Wednesday, November 24, 2010

2010 Physical Education Conference at Turning Stone

 On November 18, I went to Turning Stone in Verona, NY for the annual NYS Physical Education conference.  This was my first time attending this conference and the only thing like it was our Mini-Conference at Cortland, NY.  This was truly a great experience for me as I was able to meet many people and do what I love to do.  There was one presenter/speaker that really surprised me in how well she taught what she wanted.  Mrs. Champion, a middle school physical educator, did two seminars on different types of instant activities that help get the blood pumping really quick in her students.  We did a few of her games and within minutes everyone in the group was sweating.  Another presentation that really sparked my interest was a choreographed hip-hop dance that inspired every person in that room.  Everyone was sweating and I think the reason why many of the younger people enjoyed it was because she used music that was in our era.  Popular hip-hop music that us college students hear almost every day.  I had a great time at this conference and can't wait until the next one.  I was so interested in this conference that I told some of my friends when I was leaving that I will go to this conference until I stop teaching.

Here is one of the seminars that took place at the conference which had to deal with the dance called Tinikling.   It is a dance that doesn't have to always have 4 sticks but sometimes two in which they move in and out opposite of what your feet are moving.  This reminds me of some ritual dancing that would have occurred many years ago.  I also participated in this dance during Rhythms and Dance class at SUNY Cortland and I can say that this is quite a tiring dance.  Music that was used at the conference was "We Will Rock You", which was a good song because it went along directly with the movements of the sticks and your feet which made it easier. 

Lab D - Ice Skating!

This last lab that I did for EDU 255 was ice skating. I was really excited about doing this lab considering I knew how to ice skate and it was something different than usual activities done in physical education. I put a lot of time into preparing for this lab because having 20 minutes to teach really shows how well someone can show their teaching skill while using time management
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One thing that I wanted to make sure was really flashy were my visual aids which I made three of.

Professor Yang also showed me a video on Youtube that I used as part of my hook into the lesson. However, I introduced this video very seriously when the video was a joke on the geography of Canada. The students didn't find the video as funny as I did because I think they were trying to figure out if the news people were actually serious. Here are the two clips that show me in my teaching of Lab D:





During this teaching session. I really worked on my feedback. I tried to get to at least 50% of the class and give good feedback.   I really enjoyed teaching this lab and I think the amount of preparation that I put into the lab really payed off in that I wasn't worried or stressed while teaching because I had gone over everything I wanted to do.  I think the students in my class learned a lot out of what I taught in 20 minutes.  With things such as the stop, I could see improvement within the few minutes that we were working on it.  I think this has to do with my persistence in having the students do it right.  I saw that Ryan Carpenter was doing it the right way so I took him in front of the group and had him demonstrate it so that maybe a different view of it will help others.   Here are the forms that can explain the work I put into my lab and my reflection and analysis of my lab:

Time Coding Form 
Content Development 
Lesson Plan 
Lab D Packet

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Tchoukball - Lab C International

This week's lab was one where my partner and I had to decide on an international sport and teach it through the culture and physical.  My lab partner, Ryan Carpenter, and I decided to do a sport that came from Switzerland called Tchoukball.  Tchoukball is like a variation of handball and catch.  The objective of Tchoukball is to throw the handball outside of the perimeter, letting it bounce off the rebound surface, and hit the ground outside of the perimeter without the opposing team catching it.  This game was created by Dr. Hermann Brandt, a scientist from Switzerland.  He decided that the main thing of the game is that there is no defense or contact.  This was to prevent injuries that occur in all other sports.



I really enjoyed teaching this lab because it was something different other than the traditional games that are taught during Physical Education.  I felt like the main thing that I could have done differently during this lab is to slow things down.  Instead of trying to teach all of the material that I had planned out on my lesson plan, I should have stuck with a few select activities to work on in order to increase activity time and less instructional time.  One thing that I have noticed is that I'm no longer worried about standing in front of my peers teaching.  I love this because now I can focus on my lesson rather than how I'm going to make it through the lesson without getting nervous. Here is the Lesson Plan and Task Progressions for the Tchoukball Lab.

The Time Coding form that I have created shows that I need to do more activities rather than instructing the lesson's the whole time.  This just proves that sometimes it's more beneficial to extend activities rather than try to continue teaching new things. To go along with this is the Feedback Analysis Form.  This form shows that I got to giving five people feedback.  Most of the feedback was general simple feedback to the students. Here is the content development form as well that goes along with Lab C.