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.
On day 9 of EDU 255, we continued our preparation for Lab B, which is teaching a jump rope skill for 5-7 minutes using all aspects of teaching. We talked more with Professor Yang and the TA’s on the things we should be focusing on and what we should keep in mind when teaching. We practiced our jump rope skills that we will be teaching and I feel very confident abot my skill which is the double side swing and jump technique. After practicing our skills, we did the activity “shotgun” again that we did last class, which is an activity that splits the class up into groups of 2-4 people, and each group has to do one aspect of teaching on the specific task of jump roping. Everyone did a great job on the section they had to do and as a class we’re improving everyday that we come to class. We finally went down to the classroom to discuss more about blogging with “Zemanta”, and what Professor Yang will be expecting from us during our jump rope lessons.
On day 8 of EDU 255, we went straight into working on our lessons that we will teach for Lab B. I begin to brainstorm different ideas of what I plan on doing and I got some feedback and help from all of the TA's. Next we did a small activity with one of our TA's name Sunnie, who told us to say "I can do polka, I can do a split, I can do a tap dance just like this" and to see how many jumps you can get in a row without stopping. I got all the way to 35 jumps until my knees and chins started to hurt. We then went back into practicing for our Lab B lessons with more brainstorming with the TA's. I feel more confident now in what I'm going to teach and how I will present it to the class. After brainstorming, Professor Yang introduced another activity called "shotgun", which is an activity that splits the class up into groups of 2-4 people, and each group has to do one aspect of teaching on the topic of hula-hooping; one group had instant activity, another had introduction, another had signal for attention and etc. down to closure. This was great and was really helpful on knowing what to say and do during your own lesson at the right time during your lesson.
On day 7 of EDU 255, we continued jump roping, but this time we created new groups of 3 or 4 people to perform a new jump sequence to be recorded on video. My group consisted of Trisha, Dave, and myself; we used different movements like jumping with two feet, one foot, and side jumping. Professor Yang gave us some time to practice our performances to get our rhythm and timing down pack. My group did okay but it could have been better due to some mistakes we made and the timing was a little off between the three of us.Other groups were very creative and did a great job creating a quick jumping sequence. In this small amount of time, everyone was still sweaty and our hearts were racing due to continuous movement. After everyone preformed, we went down to the classroom to go over the next lab called Lab B.
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. 
