EDU 355 Lab 7

                             High quality jump roping, set big goals and maybe you will be this good one day.

1. Can a child in a wheelchair enter the front door and the back door? What modifications would you make? It would depend on the child in the wheel chair. If the child had an electric wheel chair or still had a high ability to use their arms then they would be able to go through the front door and the back door. A modification for this could be swing the rope slower so that the student would have a longer amount of time to get through. Also, you could use a longer rope which would make the amount of time they had to get through.

2. How would you apply goal setting to this lesson. You could have the students see how many times in a row you could jump the rope by yourself. You could measure the distance between the two ropes when you have the students jump for distance. You could have a pretest and see how far they can go and have a unit focus on leg strength and components of jumping further and then have a post test to see any improvements. You could split the class into two teams and have each group try to run through the back/front door and see who can get the highest number, and then repeat it to see if you can better your goal.

3. Design a long rope jumping routine for a pair of students jumping at the same time. First you could start off with showing the students how to tie together two jump ropes to make a longer rope. You could have the students take turns practicing turning the ropes to get consistency. Next, you could show the students the front door and back door and practice running through. Then, you could start the tag game with each person running through the front door and chasing the other person. You could then have students jump into the middle and begin jumping rope with the big rope. Any of the students not on the big rope could be practicing on the smaller ropes until it is their turn to jump in.

4. Create a checklist of critical elements to look for and use in teaching basic, two foot jump rope jumping.
- Follows Cues
    1. Jumps with two feet
    2. Jumps Low
    3. Rope Over Head
- Consistency
-Flow
-Transitions between skills

5. Describe how you would go about organizing a jump roping club for your elementary school. First I would ask around to other schools and organizations and see how they went about creating their jump rope clubs. I would ask the schools and organizations what made them successful and the types of skills that they teach. I would send home a newsletter to the parents of all the students and post on the phys ed website so that all of the students and their parents know about the club. Then I would have a meeting about the club after school and see who was interested and go from there.

6. Stimulus Variation- stimulus variation means different things that cause a response in a person. For example, different sizes of balls, different colors of the same sized ball and different textures are stimulus variation. Where stimulus variation occurred in this lesson was that there were different types of jump ropes in different colors and textures. Different types of stimuli help to keep the students involved and interested and can help everyone find something they like.

Cincinnatus Elementary School Day 2 Classroom Observation

For my second day at Cincinnatus Elementary I was able to observe a classroom lesson of the 3rd grade. The environment and atmosphere of a classroom is so much different than that of a gymnasium for phys ed. The classroom I observed was very decorate, there were definitely no naked walls in this room. Almost every possible inch of wall was filled with some sort of educational information. Some of the items that were on the wall were the alphabet (lower case and capital letters), the months of the year, nouns, verbs, sentence structure and the birthdays of all the students. The walls were filled with colorful posters and the educational information was colorful as well. The overall classroom was pleasant to be in and seemed like it would be a good environment to learn in. This classroom differs from the gymnasium in many ways. First, the gymnasium is far larger than the classroom was. I was actually amazed at how much stuff was packed into the little space in the classroom. The were supplies spread through the class including books, scissors, pencils/pens, markers, etc. Another difference was that the students were sitting down for the entire class. If you were to look into almost any phys ed class at anytime the students will most likely be up and moving around. The students inside the classroom were sitting down and working at their desks the entire time. I understand that students need somewhere to do their work inside the classroom but the whole sitting at a desk for an extended period of time is not my style. I prefer to be active and moving around and engaging in games and activities that get your heart rate up. The atmosphere of the classroom was very quiet and peaceful and well organized. The teacher spoke in a quiet and respectful voice and the other students followed her lead. The focus of this lesson was subtraction. The teacher did one problem with the students and then had the students use playing cards to choose what numbers would be in their subtraction problems. The teacher had the students pick out 5 cards, the first 3 would be the first three numbers and the next to would be subtracted from the first three. The literacy level was addressed by having the students read an write consistently. Also, there were reminders of nouns, verbs and sentence structure on the walls of the classroom. Also, this teacher had the students learning some words in Spanish, like colors and the months of the year. The teacher said that learning another language strengthens the brain. The teacher engaged the students in the lesson by having one student lead calendar time. During calendar time the students would talk about what day of the week it is, different shapes, colors in Spanish and practice past skills and a questions about the focus of the lesson. The student that was leading calendar time would call on some of the students so all of the students had to be ready to answer every question. Each student had the chance to answer at least one question. The kids were well behaved for the most part during the class. The students were listening and did not talk while the teacher was talking. There were students organized into squads of desks (groups of 4) and there were no problems among squads. There were other students scattered throughout the room. One or two of these students were having difficulty with their focus and completing their work. I learned that you need to speak to the students in a calm and polite voice. Speaking in a rude manor will not influence the kids to act appropriately during class. Talking over the students is something that should be avoided when possible. Talking while students are talking gives the impression that it does not bother the teacher is the students talk at anytime. The best thing that I saw in the classroom that I would bring to my own teaching was the use of positive reinforcement. The teacher was very positive during the class and when the students did something the teacher told them well done or good job. One thing I learned was that organization is very important. Being prepared and having everything where it needs to be will help lead towards success.

Day 2 at Cincinnatus

One my second day of field experience at Cincinnatus Elementary School I had the chance to see a kindergarten class. I had never seen a kindergarten class previously to this day so I was looking forward to observing and working with the kindergarten students. I immediately noticed that the students had a high amount of energy and were going to be very active throughout the class. The first activity was a warm up tag game. Six students were given a koosh balls and those students would be the taggers and everyone else would try not to get tagged. In order to get the kids to sit quietly and listen to the instructions the teacher had all of the students sit down and look at him to ensure everyone's attention. The teacher only handed one of the koosh balls to students that were sitting down and were very quiet. If a student was moving around and talking to another student they would not be able to get the koosh ball and be a tagger. I believe this technique for choosing who would be a tagger was extremely effective. Almost all of the students were trying to sit as quietly and as still as possible so that they would chosen to be a tagger. The next activity was kidnastics stations. At each station the students had to practice a different skill such as an airplane scale or an egg rocker. The teacher demonstrated each of the skills first before splitting up the students to move to each station. For management at each of the stations there was a teacher or teachers aid. There were two or three aids in this class. Tom and I were at two of the stations helping the students with the skills at that particular station. Having one teacher at each station made it easy to use proximity as a behavior management technique. Another thing that the teachers did to manage behavior was playing music while the students were doing their kidnastics skills. When the music stopped playing the students knew that was their cue to move onto the next station. The use of music was very effective in keeping the kids interested as well as listening for when the song was over so they could move onto the next station. Overall, the teachers handled the behavior of these students very well and there were no problems at any point during the class.

First Day of 355 Field Experience

My first day of observation/assisting/teaching at Cincinnatus Elementary went quite well. Tom Travers and I were assigned to the same school and we went out to see what was going on over at Cincinnatus. After signing in Tom and I introduced ourselves to the phys ed teachers and talked with them until the next class started. The lesson they were doing this day was on floor hockey. To start off the class the teachers had the students run laps around the gym. There were mats separating the two halves of the gym which would later be used for game play. Due to the fact that the mats split the gym in half the students had to jump over the mats when they came to them. I think this poses a big safety hazard that could have been easily avoided by just moving the mats. Also, on one side of the gym there was floor hockey equipment on the mats. The students were jumping over this as well, which poses another safety hazard. It took the teachers a few minutes to change the location of the mats for the warm ups. The lesson focus was on passing and stick handling. The teachers gave a demonstration on how the students needed to pass the pucks to one another. The students lined up across from a partner and practiced passing back and forth. The students passed back and forth for about 6 or 7 minutes until the teachers changed to stick/puck handling. The teachers demonstrated that the students will handle the puck using the correct cues down and around their partner and back to their original spots. When they reach their original spot they pass the puck to the partner so they can do the same thing. After a few minutes of this the students were split into teams and started playing a game. They played for more than 10 minutes and the class was over soon after. I thought that this lesson had some strong points but some low points as well. One positive thing was that the teachers combined a skill previously taught, passing, with a new skill or puck handling. One negative thing that I observed was that there was nothing really being taught to the students. There were no fitness concepts discussed at all and it seemed more like the teachers were rolling out the pucks for the students to lead as quickly as possible into game play. I thought that the lesson had a lot of potential moments for teaching the students. For example after the warm up the teachers could have had a class talk about why the warm up was necessary and what benefits it had for the students. Also, at the end of the lesson a check for understanding about the cues taught in class and what will be going on next class to get the kids excited in their next phys ed class.

EDU 355 Lab 5

1. Use the internet to search for information about turtles and how they live. Different types of sea turtles have different diets. Green and black sea turtles remain vegetarians there entire lives. These two types of sea turtles are the only sea turtles that remain vegetarians after adulthood. Sea turtles are not the most social creatures in the world. Sea turtles do not normally interact with other sea creatures, or other sea turtles. A baby sea turtle, or hatchling, when born make its way across the sand and into the ocean. The mothers of these baby sea turtles do not assist them or protect them from people or birds trying to catch the baby sea turtles. These baby sea turtles will not return to the coastal shores on which they were born for almost a decade after birth. The exact life span of sea turtles is not known by scientists but it is believed that sea turtles can live as long as 100 years!

2. Identify the fitness components being addressed in squad square fitness. Where are these components located on the New York State Conceptual Framework for K-12 Physical Education. The fitness components addressed in squad square fitness are muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance and muscular strength. These components are next to the personal fitness/wellness section on the left side. The fitness components need to be incorporated in every lesson that a physical education teacher teaches.

3. Prescribe a series of ball handling skills for a second grade boy or girl that is afraid of catching a ball. What kinds of objects might you prescribe for throwing and catching? First you could have the student hold onto the ball and get a feel for how the ball feels and what it is like to hold the ball. Then you could have the student drop the ball onto the ground and pick it up. Next you could have students partner up and one student could drop the ball directly into the hands of the other student. No movement of the hands or anything yet. You could then have the student that is afraid catch a ball off the bounce from another student. Small bounces at first to get the student more comfortable. Foam balls could be used to start. A smaller foam ball, a bit smaller than a gator ball but at least double the size of a tennis ball. The ball will be soft enough so the student will not be hurt, but not too soft where it will be hard to catch.

4. What kind of guidelines would you follow in pairing students for throwing and catching. First I would not have the students working by themselves before pairing up. I would have the students work on throwing and catching objects with themselves. It is important to make sure the students can do the throwing and catching by themselves before putting them with a partner. After the catching alone the students would be able to catch with a partner. Learning to throw and catch without a partner is one of the first progressions to catching and throwing.

5. How would you help a special needs student learn to catch that displays motor control and lack of fine motor control dexterity? I would have the student toss the ball to themselves so they would have the ability to catch it. Also, you could have another teacher or student you know will help the student and not be rude throw the ball to them. For catching you could put a large target on the wall or bleachers or wherever there is space. The target needs to be large target so that the student will still have success. You need to make sure the student is learning and having success at the same time.

EDU 355 Lab 4

1. Explain how a unit based on lessons of this nature would serve as a foundation for acquiring specialized throwing and catching skills. This unit would serve as a foundation for acquiring specialized throwing and catching skills because using bean bags provides an easier opportunity for the students to catch than a basketball or tennis ball. The activities that we did in the lab were relatively simple activities that provided a lot of opportunities for success. Without a base for learning a skill there is no way for someone to build upon the basics and increase their skill level and this job did a good job of developing basic skills.

2. Identify a theme that could be applied to health hopping appropriate for young children. Nutrition would be a good theme. Each station could have a different food group like fruits, vegetables, etc. and the kids could receive information based on each of the food groups. The kids would be getting exercise while learning about what foods they need to eat and which foods they should not eat.

3. Design a checklist of critical elements to look for when observing a child performing a locomotor movment.
1. Proper Cues
2. Consistency
3. Proficiency
4. Fluency
5. Amount of Concentration

4. 2 Bean Bag Activites

- http://www.pecentral.org/bp/indivBPDisplay.asp?ID=1989&votes=8
- http://www.pecentral.org/lessonideas/ViewLesson.asp?ID=733

Gifted Learners

(President Obama on fixing No Child Left Behind)

When you think of a gifted learner what comes to your mind? In my opinion a gifted learner is someone who finds completing tasks in a variety or different areas easier than I would. Before reading about gifted learners I was under the impression that gifted learners were lucky to have such great gifts, but now I realize that may not necessarily be true. Most people, including myself believe that gifted learners can thrive on their own without the help of schooling. Currently there is nobody that counts the total amount of "gifted learners" in America. The National Association for Gifted Children report that there are 3 million gifted learners currently in America today, which is 6 percent of the total population is schools today. This data however uses estimates from the 1972 Marland report to Congress that stated around 5-7 percent of school children are capable of "high performance." Many schools do not provide opportunities to challenge the gifted children and they get bored easily. Many students will drop out of school because of the lack of challenges in school, and that means that many of our nations brightest people are neglected and will not reach their full potential. Young students generally attempt to conform and avoid being different while in school. But, many of these gifted students report feelings of isolation and feel as though they do not have a place in schooling no matter what they try. No child left behind is the current version of a policy that was established in 1965. The goal of No Child Left Behind is to ensure education equity for all students. The version of this policy we know today has been the same since 2002, when President George W. Bush passed it. This policy wants the best education for all students and its name says that no student should be left behind, but students are still continuing to fall through the cracks. President Obama is calling on Congress to fix the inadequacies of No Child Left Behind. Hopefully this program will include every student and do everything in the governments power to help the students of this country succeed. I believe every student deserves to be challenged and given every possible opportunity to succeed with the proper instruction. I hope that things will change and no student will be left behind.