Tag Archives: PE

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.

01/8/15

And now, for a change of pace…

… and we’re back to school!  Winter break was very enjoyable (a little too enjoyable), but it’s great to get back into the groove.  And back to school means… back to practicum, and back to another fun-filled day at the school!  My SA requested that I try my hand at teaching another PE class last time we met, so we went into the gym after French.  The kids all brought their gym strip!  I was so impressed with them that I immediately sent them on 3 laps around the gym (being sure to touch all four walls) to get the party started… and hadn’t noticed that I had yet to turn on the lights.  Ecstatic, E shouted, “All right, Mr. T!  You’re awesome!  Guys, let’s go run in the DARK!”  Being the way he is, he shouts this as he’s running into the gym.  Fortunately he stopped when I told him to wait as I fumbled around for the lights.  Aside from that, the lesson turned out very well!  We were starting basketball, and my SA had suggested that I try to teach some passing techniques along with dribbling (which I originally intended).  The kid surprised me with their full, undivided attention and enthusiastic participation!  By the end of the class everyone was able to do chest passes — a few of the girls, who’ve actually never held a basketball (what?!), exclaimed that they were actually good at a sport, which brought a huge grin to my face.

Aside from that, however, today was a teaching-free day.  Today’s math block was self-guided; science in the afternoon was not only self-guided, but my SA was assessing the students’ ability to independently follow instructions and problem-solve.  So, I can only speak of the French lesson that took place within the classroom (our prep block).  The following is an observation of a team-taught French lesson (!) that I absorbed via osmosis, as I was marking the kids’ spelling homework.  This announcement may have been met with alarm, but please, suspend your uneasiness for a moment — it will make sense further on.  PS:  my SA told me to pay special attention to the other teacher, because his teaching style was very different from my SA’s.  This interesting change is made even more interesting in that I now know that the French teacher was actually replacing the teacher who normally taught French.  And that teacher, interesting enough, is our vice principal.

* * *

The lesson hook was simple enough — the kids recognized the vice principal and were rather energetic… very uncharacteristic of the class, as French was usually met with little enthusiasm.  The vice principal and his partner took turns talking and teaching:  the vice principal would say a phrase en francais, and his partner would provide an English translation.  He spoke in English as well, but the vice principal spoke mostly in French during the instructional phase.

The interesting difference, I noticed, is the fact that the vice principal taught in an anecdotal method.  He would say a phrase, ask the class to repeat the phrase several times, after which he would teach the meaning and tell a short story about the phrase, or make a short comment or joke.  Today, I learned that asking for the “wash basin” (which means washroom) in the wrong place in the world would be met with snickering and a retort, “Why, do you smell?  Do you need to take a bath that badly?”  Funny enough, few people make that association in English, as most public bathrooms don’t come with fancy shower facilities.  Or any facilities, but I digress.

The students quite enjoyed the lesson, and showed their enthusiasm in full participation.  Several students carried on side conversations, usually comments on the funny and silly anecdotes the vice principal shared with the class; while my SA and I would normally address the side conversations, the vice principal was very comfortable with these and as a result, the environment was noticeably noisier and more boisterous.  I can say without a doubt that the kids all enjoyed today’s French class; whether they retain the phrases learned, however, will need to be determined in the future.

Perhaps the students quite enjoyed the change of pace; perhaps they liked the more active nature of the new unit.  While they didn’t exactly all rush off to the toilet at the same time, the kids got plenty of practice standing up, sitting down, raising their hands, asking for words like “banana” (banane), “roast beef” (rosbif), and “salad” (salade) en francais.  They particularly liked the vice principal’s silly pun — his way of saying “making roast beef” was “duing rosbif” (du is a subject marker, and a fun homonym for “do”).

And the class, surprisingly, calmed down and lined up orderly (with no chatter!) in preparation for PE class.  I find it kind of cute how one or two students would find out I was teaching (one or two kids would always ask me in the morning, “Are you teaching us today, Mr. T?”) and quickly spread the news, sending everyone into “best behaviour mode”.  I’m thinking that this might be a good thing to take advantage of… oh well, I’ll take it!

11/29/14

Challenge: Physical Activity in 30 minutes

Back in school again!  While I relish the opportunity to collaborate and dissect theories and concepts with my colleagues within the classroom, it lacks the intensity and excitement that comes from entertaining a group of children.  Before we begin, story-time:

* * *

My last lesson offered quite the learning experience.  Moral of that story is… simplify, simplify, simplify.  Just like fractions!  And so, when my SA asked me to lead a PE class, and to focus on picking a game that is fun and engaging yet straightforward, ideas immediately began to swim in my head.  See, I didn’t really like PE as a class, mostly because I was not very athletic; fortunately that is not a concern with my class.  Nonetheless, I went on a search for fun, team-based games that offered opportunities for inclusion.  I suggested two games to my SA:  one volleyball-based, one open space-based (we weren’t sure whether we would have the volleyball nets up or not).

… she again stressed the importance of keeping things straightforward and simple for the students.  Right, right… I had to teach the students how to play the games before actually playing.  So, back to the drawing board… I found a tag-based game called Prisoner of War that I thought would be quite a lot of fun, seeing as it’s team-based and offers students a variety of different strategies (lots of running, or strategic short bursts of speed).  I also suggested Jailball and “Ga Ga”, two hugely popular games from my days working at a childcare centre.  My SA shared that her class has played Jailball before (under a different name), and that I could consider Prisoner of War or Ga Ga… although I should consider how much time is required for each (the students only had half an hour for PE every Thursdays).  In my zeal I overlooked this important detail!  Note to self:  consider all aspects of problem-solving when considering possible solutions…

* * *

I admit that I’ve been taking advantage of the students’ enthusiasm for class management.  I told a few students “I will be teaching PE class today, and will explain the game we’re playing today once we’re in the gym.  And we’ll head to the gym after everybody has their PE strip and shows me they’re ready by standing in line.”  To my amazement, the students began to self-organize, spreading the message (Mr. Tsang’s teaching today!) and giving each other friendly reminders to get ready for PE class.  Confirmation, again and again, that acknowledging each student individually goes a long way!  I’m really glad that I took the time to get to know each student during my first few weeks observing.

The students got changed relatively quickly and the first few students ready (E was the first; he’s the only student who prepares for PE by arriving at school wearing his gym strip), but we had to wait a few minutes for the previous class to clear the gym.  Once the previous class cleared out of the gym, I instructed the waiting students to run 4 laps (which was met by a few groans).  And once the students were winding down, I informed a few of them that there was a reason I made them run 4 laps as warm-up, because… they will be running even more during the activity!!!  They would likely all boycott my gym class if I pitched it like that, so I repackaged it as a fun game.

Thing is, as I was image training by imagining the students running around (all of whom were having fun, of course!), I had imagined the gym to be much bigger than it actually was.  My SA noted that the game would be a lot more fun if we were playing on the field, since 13 students standing in half the gym was… actually rather cramped!  I had foreseen the students not paying attention if I started off by telling them they would be separated into two separate groups, so I separated them prior to telling them about the game.  In a moment of silliness, I sent them to opposite corners of the gym… and to confirm that I didn’t exactly make the right choice, I saw out of the corner of my eye E jumping up against and kicking the big cushioned barrier on his side of the gym.  So as to not call attention to him, I instructed everybody in the class to sit down and await instructions.

Now, with the added difficulty of communicating the rules across the gym (good job, Tony!), I relied instead on students to repeat back the instructions/rules to ensure they understood.  I would tell them a rule (your side of the gym is along the outside white lines to the middle red line marked by the cones), and then ask a targeted question where the answer would be what I just said (which part of the gym was your side?).  Originally I set the jail area to be rather large, with the edge fairly close to the centre line.  Sure enough, E picked up on this and expressed his concern, “Mr. Tsang, it isn’t going to be very fair because the jails are pretty close to the centre line,” to which I replied… “… this is on purpose, E, to make the game a little bit easier for us all so we can practice playing.”  I’m sorry, E.  Teacher’s rules!  My SA asked me a question (to help me clarify the boundaries, bless her!), which gave me a chance to clarify the exact boundaries to the students.  Confirming that they understood both the rules as well as the boundaries, they were ready to begin!  Students slowly got up onto to their feet and stalked tentatively towards the other side…

3… 2… 1… start!  And at first, few people moved, opting to stay safely on their side of the gym.  There were a few students who tempted members of the other team by sticking their limbs temporarily over the line; the occasional daring soul would jump two steps over the line, only to giggle and run back when the other team started in their direction.  This standoff continued for several moments, until A made a break for it along the boundary on the far side of the gym.  Around this time I noticed that the gym was rather cramped for a game of this magnitude… and this was confirmed when a student approached me and said, “Mr. Tsang, this is pretty hard… A made it into his jail, but I think he might have run out of bounds to avoid people tagging him.”  Pausing to think for a moment, I decided that it would be a better idea to remove the outer boundary to create more freedom for the students.

Sure enough, shortly after this announcement, several students huddled briefly (likely to discuss strategy), and then darted randomly towards the other side to rescue their friends.  To further encourage this, I temporarily paused the game to reduce the size of the jails, following E’s earlier suggestion.  The game really picked up at this point, with students from each side encouraging each other and sprinting.  There were a few disappointed sighs when players got tagged, but everyone was honest and walked back to their jail, ready to run again.  Soon, the game was over — one side had emptied their jail and won the game!  There were some cheers, some content smiles, and a few sour looks; I called the class over to the middle of the gym and had them sit in a circle around centre.

I invited the students to share their opinions of the game.  In general, they had a lot of fun, but a few of theme expressed frustration at the lack of space and the prevalence of “puppy-guarding” (standing really close to jail to prevent captured players to escape).  Seeing a good opportunity, I decided to engage the class in a short discussion on “strategy-planning”.  Noting that puppy-guarding was both an annoying and effective strategy, I invited the class to brainstorm some ways to defeat the strategy.  There were quite a few good ideas — a few students suggested waiting for when the Guards were “distracted” to make a run for it (the importance of awareness and perspective-taking).  Upon further prodding, A shared his winning strategy with the class — when the rest of the group is distracted with other players teasing and tempting across the line, he snuck along the sidelines and sprinted when he saw that the coast was clear.  After a moment of bubbly excitement, E added to this strategy — “what about when you and a teammate run together at the same time?”  E had successfully used this strategy to help his team win the game:  after whispering to his teammate, they waited for a moment when the defenders’ attention was distracted, and bolted in opposite directions.  The defenders, temporarily confused, were paralyzed and before they could start in either direction, both students had crossed the centre line, winning the game.

The entire class chomped at the bit, eager to try that winning strategy for themselves.  I moved towards resetting the game, but (fortunately) my SA stopped me and reminded the class that the recess bell will be ringing in 5 minutes, and the students needed time to change.  The entire class was disappointed by this sudden interruption; I expressed my own disappointment, telling them that I lost track of time myself and promised them that we would try the game again next time I had an opportunity to teach PE.

* * *

All in all, I was very impressed by how the class managed themselves.  They showed me that despite their challenges with slowing down, paying attention, listening to instructions, and following through, they are capable of excelling.  I was also very impressed with A, who unreservedly shared his strategy with the rest of the class instead of holding onto insight; I could see that he was quite pleased that his contribution was acknowledged in front of the class.  I think I will give him his own tag, as I foresee more interesting contributions from him in the near future.

Take-home learned lessons:

  • Carry a whistle with me into the gym (SA mentioned this, and I agree — should try to preserve my voice)
  • Separating the class into two groups and sending them to opposite ends of the gym makes it very difficult for me to monitor their attending… in the future, I can simply have them sit on either side of a line, but still congregated together
  • Begin setting an alarm to signify the end of the lesson, perhaps with an included 5 minute warning — I wore my watch, telling myself that I would be constantly checking it… unfortunately, I had not really done so, being so invested in students’ experience and encouraging participation
  • Class collaboration gives some students prone to making “negative choices” a positive outlet; however, I still need to work to promote participation from more quieter students.  I noticed that the students who normally wouldn’t contribute to class discussion speaking amongst themselves during the game, which was still a small victory; I would imagine that the more boisterous students (A, E, and a few others) may intimidate those who are less sure of themselves; I would go so far as to say that those students are comfortable with making mistakes and sharing the wrong answer, and as thus feel more empowered to contribute their opinion.  With time…