way her teaching flowed. It seemed like she had a lot of confidence in her ability and it showed. I actually struggled on her skill she was teaching and she stuck with me although she only had a few minutes to teach! It was definitely a positive day.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Jump Rope Video

Last week in class, my Professor wanted us to shoot a video to the song "Move Your Body," by Shakira. That song can be seen here. After seeing and hearing the beginning to that song, you can understand why that song was chosen by our Professor. It's a high energy song that makes people get up off their feat and de exactly what the song says - move your body. Below, you can watch the video of me and my classmate Pat doing a short jump rope session to the song. It was fun to collaborate with a partner and come up with a routine to a song. I think that is important in learning, allowing your students to open their minds and come up with their own way of doing something.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Preparing for 3rd Teaching Experience

In todays class in EDU 255, we are preparing for our third teaching experience. Our Professor told us that we are going to teach a skill from a jump rope packet. Although it may seem like just "jump roping," I feel that it is a lot better than teaching a basketball, baseball, soccer, or football skill. Reason being, those sports are so ingrained into our society and teaching them will almost seem easy; and thats what we are trying to get away from in physical education. I don't mean that we are distancing ourselves from the most popular sports, they are awesome sports (and some of my favorite), but why would we only want to teach the most popular sports? There is so much more to be achieved in other sports. For my skill I am teaching the "side swing." Check the picture below to see what I mean!

{http://www.jumpropeinstitute.com/howto.htm}

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Outdoor Education

Last week, I attended a lab meeting for a class I am taking this summer. The class is a pedagogy course designed to give an in-depth outdoor adventure education experience. The course is going to take place at the beautiful Raquette located in the Adirondack's. Being a huge outdoor enthusiast, this course is one that really interests me. As the years have gone on, I have a strong desire to be involved in outdoor education and just the outdoors in general (as you can tell by my background).

Raquette Lake
{http://photo.net/nature-photography-forum/00JYdb}


When I'm home, my weekends and breaks involve the outdoors. I have an awesome feeling about this course as I feel it will be good for a lot of students who have never really spent time in the outdoors. One of the most rewarding experiences is to just be away from everything; time slows down, and you realize that this is actually real life. All SUNY Cortland Physical Education majors are required to complete this two week course and there are only positive benefits from this course.

{A photo I took from the Adirondack's High Peaks Region}

Monday, January 30, 2012

Other Interesting Courses

So far this semester is going good and I really like the classes I am involved in. There are two classes in particular lately that I have good feelings about. The first is Stats and Assessment. In this class we learn statistical concepts, assessment techniques, and other evaluation methods to prepare future educators, coaches, researchers, and physical activity specialists to evaluate physical education and other exercise programs. I like this class because it is something I have yet to take in my college career and it is something that is going to be very useful. You can never limit yourself to just one aspect of teaching and stats and assessment is a critical component if you want to teach effectively; wether that be in a classroom or in an exercise facility.

Another cool class I'm taking is a coaching clinic for soccer. This class helps me learn more than just knowing the rules of the game. It is designed to help the student establish a coaching philosophy, history of the game, coaching strategies, playing styles, conditioning, motivation, and a lot more. Soccer has long been one of my favorite sports and I want to build on what I already know so that one day I can be an effective coach. Coaching is definitely one of my desires and is something I want to be involved in for my future.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Second Teaching Experience for 255

For class today we had our second teaching experience. The first time I taught the chest pass and bounce pass for basketball. This came on the very first day of class and was a surprise to everyone. A week later and a few classes under our belt, we were ready to go back and teach the same thing we taught the first time - but now with new skills and confidence. Here is how my second time went today!

I felt confident after I had finished my teaching and after watching the video I can say I am happy with how I performed. There is always room for improvement but let me start with the positives first. I felt I was dressed professionally, had a strong, clear voice, used demonstrations, used cues, and had a good intro. I also had my eyes on the students while they were doing the drills and felt I got everyone involved. The intro was one thing we really worked on this week so that we could grasp our students attention. I felt I could have done a little bit better with time management. We had barely gotten into bounce passing drills when I was notified that there were 30 seconds remaining which left me rushing to get a few passes in as well as a closer. I am excited to see what I can achieve next time with even more time. As teachers though, no matter how much time you are given, you need to make the most of it. 

One more thing I want to share is a quality about my Professor. What really makes my Professor really stand out is his presence. When he is speaking it is impossible to not have your focus on him. That is a quality I really want to develop. I feel that is maybe one of the most important qualities of being an educator. Having people focused on you and what your saying is all important.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Being Vocal

Today our Professor drove home an important point - be loud!

Todays lesson had us focus on getting ready for our teaching on friday. We will do our presentations that we actually did the first day of classes. We are trying to improve upon our original work and build on it. We got in groups today with about 4 people and worked on having an opener that gets the classes attention and gets them ready for activity. I felt that helped because working with a few people is definitely a confidence booster because it lets you feel comfortable with what you want to present to the class.

When the class was almost over we split the class in two and sang (yelled) at each other. "There aint no bugs on us, there aint no bugs on us, there might be bugs on you guys but there aint no bugs on us." It was a goofy song but it was meant to drive home a point. By the end our professor had us basically yelling the song and the point was that as physical educators we need to be able to have our voices project loud enough so that the whole class can hear you. That way you don't need to bring everyone in every time you need to say something - that is just a huge waste of time - and we don't want to do that.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Class Number 3

I think a really important idea when teaching a class is that when the class starts - you begin activity as quickly as possible. For my 255 class, Professor Yang wastes no time in getting us involved in activity. He doesn't leave us confused by not giving us enough information, but instead he provides the right amount of information to keep our attention and than sends us into activity . Within no more than 5 minutes of the class starting, our heart rates were already jumping and I could feel myself start to sweat.

On the first day of my 255 class, Professor Yang surprised us by having us jump into teaching right away. Here is the video of how I did. Assessing myself I felt I did pretty good; but obviously there is always room for improvement. When Professor Yang teaches, he uses lots of cues and examples but as I mentioned before, I believe his strong point is how well he keeps the students attention with the efficiency in which he gives instruction and the energy in which he presents it. I realize that is something I need to work on. Efficiency allows students to not lose focus and energy is vital because your energy rubs off on your students.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Valuable Learning

For my second class for 255, I had a sweat going at 9 in the morning so you know that we weren't wasting time. It was a valuable class, as I feel all of them are going to be this semester. With only a space (the gym) and frisbees, we were able to do a multitude of activities that not only got our heart rates up, but made us sweat, move, and think.

We first matched up with partners and worked on practicing different ways of throwing the frisbee. Than we practiced throwing the frisbee by moving in different directions and than finally adding a defender. We than quickly partnered up and playing a rhythm game they made us all think quick! Now that everyone was warmed up, our professor surprised us with a yoga session which is when people started sweating.  Music was playing the entire time and I think its very good to have music playing during activities. It naturally brightens the mood and makes me feel alive and more energetic. People can relate to the beats of songs and it can energize them. As a closer we went around in a circle and worked on saying everyones name by saying the names of the people before you and the activity they taught last class. It got hard for some people as they had to say about 25 peoples names and the activities they taught two days prior.

The reason why this class was effective in learning physical education techniques was because with a simple space, we were able to achieve effective results. We got people moving, heart rates up, made people sweat, think, and smile. Our professor drove home an important message: never complain about having a lack of equipment. That is so true. You don't need equipment to get people moving. That is vital for physical education. Everyone deserves to have effective physical activity.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

255 First Class!

Today was an interesting day for our first class for EDU 255! EDU 255 is titled "Basics of Effective Instruction in Physical Education." This class is very important because it is really going to shape us into future physical educators. This class is going to challenge me to think outside the box and expand on my teaching abilities. I have Professor Yang as my instructor and I knew he wouldn't waste one minute in class - even on the first day. He had cameras set up and 4 sets of balls as we walked into the gym. He told us we had to make up a 4 minute lesson plan on the spot of an activity and present it to the class. There was a set of basketballs so I chose to do chest pass and bounce pass. This is important because it helps you develop quick thinking on the spot. Professor Yang makes you feel prepared because he is constantly challenging you to think outside the box and do something different than what is considered "normal." Blogging is also an excellent way to stay in touch with what is current in the sports, fitness, education, and health field. It also helps you meet people and share your thoughts. Check out the video of my 4 minute lesson! The link is below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSFuBFMkGLo&feature=plcp&context=C3191d0fUDOEgsToPDskJmIWAiN2igZ8gWcOTgwS4A