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!

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!

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.

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!

Watch me teach Lab C

Time Coding

Transcript

40 Tasks

Lesson Plan

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.

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!

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.

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.

Watch my lesson!

Transcript

Time Coding Sheet

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.

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.

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}

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}