Monday, April 25, 2011

Lab D- Just Dance!


This was probably the funnest lesson I have taught all year in this class.  I taught the game "Just Dance" on the Nintendo Wii.  I am not the greatest dancer, so I was a little worried when I saw I had to teach dancing.  Once I got up in front of the class, I just had to do my best and not worry about how bad my dancing was.  I got some ideas from a student who taught this game last semester, but I tried to put my own spin on it.  I chose the song "Le Freak" by Chic.  I felt that I was theoretically able to relate this song to a history lesson on the 70's that students may be learning.  Through the poster about the 70's I was able to bring that aspect into the lesson.  There was a lot of waiting time.  I guess that should be expected when you have to wait for the game to load up.  I need to be louder when the music is playing.  I thought I was louder than the music, but when I did my feedback analysis it was tough to hear what I was saying to students.  It seemed like I gave a lot more feedback than I have marked down, but that might be due to not being able to hear everything I said.  The challenge of mirroring your partner seemed tough for some students.  They didn't go in the same direction of their partner, or got lost for a second.  I was not expecting to do that last section of doing the dance without the screen.  As the song went along, some students got lost so I tried to improvise some moves without knowing what the real order was.  That was a good little addition, but I was not prepared for it.  Overall, I think I have really improved in this class.  I feel much more confident getting up in front of a group and teaching a certain skill.  I still have improvements to make, but I feel that I have come a long way.



Time Coding(part 1)
Time Coding(part 2)
Feedback
Content Development
Lesson Plan

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Lab C- Goalball



Teaching goalball was a different experience for me.  I had never seen or played this game, so it was something totally new to me.  I had to watch YouTube videos and search for rules to the game.  I decided to use one of them just to show the class what we were working towards.  In this lesson I did not use any music.  Students had to hear the ball coming or they would have no idea where it was.  This may have taken away from energy from the class, but it was necessary.
Looking at the video, I could have spread people out more on the defensive practice so that there would be no chance of people diving into each other.  On the first drill using the blindfolds, I did a poor job of explaining the drill.  Students didn't realized that they could take off their blindfolds to catch the ball from their partner which led to a big mess.  I corrected it, but should have pointed it out earlier.  Since somebody taught before me, I didn't get a chance to set the nets up early and then forgot to in between lessons.  Setting them up for the last part of the lesson wasted some time.  I thought using the whistle for the part of the lesson was beneficial.  One of the rules in goalball is that players have to wait for the referee's whistle in order to throw, so students got to learn that rule.  It also added structure to the class.  Everybody was orderly and on the same page.
I am feeling more and more comfortable every time I have to teach.  I am finding that writing up a script of what I want to say really helps.  I can get all my thoughts down and review them for a couple days.