D-Day!!!! Time.....? Where does it go?

Today I had to teach for lab D. The last of our peer teaching segments for the class of EDU 255. All you had to do is take what you have learned and teach a 15 min lesson. I was well prepared so I thought. I had taken everything Dr. Yang has taught me, I prepared for everything, so I thought.

I had a great lesson plan for Floor Hockey, lots of visualization, technology, instant activity, well planned out progressions to the skill level of the students, teaching by invitation, intertask variables, music, equipment all set up.............what was I missing out of this 15 min lesson? What didn't I realized I needed..........?

MORE TIME!

Time Management Coding Form

I had planned my lesson for at least a 50 min lesson. Not a 15 min one!

I believe truely that everything I had prepared and set up was great for what I had to teach. Except for that one thing that could bring it all to a hault.....Time Management.

I was extremely pleased with how far I have come from the beginning of the semester till now. All of the information Dr. Yang has shared with us, in and outside of the box. This experience has definitly made me a better teacher, and opened my eyes to the possiblities, we as teachers,can accomplish.

I am excited for the semesters to come to heighten my abilities to the extreme. I am very pleased and happy for choosing "Suny Cortland as the place to BE for PE". Quote by Joe Brown

"Suny Cortland is the place to BE for PE!"

Ahperd Conference @ Turning Stone

This week I went to the 71st Annual NYS AHPERD Conference on November 19-22, 2008 at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, NY. It was great, I was giving the opportunity to socialize with other professor, teachers, and coaches from all over New York State. I attended many workshops that were held all week, for example the Broadway Dance presentation, Speed Stakers presentation, Adapted Physical Education seminar and many more. I was able to see and help out Dr. Davis, my professor from Cortland, with his new website SimplexityGames.com.

My favorite thing of the conference all together was meeting a Para-Olympian by the name of "Jamin" Jimmy Joseph. He is a Para-Olympian for the USA in Wheelchair Basketball, and Curling. He took the Bronze medal in the last Olympics in Curling. They have asked him to try out for the Tennis Team also.

Joseph has an amazing story, it started out as him just being an average garbage man in New Hartford, NY. When one evening a truck ended up taking his legs from him by hitting him from behind and pinching him into the garbage truck he was throwing trash in. After 12 hours and 12 surgeons later he woke up in the hospital bed and looked at the doctor and said "hey doc what did you do with my legs......you didn't put them in the closet did ya", this just goes to show you what type of person Joseph was for his incredible story he has to tell.

If you ever get the pleasure of meeting this incredible man, I suggest you do so. He has the best attitude and drive to achieve his goals and let nothing stand in his way attitude I have ever seen. One thing that proves this is, wheeling in the 15k Boilermaker race in Utica, NY and finishing the race in an hour and 10 mins, in a conventional wheelchair not a race chair.

"Suny Cortland is the place to BE for PE!"

Adjusting to adversity-"Double Trouble"

I started my lab C teaching assignment today. The class had to teach two seven minute lessons on a non-traditional sport. We were teamed up with another student to come up with a non-traditional sport not normally taught in the school system. We came up with "Double Ball." It is a Native American sport played by women of the Cree Nation. You have all heard about lacrosse, but only men played, now it was are turn to teach what the women played to stay in shape and for some fun. "Double Ball" resembles lacrosse in some ways, Field hockey in others and ultimate Frisbee in another. Lacrosse because you had to throw two balls through the air both attached together with a string, where the term "Double Ball" came from, with a stick; Field hockey because the sticks they used to throw these balls was as big as a Field hockey stick and a little curved at the end; Ultimate Frisbee because once you caught the ball you could not move around any more and had to be thrown again from that spot until it reached a goal where you had to place the Double Ball on a wicket to score.

Enough of what we were teaching on to how the lesson started as "Double Ball" and almost ended as "Double Trouble". First the partner I had ended up letting me know the day of our first seven minute lesson that he would not be making it. The next thing was I realized non of the equipment was ordered ahead of time so it wasn't prepared for our lesson that day. Third I realized I had two not just teach one seven minute lesson which was all planned out, but two, that I didn't have planned out and had to totally wing it from the lesson plan that we had prepared ahead of time in case of that just thing.

It ended up being rewarding teaching with the adversity though, it taught me a valuable lesson, not always can you plan for adversity but you can be prepared for them if they do occur.

So if your wondering how I made it through all this...............here goes..........I convinced the equipment manager, Penny, to hook me up with all the equipment I needed right before my lesson with a little persuasion, ok...ok.., chocolate I told her I would get her a box of her favorite chocolate. If anyone would like to know her favorite: its anything to do with raspberry chocolate. As for what I did for the second lesson, I found out how well the students did on the first lesson and went to the lesson plan, found out what level the students were at, and taught the next progression. Pheeeeeeewwwwwww.......

Double Ball Lesson Plan

"Suny Cortland is the place to BE for PE!"

Teaching through the physical, MyStroh style.

Today was a very instructional, and eye opening day. Our two TA's DJ and Freddy showed us how to teach through the physical by using technology in a very interesting way. When we entered the class they treated us as we were high school students learning about explores in history. They put us into groups named after some really famous explorers, one being Christopher Columbus, which was our groups name. Our groups got together created a flag and they gave us riddles to unscramble and off we went. After you solved the riddle you had to take a group picture,with your cell phone, next to what ever item or thing that the riddle led you too and send it back to them. The first team to do this one the scavenger hunt race. I really enjoyed this lesson because besides using the cell phones as a way of incorporating technology, they also used the polar heart rate monitors too. They recorded our heart rates at the end of class and sent out the test results in an email for us to view and to see how hard we were running and working during the lesson. This was great because it was a big reflection on who really tried to work the hardest in get the scavenger hunt done first and who really just wanted to slide through the lesson with no effort. With the heart rate monitors it really reflected on who was those groups on how we finished. Only real problem we had with the whole lesson was that some of the pictures were not going through because so many texts coming to their cell phones at once and some of the riddles were not detailed enough for the locations. All in all it was a great example on how to teach through the physical in PE about history.

"Suny Cortland is the place to BE for PE!"