For my 10 hours of outside practical experience, I spend my hours mostly with the sport of track & field. Some of my hours are spent during actual track practice. I am a member of Suny Cortland's Men's track & field team, and also one of captains and leaders of the team as a whole. As a leader on this team, my coach expects me to conduct my event group (400m runners) everyday in practice and teach them how to be better runners. During these practices I give positive and specific feedback to my teammates on proper sprinting mechanics. I also explain and demonstrate the principles, techniques and methods of regulating movement of body in order to achieve proficiency as a track athlete. If I see someone in my group or on my team slacking off or not giving enough effort, I try to bring them back on track and motivate them to work harder in practice. For the rest of my outside hours I did volunteer work at our Suny Cortland Track & Field Clinic on March 25, 2012. Every year my track program here at Cortland puts together this clinic for middle and high school athletes and coaches to learn more about the sport of track. In this clinic the athletes are able to physically perform warm-ups, drills, and other important aspects of track. Since I'm a sprinter with a lot of experience in this sport, I was able to conduct and demonstrate a proper warm up and taught the athletes proper sprinting mechanics. I taught the high school athletes how to use starting blocks if they ever were able to use them at a track meet. Similar to my college teammates, I gave positive and specific feedback to the athletes on technique and body alignment; and I explained and enforced safety rules and regulations in the sport of track & field. Through these experiences I have grown more as a future educator and my passion for track & field will help me bring that passion into the classroom when I teach.
On Thursday April 26, 2012 I had the the opportunity to attend the Spring 2012 Portfolio Showcase held in Park Center Building where the Cortland P.E Department awarded 16 teacher-candidates with honors on their professional portfolio. The recipients who I really admire were Lima Stafford and Jamie Boldish.
Lima Stafford
Jamie Boldish
By viewing Lima's portfolio I notice that she very organized and everything looked neat and presentable. She had a lot of certificates showing how active she was during her 4 years at Cortland and everything she did, she did to the best of her ability. One thing Lima told me was "take advantage of your college experience by getting involved. The years are flying by quick and will not be waiting on you. Take advantage of what college has to offer and get to know and understand yourself first. You can't help others if you can't help yourself or have no idea who you are. Learn to love Suny Cortland instead of complaining about it". I really took that to heart and she really inspired me get involved more with the physical education program and any other programs on campus. When I viewed Jamie's portfolio, I notice that it was different from the others. It was unique in its own way, and Jamie is a very creative person so she made her portfolio stand out among the others. Just like Lima, Jamie was very involved during her 4 years at Cortland, and she received many awards also for all her great accomplishments. Looking through the portfolio, I notice that everything was easy to read and every section had great pictures of Jamie teaching or volunteering. Jamie told me to "do more than I'm ask of, instead of just doing what's required because it shows how much you care about your profession and brings out the best in not just you as a teacher but the best in your future students". I really learned a lot from this portfolio showcase and it gave me motivation to stay involved and to take advantage of every opportunity given to me because you never know when that next opportunity will roll around.
Apart of my EDU 255 final for the class, my Professor had us create a bulletin board on the sport we taught in Lab D or the theme of our lessons. Some students were paired up and some did the bulletin board by themselves. I was paired with another student name Justin Nassivera, in which we decided to do our bulletin board on our lessons of table tennis and the skills we taught during the lesson. We magically split the board half way, so one side was for my skill and the other side was for his skill. My skill was the forehand topspin, and the cues were "reach, grease, and follow through". Justin's skill was the side spin, and his cues were"slice, strike, and follow through". We added pictures of each of our cues to show everyone how each cue is suppose to be performed. We also added the history of table tennis, the rules of table tennis, and any further information our viewers wanted to know about the sport, and how students can play outside of the normal class period. Even though it took us a long time to create this bulletin board, it was definitely worth our time. This project prepares us for our EDU 256 course, where we have to do observation hours at a middle school for one week, and then at a high school for one week. During this two week process, we have to create a bulletin board for the school's physical education department. By doing this table tennis bulletin board I know what to expect when I start the next one, I know how much time I might need to finish the board, and lastly, the amount of supplies I will need to make the board look presentable to others. I believe bulletin boards can be a great way to inform people on information about staying healthy and active, and can help them find the right activity for them. Not only will the board help them become informed, but will also give them the information they need to start engaging in these activities.
For our last teaching lessons of Lab D, my classmates taught different sports and activities to the class in EDU 255. From the video you will see that we had a wide range of lessons, from performing yoga to learning how to play speed stacking with cups. I felt like everyone did a awesome job at teaching their lessons, using great technology, and dealing with several behavioral and life threatening problems such as seizures and broken arms. I not only learned so much from Professor Yang, but I learned a lot from my own peers. They taught me how to be more creative, going beyond my abilities, stepping out of my comfort zone, and learning how to work well with others on a professional level. From the beginning of this semester to the final ending, we all have improve so much as future physical educators; learning how to speak louder to a large group of people, knowing how to modify your lesson for students who may be having trouble with the skills or students who need more of a challenge so they won' be bored during class. From EDU 255, I've made great friends with dedicated individuals who love teaching physical education and who want to make a major impact on the younger generation on how to live a healthy and well fit lifestyle. I'm going to miss this class and I hope the best for everyone I came in contact with through EDU 255.
I finally taught my last lesson for EDU 255 on the forehand topspin in table tennis for my Lab D lesson. For this lesson I had to teach for 20 minutes with a teaching style of "reciprocal", (students work in a partnership, the performer and the the observer, to give each other feedback on the criteria provided by the teacher), and my lesson focus was "motivation".
I started my lesson with an instant activity that would immediately get my students ready for physical activity, which was yoga that I learned from another student name Trish, who taught her Lab D lesson on yoga. I thought this was a great chance to scaffold her lesson of yoga into my instant activity that the students would remember. After my instant activity, I went straight into telling the students the class rules and explaining what my expectations were for them. I always want my students to follow three important rules: follow directions, safety, and respect. By following these rules, class would run smoothly and would be extra fun!
For my lesson, we were located down in the squash-ball courts in the basement of Park Center of Suny Cortland. I choose this area because it obtained the table tennis tables, and the courts were perfect size for playing table tennis. I had to use more than one court due to the progressions of my lesson, and because of the size of the courts. One room was for my instant activity and the overview of my class rules. The next room was where I explained the three cues for the forehand topspin, which was "reach, grease, and follow through". I demonstrated all the cues in this room with the students and had them practice first with their hand, a bigger size ball, and no table tennis net. We got into some competitions to see who could get the most hits in 1 minute between two groups that consist of 4 players and one table. The next room, I introduced the table tennis racquet, a smaller ball, and the table tennis net. I went over the cues and safety again just to remind the students of what I expected them to do.
Throughout the lesson I fell into some behavioral problems that needed to be taken into account. One behavioral problem came from a student name Stephanie, who began to make a scene during class with a student name Dan who supposedly cheated on her with another student name Leslie. I handled this situation at first by ignoring them so they would stop arguing, then I had eventually split them up to avoid any farther problems. Stephanie still was mad at Leslie, and began to argue with her again during class, calling her bad names; so I immediately sent Stephanie into a corner for 10 seconds away form the class so she can regroup and think about what better actions she could have taken. I thought this worked out well since everything went smooth again and everyone was well behaved. As Stephanie is in her 10 second timeout, she screams out a curse word to Leslie that was very inappropriate; so I removed her from my class and told her to stay outside until I was ready for her to come back in. Eventually I brought her back in, and we discussed again what the class rules were and for the remainder of the class, she finally behaved like she should in a classroom setting. I thought I handled this situation well, as in removing the problem and not stopping the class due to one student causing a mischief.
One thing I did learn from this lesson is that when dealing with older students, you wouldn't discipline them the same as you would discipline 3rd grade students. The students for my Lab D lesson were in 10th grade, and I was treating them like 3rd graders; putting them in straight lines to walk and putting them in timeouts. If I were to change anything about my lesson it would be treating my students appropriately and handling behavior problems appropriately. Other than that, I thought I did a great job introducing and teaching the forehand topspin of table tennis. I had great cues and progressions. My hook was very catchy that the students were able to relate to it. From Lab A1 to Lab D, I have grown so much as a future physical educator. I believe learning how to deal with student behaviors will come with time and experience, and I feel that I can teach in a real classroom setting right now if I had a chance to. I'm so excited about teaching now than ever before because of what I learned from Professor Yang in EDU 255. Lab D proved that anything can happen in a lesson, you just have to be ready for every kind of situation or problem. Teaching physical education is fun and I enjoy it so much that I can't wait to get out in the real world and teach and impact the lives of our younger generation.
On day 19 of EDU 255, another group of students, Trish, Stephanie, and David, taught their Lab C on the international sport called "Shinty". Class started with Trish teaching the Kindergarten lesson about how to hit the ball on the floor using your hand with a great arm swing instead of using equipment because kids can become very distracted by the equipment and may try to hit one another. I really enjoyed Trish's visual aid, which she used to explain how to swing your arm like a grandfather clock, which everyone was able to visualize what she was showing. The lesson had great transitions and her demonstrations were very clear of what she wanted us to do. Next was Stephanie, who taught the the 4th grade lesson, which focused on equipment this time to hit the ball, but just with a smaller stick rather than a hockey stick used in the actual game of Shinty. I like how Stephanie incorporated a lot of history about the game of Shinty and how it came from Scotland. Stephanie also had great visual aids and really stressed the safety of the classroom because since we were a 4th grade class using sticks, she didn't want anyone swinging pass their knee level to prevent anybody from hitting another person while swinging. Last was David, who taught the 12th grade lesson, which focused on the volley of Shinty. The volley is used on offense to receive and pass the ball and also for scoring goals. I didn't get the skill at first, but David did a great job working with me individually so I would be able to perform the skill. David did a great job using the projector and continued teaching us the history of Shinty and Scotland. Overall this group did a great job teaching the history of this awesome international sport and this game would be great for all P.E classes.
On Day 18 of EDU 255, another group of students, Kim, Dan, and Devon, taught their Lab C on the international sport called "Omnikin". Class started with Kim teaching the Kindergarten lesson about how to keep the Omnikin ball up in the air, but she modified her lesson for this grade level by using beach balls which are small and soft enough for Kindergarten students to hit. Everyone enjoyed the hook she used which was try not to break the Easter egg; this hook helped so much because it gave everyone a clear idea of how to actually play Omnikin, and to always keep the ball in the air or else your going to break your egg. Next was Dan, who taught the 4th-8th grade lesson, which focused on the serve of the Omnikin ball. Dan always has great energy when he teaches and his enthusiasm forces you to want to learn what ever he's teaching. Last was Devon, who taught the 12th grade lesson, which focused on defending the serve from other team. Devon did a great job telling us about the history of Omnikin and some fun facts about the sport. Devon explain that in order to defend the serve, group members had to work together and he incorporated 3 C's to remember: Caring, Cooperation, and most importantly Communication. Overall this group did a great job keeping everyone active and excited to play this awesome game of Omnikin.
On Day 17 of EDU 255, a group of 4 students, Lesley, Max, Emily, and Justin, taught their Lab C on the international called "Tchoukball". Class started off with Lesley teaching the Kindergarten lesson about how to throw a ball properly and she had great progressions and demonstrations. Next was Max, who the 4th grade lesson, and he also focused on throwing but just to a partner. Then Emily taught the 8th grade lesson, which also focused on throwing,but this time we were throwing at specific targets like the rebound frame. Last was Justin who taught the 12th grade lesson, which focused more on game play because all of the aspects of the game was covered in the previous lessons. Overall, this group did a great job today introducing this unfamiliar sport, and Tchoukball is a lot of fun and I wouldn't mind playing this game outside of class.
On day 16 of EDU 255, I taught an international game called "Hantis" with two of my classmates, Kyle and Mike. We all taught a 15 minute lesson on a specific skill and grade level; Kyle taught ball handling skills for 4th grade. I taught the Hantis serve for 8th grade, and Mike taught the double hit for 12th grade. We decided as a group that from Kyle to Mike's lesson, each lesson would transition into the next one, using great progressions so the students would be prepared to play the actual game of Hantis. For my lesson, I choose to focus on the serve because since the students already learned how to hit and control the ball from Kyle's lesson, I would teach them the first part of the Hantis game which is the serve. Before I started teaching, I showed a video of the actual Hantis creators teaching the serve, starting at 3:22 into the video, so the students would get a visual look of how the serve is suppose to look. To teach the serve, I used three cues that I wanted the students to remember when serving; 1. athletic stance 2. paddle hands 3. strike.
Athletic Stance
Paddle Hands
Strike
After teaching the three cues, I wanted the students to get use to hitting on the tables; so I did several hitting progressions to prepare the students for game play which will require 4 tables and one ball. I believe the class really enjoyed learning how to play Hantis, and really did a great job performing the skills. Some of the things that I thought I did pretty well during my lesson was having great enthusiasm that was contagious to others. I had a loud and clear voice so everyone was able to hear me and understand all of my instructions. I thought I followed our C9 form very well and had the students engaged in physical activity most of the lesson. I had great progressions that didn't leave any student who struggled with the skills out. When the students had began to struggle with two tables, I modified the environment so the students would have more success with the activity. I gave a lot of positive and helpful feedback to the students who were struggling or doing well with the game. One thing I think I still need to work on to become a much better Physical Education teacher is knowing how to teach beyond my lesson plan or activity progressions because some skills might be easy or too hard for students to do and P.E teachers need to know how to quickly move on to the next activity or stay on the same activity so students aren't bored or not being left out because they can't perform a skill. In this case, pre-assessment is very important because it lets you know as a teacher, what level the students are at before the lesson even starts. I think my group did a great job starting off lab C on the right foot and I can't wait to learn new international games from my other classmates.
On day 15 of EDU 255, professor Yang started us off with word and picture puzzles again, but this time they were on poster boards located at different areas of the gym; everyone had to move around to each board using different motor skills like skipping to work on our three domains of psychomotor, affective, and cognitive. This was a lot of fun and some of the puzzles were difficult but everyone worked together to solve them. After solving puzzles, one of our TA's name Cassie taught a lesson on Rugby that was to show an example of how Lab C is suppose to look. She did a great job following the C-9 form and her lesson had great transitions from one activity to the next. Cassie fully explain the game of rugby using its history, cues for throwing, and safety so no one was tackling each other in the gym. Her cues for throwing the rugby ball was two hands on the ball with thumbs facing up, turn the door knob with both hands, and step with opposition. The best thing about her lesson was that she incorporated game play at the end of the lesson so we could get an idea of how rugby is played. She used the projector as her visual aid for her cues, but when trying to show a video, she faced technical difficulties like I did during my Lab B lesson. Overall her lesson was a great demonstration of how Lab C is supposed to look. Lastly, we went down stairs into the classroom to meet with our group members to discuss our ideas for our Lab C lessons.
On day 14 of EDU 255, we were in the classroom again. We started off with more word puzzles that we did from last class and I was better this time solving the puzzles. Professor Yang then set up the groups and dates that we will be teaching on and I'm teaching Wednesday, February 22nd; my game is called "Hantis", and it seems like a great game to teach from and I think the class will definitely enjoy playing it. After, we went into our groups to discuss our ideas for our games and each group has their personal TA; my group consist of Mike, Kyle, and myself with the help from our personal TA Cassandra. Cassandra came up with great ideas that we can use in our lessons such as the type of equipment to use for specific grade levels and the type of progressions we can use so the class runs smoothly when we're teaching. My group is going first, so we're going to have to get started right away and set the tone for Lab C. It's going to be a lot pressure on my group due to the amount of time we have to get ready and especially being the first group to go; but I think we're going to do alright because we have help from our TA Cassandra, whose a great help and she taught the same game last semester when she took EDU 255.
On day 13 of EDU 255, we located ourselves in a classroom the whole class period instead of in the gym sweating and doing physical activity. We started off doing fun word puzzles in groups of two, with people you normally don't pair up with. My first partner was Devon, and we struggled a little bit with the puzzles because neither one of us was good at word puzzles. My second partner was Mike, and he knew more about solving word puzzles than I did, so he helped me understand how to figure them out. These fun word puzzles was a cognitive warm up Professor Yang used to get us mentally ready for class. Next Professor Yang went over important things for the remainder of the semester for Lab C and D that we needed to know in order to do well on both labs. He went over how to create lessons plans, activity progression forms, and block plans for teaching specific skills. He also taught us how we can create more simple and complex lessons for students who are struggling or excelling in the class. Teachers can change the environment by making it smaller or bigger to modify for student success, they can increase and decrease the number of players, and they can change the rules of the game to make the game easier or difficult.
On day 12 of EDU 255, we saw the last few people do their teaching for Lab B. There was definitely a lot of improvement from the first time I saw my classmates teach in Lab A. There were a lot of positives shown and I think the students today did a great job putting the ending touches to this lab. Some things that I liked that I saw was Dave and Mike's use of progressions to make sure everyone was able to do the skills correctly. Dan had really good energy and I liked how Patrick's lesson had great cues and it flowed pretty well. Stephanie definitely created the best visual aids for her class rules and cues. All the lessons were a lot of fun and it seemed like everyone who taught today had a lot of confidence in their ability and it showed. Everyone had great hooks that were catchy to get everyone engaged into the lessons. Professor Yang incorporated behavior problems in some of the lessons, and Mike wasn't really aware of his students fighting and leaving the class which was somewhat amusing because he really had no idea what happen until Professor Yang told him after his lesson; but Patrick handled his situation great, showing that he's ready for any challenges when teaching. By showing us some behavioral problems while we're teaching will prepare us for what to look for when we actually start working in schools, and this also teaches us that we must always keep our eyes on our students at all times because you never know what's going on when your back is turned. Overall everyone did a great job with Lab B, and we're making big strides towards becoming future rock-star P.E teachers.
On day 10 of EDU 255, I taught the "Double Sided Swing and Jump" skill for our Lab B. I was second to teach, so I had time to prepare my lesson and to plug in all my equipment I was using. For this Lab, I decided to use a projector instead of a poster board to show my visual aid because it was interesting to do and I wanted to get a head start on using projectors when teaching for the next couple of labs.
I first showed a short video on the projector, which was Ryan Reynolds in the X-men movie. In this particular scene that I showed, Ryan Reynolds was swinging his sword left and right to fight and protect himself; I showed this video so the class would get an idea of how to swing their jump rope like Ryan Reynolds. I tried to show the class my visual aid and class rules but I begin to have technical difficulties with the projector so I just went on with the lesson. The 3 cues I used to teach the double sided swing and jump was: 1. Swing Sword Right 2. Swing Sword Left 3. Open the Door and Jump. I thought these cues were creative and the class really caught on to them fast. I thought I did a great job teaching this skill, using progressions to do each cue step by step so everyone was comfortable using the jump rope. One thing I can work on more is giving better feedback to all the students in the class. In this lesson I walked around the front of the class instead of walking around to everyone to give positive feedback. After I taught, my classmates gave me feedback on things I did great and things I needed to work on which was very helpful. Professor Yang did a quick individual debrief with me and assisted by one of the TA's to give me more feedback and to show me my evaluation form on the things I accomplished during the lesson such as an introduction, hook, safety statement, and etc. Overall everyone who taught today did a great job and it's a good thing when you can learn from your own classmates that can help you be a better teacher.
For my 10 hours of outside practical experience, I spend my hours mostly with the sport of track & field. Some of my hours are spent during actual track practice. I am a member of Suny Cortland's Men's track & field team, and also one of captains and leaders of the team as a whole. As a leader on this team, my coach expects me to conduct my event group (400m runners) everyday in practice and teach them how to be better runners. During these practices I give positive and specific feedback to my teammates on proper sprinting mechanics. I also explain and demonstrate the principles, techniques and methods of regulating movement of body in order to achieve proficiency as a track athlete. If I see someone in my group or on my team slacking off or not giving enough effort, I try to bring them back on track and motivate them to work harder in practice. For the rest of my outside hours I did volunteer work at our Suny Cortland Track & Field Clinic on March 25, 2012. Every year my track program here at Cortland puts together this clinic for middle and high school athletes and coaches to learn more about the sport of track. In this clinic the athletes are able to physically perform warm-ups, drills, and other important aspects of track. Since I'm a sprinter with a lot of experience in this sport, I was able to conduct and demonstrate a proper warm up and taught the athletes proper sprinting mechanics. I taught the high school athletes how to use starting blocks if they ever were able to use them at a track meet. Similar to my college teammates, I gave positive and specific feedback to the athletes on technique and body alignment; and I explained and enforced safety rules and regulations in the sport of track & field. Through these experiences I have grown more as a future educator and my passion for track & field will help me bring that passion into the classroom when I teach. 
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