Reflections from Elementary Observation experience

Class 1

            Today was my first day of observing in the South Hill Elementary School district.  Approaching the school I was definitely very nervous because I wasn’t really sure what I was in for because I have only worked in a middle school and high school environment.  However I felt a little more comfortable approaching this experience with my fellow classmate Becky because we have worked together before and were always successful in our previous lessons.  The school we went to was surprisingly small; I remember my elementary school being much bigger.  There were two different physical education teachers there and they were both professionally dressed and clean cut.  The first class we observed was a 3^rd grade class in a gymnastics unit.  I didn’t have much responsibility for the first lesson I just went around helping the students giving positive feedback and helping out where I was needed.

Class 2

            The second class I worked with was a second grade class.  It was very easy to distort the maturity level between the 2^nd and 3^rd graders.  The 3^rd graders behaved much better than the 2^nd graders, however both classes were much more physically educated then I had expected.  I had the same responsibilities as the first class, as I got to go around and help out where I was needed I stuck around mostly by the balance beam and was encouraging the student to land a cartwheel on the beam and if they had gotten to advance up the taller balance beam.  There were a few students that were able to do it which really caught me by surprise because I was not even able to do this when I took gymnastics.  In this class I also helped out by the climbing rope and I gave the student an area to climb to where it was reasonable but challenging at the same time.  The students would get really excited when they reached the target and it made me feel really good to be a part of that and help them out.

Class 3

            The 3^rd class I observed was a 4^th grade class and the maturity level of this class was way more advanced than the last two classes which also caught me by surprise.  This class was also in the gymnastics unit and these students were very good at performing the activities.  I really enjoyed working with the 4^th graders because they were so good at the activities that I was able to join in with some of the things that they were doing as if they didn’t even need much guidance.  After this class was over I got a chance to look in the equipment room which almost blew my mind when I saw it.  For such a small school this school had a ton of different types of equipment which was awesome.  My first impression of these physical education teachers is that they really run a good program here at South Hill Elementary school.

Class 4

            The gymnasium is either open all the way where they combined two classes or it split’s down the middle and they separate the two classes depending on the lesson.  Two sides of the gymnasium are lined with a rock wall which I thought was really cool because I remember when I was younger I use to love climbing rock walls when we went to amusement parks on family trips but we never had it in our school setting’s.  There were a few posters hung up around the gymnasium but not as many as I would like.  That good be a good thing though because the students should focus on what they are learning not what is in the walls.

Class 5

            When I was I observed the classroom setting I noticed that the classroom was decorated with posters and toys and games everywhere.  The classroom differed from the gymnasium because it had so much going on in it.  The classroom atmosphere was very laid back when I was in their students just had to finish up a work sheet then they were allowed to play games or with Legos.  The language and literacy was good for the age of the students, from my perspective I thought each individual I spoke with was a pretty smart kid.  Since we caught the last class of that teachers day the teacher really wasn’t to engaged it seemed more like a free period where the students just had to finish up there work and then they could go play.  The social behaviors of these students were very good multiple students came up to me and asked if I wanted to play with them, it was a very friendly group of students.

Class 6

            In this class I observed the 4^th graders again.  I think overall the 4^th grade class is my favorite class to observe because it looks like they are the easiest to control compared to the 2^nd and 3^rd graders.  I noticed that the athletic ability and the motivation of the students are a lot higher.  I also began to notice a little more competitive spirit between the 4^th graders, in the younger grades none of the students really cared about winning or losing but the 4^th graders are at the beginning stage of that.  When working with the 4^th graders I haven’t gotten the chance to work with them so again I like to put myself out there and participate in the activities they are doing.  I think it’s good to do that because I feel the students get more excited to play a game if one of the teachers is playing it to.  I know when I was in high school and middle school I use to always challenge the teachers to whatever sport we were playing.

Class 7

            In this class I got the opportunity to lead students in warm up tag game.  The game I chose to play was called super hero tag.  The way you play this game is the same rules as freeze tag however when you get tagged you are supposed to freeze in the position of your favorite super hero.  I also had the students performing different loco motor movement instead of just running the whole time.  The students really enjoyed this game which was a good feeling.  After I did the warm up the teacher took over the lesson and I sat down and stretched out with the class.  From the past observations I noticed that the students were talking during stretching and would not really pay attention to well so I thought if I would sit myself down with the students and stretch out that the students would do less talking and more stretching.

Class 8

            In this class I got to observe Becky do lead the class in a warm up activity.  She also had to do a tag game and she decided to go with line tag.  Line tag is a fun tag game where you can only travel on the lines that run through the gymnasium.  Her tag game went pretty well it was fun to see the students get creative when the line was blocked by a tagged student.  When the students stretched after this warm up I decided to sit down and stretch with them again because the previous class it seems to help limit the talking and increases the stretching being done.  I have come to realize that 2^nd grade class is probably the worst behaved class, I think it has to do a lot with the age group and there are three students in this class that really stand out.  If one of those three students begin acting up then the other two always follow.  What my Host teacher does to keep the bad behavior from continuing is separate them.  For example he does not let them sit next to each other during stretches.

Class 9

            My host teacher was very good at engaging the students in the lesson segments.  So far out of every lesson I observed not one student has sat out.  I noticed that he keeps every lesson very interesting and by the way he explains things he makes it seem very fun.  As he explains what there about to do I can notice the students getting very antsy to get up and play.  I really admire how Coach Bliss gains the students respect and attention.  I noticed when Becky and I were leading the students in warm up activities sometimes the kids would act up or not do what they were supposed to be doing.  Coach Bliss would simply make eye contact with them and the students would automatically get back on task.  I think the way Coach Bliss interacts with each student allows the students to gain that respect for him and that’s what really makes them listen.

Class 10

            The social behaviors between the elementary age groups were a major difference from when I observed in the middle school and high school settings.  When I was in the high school and middle school setting I noticed the student had there certain groups of friends “clicks”.  In the elementary level there was no separation of students, all the students looked at each other equally, which is how it should be.  In one of the classes there was a student with autism and I wasn’t sure if the students would understand the disability at this age.  However the students included this student in everything and never got mad at him if he slowed a task down so therefore these groups of students were very understanding of the student’s disability.  So I would imagine that this disability was explained to them at some point and time during the year.

Class 11

            The lesson I got to teach was how to throw a football with the 2^nd grade class.  After the warm up I led the students in a good stretch where I had the students count by 5’s, 10’s, 2’s and even in Spanish.  I did this so we were also working on math and language while getting physical activity at the same time.  After the stretches I brought the students over to a poster board where I had all the cues for catching and throwing a football.  After them I had them grab a partner and practice there throwing and catching.  Because of their age I did not let them use actual footballs they started off with squishy footballs which were smaller than a regular football.  The reason I did this is to prevent anybody from getting hurt.  As the lesson went on I walked around giving feedback and I saw some very good catching and throwing skills.

Class 12

            During this class I observed the 4^th graders playing a tag game called “continuous tag”.  The point of this game was for the students to work together getting their teammates across the gym.  The students played this game the entire period and did not get sick of it once.  They played two rounds so the game last about 20-25 minutes per round.  I really liked this game and asked Coach Bliss more about it after class because I would love to bring this game to other schools.  Another thing I noticed during the game that I wanted to point out about the students is that the student with Autism was able to participate during this game and the students would go easy on him because he became a little confused at parts, his teammates were also helping him out and guiding him on what to do which I though was a great job by the students.

Class 13

            After I led the group in stretches I had a warm up to work on the student’s physical fitness.  I spread out task cards throughout the whole gym with an activity such as push-ups, sit-ups , etc. On one side of the task card and on the other side was a math problem.  Once they solved the math problem they had to take the answer and perform whatever task was on the other side that many times.  For example one task card said 5+4 which equals 9 and the other side said push-ups, so they had to perform 9 push-ups.  After performing one of the physical fitness skills the students had to run to another task card and perform whatever was on that card.  Students had to complete every single task card in order to be finished.  Afterwards I went over the importance of physical fitness and asked them for feedback and they all said that they enjoyed the activity.

Class 14

            This class I got the opportunity work run a lesson based on cooperative games.  Before I got into the game I had the students have a seat in front of me and explained to them the importance of cooperation and teamwork.  After that I gave the students 1 minute to create a team name for the day.  They chose to be the “Bulldogs”.  We played two different games the first game was “loop da hoop “which went really smooth because the students have played this before in previous classes.  The second game I had them play involved passing a football using only their feet and hands.  This game was a little more difficult for the student but by the end of the lesson they had it all figured it out which means they were eventually able to work together as a team and complete the tasks.

Class 15

            In this class I observed Becky run a lesson for a cooperative game.  She led the class in a bean bag toss lesson where they had to throw it into different hula hoops to gain points.  From my observations the students were having a lot of fun and were doing fairly well.  As she taught her lesson I went around giving the students feedbacks and tips to get points and encouraged them to keep trying whenever they would miss.  One thing I really liked about her lesson is that she never asked for the students total points because she did not want it to turn into a competition.  However she did have the students try and improve from their personal best scores.

Class 16

            I got the opportunity to lead the students in another cooperative lesson which I thought was good because I thought I could use a little improvement from the first cooperative lesson I taught.  This time instead of giving the students full directions in what they were supposed to do I let them work together more to figure it out as a team.  Coach Bliss talked to me about this in my previous lesson.  The reason I did this is because it lets the students think a lot more and use their brains more.  While they are doing this they are exploring different strategies to get the task done.  And when they finally get the task completed it is much more rewarding to them.

Class 17

            I learned a lot more than I expected to learn from this experience and I am very grateful of it.  Elementary school students can be very easy to teach one day and extremely hard to control the next.  The key to keeping these students focus and interest is keeping your lesson exciting.  It is also important to plan a lot of different activities because you never want to run out of things to do.  From now on when I make my lesson plans I am always going to put extra activities on there just in case my activities go a lot faster then I plan for them to go.  Visual aids also help a lot when trying to explain cues, and always give a demonstration and have a student demonstrate as well.

Class 18

            Some other insights I gained from this observation is to get along with all of your teachers.  It is important to have a friendly work environment it will make your day flow a lot smoother when you can team up with the regular teacher too.  One thing I really liked about this school is that they have an old sneaker drive and they donate it to the gymnasium for students who don’t come prepared with sneakers they have a pair of sneakers for you to wear.  Professionalism is very important in this job if you want to be taken seriously always dress well and have a clean cut look so the students and other teachers that you are a physical educator and not just a gym teacher.

Reflections from my Adaptive experience

Day 1

            My first day of the sport & splash program I got the opportunity to meet the student I was going to be working with for the rest of the semester.  The student I worked with was a 9 year old boy with Down syndrome and his name was Peter.  We got the choice of working with our students in the pool or the gymnasium and I chose to work in the gymnasium.  For the first day I spent a lot of my time working with Peter on getting to know him, find out his interests and get to know him as best as I can.  I had set up some activities for him so I could complete a post assessment using the TGMD 2.  The lesson went really well overall; he was a lot smarter than I thought he was going to be.  His loco motor skills weren’t too bad but there was definitely room for improvement.  After my first day with Peter I am definitely excited to continue working with him for the rest of the semester.  I am new to adaptive education but I have a feeling I am going to be able to learn a lot from this experience.

Day 2

            My second day with Peter was a little different than my first day with him.  The beginning of my lesson went really smooth when I had him knocking down and putting back together the stacker cups, however after I showed him this activity that’s all he wanted to do.  I brought Peter down to the racquetball courts because I thought I could keep his attention for longer without all the distractions around us.  I attempted to go over some dribbling skills using both a basketball and soccer ball but Peter did not want anything to do with it today.  I had a lot of trouble getting him to stand up because he just wanted to lay on the floor.  The teacher assistants (Carly & Jamie) were nice enough to help me out.  They came down and had Peter perform some floor exercises so he can stay on the floor but still get some physical activity out of it.  From this lesson I learned to always have a backup plan and that is exactly what I’m going to do from now on.

Day 3

            Today Peter and I were going to go over some jump roping and hula hooping.  Before that we went through a quick warm-up using task cards.  Everything ran very smooth today for about the first 30 minutes.  Peter seemed very familiar with jumping rope using a hula hoop he had the motions down very well and was pretty consistent with it.  He also knew how to do it with an actual jump rope to.  After about a half of an hour went by we had the same problem from the previous class Peter was fed up with learning and just laid on the ground.  So this time I decided to sit next to him and presented the idea of multiple floor exercises, and without hesitation he began performing the exercises with me for about 10 minutes until we went up for the group activity.

Day 4

            Today was my fourth day working with Peter and I am starting to get much more comfortable showing up to this program every Monday evening.  The first day I was so nervous and had absolutely no idea what to expect, and today was completely different I walked in with some confidence.  I also got to know Peters parents they are very nice people , I feel like I’m getting closer to Peter, it is nice to see that he recognizes me now every time he pulls up to the gymnasium.  I have come to realize that making the decision to bring Peter down to the racquetball courts for my lessons was a good choice because we have been getting much more done and I can see that he is having a good time with me.  I notice that when I bring Peter up to the gymnasium for the group activities he sometimes get a little nervous and anti-social.  For the rest of my lessons I am going to try to slowly include him with the rest of the group until he gets more comfortable with the other students.

Day 5

            This is the 5^th time I have met with Peter on Monday and we are begging to develop our own routine.  Peter usually shows up a few minutes late and then we drop off his bathing suit and towel in the gymnasium and then I usually take him right to the bathroom to try and prevent him from having any accidents throughout the lesson.  On the jog to the bathroom I ask him how his day in school was and what he did over the weekend.  After that we usually take a jog to the racquetball courts, Peter likes the big sports pictures on the walls so I always quiz him on what sports he is looking at.  When we arrive to the racquetball courts we stretch out a little bit then get right into a warm-up.  Peter really enjoys working with task cards so I make different types of task cards with fitness activities to get his blood flowing.  After that I have a game set up for Peter which we play until we go upstairs for the group activity.

Day 6

            Communication is very important when working with Peter because at first I wasn’t really able to understand him and I didn’t think I was going to ever be able to know what was going on his hand.   I can’t really get a lot of words out of Peter besides yes or no.  By now though  I feel like Peter and I are so close that I don’t need any more words then yes or no.  I can tell if Peter is having a good time or not.  If Peter isn’t having fun hell make it clear, I can see it in his face and he just doesn’t want to participate.  If he is having a fun time he has a smile going from ear to ear.  Peter really enjoys cows, it his favorite animal so I try to relate anything and everything he lacks interest in to a cow.  For example is we leg lifts, his legs are a bridge and he has to lift it for the cows to cross underneath him.  Peter also enjoys the activities a lot more if I participate with him, so the harder I work the harder he works which is something I don’t have a problem with at all I love getting out there and participating with the students.

Day 7

            Today after Peter and I get through our usual routine of going to the bathroom and jogging down, then doing a quick stretch and warm up activity I had an obstacle course set-up for him.  There were cones set up around the area for Peter to go from cone to cone performing the different activities on the cone.  We had a little trouble with this activity because I don’t think Peter really understood that it was an obstacle course and not just a free for all.  After I explained it to him a few different ways and awarded him with stickers anytime he did something right he began to do it right.  By the end of the lesson he was able to complete the obstacle course.  He actually was doing it so well that I was able to begin timing him and having him to try and beat his times.  Today was a good day for me because I was really able to notice his improvement and it felt good to help him understand better what the objective of today’s lesson was.

Day 8

            Today I decided to make the lesson similar to the previous lesson to make sure he still understood the whole point of an obstacle course.  I changed up the theme of it and made it a “pumpkin field” maze instead of just a regular obstacle course.  I had similar skills that I wanted him to perform and I also added some more advanced ones for him.  Peter did a great job today I didn’t have to go over the directions more than once so I am very proud of him.  Instead of timing him on his progress today I decided to race him myself.  After spending these last 8 weeks with peter I began to notice that he has a little bit of a competitive nature to him which I think could be a good thing because sometimes being competitive can make an individual work much harder towards their goals.  Today was another good hour spent with Peter it is getting easier every week to work with him.

Day 9

            Today for the warm-up I had fitness skill related to animal movements.  I wish I had done this earlier because Peter loved it.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to transition him from the warm-up to the actual activity because he was having so much fun and getting such a good work-out at the same time that I was nervous if he was going to have fun with my next activity.  After we finally finished the warm-up I went over the cues for throwing a Frisbee with Peter.  After a few practice throws he was able to get it down and I had him throwing the Frisbee at a target I had set up for him.  Every time he hit the target I would have take a few steps back to make the task more difficult.  When I thought he was ready I took him upstairs to Peter and I tagged along with another group where we tried to play a game of” kan jam”.  Peter had more fun sitting inside of the “kan” than actually playing the game.  I had a little trouble getting Peter to participate after that but thanks to Dr. MacDonald I learned that he was trying to get attention and all I had to was walk away for a few minutes and he would start participating again.

Day 10

            It is getting fairly close to the end of the semester and I have to say that I am much more comfortable working in this program then I was the first day.  The first day I had to work with Peter it basically threw off my whole entire day I was so nervous, and now I feel like I am just going to another class or to work.  I was extremely nervous because I haven’t really ever gotten this close to somebody with a disability and I really gained a new kind of respect for people with disabilities or people that work with someone with a disability.  I really feel like I have learned just as much from Peter as he has learned from me.  Today I also had the chance to stay after for the pool lab, I forgot my bathing suit so unfortunately I did not get to go in but I walked around and got to know more of the students and help out by the diving board.  The pool lab looks really exciting also so I cannot wait to get in their next time!

Day 11

            Today Peter I did a post assessment using the TGMD 2.  We covered all the fitness skills and loco motor skills.  I was really happy while doing this because Peter has made a lot of improvement in every single activity.  He was doing more reps during the fitness part, and performing all the skills a lot smoother and fluently.  It was a good feeling to see all this improvement it’s nice to see that all the times I had Peter practicing that it really paid off.  After we got through with all of the skills for TGMD 2 I brought Peter upstairs to the dance room so he can socialize a little more with the other students.  Peter and I worked with another group where they were practicing some volleyball skills.  It took a little time to get Peter involved with the other students he seemed a little nervous and not wanting to participate at first.  After a little while though I got him out there and we were having a good time.

Day 12

            Today is my last day working with Peter in the Sport & Splash program.  To be honest I wanted this day to come a.s.a.p. before I started working in this program and now that the day has finally come it’s a sad day.  I really like Peter he is a great kid probably one of the happiest kids I have ever met.  Every time we jog a lap around the hallways he tries to run into the weight room so I told him on the last day of class I would take him into the weight room.  When we went in today I let him pick what machines he wanted to try out, and we really had a lot of fun he was even flexing his arms when we got out of there.  After that I brought him upstairs with another group of students and we did some bowling.  I really enjoyed working with Peter and in my letter to his parents I made sure they knew that too.  Peter even gave me cookies after he left, that may have been the most appreciative feeling I have ever experience through my college career.  After my experience with the sport & splash program I am truly thankful that I chose to pursue the career of a physical educator.  This is definitely what I want to be.

Education

Education Philosophy

As a future physical educator I believe the importance of Education is extremely important.  The reason I believe this is because without a proper education it is hard to get anywhere in life.  When I say this I’m not giving you the typical if you don’t go to college you will not get a job speech.  When I say this I mean that from going to high school and learning about everything you learn about that is where you learn what you want to do with your life and how you’re going to do it.  If I never went to school I would have never chosen the profession of a physical educator and I live everything about this career choice.  When I was younger i did not realize nor believe in the importance of education.  I was an arrogant child and didn’t believe what my parents told me.  That is why I am thankful for going to college and taking the opportunity to really learn about the stuff I love now.  A good education generally leads you to the happy life you see yourself living in the future.  Doesn’t matter if you want to be a teacher, work in the stock market, a doctor, etc.  It doesn’t matter what you want to be as long as it makes you happy and if you love something enough you should have no problem learning everything about it.  After you graduate from high school that does not mean your education has to end there if you do not go to college.  If you want to become an electrician, construction worker, plumber any of that is okay as long as you love to do it.  In the end you are still helping people and none of these jobs should be looked down on.