Another Double

During this week in the gymnasium the students that I had been currently working with got switched to a different teacher. I now have a very bright, active and fun young girl. I knew my student a little prior to the class. I worked with her last year, while I was assisting in the class, and from this year. Getting to know her more I found out that she really likes to be active and just laugh. Her favorite sport is soccer, and fitness. For next week, I am going to try to include music with my Ipad when we do fitness. I am excited to find out what types of music she likes. Thank goodness for Pandora ! we can play anything that she would like. Since I only do the warm up and closing activity with my student I am still learning about my student. From the first night and working with here one on one, her behavior was beyond excellent. Her ability to follow instructions, communicate, and respect are right where they need to be. My student inspires me with behavior, she smiles through everything and is so energized it is contagious. While doing our concluding activity my student needed some work with accuracy of throwing. Using the line on the gymnasium floor, I was able to instructor of how to use that as an alignment so that the ball would go straight. Having my student back up a few steps in the fundaments of throwing was really helpful. reviewing cues and breaking down the components of the throw allowed for her to make corrections. Working with my student, I am realizing that she prefers to have instructions audibly said and visually done at the same time. I think it helps her to make the connection of seeing each step and then identifying the component. For example, " step with opposition" to my student that was just a word with no meaning. She could repeat what was being said, in the proper order, but was still questioning what opposition was. When I showed the physical movement of opposition, it clicked with her. We had a light bulb moment .  My improvement goals for my student, would be to have more control of implements that we use. Whether it is a ball, bat, hockey stick, I would like to see her really have control and focus of the implement and know what she wants to do, before the ball or hockey puck comes to her. My other goal would be to use more verbalization. She does a great job now, I think we could take her ability now and greatly improve it.Overall, I really think this is going to be a great semester with this student. She has a ton of potential and as an educator I really want to just bring that out. My student has great physical ability, but as a person, she is so kind and fun. With those qualities, we can continue to build more and more throughout the year.

For the remainder of the program I had the opportunity to watch my fellow teachers teach the class of fifteen students. Before the class, they designed and came up with activities that they thought would be appropriate. My job was to give feedback and observe.  My take away notes for each teacher went like this, for teacher number one, I was really impressed with his teaching voice. In any spot of the gymnasium, his voice could be heard. When he was speaking there were a few times that his back was to some of the students in the class. That is something that I would fix for his teaching. Before he even begins to speak, have the students positioned in a way where they can see him, and hear him. While my fellow teacher was teaching, one student in particular kept laying down on the floor. For the whole night he kept doing this. At the beginning of his teaching, he should address his expectations for the students. When I student taught, I called this a " learning position", meaning all students were sitting or standing up, eyes were on the speaker and hands were at their sides. This showed me that they were ready to learn. In this lesson, one students needs are very high she  was able to participate. This student still had a teacher with her at all times, but it was cool to see this student with her peers. Lastly for this teacher, I saw that the students were bunched up. The activity was only being done in the middle of the gymnasium. If the activity were to be spread out, the students would have had more room, which I think would have allowed for them to preform better. This teacher did do a nice job, he constantly was talking to the students and keep their attention on him.

For the second half of the lesson another teacher taught. His lesson was separate from teacher number one. For teacher number two, I saw a very good use of a signal of attention. He clearly explained what the students should do when they hear it. Throughout his portion of the lesson he used it, the students responded very well. Half way through the lesson, there was one student who was not picking up to fast on the instructions. This teacher, was able to redirect the student and get back on track. Again that same student was laying down. This student got into a bad habit of that, hopefully next class, he will stay on his feet. This teacher could have addressed this as well. He could have pulled him over while an activity was going on, or just address it to the whole class. Even for this teacher he used about one third of the gymnasium for fifteen students. If there is whole gymnasium, use it. While student teaching there were classes where I would only get half a gym due to the other class being taught. Many of my lessons had to be adapted and modified so that everyone could fit. Overall, I am saying when there is space, use it and really get the students moving.


For my second program this week, I went to Cortland Adaptive Swim Team for two hours. Here people of all ages can come and swim. Many are on their own workout plans and even compete. For about a year now I have been involved with this program, and have seen many of the students improve. It is really neat to see how  each athlete does their skills. The behavior is very good, some of the simmers have a tendency to get a little side track. Positive reinforcement is used to keep a goal in mind. It doesn't matter if the swimmer is young or old, they love jumping off the diving board. For the coaches and staff they too are experience swimmers and treat these people like athletes. They encourage the athletes to be better people. A big component of the program is working hard till the end. Sometimes , like anybody else the students want to relax during one set. Each set has a certain time that it needs to be completed in. Having a good work ethic in the pool can transfer over to other parts in life. This program is setting people up in the community to achieve success through the act of swimming.