This week I greatly enjoyed our outdoor experience, from the group teach to our walk and then doing the discussion outside I found it all to be very engaging. It was interesting to see how Isis, Meghan and Tiffany executed a scavenger that was both active and informative. I could see students having a lot of fun with the animal tag and the scavenger hunt and it is something I would never have thought of for PE! I thought the walk that we did was a nice way to spend the morning, and it encouraged me to consider how I would lead a class outdoors. It occurred to me during the walk that it’s easy to say you are going to take your class outdoors but is another thing to actually do it. It’s true that children these days don’t go outdoors as much as they used to and I am a true believer that just being outdoors enhances education, however to go outdoors for a class does require some extra planning. It made me think about how untrusting we are in this day and age, and how just thinking about taking a class outside brings up a lot of liabilities and hazards, of course there are ways of minimizing these but it is a real obstacle. In my teaching career I plan to embrace outdoor education, it’s beneficial for all of us and just the change in scenery often makes for an exciting learning experience.
All posts by jessica levine
Group Teach Reflection- Invasion Games
It was my pleasure to lead a class alongside Ally and Kaira for our netball lesson. It was fun and challenging for us to come up with our ideas and then execute them with the class. I thought that the most successful part of the class was when we played our modified netball game at the end. The game gave everyone an opportunity to practice the basic skills we had taught earlier into a game environment and everyone seemed very enthusiastic. I also thought that having the opportunity to practice the basic skills prior to a game environment went well because everyone was given the opportunity to gain some confidence in their skills. I felt as though we all worked well as a team, however I personally felt as though I contributed to the group my background in netball, and so was able to explain the game of netball to my group members and then the class. Although I fumbled in my explanation of the game, this is something that I will talk about later when I address what I would have done differently, I hope that I was supportive and encouraging and helped with skill development and game application.
I found that planning the activity went smoothly, however having not ever taught a class there were a lot of logistics that seemed far less of an issue than they ended up being. It was easy when we were planning to discuss our time restrictions, however when it came to leading the class our time restrictions went out of the window. As I mentioned above it was also more difficult than I thought it would be to describe the modified netball game. Given a second chance I would have the best way to explain the game on a sheet in front of me to refer to. Assessment was also another thing that was relatively simple to plan but much more difficult in practice. I am still wondering about the best way to assess every single student.
Overall the learners’ were very enthusiastic participants. I think originally it was difficult for them physically and cognitively to forget what they know about basketball and other net sports in order to fully participate in netball. However once we started the modified netball game everyone was landing and pivoting perfectly which was really exciting to see! As many learners’ had a lot of questions initially and there were some original difficulties in picking up the skills this contributed to us going over time and so that would be something to watch out for next time.
I really enjoyed having the experience to lead a group lesson and have learnt a lot from both writing the lesson plan and executing the lesson. Thank you everyone for your enthusiastic participation and I look forward to all the future group teaches!
Jessica’s reflection Oct 1st
First I want to thank Tobi, Emily and Gemma for such a fun class! You all really set the bar high and made me remember some of the reasons I loved PE in school! It has been a long time since I was playing a team sport on turf, even if the game was one I haven’t played before it made me nostalgic for my days of field hockey.
The chuck the chicken game was a great way of opening up the class, I have never heard of the game before but it was very helpful in promoting the positive qualities that would be so useful in the three-ball kickball game. I enjoyed its goofy nature because in sports you have to take risks to really have fun and learn and chuck the chicken made everyone feel comfortable with each other.
I also thought it was awesome how the group took a sport that has been put into the hall of shame and changed it to be inclusive. Everyone was moving almost all the time and I would feel comfortable taking this game into my classroom!
September 16th blog post
I have few memories of my PE experiences in elementary school, however of what I do remember I was lucky enough to have a very diverse curriculum where we covered everything from tennis and swimming, to netball and rounders. Looking back it seems as though I enjoyed all of it and can still see today how I have benefitted from having such a wide variety of experiences at a young age. I think that maybe I had such positive PE experiences because I went to an all girls school and so was never being compared to the boys. When we were discussing other peoples negative PE experiences in class today it surprised me how many were eliminated just by being in a single sex school. I was also lucky enough to never play dodge ball! Whether that was because I was in an all girls’ school or that it’s just not played in England I don’t know, however, not playing dodge ball, capture the flag or California kick ball probably all contributed to my positive PE experiences as a child.
I am excited to be entering teaching at a time when there is an emphasis on daily physical activity and leading a healthy lifestyle. I hope that I am able to use physical activity as a tool in the classroom to encourage further learning whether it is just about physical literacy or interdisciplinary.