Monday, November 28, 2011

Cortland Lanes!

For my Lab D I was assigned to teach bowling with a wellness focus on relationships and breakups and a teaching style of guided discovery. I think I did very well covering these aspects of teaching during my lesson. I used guided discovery in my instant activity and tied it in with relationships. Then when I brought the students back in to do a demonstration I tied in breakups. I also thought I made good use of technology in my lesson. If students got a strike or spare I let them go play wii bowling. If no one was using wii bowling I selected two students who were following directions and behaving the entire class to go use it so someone was always on it. I hadn't used intertask variation in my lesson's up to this point so this was something that I really wanted to make sure I did. To do this I told the lane that was the most skilled at bowling that they could do any approach they wanted which worked out well because most of the students in the lane were very good bowlers.

Lab D Packet, Scope & Sequence, Block Plan

 One of the main activities of my lesson was the one knee drill. I thought this was a very good drill because it helped those who weren't very skilled in bowling to practice their release and really make sure they were bringing the ball back straight and releasing straight. It also was useful for the better bowlers because it is still good practice or warm up before bowling. I was really happy with my lesson for lab D. In just one semester I felt that I really improved my teaching. I came from being nervous on the first day with the surprise teaching to being fully confident and more excited than nervous on the last day. Throughout my times teaching this semester the main thing I realized is that I need to have fun while I'm teaching because if I don't, neither will the students. And having fun and being active is one of the main goals of PE.

There are some things that I can still work on, and I'm sure there always will be. For one, more enthusiasm. I thought I improved this a lot with this lab but it definitely still needs work. It is just one of those things that is hard to change because it's how I act and talk. Also, throughout the lesson two of the students were having a "breakup." Because they are my friends I didn't really think anything of it when I saw it, I thought they were just joking and fooling around like they always do. Now that I went back and watched the video I realize it was pretty excessive and I must of just not heard most of the arguing over the bowling. If i did hear them I think I would of split them up and put them in different groups. I also could have spoken a little louder but I don't know if it would have helped because the bowlers were so loud. These are all somethings I need to work on in order to benefit my students in the future. Remembering back to one of the one of the first days of class when Ben said that one day this semester everything will just start to click, I now really feel that way. Everything on the C-9 form just comes to me as I'm teaching and its almost hard to leave things out where as in the first few labs I had to really think about how and when I was going to use each teaching strategy.


Monday, November 7, 2011

Bocce Ball Lesson



During this teaching lab I didn't really see the improvement I was looking for. Overall I thought I taught well but I need to be more enthusiastic when i teach. I need to stop worrying about everything, even though its a huge part of my grade, and just have fun while I teach.  I thought my Prezi went well and was very organized. However, with only 10 minutes to teach I should have made it a lot shorter. I didn't realize how much time it would take to present it. I handled the misbehavior well by just saying one thing to him and immediately using him in my demonstration so he started behaving. I really wish I started the main activity with the polly spots sooner because they only had about a minute to play and I think it would have been very fun. I just didn't keep track of time well enough. Too much time was spent on my presentation and the lead up activity which was really simple and only should have been done for about two minutes. If I limited the time of the first activity and have the polly spot activity go for 4 to 5 minutes I think this would have been a great lesson like I planned. I also feel that if I did this I would have enjoyed the lesson more, had more fun, which would cause me to be more enthusiastic. From what I've seen so far with my lessons I have learned that if I'm not smiling and having fun during the lesson then the students probably aren't either. This is not what I want to have happen in my teaching and I'm sure it won't happen again. I think it was just a mis management of time which will improve with practice. It really surprised me that I did this because I was really prepared, I just didn't follow my own time management that I had made. In lab D I hope to improve on the time spent on each activity and having fun while I teach because I have realized that this makes the students have fun too, which is a major goal I have while teaching.