Group A 

Week #3 Post 3

October 30, 2015
Guiding questions:
* What is physical literacy?
This was our day to team teach and my contribution to the group was to read the chapters and do a summary of the above. This is my summary of physical literacy Chapter 13 Teaching Physical Education Today Canadian Perspectives, Daniel B. Robinson & Lynn Randall
Dawn Wilson – September 24, 2015
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Physical literacy is no mind-from-body separation and consider the holistic physical, mental and emotional development of the physically active child.
Shift the subject of PE from a prescribed activity-centered performance model to a person-centered participation model.
Physical literacy stems from three dimensions: Cognitive, Motor (movement) & Affect (social, emotional, spiritual)
Four key indicators of physical literacy: Functional capacities (function), Contextualized capabilities (form), Expressive possibilities (feeling), Flow consciousness (flow)
Expanding PE to include alternative activities such as hiking, climbing or even hula-hooping. Get students to try new things and expose those who may be less athletic a chance to succeed. PE was more focused in teaching athletic sports we have now moved to “physical literacy as the characteristic of a physically literate individual that moves with poise, economy and confidence in a wide variety of physically challenging situations.
I quite enjoyed learning more about this and realizing that PE has REALLY changed! The various activities that we can include and there are many different activities we can use. My initial thought was the way we could include some of traditional practices into PE. Imagine that our ancestors paddled every where! So many outdoor activities that we could have included. In terms of our lesson delivery, a few things I could have personally improve on: directions delivery, time of activities, set up outside, use of whistle. Overall I found the lesson prep and delivery quite enjoyable.

Group A 

Week #7 Post 4
October 30, 2015
Guiding questions:
* What ideas are used to create a safer, inclusive and respectful environment?
Interesting that I am writing this post tonight. My first full day of practicum in the classroom and observing the entire day of activities. (The other three days were on field trips). The teacher is responsible for teaching PE, as the PE teacher of 20+ years retired and now the PE classes are the responsibility of the teacher. They were wrapping up their unit on soccer and today was final evaluation day to see what skills the students have mastered and continue to use. The class started with a “talk” about safety, followed by warm-up and alternating games of soccer with 4 team. Two teams played against each other for three minute intervals. During the course of the class, one student got hit in the face with the soccer ball, two students slipped, another took a blow to her stomach area. 

As discussed in our class, it is so important to go over safety with students and especially in a place like Mount Pleasant where the gym is very small and your only option is to sit on benches on the side lines. I almost got hit at one point. My point is, it is a great responsibility to take on with students and to teach them the importance of technique, i.e. in terms of soccer to stop the ball before kicking, not bunching up, passing, team work, etc. In our small groups I asked about earth quake this has crossed my mind as well! I am a guest at this school and I do not know the safety procedures should this happen. Safety has been on mind every since and the importance of monitoring and doing our part as the teacher to ensure students are safe. I am also thinking about my long practicum in January and the possible lesson plans that I will need to develop carry out.

Group A
Week # 1 Post

October 21, 2015

Guiding questions:
* What were my positive and negative experiences in PE
* What is important to teach in PE
* Fears of teaching PE
* What is purpose, understanding of PE past & present

Sorry for the late post! My experiences in PE were mostly negative. I was self conscious of my body and was teased a lot by boys.  I was often left out of the PE activities and most of the times was able to sit on the sidelines and watch or I would skip class.  PE was focused around learning how to play sports that of which I did not have an interest in.  I did join basketball for midgets and senior high school, but fell out of interest because of small town politics.  I was always turned away from sports from players being too competitive and or aggressive.

In PE, it is important to teach students all aspects of health at not just focus on games and sports. I was absolutely terrified to take this course and my whole past PE class life flashed before me.  Honestly, I was wondering if I could sit on the sidelines and pass – this is how my past in PE had shaped me!

What I learned on the very first day of this course was a breath of fresh air and I was able to relax. Some of the key things I took away include:
~ Looking at the gym as a big classroom
~ Lesson planning for a purpose and giving every activity a purpose
~ On-going assessment of students
~ Emotional safety by setting rules and including everyone
~ Play safe, no province wide, school wide and classroom rules

Prior to this class I thought I could not teach PE and coming out I can honestly say this is one of my favourite classes and I look forward to every Tuesday!