Is that Tiger Woods?

Wow! This semester really flew by. Looking back on everything I think I have made many improvements. I remember when I first taught I wasn't really confident and as a result of that I wasn't enthusiastic and didn't project my voice. Every time I taught I tried to be bring a lot of excitement to the class because when you are excited your students will be excited and therefore will be open to new things.One important thing I learned and will use every time I'm teaching is providing feedback to your students. The more you can give and the more specific the feedback is the better job you are doing as a physical educator. It's amazing to see how your students respond when you provide them positive feedback compared to negative feedback. When you are positive they are open to your suggestions. When you are negative they get defensive and tune you out, they also get discouraged and want to quit. That is why when you give negative feedback make sure you follow that by saying something that they are doing good.Even though there are still things I need to learn and experience I feel like have grown tremendously in 4 months time and I'm excited to see what comes next.

Boat Tugging

Today I taught my second part of Lab C. Things went great, I couldn't of been happier. Even though I had a difficult part of the lesson to teach I feel I handled the class well. After a few instructions I had the class get right into the activity. Last time I didn't have the scooters ready for the students but this time I had everything set up for them right at their finger tips. I did a better job of keeping my back to the class and keeping all the students in my sight. I realize how important it is to be able to see everything that is going on in case a problem errupts I will be able to see everything that happens. This is good because if there is a series problem or injury I could be liable because I wasn't doing my job of supervising the class. I felt very comfortable the whole time and was very clear with what I expected of the students. I'm being loud and firm with my voice and that is a very important part of being a teacher. Positive feedback is very important in any classroom. It's amazing seeing how excited students get when you give them a compliment, after that you see them putting in more effort and happy to be in the class. Watch me in action.

Scootin' Round The Gym

After completing my first attempt at Lab C I feel that I improved a lot from Lab B. I was more confident and felt at ease in front of the students. I was clear and direct with my instructions and cues which made the lesson go smoothly. Even though I still used some fillers, more practice will help me to eliminate this problem. I was happy to see that the students really enjoyed the instant activity. Since the students enjoyed the instant activity they were excited and anxious to see what I had in store for them during the lesson. I'm looking forward to my next attempt at Lab C because their are a few things I want to touch up on.

Ok..so

For Lab B we had the task of teaching a section of ultimate frisbee. I chose to teach the students how to execute a long pass againest a defender. This lab we had a microphone hooked up to us so we could record what we were saying. After listening to my dialogue and recording it I was shooked at how many times I used fillers. I must have used the words "Ok" and "so" more than twenty times in a five minute period. After listening to it a couple of times I got annoyed at how many times I said them so I can't even imagine what the students were thinking about me repeating myself. Saying "ok" over and over again makes you sound like you don't know what is going on or that you're not confident in what you're doing and that is the last thing you want to demonstrate to your students. Doing exercises and more practice will help to eliminate how many times I use filler words like "ok" and "so".

Timing is Everything

As I watched my second attempt for Lab A I felt that I did a better job than the first time. When I broke it down however, I feel I could and should have done a better job managing my time. In a three minute lesson, I spent more than half the time giving instructions where the students weren't active. One of my biggest problems was that I gave the students too many cues which not only confused them but also took up more time for instruction and less time for activity. We have a goal to have our students engage in activity for at least fifty percent of the time which I didn't achieve. Seeing students stand around is never a good thing and it's important to keep your students involved and active.

Feedback

After watching the video of my first day teaching I didn't give any feedback to anyone during the lesson. Feedback is good to give because it motivates your students and it lets them know if they are doing the task right. It also important to give specific feedback to certain students. If I'm giving someone some negative feedback it's good to say something positive along with the negative comment to make sure the student doesn't get discouraged. The more feedback you give during the lesson the better off you are.

Is that me talking?

After listening to the video of myself teaching from the first day I recorded my speech and I was a little suprised. Even though the camera was far away and you could really hear the audio that well I still need to project my voice more. When I was speaking I wasn't saying full sentences and used some abbreviated words like "gonna". I also used the word "alright" too much. It's interesting to hear yourself and then it write back what you said, you don't realize some of the things you said and how you said it. I feel that this is a great tool and by recording everything you say you will be able to eliminate some of the unnecessary or incorrect words. I'm excited to do this exercise again and see my improvements. Check out my dialogue!