Reflection #1
What happened during the lesson that excited or concerned you? What did you learn from your observation and experience?
Today was my first day of observations at Parker Elementary and I worked with second graders. The lesson in which I saw today was very well structured and had a lot of classroom management. As the students came in they knew to automatically look at the board for their warm up activity. It consisted of running two laps and performing 5 sit ups with a partner. From here students sat on their designated spot and waited for the instant activity (tag game) and the directions for the class lesson. Today, they were “going to the zoo”. This was a very creative way to incorporate both cognitive skills for the classroom and psychomotor skills for physical education. I really like the way Mr. Kline managed the class outside by having the students divided in to two teams and having to line up behind Jon or myself. I learned from this experience that having the students in to a specific routine for every day really does help with the time management and organization at this level.
Reflection #2Are you aware of any students with special needs? How are they helped to learn?
Today was my second day of observations and again I worked with a second grade class, but a different group of students. This class has a student has autism, but he is still able to participate in every activity as does every other student. Although, he does have a teacher who stays with him in the gymnasium to make sure he stays on task and doesn’t cause distractions. In this first class with the students being divided in to two separate teams he needed to be reminded of where he was supposed to be. This however, is not a situation in which he is at a totally different developmental level then the rest of the class and is still able to be on the same level or better than all of his classmates.
Reflection #3What did you learn about these students in all three domains? Psychomotor-what can they do? Cognitive-what do they know? Affective-how do they behave?
Today’s lesson was focused on parachute activities and I led the instant activity of turtle tag. During this call I was able to obtain a brief understanding of what these students know. In the psychomotor domain a majority of the students are able to perform an elementary level slide, skip, gallop, and run from what I have observed thus far. Cognitive domain is also very obvious and many of the students are able to come up with knowledgeable solutions for team tasks as well as use their classroom knowledge in activities. When students are asked to perform specific motor skills almost all students can perform the skill without a demonstration, which shows they have a clear understanding of what each one involves. Affectively the class works well as a whole for the most part, but there are a few groups of students who will try to mess around with other students or do things they weren’t asked to. Overall, I feel the students perform well in all three domains.
Reflection #4 Management and effective teaching go hand in hand. Comment on management strategies used by your master teacher and yourself with this age group.
Working with second graders has the potential to be very chaotic if not organized and managed properly. Mr. Kline, however, does an extremely good job of making sure everyone knows exactly what to do as they enter the gymnasium. He has a board with both the lesson objective and the warm up posted on it. This allows the students to immediately begin an activity then sit down in their assigned spot. This is a good strategy so that student can get that initial excitement of being at physical education out. Mr. Kline also has it clearly known to the students that if he has to talk to them more than once about the same thing they will be asked to sit on the side for a few minutes and he will also be talking to them about what they did and why. This kind of class management and structure works well to keep everyone on the same page and allows no reason for student to say I didn’t know what to do.
Reflection #5What did you learn in the classroom?
Being a second grade classroom is a completely different feeling and setting that being in a gymnasium with second graders. The students know that as soon as they leave the gymnasium there level of energy and excitement has to go back down to an inside level for the classroom. The classroom is has a high level of classroom management and structure as well; all of the students know the daily routine. I did not see as much interaction between students in the classroom; as in annoying another student as I see in the gymnasium a lot. I feel this occurred because the students knew that the classroom teacher wasn’t going to deal with any nonsense of that sort and would just immediately make the students separate themselves. Overall, I learned that the classroom is a setting in which the students have different guidelines and expectations than when in physical education.
Reflection # 6How does the curriculum as you see it fit with New York State Standards 1,2,3?
Today’s lesson focused on several different exer-games that initiated the students fitness in a way that is enjoyable to all the students. This here shows that the curriculum fits the New York State Standards because this involves fitness, safe and healthy environment, and resources. The fitness was seen in the activities they were playing such as dance, soccer, and a water rafting game. The safe and healthy environment is seen with the type of equipment being used and the fact that all the students have to work together and help each other out in all the activities. Standard 3 is covered because it is explained to the students how these activities are fun and good for them; plus they can all be practiced outside of school and with all age groups. This unit depicts all three standards very well, but at Parker Elementary all of the units relate to the New York State Standards.
What evidence do you see of the students’ abilities to perform the skill themes in the areas of locomotor, non-locomotor, and manipulative skills?
For today’s lesson, the instant activity was taught by Jon and during his tag game he had the students use different locomotor patterns to move around. It was clear that the students knew what he was asking them to do, but many of the students had elementary level skills when performing them. For non-locomotor skills many of the students demonstrated very poor balance during the instant activity when we asked them to hop. During the parachute activities we saw students having to bend and touch their toes and then lift the parachute up, the task of bending and standing quickly was not fluent for some of the students which show that they are still at the elementary stage. For manipulative skills, there is a wide array of levels in the class. The activities today focused on the parachute and many of the students were able to perform the manipulative skill of moving the parachute very well and for an extended amount of time; while other students struggled and became tire very quickly.
Reflection #8How does your Master Teacher assess student learning? How could you assess student learning?
Assessing for Mr. Kline is done in several different forms throughout each unit. The one thing he does do at the end of every class is a cognitive assessment by verbally asking questions pertaining to the lesson of the day. This is a time where he will also talk about transfer of knowledge from one skill to another. For psychomotor assessment he uses a checklist and only puts a check next to the things the students to perform correctly. His affective assessment is done when explaining an activity and him asking students if they need to work as a team and telling them what will work best for each activity. This allows him to know that the students have and understanding of how they are supposed to act and participate.
I could assess student learning by having students work with a partner or in small groups and have them score each other on how well they perform and activity. I would also do my own psychomotor assessment with something of this nature because students are not always faithful in tasks like this. For affective I feel that having students explain something they did well in class or didn’t do well is the best way for students to understand their affective behavior. I would cognitively assess with an outside assignment or an in class quiz that is short and on the unit being taught.
Reflection #9What tips can you glean from your teacher with regard to communication with colleagues, parents, and administrators?
Mr. Kline is a teacher who is always communicating with other people including faculty, parents, and administrators. The big thing I learned from him is that every day at the end of his class when the classroom teacher came to pick up the students he would discuss the class. He would inform the teacher of who did very well and who acted up or didn’t participate. He would also communicate with the parents of students if something really good happened or in a few incidences where students weren’t coming prepared for class he called home to make sure they knew when P.E days were and what the appropriate attire was. I wasn’t able to see Mr. Kline communicate with the administration, but I’ m sure he did on a regular basis. Overall, I learned a lot of good tips from him, especially on communicating with the classroom teacher about each class.
Reflection #12What happened during the lesson that excited or concerned you? What did you learn from your observation and experience?
During today’s class the students had a day in which they participated in several different stations that all involved some kind of video game type activity (DDR, WII, etc.). I thought this was an outstanding lesson for the children because it is something that they all love. I knew it was going to be a very productive day from the moment the students enter the gymnasium and they all became very excited. My observations of this lesson were from one of the Wii stations because I had control over the remote. It was nice to see the change in the students’ attitude and how positive they were towards the entire class. I was clearly able to observe how much more the students listened during the lesson in order to perform all the activities and have as much time as possible.
Reflection # 10Are you aware of any students with special needs? How are they helped to learn?
In this second grade class, I don’t know of anyone who has autism or anything of that nature as in the other class, but there is a student who resembles a student with ADHD. This student has a tendency to become off task very quickly or do something other than what is being asked of him. I have also seen him have days where he just doesn’t want to do anything and purposely acts out to get attention from the class. In order for him to be successful and learn Mr. Kline or one of us has to always be on top of what he is doing to make sure he is on task. If he is noticed doing something wrong and is explained what he should be doing; he will do the proper task. It also works a lot to demonstrate to him what he is supposed to be doing because he may not have been paying attention during the instructions.
Reflection #11Management and effective teaching go hand in hand. Comment on management strategies used by your master teacher and yourself with this age group.
Today was the first of two days with video game stations for the students including DDR, Wii, and XBOX. With this lesson Mr. Kline had cords and many different things set up all around the gymnasium, so when the students arrived he kept them outside to explain what he wanted for the warm up so no one was hurt. Keeping them outside and explaining the warm up was very effective management because the students didn’t know what was in the gymnasium and gave Mr. Kline their full attention.
During this lesson, I was at my own station controlling the Wii remote for soccer heading. In order to make the students time most efficient and organized at my station I had a set pattern in which the students rotated. With second graders, I felt this prevented any arguing and fighting over who goes first and so on since everyone was so excited to participate in all the activities.
Reflection #13What did you learn about these students in all three domains? Psychomotor- what can they do? Cognitive- what do they know? Affective- how do they feel/behave?
Today was our day for pre assessment and the students were participating in numerous throwing stations. I was assessing all the students who came to my station, which was throwing a whiffle ball at a stack of wooden blocks. I was able to get an understanding of where all the students were in all three domains by how they threw and how they acted with their classmates. For psychomotor, there was definitely a wide array of throwing abilities, many of the did not perform at least 2 out the 4 cues each time. They demonstrated a very elementary throwing pattern. Cognitively many of the students knew which foot to step with when throwing, which was the main focus of the lesson. Affectively, the majority of the students worked with each other and gave equal opportunities, but there were a few who didn’t do as well in this domain. Overall, the class demonstrated success in all three domains.
Reflection # 14What happened during the lesson that excited or concerned you? What did you learn from your observation and experience?
Today we taught our first lesson on throwing, following pre assessment of throwing. I learned a lot from this experience, the number one thing being that teaching with someone else is not always easy. I felt that teaching with my partner was kind of difficult because I demonstrated more control over the class and then when he taught there wasn’t as much control which made it more difficult for me when I went to teach again. This was definitely a good learning experience because it showed me how easy it is for second graders to not pay attention and that class management is ideal. The good things that happened during the lesson were that the students really enjoyed the instant activity and clean up the backyard very much. These two activities ran very smoothly; there were also two activities that we need to fix, so that the second time around the lesson was much better. Overall, for our first full lesson I felt it went very well and definitely gave more of a real life situation.
Reflection #15Management and effective teaching go hand in hand. Comment on management strategies used by your master teacher and yourself with this age group.
Teaching for the second time to a different group of second graders went much better than the first time in general, but there were still some management issues. The lesson started with an instant activity that I led and then my partner taught the first activity. During his portion of the lesson the students became very rowdy and he couldn’t maintain control of the class. I had to step in and make sure all the students were listening and not talking. This happened twice during the lesson, which made it more difficult to teach certain parts. Although, this lesson was more effective I feel that class management lacked at times. The things that worked for myself though, in order to keep the children on task, were explaining exactly what I wanted before sending them to do something, not talking until I had everyone’s attention, and having a check for understanding before every activity.
Reflection # 16How does the curriculum as you see if fit with New York State Standards 1,2, and 3?
In today’s lesson the students had different stations that set up that were focused around the theme of Thanksgiving. Within all of the stations different standards were met. Standard 1a was seen in the warm up which involved the students running 2 laps and then performing 10 sit ups and 5 push ups. 1b was seen throughout the stations when the students how to perform tasks such as throwing, jumping, and riding scooters and bikes. Standard 2 was seen throughout the entire class when the students had to work with one another and share items at each station to make sure everyone had equal opportunities. Standard 3 was seen in many of the stations because they can be practiced outside of the gymnasium. The station that stood out in this lesson was the one where each student had to write what they were thankful for on a large sheet of paper; this incorporated standard 3 because it used resources and allowed them to use their knowledge from outside to answer. This lesson was a very interactive day that had all the students fully involved the entire time which is a key component of the NYS standards.
Reflection # 17
What evidence do you see of the students’ abilities to perform the skill themes in the areas of locomotor, non-locomotor, and manipulative skills?
In today’s lesson the students focused on ball control in several different ways and were challenged. This lesson showed that in the realm of locomotor skills the students were at an elementary level because many of the students could perform the skills, but not consistently or very well. Most of the locomotor patterns were seen in the tag game at the end and in a few tasks that asked the students to travel with the ball at their feet. For non-locomotor skills they demonstrated so ability to balance as they were performing certain skills with the ball. Last, their manipulative skill ability was seen when they had to throw, bounce, and catch the ball. Many of the students have difficulty with this task and couldn’t follow the ball. Overall, for their age and developmental stage they all performed well in each skill theme.
Reflection # 18
What happened during the lesson that excited or concerned you? What did you learn from your observation and experience?
Today, was our last day of observations and it was also a “choice” day for the students. A “choice” day is awarded to the students at the end of each marking period and is a day where the students get to choose what they want to do. I thought this was a very good idea because not only are the students being rewarded for completing a marking period, but it also gives them the opportunity to make their own decisions and explore different activities. There were several different stations set up throughout the gymnasium and students were able to choose however many stations they wanted to participate in and exactly which ones they participated in. I really like the overall idea of the lesson because it gave the students the opportunity to be leaders and have a day that was dedicated to their own choices.
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