Great to be back for our PE class! I absolutely love track and field. I really enjoyed the way they set up relay. It was not competitive, everyone was engaged and everyone tried their best even when it wasn’t a race! I would love to use this whenever I have a chance when I am teaching. Way to go Megan, Devon, Jen and Michelle.
The chapter for this week focused on diversity in a classroom, and our discussion question left us all confused. It is so hard to find a balance in a diverse classroom. We were looking for answers, but that is when we realize, there is no right or wrong answer. As a teacher, we have to weigh out the options and chose the one we believe is best fit for our class. It is very important for teachers to build that relationship with their students in order to assess their strength and weakness. It is ideal to include everyone and let them express themselves. Just like Megan, Devon, Jen and Michelle’s lesson. Everyone was able to run at their own pace with no pressure. I am sure there would be more resources/lesson plans available for us to carry about an all inclusive physical education lesson.
I have to say I had the best time delivering our dance lesson. The energy and fun the students brought to the class made it a wonderful and memorable experience. When I first saw the Youtube example of the whip nae-nae dance, I knew it would be a familiar song to the class and they’d have fun with it. The moves from the youtube example were an appropriate level for grade 2/3’s and for our 320 class to learn in one lesson. This was a worry when designing the lesson, that a dance routine would be difficult to teach and for students to memorize in twenty minutes.
Our group strategically chose the popcorn dance as our warm-up, we wanted students to get outside of their comfort zone and use ribbons and free movement to express themselves. The aspect of the lesson that I was most uncomfortable with was the chapter summary. I have often found this aspect of our lessons to be dry and its difficult to include many chapters worth of information in the short time we have. From attending a Kids Can Move workshop, I learned a game where the movements could be adapted to match the movements of the dance. The game with the four animals movements acted as scaffolding for the moves in the dance, in this way we wanted to make the dance accessible for all skill levels. Part of our chapter summary was on the use of technology in the PE classroom, considering this we utilized a wireless headset so that I could lead the dance with the music playing. Although it didn’t fit my head right and was a bit inconvenient, the benefits of clear instruction did more for our lesson. I’ll consider using this type of technology next time I teach a noisy PE lesson. Overall this experience was fantastic. I love the supportive nature of our cohort!
I was so tired after today’s lesson! The warm up activity was very fun and would be easy to teach to a grade 5/6 class. This group had us jog around in one area to wait for the instructions to follow. For example, they would yell out “8 feet” and we had to get into a group of 8 people (including ourselves) and put eight of our feet in the middle. If we were unable to find a group to meet the instructions, we had to go off to the side and do five jumping jacks before going back into the game. The instant activity was a good game to teach the fundamentals of track and field such as opposite arms and legs while running. They split us up into two groups of rabbits and roosters and had us line up within our groups facing the opposing team. It was slightly confusing for me to remember when it was my turn to chase and when I should run, but it was fun nonetheless. I loved the main activity Jen, Megan, Michelle, and Devon did! We were put into groups of about four and each group was spread out around the track. Some of the teams had a baton. The person with the baton was at the front of the line and they had to run to the first person of the group in front of them and pass the baton then join the back of the line of the new group. The group without the baton had to practise opposite arms and legs while continuing to walk around the track while waiting for the baton to come around again. The activity that this group came up with can have everyone in the class participating and one person was not put on the spot. There was still a little bit of competition among us, but it was all friendly as we ran to each group to pass the baton. The cool down activity was entertaining with all the different moves to calm our bodies down while still moving and stretching.
It was nice to be back and see everyone in action!
It was good to experience and observe how our physiological responses are affected when we exercise. In this case, we looked at heart-rate. I liked how the group choose different levels of activity to alter our heart-rate. What I would have liked to see was maybe making the aerobic exercise more intense so that we could see our heart-rate jump a bit higher than it did. After comparing with other students, although our heart-rate changed from activity to activity, the heart-rates were not altered very much. I also would have liked to experience a more meditating and relaxing yoga session as I found one of the poses quite stimulating to my muscles, which actually made my heart-rate feel as if it were going up.
I think using heart-rate in exercise is very valuable and I have been in cycling classes before where they use heart-rate training in their classes. They use technology (ipads/tv screens) and HR monitors so that you can see your HR change as your effort level intensifies or decreases. I think it would be cool to bring in heart rate monitors for students so that they can visually see their HR change during an activity instead of just an end result.
I thought our lesson on Individual Sport went pretty well. It was hectic and a bit last minute planning it, but the day of it felt like it flowed pretty seamlessly and I had fun teaching it. I contributed to the lesson some experience and enthusiasm for track and field. It was exciting for me to just be at the track. I did notice that the planning and teaching of an activity can differ greatly. I think until you’ve done an activity, you won’t be able to anticipate all of the hiccups that could occur in it. In the rabbits and roosters drill, I did not anticipate students being confused about which direction they were running so it was a little chaotic at first. I think that the skill progression was relayed however and it worked out in the end. Something we could do to change it might be have more of a visual cue to which team is running and a reminder which side is which before the start of each game. The learners responded really positively to the lesson. Everyone was enthusiastic and many students said they really enjoyed the pursuit relay part of the lesson. Many students also commented that even if they didn’t usually like running, they found it an enjoyable activity. It think that means that the activity did meet the needs of diverse learners, which is what we hoped for. The only thing I would change is some clarification in the rabbit and rooster game. There are several options to carry out that skill progression and it might be worth playing around with a few of them.
I had a great time teaching gymnastics to the class! As everyone already knew, I did gymnastics from age 3 to 12 and I presently coach gymnastics/physical literacy, so I was very excited to be able to have the chance to teach the class. I thought my group was very clear with our expectations of the lesson and the flow of our station rotation and the skills learned within each station went really well.
At my station, forward rolls and log rolls, I made each step for the forward rolls clear and almost everyone was able to do one at the end of the station. It was definitely one of the more challenging stations for some students but even if they were not able to “perfectly” perform a forward roll, they still had the chance to practice their log rolls. This was important because the skill being taught at my station was body rotations and although some students were not able to do the forward roll, they were still able to move and practice a different skill that focused on the same body movement. I had to be aware of the students that could not perform the forward roll because I did not just want them standing around for the entire rotation. I wanted everyone moving and being active throughout their entire time at each station.
We made a number of changes to our lesson plan during the actual lesson. We realized we did not have enough time to do the final “gymnastics relay” and apply all the skills the students had learned to a larger scale activity. We also would have liked to include a small gymnastics routine portion where the students would have been able to create and incorporate the newly learned skills into a unique choreographed routine with their group. Another important thing we considered is how lucky we were to have 4 teachers to work with the students. Realistically, this lesson would have to be modified because there is typically just one teacher to 25+ students and it is impossible for that one teacher to physically be at every station helping students one on one if they needed it.
Overall, my group and I had a ton of fun teaching our lesson and we hope that everyone else had a great time! Thanks CITE!
I think dance is an incredibly powerful tool for expression, self-exploration, cultivating creativity, building community and just general increasing of joy and well being. I have always found dance to be an incredibly joyful and pleasurable experience. I think most children at a very young age discover dance and the joys of free movement. Social standards, among other things, can stifle a young person’s desire or freedom to explore dance. I think society views dance as far lower on the hierarchy of important or worthwhile activities compared with sport or academics (as most arts are viewed). From an education standpoint I see an enormous amount of potential for enriching a student’s understanding of the world and themselves through dance. The potential for cross-curricular study is also quite vast. Because dance is so closely linked with culture you could study dance in terms of it’s cultural and historical context. Participating in learning a culture’s dance brings about a visceral and deep understanding and appreciated for that culture. During the last Pro-D day I participated in a seminar where we learned Circle Dance. I was given a deeper understanding of how dance can teach connectedness and our ability to express through movement. In circle dance you are confronted with the faces of your fellow dancers and you often hold their hands. Moving in unison in this connected way is quite powerful. We were asked to create a circle dance together at the end. This was also very impactful. I felt we built something together and with a very distinct purpose. We chose one quality that we would try and embody and express through our dance. This is something I would love to try with students. Dance is a beautiful way to get kids moving and enjoying an active lifestyle.
Wow! Apparently I have a really high heart rate, all the time? I had no idea! I don’t want to google what this means and self-diagnose right now until the school year is over for the winter break. I WILL say however that I really enjoyed today’s group teach, that incorporated the use of checking in with our heart rate, and can see how this would be an excellent use of combining a science lesson about body systems with a PE lesson, and you could even transfer this to a Math class where we do the calculations for our heart rate, and a Language Arts lesson where we work our research skills for the body systems, or on storytelling about an individual involved in high intensity sports.
I really liked as well how there were three stages to the lesson, and we checked our heart rate after each one. This could be tied to overarching concepts such as change, personal growth, cause and effect, or interconnectedness. A really wonderful lesson you guys, and I appreciated that you used previous dance moves from the other class that we were able to remember and add on to. I think this is one of the only times we were able to tie two classes group teaches together to build on previous skills and I really appreciate you did that.
I really enjoyed the gymnastics lesson from right before practicum! Gymnastics is one of those topics that I get a scrunched up face about, not feeling confidant I will be able to participate let alone teach it. This group did a great job of creating a safe environment where I felt comfortable. I liked that the group encorporated a range of activities in that allowed students of a number of skill levels to be working together.
This is lesson was very fun too! I think kids would really enjoy it and be excited to try out something new! I also appreciated that in our small group discussions, our group talked about what equipment we could use if we didn’t have that specific gymnastics equipment. This is very important as many of our schools just won’t have the extra equipment like that!
The two group teaching teams from last class did very well. I like how the gymnastic team included Halloween theme into their activities, and I thought it was very neat. As well, I thought the four stations were broken down nicely, and giving the instructions while we were all at the middle instead of explaining it four times at each station was very smart. As for the summary and discussion, our discussion in terms of how to create a safe and inclusive environment was rich and helpful for the practicum. For the dance team, I liked the warm up activity where we had to act like eggs, chickens and dinosaurs. It was fun playing and watching other people, and I think they did a great job using the scaffolding technique. In addition, I loved how they not only taught us certain moves but also gave us the freedom to create dances close to the end of their lesson. All presenters from both groups were enthusiastic and have clear, loud voices! Good job girls, I loved it! 🙂
