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Movement Journal-Target Games

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Great lesson to Sonya, Emily, and Pamela on Friday. I really enjoyed the game and think second grade students would enjoy it a lot as well. I appreciate the idea that everyone is playing the games at the same time, yet there is no clear winners or losers. This creates a fun atmosphere that minimizes the probability of a competitive quarrel between students. Although there is room for improvement in regard to safety during the second game; I think we addressed the situation aptly by reviewing and revising the game.

I am intrigued by this new concept of reviewing each game and building on them with revisions. I think it enables us to be creative and take some of these ideas into our practicums, and ultimately our own classrooms. If we didn’t revise now, we may have to do so during the practicums even more so. I look forward to invasion games next week and continue to learn instant activities each week as well.

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Movement Journal Week 4

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Great work to Sonya, Emily, and Pamela on their group teach! They did a good job considering the cognitive and psychomotor levels of their grade two students and how to best design a lesson for this age group. They considered how well grade twos would be able to follow instructions, run around with spatial awareness, and their ability to throw and catch.

I appreciated assessing the baseball activity. Looking at how well an activity incorporates participation, challenge, positive social behaviors, flow, safety and learning, are all important factors that I need to consider when creating my own lessons. As well, I need to keep in mind the objective of each lesson and criterion-reference what I am teaching to assess how well the students’ are learning in relation to what I want them to learn.

Some assessment and evaluation strategies that I prefer are exit slips, learning logs, and observation. I like the idea of reflectively assessing improvement instead of skill level as not everyone is athletic. I understand that in older grades there might be some sort of  fitness testing that monitors effort/improvement, but I prefer the idea of active participation over grading. I also never liked written tests for P.E., and I feel that for the most part, P.E. should not have tests that involve pen and paper as all the other subjects already do.

 

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No tag in schools?

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I did a bit of research on the internet to figure out where the idea of banning tag in schools came from. It seems as if it originate in the state of Washington from the Mercer County School District who wanted to implement a hands off during recess. Their intention is to ensure physical and emotional safety for all the students, and they feel that in order to do that students should not touch each other. The school board believes that students will not be able to work properly in the class room if they do not feel safe. Some other reasons for the banning of almost everyone’s childhood game, is that certain students may always be the one who is ‘it’ and if they cannot tag someone else, then they could begin to develop a complex. Or if certain students are always the one who is ‘out’ all the time, by sitting on the side lines that could be hurtful on their self-esteem. In instances, I remember a few students ‘tagging’ or hitting pretty hard when they wanted to get someone out. I believe the way the last group restructured the game of tag last Tuesday was a great idea. Everyone was pair up and the person who was ‘it’ was switched constantly.  It established an inclusive environment for the game. Here is the link I found for the article.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/tag-youre-it

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MOVEMENT JOURNAL WEEK 4

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First of all, let me start off by saying great job, Emily, Sonya and Pamela! You came up with a creative lesson that approached striking games in a fun, and engaging way. What stuck out to me most about this lesson, was our own assessment practice after the 50 minute session. One of the guiding questions for this week asks which assessment and evaluation strategies may be used to effectively gather information of student learning in physical education. My experience of CITE as a cohort and the education program as a whole, including the EDCP course, has been a focus on inclusion, confidence building for our students. We have talked about belonging, autonomy and competence as key factors to student success. With this in mind, I wonder if rating and reading aloud our comments on the session was perhaps not quite in line with this way of thinking? I left the class feeling as though we had singled out the students in charge of the lesson, as well as those who responded. In terms of applying this to our own teaching practices, I’m curious as to what other assessment forms we might use in evaluating lessons as they occur. I realize that the exercise was meant to foster discussion and insight for future reference (which it did!), but I can’t help but feel that we might have approached in a more inclusive and safe format. That being said, I realize that our group is already an extremely supportive environment, and I know that each of us is open to constructive criticism.

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Week 4- Movement Journal

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This week I was really excited because we were focusing on the skills of throwing and catching for games such as baseball/softball. Since I grew up playing softball my whole life, I was eager to see what this week’s group had prepared for us in class. I had fun with the warm up, for it allowed us to use our own dance moves and imaginations as we warmed up. I really enjoyed myself, and found it interesting too. When I was told to dance around like a fish for example, I started how I thought they looked like, but soon noticed that every single person danced like a fish in all different ways. It was interesting to see peoples elaborate ways of dancing like a fish. That was great fun.

Then we moved over to a tossing game. I thought the idea of this game was great! Although it turned out to be a little hard to explain and became a little bit chaotic, I still had a good time playing it. I do think that it could have been usefully to first teach how to do an underhand throw using proper technique first before playing the game. That way the students could have been working on that technique while playing.

The final game was highly inclusive. Everyone was playing at all times, which was successful. I think the idea of the game was easy to follow and everyone was having fun while playing it. It was however, kind of dangerous. There were balls flying everywhere and the mats which were being used as bases, were not secure. I did fall pretty hard because I was getting intense trying to touch as many mats as possible, and tried pushing off of a mat and the mat slipped out from under my feet. I did enjoy the lesson, but I would have just changed a few things. But I think it was well done.

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Week 4- movement journal

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Friday was my first experience teaching the group in this program and it was my first time teaching PE; therefore, I was extremely nervous. Even though I thought we were pretty well prepared, I was still shaking the whole morning before class. I lead the instant activity without really paying attention to what was going on around me. I still cannot recall what happened during that time, but according to some reflections, it went well and most of you had fun dancing.

To be honest, I was focusing too much on what I thought I should and should not do as a teacher instead of paying attention to my students. I was constantly thinking of remembering to say things such as “when I say go” before giving instructions, and reminding myself to speak louder. Then I was concentrating on not saying “you guys” and focusing on the time, because I was the time keeper. Reflecting now, I wish I had paid more attention to everyone’s engagement level and given some feedback during the activities instead of focusing so much on myself.

I really appreciate how Steve showed us how to evaluate one of our games and modify it for safety issues. The brainstorming for modifications was very helpful, I am glad we got to do this here in Cite rather than during our practicum. Our focus age for this lesson was grade 2, so I was very worried the games might have been too childish for grownups to have fun. However, after class, many people told us we did a good job and that they enjoyed the activities which was very encouraging. Thank you everyone for being so supportive! 😀

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Movement Journal Week 4

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I think this week the group did well because for the most part of the lesson we were all being physically active. A lot of people felt their heart beats go up after the lesson. I also enjoyed the part where they told us to dance like a bird and dance like your favourite animal. I think a lot of kids would enjoy those activities. I think it was good that Steve always asks us how we can improve activities and how we can make the activity more safe. I think I learned a lot from observing different groups teach and I’m excited but nervous for my group teach this Friday.

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Movement Journal – assessment and movement

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This week’s team teach was excellent in many different ways. The warm up activity was hilarious. I got so many laughs out of other people’s animal dance moves and it was a lot of fun to be silly with a group of people! What a great fun way to get everyone moving!

The first activity was a lot of fun too. I was confused at first, I think the huge amount of cones set up made it a bit hard for me to visualize but once we got into our groups to play I was not confused anymore. The game was a good way to get students moving and practicing their throwing. There are so many modifications you could do to help enhance student learning.

The last game was an interesting game. I did not like the unsafe elements but other than that it was great. I was running around so much in this game that by the end I was exhausted! This really helped me to see the importance of an active curriculum. After class, I felt awake, alert and ready for the day. Being active in school really does help students in other areas of academics.

Our discussion of assessment was very important. Growing up we were often assessed on how fast we ran or how talented we were at a certain sport. Using strategies such as exit slips, or student evaluation on their performance in class not only gets them involved but also allows those who are not naturally fast runners to be successful.

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Week 4 Movement Journal

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I really enjoyed this week’s lesson. The games were fun and eventful – I was never standing around and waiting. I think these sorts of activities are really important in PE because they ensure that EVERYONE is participating, even people who are less athletically inclined and may try to avoid participation. I also enjoyed how we stopped as a class and worked to modify the game to make it even safer and more inclusive. This is something that we as teachers should be doing in all of our classes, so that we can continuously improve our lessons.

I also really enjoyed the group discussion. I was in Pamela’s group and she did a great job talking to us about assessment in PE. Lots of us remembered being tested based on our athletic abilities as kids; tests like the beep test, or seeing how many push ups we could do in a minute. Although I usually enjoyed these activities, it seemed that most people didn’t. I agree with the group consensus that assessment based on athletic ability is not fair. Grading based on athletic ability doesn’t take into account that some people are simply more naturally athletic than others, and that this natural athleticism is not a fair representation of a student’s efforts and improvement. I think students in PE should be graded based on their understanding and passion for an active lifestyle, as well as their participation and willingness to learn. I think this way of assessment will be much more successful in encouraging a love for physical activity in children.

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September 30th – Tobi’s Group Teach Reflection

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It was so nice to finally get outside this week! I had a lot of fun teaching our lesson in PE. I felt like the prep-work and the lesson-planning, and knowing what equipment you needed etc. was a lot of work, but once you finally got in there and started teaching it all came together smoothly and before you knew it was all over! If I were to do the same lesson plan over again I would have wanted to practice a bit before-hand on striking technique and tips on how to get power on the ball. There was also a few rules that could have been put into place beforehand that weren’t (i.e. can you “tap” the ball behind you – probably not!)

I loved watching everyone play Chuck the Chicken! I thought that was hilarious. It really showed how teamwork is a huge aspect of that game. I have to say how supportive everyone is… I always see and hear our fellow classmates sending out positive vibes and feedback and high fives and I absolutely LOVE it!!

Overall I thought it was great! I cant wait to learn more new games and ideas for our PE classes 🙂

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