255: A Year In Rewind

Final Part 1

1. The website is from CBC Canada and the documentary is from Saskatoon Canada. There is also a segment on a school from Chicago.

2.Yes I found this article to be very interesting. It shows you the power and benefits of physical activity. It’s amazing that in just 20 minutes every day of vigorous exercise you can improve your reading, writing, and comprehension.

3.You don’t hear anything about the PE teacher because most times in physical education classes only a limit number of students are active. And of those active most are not doing vigorous work. This study was based on 20 minutes of vigorous exercise not about a PE class.

4.Some of the benefits of this program is that the students were able to concentrate during class after working out. The behavioral issues decreased and they were able to sit in their seats without fidgeting as much. Also they are less impulsive and can sustain attention longer. I wasn’t surprised with these finding because after a workout I feel the same way as these kids do and I find it easier to concentrate. These outcomes are similar to NYS standards in that standard one deals with personal health and fitness and at City Park these students work out for 20 minutes so that’s met. Standard 2 relates to a safe and healthy environment and the teachers at the school provide them with just that. The students continue these workouts because of the challenge and probably self enjoyment. The final standard, resource management is also met. They provide this by having the treadmills, bikes, and other machines available to the students. New York State is always striving to achieve these standards while this school in Saskatoon and the one in Chicago are already on a great path of accomplishing these standards on a daily basis.

5.BDNF is a protein that “acts like a fertilizer on the brain.” It perverse the nerve cells, makes them stronger, helps with stress. In order for this to work you want to get your heart rate between 65%-75% of its maximum and keep it there for twenty minutes. Two key books are Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain and Psychological Abstracts by Walter Samuel Hunter.


DAILY BURN:
1. I’m not really a fan of Daily Burn. At times it can be confusing to find what you are looking for and you get only a limited number of things for free before you have to pay for it. Also, when I was searching for the food there was so much about fast food and not really the things I ate. I do not currently use another form of exercise or nutrition tracker because I don’t want to track my progress. It seems to complicated and time consuming. I probably will not consider staying apart of the Rockstar Group because I don’t want to track my information every day.

2. Learning Standard 1B is: Students will design personal fitness programs to improve cardio respiratory endurance, flexibility, muscular strength, endurance, and body composition. So if the students used Daily Burn it would do the work for them. They could use it to track all their improvements over the course of a year and see how well they did. In the beginning of the year you could have them set goals and this would help them to stay on track with that. They could set goals as a class and as individuals.

3. Some electronic tools that would be useful in capturing data is heart rate monitors, pedometers, and entering the information into an Excel sheet just like we do now in Stats class. In a high school setting at the end of class you can have students enter their information into an Excel sheet and this way you can track how well your students are doing. You can also use the information to compare students in the class and against a national average to see where their fitness skills are in comparison to others.

Trust Activities

This time in Lab D I was teaching trust activities which I thought went fairly well. There is so many activities you can do with incorporating trust and I went with levitation because everyone always seems to like that. My goal for the day was to get everyone involved and becoming more comfortable with trusting one another. If I was to do this is as a unit I would do it in the beginning of the year because it can also serve as an ice breaker and allow the class to get to know one another.

Compared to Lab A when we were first starting out I feel more comfortable with everything from teaching to class management to handling kids with behavioral issues. Although I still feel there is a lot more I can learn and that comes with practice.

Something I thought I excelled in was the Time coding sheet. I felt like I finally did a good job. This time around I cut down on the instruction time and had a much higher activity time than on any of the previous labs. And having more activity time in a
lesson plan is always a good thing.

Something I could have improved on was my instant activity. It wasn't so instant, but I really like playing "hog call" and I wanted to incorporate it some how. The reason it took so long was because I had to go around to each set of partners and make sure everyone had different buzz words so there wouldn't be any confusion. Also, everyone really seemed to enjoy the activity so maybe I should have played it again because my motto is if something isn't broke, don't fix it. If I played the activity again I could have kept them more active and since they enjoyed it they wouldn't have mind. Another aspect I could have improved on was my flow. It seemed that at some parts they didn't go as smoothly as they could have. My transition between activities was slow because I had to get out the mats and keep moving them around. Something else I could improve on is giving more feedback to students and using their names. It's always nice to call people by their names to make it more personable and once you mention someone by name them seem to respond or listen better.
This was our last Lab and I feel I have made many positive changes in my teaching. I am excited to keep learning more and to continue to get better.


Content development

Jugglers Unite!

This time in class I had to teach a Juggling lesson for Lab C. I thought it went fairly well. Out of the four people that went I was the last to go that day so I decided my lesson would consists of juggling tricks! The way I designed it was I took them around the gym showing them all five of the tricks and after that they were free to go to any station they wanted to and practice the skill. Some of these tasks included juggling 2 balls in one hand, partner juggling, walking around the lines of the gym, the claw, and under the legs. Everyone seemed to enjoy the activities and I think they liked the fact that they could jump around to whatever activity they wanted and they weren't timed and had to go station to station.
Something that I thought I did well on was I went around to all the different stations and talked with the students and if they were doing the activity well I went and changed the task for them to make it easier or harder. Also, I gave feedback to a lot of different students. Another thing I thought I did well on was at each station I had a poster on the ground so all the students there could see it and on the poster it listed the cues so they were constantly being reinforced the cues. Something else I forgot to go over in my lesson plan was my signal for attention and my safety statement. Both of these are important because you need to be able to get the classes attention when you want it.
Something I could have work on was my back was to the class for a lot of the time. At one point I went off to the side and had my back to everyone while I was trying to find clubs to use. When this happened one student, Harris, started throwing balls at the bleachers. When I first walked over there I didn't know what I was going to do but when I got there I asked what was going on and if he wanted to take a break and get some water to cool off. Next I gave him the clubs that were in my hand and asked him to try that. That way it was a challenge for him because he seemed to be doing well with the balls. Once he took the clubs he did well and seemed to forget about throwing the balls at the bleacher which was a good thing.



time code

Calling all Rockers

This week in lab we had to teach a 7 minute lesson and incorporate different tasks. As you can hear in my audio and read in my transcript I was nervous and hesitant and even had to stop in the beginning because I forgot what I was going to say next. It's like everything I had just went out the window because honestly I wasn't as prepared as I should have been. The day before we had a snow day so I was banking on having another one the next day, but boy was I wrong! I thought I had a good hook because I tried to try in the theme of being a "rock star" because Yang constantly refers to us as that. I had students imagine that the gym was their stage and the jump ropes were their guitars. This seemed to work well and got the students attention. Another strong point in my audio is I gave more feedback to the class then I have in previous labs but the only downfall is I didn't mention to whom I gave feedback too. I didn't use many peoples name so good thing I had the video so I could see which students I was talking too. I also thought I did well by pinpointing some people in class who were doing well. I had 2 males and 2 females demonstrate together by forming their own "band".
A weakness I saw was when I was putting together the time code, I noticed I didn't make as much use of the activity as I should have. Next time I'll try to have less instrustion and more activity time because when you get into a real classroom the kids just want to play and have fun and not listen to someone stand up there and talk so much. And because as a physical educator I want to see these kids moving all the time.


During the debriefing stage I checked for understanding by asking the students the cues again and the recited them back to me correctly. Keeping with the "rocker" theme I ended by saying next week we would do an encore. Hopefully leaving the students wanting to come back next week for more. For my next teaching assignment I need to bring in visual aides because if kids have questions they can just refer to the visual aid and it brighten ups the gym by giving them something to look at. Another good suggestion is to add music. Since I went with the rocker theme I could have played rock music in the background instead of the class being quiet and hearing the humming of a gym it could have livened the place up a bit and it would have tied in nicely with my theme.

Jumpathon!

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This week in Lab B1 we kept along with the jump rope theme and had to teach a segment of that for 4 minutes to the class. After listening to my transcript I found that I still say "guys" instead of class or everyone. This has always been a challenge for me because I never realized how many times I say it. It doesn't bother me when someone says that because to me it's just a generic term. I realize some people may take offense so I'm working on trying to eliminate it. This week I felt I had a really good gym voice and was loud enough for everyone to hear me. Also I liked the way I broke the groups up that way I was able to see everyone in the class and they could see each other as well. At the very end I used a good hook to get them to want to come back for more because I told them next week we would be doing a Jumpathon! I don't know what a jumpathon is, but neither did my class so it makes them hungry for more and you could hear them asking each other and getting excited which is what you want to do. Something to improve on could be my feedback. You want to strive to giving most kids feedback but I find I only give 2-3 students feedback which is not a lot. I thought I used my time better this week and it can be seen in my time coding. I tried to limit the instruction time and increase activity time which worked well.

Lab A2

Since this was the second time doing the same lesson you would have thought I would have done better. I improved on some aspects but in other spots, not so much. I think the problem was me over thinking everything that needed to be covered. Although, this time I had a male, Harris and female, Lauren demonstrate the task which was good so the rest of the class could see what was expected of them. A little bit later pinpointed Amy to re-show the class what they were supposed to be doing. If I did this lesson again I would cut down on the instruction time and increase the activity time.

Time Code Feedback Transcript

Time Coding

This activity really broke down for me the actual time I spent doing instruction, management, activity, and waiting. I had never really thought about how much time I was spending on each so it was interesting to see. I thought I did fairly well especially because we didn't even know we had to teach that day it was just sprung on us so I didn't have a lesson plan and had to go with the flow. This is good though because sometimes in a real classroom situation that is what you have to do.
By looking at the time coding I noticed that I spent more time on instruction than I should have. I spent 32% of the time giving instructions at the beginning and end of class and I should have spent less time on that so they could have more activity time. The amount of activity time was 58% which I think is good. But one thing to keep in mind is that in many schools children only have P.E. class one or two times a week for not a very long duration so as a future educator I want to make sure that these children are engaged in activity for as long as they can because that's my job.

Lesson Intro

After watching myself during the Lesson Intro I saw some strengths and some weaknesses to work on that will make me a better teacher. Some strengths that I noticed were I spoke clearly well when telling the class their lesson for the day. Also, I demonstrated to the class what the activity was so that way they knew what to do. If I had an actual class I would have chosen a student or two to demonstrate it for their peers. I felt the topic was easy so it was easy to understand. Some things I could have done better was I told the class that they were going to be throwing at targets but I never told them if they were going to get in groups and how they would move around the gym. Also at times my eyes drifted and I wasn't focusing on the class which is not good. I could have also changed the pitch of my voice to make the lesson more exciting and engage the students. Another aspect of the lesson I would have changed is when I was introducing myself to the class I used my first and last name instead of just saying Ms. Wagar. I'm glad we video assignments like this because now I can reflect back on this.

Reflection of Teaching

Some things that I thought that went well was I was walking around when the students got with their partners and were practicing the skill. As I was walking around I was able to give feedback to the students and help encourage them to do better. Also I thought I used a strong voice. The class was in a small circle so it was easier for them to hear me. This was valuable because on the other half of the gym was another group making t harder to hear if I didn't have a strong voice. Some thing that I could have improved on when I first gathered the group I should have faced them a different direction. From where we were standing my class was able to see the other class on the other side and this caused a few of them to be distracted. You can even see them watching the other side instead of listening to y instructions. This impacts student learning because if you don't have their attention once they get into groups they won't know what to do.