Day 8

WE

Today we were in class still, but Professor Yang did a little activity for us. He read my blog and gave us an activity to do with bubble wrap. The idea was to get into groups and make a song/rhythm using the bubble wrap. I did Pop Lock and Drop with my partner. We were still in class talking about our lesson plans and other paper work. We went over the time coding sheet. The time coding sheet is used to evaluate our lessons. We break our lesson up into management, activity, instruction, and waiting time. The idea is to have little or no waiting time, at least 51% of activity time. Also keep instruction time short and simple while having even less management time.

ExerGames Experience!!!

Woooow what a day! This was a great experience. I had the opportunity to help Professor Yang out with an interview about his work in Exergames. I didn't have much knowledge about ExerGames, but I was very curious about what it exactly was. I helped set up all the equipment with Melissa Fromm (APEM president) and Professor Yang. There was a Nintendo Wii with the game Wii Resort. There are many things you can do with the Wii. There are many of games that have workouts and other gamers to make someone be active while having fun. The whole idea of ExerGames is to make being active fun while incorporating technology. There was another gadget called the I-toy that had a camera that projected your image on the screen and your body was the controller. You had to move your whole body around to play the different games. The next thing that was really cool was this gadget that let you play any game you wanted. The only catch is you either are on a stepper machine or on a stationary bike and you have to be constantly be moving. If you stop moving then the game pauses and resumes once you begin moving again. My favorite gadget that had to do with ExerGames, but wasn't a toy was the heart rate monitors. It wasn't the heart rate monitors themselves, but the technology that went along with it. The software on the computer allowed the person to see up to twenty heart rate monitor readings at a time. It is great for a teacher and coaching setting. I would love to use this technology for both. The interviewers from Syracuse interviewed me and asked a couple questions about ExerGames. I told them that today was my first experience with ExerGames, but I already knew that I wanted to incorporate this into my teaching. This is a new fun way to get my future students excited about going to PE class. Having a class of stations for I-dance/DDR, I-toy, the Wii, and the exercise bike and stepper would be a wonderful opportunity for the students to enjoy being active. This experience has made me even more excited about becoming a P.E. teacher.

Day 7

Today was less active which kind of stinks when you're a phys ed. major. Jack Murphy put together a slide show of the Edu 255 class last semester aka. the celebs at work. After that we went over the Higher Standards, Increased Accountability sheet. We went over the NYS. Standards and I definitely agreed with Professor Yang that there should be 4 standards instead of having a 1A and 1b. We talked a little more about the "School Report Card" and how as physical education teachers we should be fighting to get out class on the report card and make it standardized. After that we split up into groups and went over the blank lesson plan with the TA's and talked about the psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains. Each objective must include Situation, Task, and Criteria. It was a very informational day which was good, but no activity which was sad. Let me play!

Blog Intro and Lesson Intro

I really enjoyed doing my blog intro. The first time I did it in class I wasn't ready and it was a horrible misrepresentation of me. This time I showed what I enjoy doing in my free time and I felt I was on a more personable level. I thought my voice was loud enough and my body language was showing that I enjoy being active. My only critique would be that my video wasn't in sync with my audio. When I recorded the video the audio was fine, but when it was downloaded onto you tube it had a delay.

First off I would like to say that I did a lot better with my lesson than I did the first day. With this lesson I was ready to teach and I wasn't caught off guard with having to teach. I kept the cues short and simple. I did a good job with the demonstration and showed the lay up more than once. I was precise of how I wanted a right handed layup to be preformed. My hands and feet were part of the demonstration so I didn't fiddle with the "ball" in my hand. I kept my umms and ahhs to a minumum. I introduced myself and clearly stated what my signal for attention was. With the positive there is always room for improvement. My voice could have been a little louder and in my introduction and stating my signal for attention I could have slowed down my speech. At the end of my lesson I kind of checked for understanding, but I should have maybe said a safety statement and asked what my signal for attention was. If there was a next time, I would maybe show the left handed layup. If it was possible I would have liked to be changed and had an actual basketball. It would have been nice to demonstrate an actual layup too. I would have like to have talk about how the layup is one of the easiest ways to score a point in basketball and add some type of hook to my lesson. I was very pleased with my Lesson Intro.

Day 6

Before the instant activity we had a quick quiz on what we have learned so far. On this day Regina and Amanda coordinated the instant activity. This instant activity involved getting into groups of four and five people and making formations with our bodies. Some people were part of the formations and the other people were spotters for safety. Everyone in my group was a guy probably at least 170 pounds or more so some of the formations were a little harder when we had to stand on each other. It was still fun though, we got a good laugh out of it. Then after completing three or four formations we brought all the groups in together in the center of the gymnasium. They split the class up into two groups and did a more complicated formation that involved more people. The people that weren't directly involved were spotters. After that the class was split up into groups of two people to demonstrate a certain aspect of the pedology. It was a great learning experience because we got direct feedback form Professor Yang and the teaching assistants. If we did something wrong then Professor Yang had us try it again. I liked how he had us demonstrate the skill until we did it right. After that the class went to the classroom and we talked about APEM and other things to come this semester. Then after class I did my intro lesson on the basketball layup because I didn't get to do it the last two classes.

Day 5

We started class with an instant activity again. Everyday someone new will do an instant activity each day before the star of class. The instant activity had to do with different stations of jump roping. There was jumping on one foot, side to side , and many other variations. My favorite variation was the partner jump rope where you held one part of your partner's rope and they held one side of yours and you tried to jump together over both ropes. After that Mr. Murphy taught a mini-lesson on how to jump rope. He had quite an exciting hook to draw his students in. He talked about going on a hike in the jungle and using a snake as a jump rope. His hook crossed over into the jump rope cues. He used  a poster with the cues written on as a visual aid. He demonstrated well and also asked someone from the group to demonstrate to check for understanding too. His whistle was his signal of attention. Had us spread out and jump rope. He went around and gave us feedback and did inter task variation task by trying to jump rope backwards. He then had someone demonstrate again and then brought us back in to close. My only critique is that he had his back to some students sometimes. Then after that went over the pedology again and split up into groups and practice different parts of the pedology. First time we did it pretty slow, and then the second time after debriefing we went really fast. All in all a very productive day.

Day 4

Today was started with an instant activity. There was a poster of brain teasers and we had to do a type of motor skill while we tried to find the right answer. The answers were spread out around the gym on little pieces of paper. We discussed the pedology and then had to find a partner and think of our introduction, signal of attention, and do a little demonstration of a skill to be video taped. I didn't get to do it because we went right into a game to work on our gymnasium voices. We split up into two different lines and played Ain't No Flies on Me. A game that involved singing the song as loud as you can and whoever is the loudest wins. This works on not being embarrassed of being too loud because everyone was doing it.