Tag Archives: basketball

02/19/15

Scripted Connection

Good evening, kind readers!

Thank you for staying with me through this rollercoaster ride of an adventure!  A whirlwind of assignments, presentations, projects, unit plans, and practicum looms on the horizon — perfect time for a storm-chaser like myself!  Building upon the way in which my previous lesson panned out, I had set several goals for myself.

  • Carefully plan out my lesson
  • After carefully planning out the lesson (and accounting for my crowd), script what I’m about to say
  • Commit the script to memory
  • Follow through on the script and don’t do anything strange

In designing the script, I tried to imagine myself in the gym in front of my class… and it all flowed to me — I foresaw several students having experience with lay-ups, with the vast majority not quite sure what I’m talking about.  Thus, to level the playing field (and also offer more experienced students a refresher), I decided to script step by step.  Before stepping into the classroom, I already messed up twice:

  • In consulting the detailed resource for the basketball unit… somehow I had forgotten to include the first instruction (approach the basket at 45 degrees)
  • The email with the lesson plan attachment didn’t send properly
  • I had my cheap plastic dollar-store whistle in my back pocket, and it shattered beneath my weight when I sat down… *sigh*

That first point is ridiculous.  Next time I am going to type up every single step verbatim before tailoring to my response.  Less emphasis on the image training — that should come after getting the instructions right.  As for the second point, I am glad that I followed through with my original plan to commit what I had written down to memory, because I realized (after my SA asked about my lesson plan) that it hadn’t sent… again.  I thought it was strange for us not to have discussed it earlier… need to purchase a new router tomorrow.  Either way, I quickly wrote down the flow of what I was to say, and my SA felt that my instructions were good.  She gave me a good suggestion (aim for the upper corner of the box on the backboard), which I wrote down and committed to memory.  Also, as some of the students still needed to be video-taped as part of Fresh Grade, I was to lead a set shot warm-up.  If that’s to be the case… warm-up will be changed to 3 laps and then a quick mini-lesson on the set shot, with the rest of the class getting videoed.  Once they were all done, lay-ups shall commence!

* * *

… French took a little to wrap up, so we began with ~5-10 fewer minutes to work with.  And I grabbed the wrong clipboard… off to a great start already.

During the mini-lesson I made sure to clearly demonstrate and describe the set shot — athletic position, arm at 90 degree angle, hold ball so it isn’t blocking view of the basket, aim, push UP with arms and follow through.  Demonstrated this twice, then separated the class among the 4 baskets.  I waited until my SA was done with all the videos, and then… lay-up instruction time!

I wanted all the students to be able to see me, so I instructed them to sit in a half circle around the 3-point line.  I demonstrated the lay-up step by step as per the script I laid out, paraphrasing slightly to elaborate on what I felt might have been important to keep in mind; while changing up the wording, I tried my best to stay true to the essence of the plan.  It felt… grounded to teach in that manner.  I demonstrated this skill twice, and then gave the students a chance to try.  This time, I split the class between the only two baskets with the box on the backboard (I wanted them to practice aiming for the corner).  Feedback from my SA, which I will follow through on next time:

  • Better positioning — while the half-circle ensured all students were able to hear me, most of them could only see my BACK during my demonstration
    • I need to be mindful of maximizing the students’ ability to see what I’m doing (this is PE class!)
  • When performing the lay-up, approach the basket from an angle (to really maximize the “aiming for the corner” technique)

This lesson felt quite good, but still left a somewhat sour taste in my mouth.  The class gave me their undivided attention and were quick to stop and listen when I called for everyone’s eyes and ears.  It could’ve been so much better, had I actually provided proper instruction… I can’t shake the feeling that my faulty instruction kept the students from doing better than they would have.  It may mean more time spent, but I definitely need to double my efforts into crafting a solid lesson plan.  I need just one — things may not go as planned, but I want to make sure I know what it feels to not just be prepared, but be backed up by valid and accurate teaching.

02/3/15

A belated update

Hello, readers!  This week’s update comes a little bit late, and for that I apologize.  And now, without further ado…

* * * * *

PE class this time around was a little more hectic, with chaos abound, but the class cooperated well with us.  My SA needed to assess each student’s fitness, as it is one of the components that make up their PE grade.  As a result, we had to go through the class roster in groups, as the fitness stations did not accommodate the entire class.  We split up the gym into two portions, with myself running set shot practice on the other side of the gym.

There were a few challenges we faced.  While we had access to two separate baskets, they were at 90 degrees to each other, which resulted in the two lineups bunching up together at the ends.  Fortunately the class did really well staying on task and practiced dribbling while they were waiting in line.  M, one of my students who is diagnosed with ASD, had a few challenges as well.  He had difficulties with the technique involved with set shots and was not able to shoot the ball high enough, which led him to attempt different kinds of shots such as overhead lobs, underhanded tosses, and so on.  These choices led to him gradually becoming off-task, with him starting to bother the classmates standing behind him in line.  Moreover, as the fitness test wrapped up for the first group, my SA called for other students to take their places; the transition created a little bit of confusion and chaos.

My initial idea was to run a set shot workshop similar to the lesson I taught last class, but quickly realized that this would not be possible after discussing our goals for the day with my SA.  Moreover, French class ended several minutes later than expected, so we had to make up for it by starting as soon as we entered the gym.  I decided to mainly focus on set shots and circulating to give individual tips while formatively assessing the students on their technique.  Initially I instructed M verbally, and gave him verbal prompts for redirecting off-task behaviour.  When that did not work, I began pulling him aside to help him focus on the proper technique, which was moderately successful for a short period of time.  As his off-task behaviour escalated, I informed him that continuing that behaviour would result in him being assigned a different activity aside from the rest of the class; he chose to participate in the activity properly, and I affirmed his positive choice with praise.

As I was transitioning into the “baskets for pushups/situps” activity that the class loved (D explicitly asked for it), my SA blew the whistle, signalling a group change.  We decided to continue with the previous set shot activity, as the new additions to our set shot camp were rather tired and not as receptive.  I decided to keep it simple and continue the workshop until the end of PE class, which worked out rather well.

* * *

My SA and I discussed our plan of attack for the extended practicum.  It’s coming soon!  I’m very thankful for the opportunity to lead the class… the idea fills me with excitement!  That being said, one of my objectives for the practicum will be to fully emulate and incorporate my SA’s teaching style, expectations, and structure.  Over the course of the first term I had seen the class grown tremendously and begin to shine.  I need to remain mindful of the students’ expectations, as I’ve noticed that a few of them have begun to assume that things are “different” when Mr. Tsang is standing in front of the classroom.  One of the first things I will do with the class is to spend perhaps an hour going over the classroom expectations (again) and being firm on the expectations.  I am contemplating, however, discussing a Social Contract with the class, tying the idea to the Social Students unit on Governance.

That’s all for now!  Time to put all those ideas swimming around inside my head onto paper!

01/25/15

I think I like PE now!

I must admit… prior to stepping foot into the classroom as a teacher candidate, the idea of teaching physical education unnerved me somewhat.  So does the thought of teaching French, but we will save that story for another time.  Fortunately, I have the wonderful opportunity to study under Steve McGinley and learned that PE doesn’t have to be taught in a meritocratic manner.  And so, tasked with leading a class full of wonderful individuals possessing a diverse range of experience and skills, I move forward with this week’s task:  dribbling, chest passes, bounce passes, and a juicy introduction to set shots.  In the sake of brevity, this post will focus solely upon the lesson and lessons learned from said lesson.  Another post to follow on the meat of the happenings of last week, and more musings to come…

* * *

Plan:  modified warm-up allowing for dribbling and pass practice.  How to achieve this and introduce/set shot practice?  Well, I wanted to make sure each student had a good opportunity to practice, which involves time… and I had no clue how many baskets were going to be available (we had 5 at my elementary school as a child… which, in retrospect, was a rather impressive number).  So, during the drive to the school (and while weaving in and out of rain-slogged traffic), I had the bright idea of forgoing the typical 3 lap jog around the gym and use the skills practice to warm up!  Seeing as we recently covered assessment techniques in PE, assessment was somewhat on my mind…

… and so I hatched the great idea of having them all run around the gym to pass me the ball.  Yes, just me.  While it was great for formative assessment (and the kids loved the idea of doing something other than running around the gym), it created the unfortunate problem of TRAFFIC JAM!  On the bright side, most of the students took the opportunity to practice their dribbling while chatting with their friends, but this issue could have been mitigated by separating the class into small groups or partners.

My set shot mini-lesson and following activity went fairly well.  The students were having fun experimenting and celebrating their successes; I stopped the class and gathered everybody around for some strategy-sharing.  After giving a few more pointers, I tasked the groups with trying to score as many baskets as they can (as a group) within 5 minutes, with the winning group deciding on a kind of exercise I would get to do (ie — I do pushups, or burpees).  I feel that changing the focus from individual to team helped some students get away from their fear of failure to simply having fun participating with their classmates.  While no group got even close to the minimum number of baskets I challenged them with (haha, nobody can get 100 baskets!), we still had a great time debriefing.  Well, they did — I did a pushup for each student’s contribution, whether it be something they tried that worked or “nothing”.  I temporarily forgot that there were 25 students in the class, and that while they all had the option of participating, it was still in front of the class.  Perhaps next time I will use more Think-Pair-Share.  And next time I’ll have them join me in pushups, too!  Or perhaps a Walk-and-Chat, that would make a nice cool-down… can’t wait to try next week!  My class is awesome — it’s hard to believe that the same class who bounced off the wall in The Story of the Wasp is the same class that gave me its undivided attention as I hit the rim not once or twice, but three times as I was demonstrating the set shot.  Nothing but net on the fourth attempt, though!

PS — D was invaluable as a classroom resource.  Initially he shared, nonchalantly, “I have to shoot from further away.  I can’t score baskets up close.”  I looked at him and jokingly replied, “seriously?”  He replied, “yes, Mr. T,” turned around, paused for a second to aim, and shot a basket from just outside free throw range.  Nothing but net.  “Respect,” I said to him, passing him my ball.  Without a word, he shot the ball I tossed to him, which followed his to its home through the red iron.  Okay, I trusted him to give his classmates pointers from then on.  I’ll share the story of how we began our amicable relationship another time.