All posts by roberto colusso

Roberto Colusso – Journal Movement – Week 5

The case seems to be that teacher education revisions the experiences I had as a student. Friday’s activity ‘tail chase’ was no exception it showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that. Physical education can be fun.

It was also very informative to see the manner by which each successive version of the game added to the previous. At first the game was played one on one. One person tucked the tail into the side of their belts while the other person tried to take it away. In this version, the tail was really easy to defend and thus the activity was probably a bit frustrating for the person trying to take the tail. Still, the defender got to learn tactics on how to place ones own body and how to use the other people in the class to defend the tail.

The next activity required four students to work as a team, holding hands to form a row, one side defended the tail while the other tried to take the tail from another team. The follow up activity was similar, though this time the row was formed one behind the other.

This succession slowly introduces the features of territory games. Through it, the activities moved from the act of taking possession of the tail, resembling the need to take possession of the ball – in, for instance, soccer or basketball – to assigning different tasks between the front person and the last person – resembling the nature of the playing field. Through participation, the students gain an implicit understanding of these games.

Roberto Colusso – Comment – Week 4

I agree with Elisabeth Greenwood in her assessment of the strategies proposed by Daniel B. Robinson and Lynn Randall in Chapter six. The entry and exit slips are a simple but effective way to get to know the students and therefore be able to better cater the lessons to their needs. I am also interested in the use of stations as they transform the gymnasium into an amusement park type environment, allowing students to experience the sport in short term, skill focused activities.

Formative assessment is of top important as it involves the student in the learning experience both in considering their own development and in coming to understand the teachers task of assessing them. Students should be encouraged to engage in peer and self assessment as this helps increase the teachers knowledge about these students. Summative assessment tools should not be dispensed with as it provides its own unique information about the students. However, it should be used in conjunction with other assessment tools as its dependence on testing might produce limited results.

Observation needs to be an ongoing strategy as it alerts the teacher to all kinds of information regarding the students’ attitudes towards the activities. Students’ strengths and weakness can easily be identified as well as their level if engagement.

 

Roberto Colusso – Journal Movement – Week 3

I was really surprised to hear that riskier playgrounds are more beneficial for children than keeping them indoors. I remember hearing in the news that parents were increasingly concerned about their children’s safety outside and while I suspected that there was something wrong with that line of thinking, I had no recourse to argue against it. The worry over sending children out on their own plays into a fear of the unknown. For a prospective teacher, this anxiety is heightened by the fact that we will be placed in a position of responsibility. Knowing that some element of risk is actually beneficial for child development goes a long way toward quelling that concern.

It’s also refreshing to hear that children are more active outdoors. I remember being young and going out adventuring with my friends. It therefore makes sense to encourage children to play outdoors. The solution can be as simple as taking whatever activities you had intended to do indoors and do them outside. It would also be nice to find activities to do that require being outside like hiking or perhaps visiting a petting zoo.

Roberto Colusso – Comment on Journal Entry – Week 2

My own thoughts resonate with Zoe Filliter’s Movement Journal entry. I appreciate the way that Physical Education has changed over its recent history into something that is more accessible to everyone. Simply by diversifying the kinds of activities that are made available to the students, PE can be much inclusive of its students. To be sure, there is plenty of justification for teaching conventional sports and activities. But it is also important to teach children that they have to keep active and to accomplish this by finding what is most enjoyable to them.

Upon further reflection, I began to wonder what role playground games such as skipping rope, hopscotch and four square might have in the gymnasium. I know that some of these games have the stigma of being for girls only or for boys only, but there’s no reason for bringing such stigmas into the class room. Besides, I’m sure that there are a lot more kinds of games that I don’t know about simply because no one ever taught them to me.

Chuck the chicken

i really liked the chuck the chicken game. I loved the use of unusual paraphernalia. The elements of baseball are also incorporated such that they are no longer recognizable as such. As a result, the activity came off as over the top.

I’m curious to know whether this particular effect can easily be produced in other activities.

The value of such activities cannot be understated. they give the teacher the opportunity to introduce the rules of a game without having to set up or get into the more complicated details.

An activity such as chuck the chicken can be used as a warm up as well. Even if what follows is not baseball practice, so long as you intend to teach baseball at a later date, using chuck the chicken as a warm up can help begin to prepare the students early on.