The other day I attended the portfolio showcase, which helped a lot more then I thought it would have. We're told to make these portfolios, but being a transfer students I never knew what was expected. Going to this showcase, showed me the best of the best when it came to portfolios.
Ben was the only one who had an online portfolio. This was cool because it's different, and with it being almost 2012 technology is where it's at! I also looked at some others which included Gia, Lauren and Allison's.
While all of them were good, I was fascinated by how much info was in Lauren. It seemed like she had everything from anything she's ever done from her artifacts to the marathons she's been apart of, and the list going on and on.
Going to this showcase gave me a lot of great ideas on what to add to mine, and hopefully one day. My portfolio will be in the showcase!
The best and worst moment of my sports career. The biggest moment in my life was full of excitement, but what happens next... Click here to find out!!!
This was the last time at St. Mary's this semester, and as excited as I am for the semester to be over. It's sad that I won't be going back there. I've learned so much from the students at St. Mary's that I don't even know where to begin! I'm glad I spent my last day with the Pre-k students. They are by far my favorite group to work with. They are so excited to just play and learn, it's unreal!
At the beginning of the semester I was unsure of what to expect, but as the weeks went on I became more and more comfortable with the students, as well as knowing the possible outcomes that would occur from my games or actions.
This week was so much fun, who would've thought that we'd be playing outside in December! I think this is a great way to get the Pre-k involved and active! Going out on the playground is great because they're in their element. They are in control over it, and the Teacher Candidates are the ones who were adapting. At one point, the students dragged me inside of the slide playground. I have no idea why I was getting dragged there but they loved every second of it, even if I couldn't get out!
Because we spent so much time outside, we didn't really have time for a craft, so we made the game and craft relate with each other. In order to decorate there Christmas tree ornament, they needed to play the game. After every game they completed they got another sticker to add to there tree. Although we thought this was a great idea, only some students wanted to play the games to get the stickers. Others just wanted to decorate the ornament. I stayed on the bleachers helping the students with there crafts. They were all so excited to color and add stickers to there trees. They get excited about the simplest things, and that's what is so awesome about all of them.
Although I'll miss going to St. Mary's, I'm excited to move onto more classes that will help me become a better Physical Educator!
When I found out that I was assigned the Ice Rink, I became really nervous because I haven't been on the Ice in a long time. Although I had taken ice skating lessons when I was younger, I was afraid that I had lost all my skills that I had once learned. I knew instantly that if I needed to teach on the ice that I had to start practicing on the ice, to become better. If it's one thing I've learned this semester is that practicing not only the skill that you're teaching but practicing teaching, and practice saying what you plan on saying. This is so important in the teaching world because you need to be able to know the skill like the back of your hand in order to be able to critique your students in the skill and to give them congruent and specific feedback throughout your time with them. I had been on the ice now for a few days, and although some of my skills from years ago came back. I still had no idea what I should teach for my final lesson. In this final lesson, we all had to tie in a health topic that Prof. Yang had decided for us. I was thrown Tobacco.
After thinking awhile, I had finally decided on teaching Broom ball because we could be on the ice rink without using ice skates. I now needed to some how add tobacco and technology into my lesson. After battling many techniques I decided to make posters of healthy lungs and lungs after using tobacco. These posters would now become targets in my lesson. Now that I was confident with relating tobacco into my lesson I had to figure out a way to add technology. I couldn't use video games like the wii or xbox 360 connect, so I became lost for a bit, while my mind wondered. I became excited about the idea of using the technology we've used semester. We're suppose to post almost everything we've come in contact with this semester on our blogs. So why not make a homework assignment to join a blog about Broom ball that I would create, and answer a few questions on it. So my plan was to after class, send an email to every student and give them access to post on this blog.
When trying to figure out what I had done well in this lesson, I came to the conclusion that I had pretty good visuals, along with keeping my voice clear and understandable. One of the main things I've been trying to focus on with each lab, is to become better at my keeping my voice loud and to keep good control over the class. I also believe I gave good positive congruent feedback, although the video didn't show it I made sure I did this. I tried to give as much feedback to as many people as I could, but it was hard because the ice was such a big area and it was hard to move around.
Sometimes its hard to watch your lessons, because you know you did things wrong and watching you do them and not being able to change them is something that is really hard for me. I became really flustered in the beginning, forgetting what I had wanted to say about class rules and etiquette. Although I had practiced this lesson multiple times in front of people I froze. Part of me believes that my head wasn't there that day. This particular day was pretty rough, and I had been in a bad mood pretty much all day. We are all human and we will all have bad days, but as teachers when we have a bad day here or there, we need to not show it like I did. By the end of lesson, I had become less grumpy it was clear, but I need to learn to put whatever happens before I walk into those gym doors out of my head so it doesn't affect the students, like it affected my lesson. I believe this was the biggest thing I learned from in lab d.
We're all learning, and adapting to new things in new environments and our goal is to become the best physical educators as possible and I believe that this lesson more then any of the others helped me the most. I needed to experience forgetting what I had planned, and learn how to put things out of my mind along with learning to adapt to the changes that I will be faced with on a daily basis in the future.
This semester has truly been awesome in giving me experience towards my goal of becoming a physical educator. I can't even begin to explain the things I've learned these past few months. Comparing my first video from the first day of EDU 255 to my most recent, I believe not only have I grown as a person but also as a teacher candidate. I can't wait to learn and experience more in my years to come!!
