Thursday, November 17, 2011

Stepping into Lab D!

        In Lab D, the students were required to teach a 15 minute lesson based on a topic given to him/her by the teacher assistants. In my case, I was given a topic I am not very familiar with and have had absolutely no prior experience on. The lesson I had to teach for Lab D was step aerobics and when I first heard what I was teaching I was very nervous. As Lab D was approaching and I began to do research on step aerobics I began to think it would not be hard at all. I started to gain confidence with the ideas I was developing for my lesson. My thoughts were to go over 5 relatively basic steps in the lesson incorporating all of the necessary content needed for Lab D. The day of Lab D, I had confidence in what I was going to teach and how it was going to be taught.


        Throughout Lab D, I believe I did many things well, while there were still parts I had trouble with. I was able to really project my voice well, as before I had trouble and was always told it was a facet of my teaching that needs work. With music playing I knew I had to use my voice properly to express my thoughts and ideas for the students to understand what is expected. In Lab D, I was able to cut down my introduction time and get the students moving a lot sooner, which is key in physical education. Before, I spent too much time in my introduction, so I was happy to see I improved. Another strength was my visual aids because all of the examples were clear and neat with important words needed to get across to the students. I did well providing the students different angles with demonstrations for each exercise we performed. During the lesson focus, I was able to use intra-task variation and use students as examples and demonstrations. It is important to change the difficulty of an activity if the student is not being challenged by it or to lower the difficulty for those who may struggle. I used the style of teaching I had to incorporate (guided discovery) at the beginning of the activity allowing the students to practice what they knew about step aerobics. Finally, I incorporated my topic of the nutrition label well with step aerobics. I separated the benches into five different sections to represent the amount of food groups.

         One of my fall backs in Lab D was moving around and providing more specific congruent feedback to the students. It was hard for me to locate things wrong during the basic step movements the students were performing. I did say "Good job" a lot, but I should have concentrated on more specific feedback to individual students. Another drawback to my lesson was circling around the students during the activity. After I demonstrated the next step movement I generally remained in the front of the class, instead of moving around and in between the students. Doing this limited me of my angles of what was happening in my class and my opportunity to possibly provide more individual feedback. Even though I am happy how Lab D went I still had trouble forming statements that flowed properly. Some of my statements were choppy and did not make sense. I have been working on it, but I still need to show more energy and enthusiasm in my lessons because it rubs off on the students.

        Now, with my teaching labs complete, I have seen vast improvement in my ability to teach as each lab progressed to the next. I am now more confident in my work and I understand the amount of effort that needs to go into a great lesson. To come into a lesson prepared with research on the topic being taught is key for explaining content to the students. In order to be prepared, it is important to take the time out and practice because practicing can only make the lesson stronger. There is no perfect lesson, but it does not hurt to try and be your best to provide an awesome learning experience for the students in your class. It is vital for me to continue practicing on my weaknesses, so I can become the physical educator I want to be. I have learned greatly from EDU 255 and the information I have been able to absorb will prove essential for my future teaching experiences.

                


                       
Click below to view the following forms:
Lab D Lesson Packet
Lesson Plan
Task Activity Progression
Time Coding Form
Feedback Form
Content Development
Verbal Transcript

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