Working With The Womens Ultimate Frisbee Team

This semester I volunteered to help coach the SUNY Cortland Womens Ultimate Frisbee Team.  My main job was to assist Holly Norsen in teaching the girls how to play.  She was in charge most of the time so I mainly followed her lead.  The girls made a lot of improvements throughout the semester.  One down side was I did not get to see the girls play in a real game.  Due to weather and other issues, the only tournament some of the girls played in was in Georgia over spring break.  I was not able to attend this tournament.  Over
all I enjoyed this experience and learned a lot about a sport that is becoming more and more popular.

EDU 255 Final- Prezi

Here is a presentation I made using prezi.com about an interesting article on how exercise affects learning.

<div class="prezi-player"><style type="text/css" media="screen">.prezi-player { width: 550px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; }</style><object id="prezi_hcozo-wjacn9" name="prezi_hcozo-wjacn9" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="550" height="400"><param name="movie" value="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf"/><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"/><param name="flashvars" value="prezi_id=hcozo-wjacn9&amp;lock_to_path=0&amp;color=ffffff&amp;autoplay=no&amp;autohide_ctrls=0"/><embed id="preziEmbed_hcozo-wjacn9" name="preziEmbed_hcozo-wjacn9" src="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="550" height="400" bgcolor="#ffffff" flashvars="prezi_id=hcozo-wjacn9&amp;lock_to_path=0&amp;color=ffffff&amp;autoplay=no&amp;autohide_ctrls=0"></embed></object><div class="prezi-player-links"><p><a title="Brain Gains" href="http://prezi.com/hcozo-wjacn9/copy-of-edu-255-final/">Copy of EDU 255 Final</a> on <a href="http://prezi.com">Prezi</a></p></div></div>

It can also be found at: http://prezi.com/ue9hgdxfz6ru/edu-255-final/

EDU 255 Final- Daily Burn

I am very impressed with dailyburn.com.  The site is very easy to use.  It has everything mapped out for you in order to do a workout plan of your choosing.  In the workout section, it provides recommended workouts while also allowing you to add you own workouts.  I was really surprised that they even had the exact type of protein shake that I drink in the nutrition section.  I do not currently use anything like this.  This is partially because I didn't know sites like this existed.  I usually just keep a rough estimate in my head of my workouts and how healthy my diet is.  I will definitely consider continuing to use dailyburn.com so that I can really keep track of my progress.  This website is perfect for meeting NYS Standard 1B.  The standard requires that students come up with their own fitness plan which is exactly what this site does for you.  It takes your goals and current physical status, then maps out how to reach those goals.  I would use the forums section to let students post their progress.  This is an easy way for me to see if students are staying on track.  I see Youtube as a great electronic tool for seeing if students meet NYS Standard 1A.  I would record them doing a skill in class then post in on my channel.  Students can go on anytime they like and watch themselves.  I would also provide the student with analysis of what they did well and what they need to improve.  By using a spreadsheet, I can keep track of student progress.  By using these and possibly other cues, I can tell just how well a student can do something such as dribble a basketball.  I would use something similar to this for other sports.  A certain grade would be passing and all students would have to achieve this score.  Technology is making it easier and easier for people to be physically educated.  It just takes a little bit of effort to find these things and put them to good use.

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

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.

Time Coding(part 1)

Time Coding(part 2)

Activity Progressions

Lesson Plan

Content Development

Feedback

Lab B2- Entering and Exiting Long Jump Rope

Lab B2 was an interesting one. I was less nervous than usual while teaching entering and exiting the long jump rope. I went a little longer than I was allowed to, but I guess that's OK. I liked my hook of seeing the cave and I got a couple of giggles from it. I was nervous about doing the demonstrations because explaining and doing the skill at the same time seemed difficult but I did fine. I still need a lot of work on my feedback. While watching the video, I watched myself watch a student, then not say anything. There was definitely something I could have said every single time that happened. Also, I still need to remember to keep my back to the wall, not the students. At one point, one group tangled together and was fooling around. It took me a little long to notice, but when I did I think I handled it well.  I knew that pretty much everybody knew how to do these skills, so I tried to give them some specific cues that they performed well.  In the first part of the lesson, a girl joined the class.  The group she joined now had 5 people in it and the other group had 3 people in it.  I asked Trent to join the other group so that both groups had 4 people.  I think this worked out a lot better because everybody was able to have equal activity time.  Overall, I think I did well, but I still need to work on giving feedback.

Transcript

Time Coding

Feedback

Jump Roping Lab (B1)

I am starting to feel more and more comfortable getting up in front of the class and teaching.  It had taken a good amount of time to prepare, but it's definitely worth it.  My hook started off pretty good, then I kind of forgot what I wanted to say when I wanted to check for understanding.  When doing my time coding, I noticed I spent the first minute and thirty seconds on instruction.  Considering the total length of the lesson, my instruction shouldn't have been that long.  Students seemed a little bored with the first task.  I probably should have cut that a little shorter and moved on.  I need to work on my feedback skills.  First off, I used a lot of general feedback instead of reinforcing the cues.  I also need to remember to keep my back to the wall.  Danielle actually made me realize I wasn't doing that.  Even after she pointed it out, I still had trouble doing it.  I also need to project my voice a little bit more.  I am happy that I got the activity time up to 55%.  If I cut down on the instruction like I said before, I can get this percentage even higher.  I think the students really enjoyed making up their own routines.  I made it a point for half the class to perform their routines at once.  I didn't want to single out anybody, but I also wanted to give everyone a chance to show off what they can do.  Jenna asked me a question during the second skill.  While answering it, I turned my back to some of the class.  I think it's important to answer student's questions, but I should have positioned myself better so that if something happened I could have seen it. 

Transcript
Time Coding Form
Feedback Analysis