The 255 Experience

This semester has been a semester that I have never had before in that it was the most fun that I have had going to class. In my basic teaching course EDU 255 I have learned more that I will be using in my career than any other courses that I have taken in my entire time at college. Being able to face your demons in teaching and being able to overcome them and be the teacher that I have always wanted to be has happened in this course this semester. I have taught many lessons in this class and with each one with the help of my professors and teaching assistants I have gotten better and more confident in my choice to be a Physical Education Teacher. Teaching is not something that anyone can really just run into doing and have an easy time with it, especially at the Physical Education Program at SUNY Cortland. It holds up the hype that it portrays to it's students before they even get into the program. I believe after my experience at SUNY Cortland in my major that I can be one of the greatest Physical Education Teachers to come out of this school.

Step Aerobics - Lab D

While teaching my lesson I felt very confident in my teaching and what I was giving the students to do in that I've seen it done in classes before and I practiced teaching it beforehand. However, I always still feel rushed during my lesson when I am not and that is when I go under the time limit and fall short of the specific time. However, after watching the video of myself and hearing myself talk I do seem very confident and it does not look like I am rushed. One thing that I notice myself doing and I've been working on the whole semester is keeping my back toward the wall and talking and giving feedback to my students. Since I'm able to keep my back to the wall and I can see the class at all times. Another thing that I've been working all the whole semester and I accomplish it in this lesson is to give my students more time to do activities. In that I've given then enough time in the lesson that >50% for activities, which is the goal I've been trying to meet all semester long. Overall, I believe I had a great lesson and that the lesson content was good and it worked the students out and got them to be extremely active.

Lab C, Take Two

On the second time around for my Emperor of the stairs lesson, it was my turn to do the introduction part of the lesson which is the part of the lesson that I haven't really worked on in my training as a professional teacher. In this part I was slightly more nervous then the other parts of teaching that I do, however I think that I did an adequate job in that I tried to look as confident as possible and I tried to get the students into the game and be excited to play. I was not rushed, however I felt I was rushed in that my partner needed time to teach her lesson so i thought I had to hurry up mine so she can teach. Being apart of the whole learning lesson I've learned to slow things down, because rushing through these things can lead to injury especially if the students aren't paying attention.

Lab C, training for the Olympics!

Out of all my lessons that I have taught in my 201 and my 255 classes. This lesson was by far the best that I have taught in my personal view. I was confident in what i was teaching and it really showed in my lesson. However, I seemed a little bit of a Drill Sargent for the class but sometimes physical education needs it for training purposes. All in all i was impressed with myself in that at the time I thought I didn't do as well, but looking back and hearing what I said and taught it was a very successful lesson.

Pickup, Pivot, Pass

Being able to listen to every little thing that I say during my lesson's really gives me insight on what I am doing right and what I am doing wrong. Even though I am at the beginning stages of teaching, it really helps to be able to listen to an MP3 of what I am actually saying. How much feedback I am giving and how I sound as a teacher. I realize that I have a few habits such as saying going a lot and alright. Also I sound nervous, which is normal so right now I am not worried but it is something that I am going to have to work on in my practice to become a better teacher.

Volleyball Bump and Set #2

On the second time around teaching this lesson I tried to be more informative with the students to help them understand how exactly to do the bump and the set properly. However, I may have taken a little too long on the instruction of the lesson and not enough activity time. Also, I tried to give as much feedback to the students as possible. To help the students self-esteem when the are doing good and to improve skills when they are not doing as well. After reviewing my lesson and filling in my Time Coding Form I learned really on what I should work on and will be prepared for future lessons.

How am I doing? I need some Feedback!

In physical education there are many different ways of teaching lessons and different aspects of teaching. One of the major aspects of teaching a lesson is giving feedback to the students. Feedback is a way for a teacher to help their students progress at something or let them know that they are doing a good job. Feedback is a good tool for teachers because it lets the students know that the teacher is paying attention so they will always try and it can help the student become better at the activity if they keep getting feedback.
Even though feedback is a very powerful tool to use, you must give the feedback to the student in a way that they will receive criticism the best. Such as a student will learn more from positive feedback or more from negative feedback. As a teacher you should always use positive feedback in a classroom setting. It could be different when you are coaching a sport. As a teacher and coach you must know how the students will react to different criticism.