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CITE Movement Journal 5 -Lexi Picken

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The focus this week was on invasion games. Vivian, Zoe and Jenny all did a wonderful job of making the activities fun, and exciting. I also enjoyed the surprisingly intense workout I received from participating. What made the activities so appealing was that there was continuous active participation. Everyone was constantly moving, and no student was left out or excluded. The group provided quick, easy instructions, and left little down time. Sitting for long periods of time isn’t always ideal for elementary aged students, so I appreciate the group for keeping that in mind.

This weeks team-teach was also able to factor in some concepts of physical literacy. For many physical forms of activities, one needs to master the basic skills before he or she can move on. For example, in volleyball, we need to understand the basic skills of bumping, serving, setting and spiking before we can actually participate in a game. With that being said, I enjoyed that there were various levels of improvement provided on Friday. We started of with basic skills, and gradually improved them as the game intensified. In return, this created an environment where students needed to strategize, as well as work together.

Reflecting back on my personal elementary experience with invasion games, I noticed that they were very independently focused. When playing games like Capture the Flag, students usually just ran and grabbed the flag. Teamwork wasn’t always a factor when playing. In regards to the team-teach, students were forced into working together. Every student needed to cross the end line in order to receive a point. In terms of keeping active participation amongst all students, this style game is the way to go!

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GROUP B/ WEEK 4- REFLECTION

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This week we read the chapter on assessments and the movement domains. After the reading the two chapters, I have had more understanding how the variety of assessment strategies be used in the P.E. class, such as learning logs and performance task rather than simply-based testing. For example, using the rubric for assessment does help me to self-assess. It does help me to know how I can improve and what I should do differently the next time.

On last Tuesday, the Group Teach did their teaching on striking and batting games. The group started with their instant activity (strike a pose) for five minutes. I found that warm-up activity was good! We can dance or move whatever we like in that area. Even though, I’m not good at dancing. I still have fun in that activity. The group used a rubric for assessment for their activity. I always found it is hard to do self-assess. I don’t know if I should assess myself in a good or outstanding. I always think if you are giving a good or outstanding assessment, then you need to be very good at P.E. or be more physically literate than others. But actually I was wrong! My friend told me that it is not necessary that everyone needs to be fully physically literate. All you have to do is meet all the criteria or standard of the activity then it is all good. I have to say that I really enjoyed the activities on last Tuesday. It was FUN! 😀

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Sienna’s PE movement journal (Oct 7th)

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This week, from practicum, I had a chance to observe how TGFU concept is implemented in a PE class. In grade 2 PE class, students were divided into four groups, and the teacher gave each corner of the gym as “home station” to each group. The game itself was very simple, but it was fun and a very good example of TGFU. There were 30 balls in the middle of the gym, and students had to bounce the ball to their home station. When there were no balls left in the middle of the gym, students were allowed to take balls from other groups’ home stations. The group who has the biggest number of balls win the game. In my opinion, this game was the perfect example of TGFU to introduce basic skills of basketball. All students actively participated in the game. By the time when the game was finished, most students were able to bounce the ball pretty well. I wish I had an opportunity to play the game like this in PE class before practicing basketball. In Korea, most PE classes were always about playing sports. We play basketball for a while then move on to badminton, and then soccer. Like this, we always learned sports in PE class, so I never knew TGFU. I think TGFU is a very effective method to introduce fundamental movement skills of sports such as basketball or soccer.
Even though I did not experience TGFU in my PE classes in Korea, I realized that I have learned about “PE for life” concept. There is something called “National Health Gymnastics (NHG)” in Korea, and every student has to learn this in a PE class. If I remember correctly, students practice “National Health Gymnastics” at least once a week at school. I heard that a lot of companies try to practice NHG before they start working. Some people practice NHG every morning as their morning exercise. I think this is one of the examples of “PE for life” so wanted to share. Please enjoy the video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP5rGmrTyjg

 

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Little Elephant Plays Netball – Week 5? October 7, 2015

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Once upon a time there was a little elephant.  Little elephant had a trunk that was a little too long, and so little elephant was teased often.  Little elephant was called pinocchio, long nose, and weirdo.  Little elephant wished on every star and blade of grass that he would wake up one day with a normal sized trunk and so all of the other little elephants would be his friend.  Little elephant’s long trunk often made him unbalanced, and so he often fell over, because none of the adult elephants ever took the time to teach him how to walk with a slightly longer trunk.  One day ‘Old Gray’ walked up to little elephant and told him about all of the wonderful things that his longer trunk can do, such as throwing objects.  Little elephant created games where he learned to shift his weight while he threw, and really project objects using his trunk. He started small, sticks and stones, and ended up tall, with fallen trees and boulders.  Every game he played helped increase his trunk strength, his aim, this distance and so his confidence.

Little elephant grew, and as he grew, his trunk grew with him.  Fortunately the other elephants realized little elephants potential, and started to appreciate his talents.  The other elephants wished that they had such a mentor that helped them realize what they could do.  One day, a hunter was creeping towards the elephants, wanting ‘Old Baboo’s’ tusks.  Little elephant was by the watering hole, and so was too far away to help the other elephants attack.  However, there was a giant rock by Little Elephant, and he picked it up. Because he had practised and played so diligently as a little elephant, he aimed and threw.  He killed the hunter!!! Little elephant became a hero, and all of the other elephants decided to never tease the ‘different’ elephants again.  They also learned that starting with easy games helped realize each elephant’s potential for strength and fitness later on in life, to help kill greedy horrible tusk hunters.  And elephants were never poached again.

The end.

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Movement Journal Week 5

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This week I enjoyed learning more about Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU). I like the idea of breaking down fundamental skills and categorizing them into types of sports. Until recently I would have thought of Capture the Flag when someone was talking about invasion games. It has been interesting to learn about the break down of sports into fundamental movement categories. I have always played a lot of invasion games such as soccer, basketball, field hockey and ultimate and never thought to break down the skills this way. I like the idea of slowly building up to the skill to perform a sport, the way we did in PE this week with both the team teach and after with Steve. However, I think it could be challenging as a PE teacher, because many kids just want to play the sport right away without any breakdown of skill. It would be helpful to get some resources on how to break down different types of sports into games that slowly build up the skills required for the sport. I think the discovery approach is useful because it allows students to understand why they are learning what they are learning and to be in control of their own learning. What we learn stays with us longer if we were in charge of our learning. One condition for including all learners in game playing, would be breaking down skills enough that everyone is able to perform them at first. Everyone should at least be able to accomplish the first level of the skill. Like in the game with Steve, we were all able to perform the first task of getting through the people on the line but still gaining the basic fundamental principles of dodging opponents.

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Week 5 Invasion Games

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I learned a lot this week about Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU). When I was younger, I remember playing games in physical education and how fun they were but I never realized how the skills we learned could be so transferable to other activities until I got older. I believe in PE we need to expose children to many different skills but also let them know that everything they are learning has a purpose. If a child believes that what they’re learning in PE has a purpose that can be applied to many activities then they may be more willing to participate.

This week for our group discussion we were talking about what is important and I realized that for me it was multi activities. If you expose a child to many different ways to use a skill then the child has more chance of succeeding in one of them. This week’s group nicely broke down how we gradually build on a skill then make it harder to challenge ourselves. At first, when we were playing the main game and our group had to get to the other side I was wondering why the cones on the far side were not closer. The other team’s arms were not long enough to reach us so we just had to walk across. I learned as the game gradually got harder that there was a purpose to the distance. In the last part, the other team could take one step and that allowed them to protect their area, which I found made it impossible to get across. It made me realize the steps we take to teach a game. You want to allow a group to get confident in the game then let them build strategies. You do not want to discourage anyone by making a game too hard where they feel they will not succeed.

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Session 5 Movement Journal Post (Oct. 9) – Terence Wong

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This week, the focus was on TGFU for social awareness in a PE class. The activity that was taught by the group was very well done, which I believe was the result of a step-by-step/progression style of the activities. The group was able to divide their game into three different styles or levels, which allowed everyone to participate fully and understand the game more thoroughly.

A discovery approach is useful in gameplay because it allows students to understand the games and realize strategies or purpose behind activities. This allows the teacher to take a step back and facilitate, rather than providing all solutions to the students. In this way, students are also presented with the opportunity to take the lead on their own learning. To ask questions, learn strategies, and o progress together as a class. TGFU is a method in which could also carry over to other literacies outside of the PE class.

Educators can provoke further questioning among learners by encouraging a safe and open environment. This environment would allow students to generate discussion without judgments. An educator with this style of teaching would also be able to facilitate discussion, not by providing all the answers and information, but by posing questions towards the students, while allowing reflection time to share their thoughts and understandings as a class.

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Movement Journal #3 – Fiona Szeto

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This week’s PE class was so active and fun, I honestly have not moved around this much in class since high school! It was pretty much non-stop from the instant activity to the group teach to Steve’s mini-activities. The instant activity and this week’s group teach was amazing by the way, definitely worked up a sweat early on! All of the activities involved a ton of movement and got our blood pumping and warmed us up quickly, especially in the chilly gymnasium :). I also appreciated Steve’s demonstration games on the importance of TGFU. It was really useful to see it in action and to actually participate in the activities.  It’s amazing how much we can accomplish with minimal equipment!

When I was at my first practicum visit at Southridge, I was impressed to hear from some students that their DPA was actually implemented every day during school hours. I was able to witness this firsthand in a first class grade when the teacher noticed the students were getting antsy from having sat on the carpet for quite some time. She told everyone to stand up, head outside and run some small laps around the courtyard just outside their classroom. Students came back out of breath but energized, and were able to contribute even more to the activity the class was completing beforehand! I guess something to keep in mind is to always keep our eyes and ears alert to make sure the class is still paying attention instead of focussing on getting the lesson done. From all the different group teach presentations we have done, a valuable lesson I have learned from them all is definitely to be adaptable!

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October 7th – Movement Journal #3 (Invasion Games group teach)

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Group teach, done!

I have to be honest and admit that I have never heard of netball until Ally and Jessica suggested we to do it for our group teach. Jessica did mention that netball was not very popular in Canada, but that she had played it back in England. It was not surprising then that most of our classmates have never played it either except for a handful of people.

I was initially overwhelmed while we were doing research so I could understand the rules because I did not feel confident teaching something on which I have almost zero knowledge! However, we soon identified that our classmates (or students) might feel the same problem, and so we decided to modify it appropriately to suit our needs, which is simply to explore concepts of invasion games.

On the day of our group teach, I personally tried to avoid mentioning basketball as I did not want our students’ prior knowledge of basketball to be their basis for netball. It soon became apparent that that is exactly what our students did to try and grasp the rules of netball (i.e. “So it’s like basketball?”), which was my initial reaction too when it was suggested within our group. In the end, Jessica had to state: “Take whatever you know about basketball and disregard it. The only commonality between netball and basketball is you score points by shooting a ball into a basket.”

This kind of almost automatic response from our students made me think of how I would probably introduce netball at a much younger age, so there is minimal preconceptions of other invasion games, particularly basketball that might confuse them.

We made sure that our activities leading up to the game were essential, but moving forward, I might try the TGfU whole-part-whole approach and just let them play an initial game of netball before doing the drills. I was impressed with our students as they really tried to do the proper footwork (land and pivot) and respect boundaries (no contact) during the main game. Overall, I do think our group did well, especially since we introduced a completely new game!

Thank you, IB PYP athletes!

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Tiffany’s Movement Journal_ Week 5 (Oct 7)

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The concept of TGfU was surprising to me – not because it was counter-intuitive, but because I felt that it was common sense!  Play is something that comes naturally to children – it allows them to explore, to test their abilities, and to use their imagination.  Children learn naturally through the process of play.

When Steve gave us the example of TGfU at the end of class, our group noticed something when we were playing the very first simple game (passing the ball to get it to the other side).  We got bored fairly quickly, and started to wonder if we would be progressing to the next game anytime soon.  By the time we got to the third game (trying to knock down the pin), it was complex enough to keep us excited and engaged.  This made me think of what the situation would be like if it were applied to elementary aged children.  From what I have observed in children, when they get bored they will invent new activities to entertain themselves.  They practice problem solving skills without any prompts from their teachers!

TGfU ties in neatly with some of the IB principles.  By starting with simple games and slowly progressing to increasingly complex games, students learn through scaffolding and critical thinking.  Through each step of progression, students build on pre-existing knowledge and think critically about how to make the current game more fun and exciting. By adopting the concept of TGfU in teaching PE, we can encourage and motivate students to take initiative and ask critical questions to build on their own learning.

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