Week 7 provided me with 4 very busy days, but was extremely rewarding from a teaching perspective. I probably had my best week with regards to student focus from the beginning to the end of lessons. I also had my first opportunity to take students on a field trip, I wrapped up the implementation of my inquiry research, and I started coaching the school tennis team.

One of my focuses this week was to really hit home on what the focal point of a particular lesson was. On Monday I had noticed that the real message of the lesson was being lost in the nuances and refinement of technique, and that I was just overloading the students with information in general. I adjusted by noting the key point of my lesson in my lesson plans and I kept lessons simple and focused. The adjustment proved pivotal as it was immediately evident that students were aware of the focal point through both visual evidence and CFU (check for understanding) questioning.

A second focus of my week was the implementation of my inquiry research into both my grade 9 and 10 classes. I am currently still comparing data, but the initial signs were quite positive. During the Grade 10 Golf unit, students began to utilize their mobile devices to improve their golf swing on a regular basis. One student even had his headphones on, and I went over to talk to him about using his mobile device for purposes other than coaching his partner, and it turned out he was watching a bio-mechanical breakdown of the full back swing and he was listening to the finer points of instruction to help his partner. The only major drawback of this implementation of technology is that not every individual had access to a mobile device or the software, so the feeling of usefulness of the tool varied from student to student. The Grade 9’s participated in Geoaching and utilized the geacaching app as the tool for this lesson. The lesson proved to be hugely successful, and had an immediate impact on the students. Some of the students even began to Geoacache the same day immediately after school with their friends. This was a perfect example of the potential technology in the classroom has to make an impact (sometimes immediate) on the affective learning domain of students.

Lastly, I began coaching the school’s tennis team this week. Initially I decided to do this to help build upon my hours devoted to the school outside of class time, but I have quickly learned that I could be quite valuable to helping those students improve. Personally I am quite inexperienced as far as playing tennis goes (I last played competitively in Grade 7, and I watch it quite a bit), and some of the students are highly ranked and are quite exceptional tennis players. They do not have a community tennis coach at the school and therefore I am probably the most experienced tennis coach they have, but what I found is that in combination with some of the best players, practices can be extremely well run and their could be an improvement in wins moving forward. Although many of the players are exceptional at tennis, their message is not heard when they are coaching the younger students as they are not yet highly respected by their peers. My goal is to design a practice plan with the Grade 11/12 players and to implement the drills they provide me to not only improve the younger players games, but also to provide the experienced players with valuable repetitions that they were not getting when they were coaching.