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.

St. Mary's video

Portfolio Showcase

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the Portfolio Showcase at Park Center. I saw so many great portfolios and it really gave me some inspiration on how to do mine. Also, by looking at these I can see how much time and effort people put into these. This tells me that I better start mine now and organize it well because this is my future and I want to produce something I am proud of. Looking through there work I noticed they put in some things I have already done which is good to know that I can use those as artifacts. I noticed one student did his portfolio on a website. This was intriguing because it was labeled very clear and easy to find artifacts and his resume. Also a positive side to putting it on the web is if you make a mistake or a typo it is very easy to change it and not mention it is easy access. With this being a technological century I thought his was very well done. Some good advice the students gave me was to save EVERYTHING! and add pictures. Pictures can enhance the message you are trying to convey, espically if someone is just skimming through a picture will grab their attention. Thanks to Yang for taking pictures at St. Mary's I now have a lot of pictures to choose from. It wasn't something I would have thought about but now I can see how valueable it is. I'm glad I went to the showcase because those kids have been in my position and knew what they were doing so it was good to get advice from them.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa is on the go

This was our last week at St. Mary and I am really going to miss the kids. This was such a great experience to be our in a real setting working with the children. It was nice to have this experience because now I know what to expect. Sometimes when we got to St. Mary's we had to change our plans based on weather, number of children, or the limited space and this is what teachers have to deal with on a regular basis. You need to be flexible and be able to adjust and adapt to different situations and that is what we learned there. During this lab we had a Christmas theme and worked with the pre-k students. Professor Yang introduced us to some new toys. These gadgets kept the kids entertained for quite some time. What you would do is have these little cones about 5 of them and spread them out and then the actual device would call out a number or color and you would have to "stomp" it and it would register and go to the next color. This was good for pre-k because they are learning colors and number so it re-enforced it to them. After that we read and book to the class and then went to the gym. In the gym we tied jump ropes together and made a sleigh, the kids grabbed on and we put objects in hula hoops that were placed on the floor. We pretended like the children were the reindeer and Santa and we had to drop the gift off to the houses which were the hula hoops. After that we played a tag game and then it was time to go. This semester at St. Mary's went by so fast and I am glad I was a part of it and really enjoyed it there.

Cotton Eye Joe!

This week at St. Mary's was different from all the rest. This time was group was assigned to clean and organize the closet area. Seeing as it was toward the end of our time at St. Mary's other groups have organized the closet and there wasn't much left for us to do. So we basically wandered around and got to see all the different age groups instead of being with one all day. First I stayed in the gym and played basketball with some of the kids. And then I got to watch my peers teach to the kids. This was a nice experience because everyone has different teaching styles and there is not one right way to teach. I got to see how they used different strategies and saw what worked for them and what didn't. Next I went to hang out with the kids in the pre - k room. I love working with them because they are sponges. Anything you do they will do so it is important to keep everything positive and fun with them. Some were coloring pictures of turkeys for the Thanksgiving day theme and colored them in traditional turkey colors like yellow, orange, and red. There was only one kid who colored outside of the "normal" fall colors. He colored his green because he said it was his favorite color. I thought this was awesome! He wasn't sticking to what everyone else was doing and did his own thing. Some of the children at the table who noticed this sort of frowned upon him and his pitcure because it wasn't like theirs. As a teacher it is important to embrace and support a creative envirnoment so kids are not cookie cut outs of one another. Especially at a young age you want to see their creativity shine. Our group had the honor of coming up with the closing song. We chose Cotton Eye Joe. This is a great song because the movements are simple and the song is upbeat and catchy. Even if the kids were not moving at the same pace they were still moving and that is what you want to see, kids just being active.

Circus Comes To Town

This time at St. Mary's we did a circus theme with many people wearing clown type hair. The kids seemed more interested in wearing the hair than anything else. Being a circus theme the kids sure acted that way. This was the first time that I had ever seen these children so hyper and amped up. When my group was in the gym we had a very difficult time trying to claim these kids down. They were running everywhere and didn't want to sit down when we spoke to them or quiet down. It was interesting to see that some children really wanted to listen to the games we had planned for them and so to get the rest of their classmates quiet they would scream BE QUIET!! Ultimately, this just created more noise and we found that by saying "if you can hear me clap twice", and gradually they would quiet down. Luckily, our group came in with lots of different games to play and it's a good thing we did. Since the kids were mostly doing what they wanted it was hard to play a game for very long so we kept modifying games and switching to new ones to keep the kids guessing and on their toes. This week in lab we were assessing how well the kids could catch and throw. We played a game similar to messy back yard which allowed us to see how well they threw over hand and to see if they could catch. After that game we switched it up to a slower paced game where they threw underhand and had to try and hit and land in a target. Since they were around 1st and 2nd graders we used hula hoops as their target but if they were older we coul

d have used poly spots. After seeing some of the kids throw we knew not to make the targets any smaller because they had a hard time as it was. Overall with the kids being so wild this week it was good to see in a way. This just shows you what you will really face when you teach. Sometimes the children will not always behave the way you want them to so it's important to know how to deal with it and adjust to the situation.

Lab 3

Last week at St. Mary's was yet again another fun time. The kids are really starting to get to know us better and this makes it easier on the college kids for when we want them to play a game. This time at St. Mary's my group was in the gym first and we played a game called Zanny Zoo to look at their locomotor skills. We were primarley looking at leaping,horizontal jump, and sliding. Working with the 1st graders I was impressed that they were quick learners. Overall they struggled the most with leaping but when we put the poly dots on the group and made them leap with a purpose they did much better. This made them slow down and think about how to actually do the movement. Whenever someone gave the kids intructions on how to better their skills they really listened and tried hard to do it right the next time

Different Perspective at St. Mary's

This morning at St. Mary’s was very different than the typical afternoons I normally see. It was unusual to see all the kids so calm and mellowed out. Since we always go in the afternoon I’m just used to the kids being all high strung but in the morning they are quite relaxed. It was nice to see that if parents wanted to drop their kids off before school started they were able to. The school provides them with free time in the gym and the classroom. Last week when I was there I went to the pre k morning class. When I got there I recognized some familiar faces so it was nice to see them. The children are very welcoming and right away they wanted me to play games with them. Many of them were playing in the “kitchen area” or on the carpet playing with different activities and some were practicing writing their names and drawing pictures. Some of the routines I saw were before class started the kids had “free time” and could do whatever they want like playing games or drawing pictures and they also practice writing their names. After free time all the kids go to the bathroom and when they get back they sit on the carpet in a circle. First they go over what day it is and count the number of days they have been in school. This is good because the kids are practicing mathematical and literacy skills. Next they went around passing a ball to the person next to them and they had to say the “good morning” followed by the next person’s name. Once that child receives the ball then it keeps going around with everyone saying good morning to the person next to them. Since I was only there for a short time this was all I really got to see but it was interesting to me to see the kids so quiet in the morning. My favorite part of the morning was when about five different children drew pictures for me and seeing how proud they were of their drawings, even though it looked mostly like scribbles I was still happy to receive them.

PE Hall of Shame

Dodgeball has always been in the hot seat in a physical education setting. Many who are against it say that it depicts humans as targets, embarrasses a student in front of the class, and eliminating students from participation. In traditional dodgeball they may be right but with a few minor changes the game can be a great workout. Not only can dodgeball provide cardio exercise but it can teach students to dip, duck, dodge, and work on throwing skills along with spacial awareness. In order to make dodgeball more like this you need to modify some of the rules. One way that I found that works well is playing everyone for themselves style game. You use the whole gym and roll out a few foam balls to start and if you get hit then you sit down right where you are and to get back in the game if a loose ball rolls by you and you pick it up and hit someone in the game then they are out and you are in! This makes sure everyone is involved in the game because everyone around you is trying to get you out so you have to be on the look out from all angles. As a teacher some ways to level the playing field for everyone is one, use foam balls so when you get hit it doesn't hurt. Also, get balls of different sizes so it's harder to throw. Another way is as a teacher have some extra balls in hand and roll them to kids who are out every now and then to try and get them back in the game. Also if you have really good athletes in the class then maybe you make them switch hands that they throw with. Another way to get everyone active is if some kids don't want to play than they can be judges and help decide who got hit and who didn't. I really can't understand banning the game completely when there are so many different variations and ways to modify it to make it more enjoyable for everyone. All it ever takes to ruin something is one small thing. And that's just what happened. People will always complain about things they don't like and it is unfortunate that dodgeball is in this category. So I guess for now it's RIP DODGEBALL. Hopefully one day kids will be allowed to play it again because I know as a child I always look forward to playing it in class.

Gotham City Takes Over St.Mary's

Today at St. Mary's we did a superhero theme and the children responded very well to it. The minute we walked in with costumes of superheros on the kids were engaged and couldn't get enough of it. I worked with the pre-k kids and when we were outside we played different tag games for the whole time because that's what they love to do. I wore a Batman shirt and tried to play off the superhero theme and told the kids I had super powers. Then they too wanted to have special powers so we can up with some fun ones for them. When I was playing tag and was about to tag them they always touched something and claimed it was safe so they never got caught, then when they tried to get me I would do the same but I should have known they have different rules for the "college kids" as they like to call us. The one group I was playing with the one child, Andrew, wanted to be Spiderman so every time he wanted to tag someone he had to put his hand out and and spray his web just like the real superhero does. The other three girls in the group wanted their special power to be fire to they would throw fire balls. The kids always love just running around and having fun and it's nice to interact with them and know you can put a smile on their face.