Who said Healthy Games have to be boring?

Today I learned a new way to integrate technology into my Physical Education teaching lessons.  I played two games online, Juice Jumble and Food Fury.  These two games are great ways for students to learn more about what foods you should and shouldn't eat.  Here is a quick overview of how the game is played online.  I really enjoyed this game because many people still need to learn about what types of foods they should eat.  Obesity is a growing epidemic in this country and this game will get the students just one step closer to prevent obesity.  This game can be played in multiple levels of 1,2, and 3.  The only thing I dislike about this game is that it can be easy to cheat.  Instead of just looking at the food group, you can just click away by just looking at the tabs.  Clicking this link, will show you on the corner of each food there is a color coded tab that is similar with their food group.  Overall, I would love to start off my PE unit with Food Fury but in my lesson it will come alive on the GYM FLOORS!! Here is a slideshow from my Picasa Web Album showing my sister and I playing Food Fury and Juice Jumble.

Here is a lesson plan and a task progression sheeet, I integrated the game of food fury in real life Physical Education setting. This game integrates the healthy lifestyle of a proper diet, and locomotor skills students are still trying to develop at the fifth grade level.

FUN! FUN! FUN!

Some of the Fun our class had this semester.

Lab D- The Exercise Ball

This lab had to be my best lesson by far.  I felt incredibly comfortable and well prepared to have a wonderful lesson (my lesson plan can be viewed here).  I felt I was on point on each aspect of teaching a lesson.  My goal during this lesson was to increase my students’ heart rate and work rate using the exercise ball.  After this lesson, my students realized the use of an exercise ball could really challenge every part of your body.  I wanted to start off my instant activity with the jump rope because my theme today was to increase heart rates with the least equipment possible.  Who said you need a gym?  

A jump rope and space was all that is needed to warm-up those muscles.  My visual aid displayed the cues of each of the exercises we were going to do throughout the lesson.  The students were able to refer to the visual aid in case they needed to refresh their memory with the cues.  Throughout the lesson I had multiple students demonstrate each of the exercises in front of the class, and verbally checked for their understanding.  Before the lesson, I had prepared mini progressions for the students that I needed to use intra-task variation.  Intra-task variation was used during my lesson because some of my students weren’t able to complete the exercise properly.  There were some students that were finding some of the exercises easily, therefore I made those exercises challenging.   The use of partners in my lesson helped my students correct their form.  If both of the students are correcting each other, they will be more conscious to fix their own mistakes.  I felt my voice was clear and loud enough to hear all instructions.  After we demonstrated the exercises, the class practiced each of them while I walked around and gave feedback.  After reviewing my feedback analysis form, it showed how I improved on one of my previous weaknesses.  During this lesson, I made sure I gave the majority of my class positive constructive feedback.  One difficulty I had was at the end of class two students began to fight.  I made a mistake on not addressing the problem right away and letting it escalate to a fight.  The next class, Dr. Yang went over different techniques on how to address an altercation right at the start of it.  As a whole, this lesson I improved on all of my teaching aspects and delivered an action pack lesson.  From the links below you can view my time coding form, and transcript.

Lab C- Our International Unit

Lab C had many different twists to it.  This lab I was teamed up with a partner, Mr. Martino Sottile, to make up a combined lesson about an international sport.  The sport we decided to pick was European Handball, a sport not played by many in this country but very popular in Europe.  European handball originated from France during the Medieval time.  Mr. Martino Sottile taught the first half of the lesson on the focus of how to throw the ball accurately and the techniques of goaltending.  After I took over the lesson, I was eager to teach my components in becoming an effective European Handball player.  My focus of this lesson was to teach different kinds of strategic passes to get passed a defender.  I also demonstrated on how to move when you are the defender and have to defend a two man fast break.  Throwing and catching were practiced before me therefore I needed to spend an ample amount of time on teaching tactical moves to score.  The tactical pass the class displayed was the overlapping pass.  After I went over each pass, I divided the class into small groups to practice each pass.  The majority of the class demonstrated each tactical pass correctly and smoothly.  I wasn’t able to view and upload my video because of technical difficulties but I remembered a lot of my positive qualities I demonstrated.   Overlooking this lab I thought I did well on executing how each student applied each tactical pass correctly.  One negative aspect on this lesson is that I still need to learn how to better manage my instructional time vs. my activity time.  Much of my lesson is spent on instruction and less time for activities.  My area of teaching was the end of the unit and it would have been turned out better if I had more game play.  Each of the students learned many skills and there would have been no other way to put those skills to the test than playing a European Handball game.  The image above is an action picture of Jack shooting the ball after an effective overlapping pass from his group members.

My First Seminar

During my Thanksgiving break, I had a great experience teaching Judo and wrestling at a near by Martial Arts school, GetOFF1stMMA Academy.  I conducted two seminars, one was on teaching traditional Judo and Judo for mix martial arts and the second day was on teaching the sport of wrestling and how it can be used properly in mix martial arts.  I enjoyed this coaching/teaching experience mainly because it was two sports I am very knowledgeable in.  I have been doing Judo since the age of four and received my black belt at the age of 17.  I also had been doing wrestling since my sophomore year of high school.  Both of the sports are very similar, so it makes even easier to integrate both of the skills at the same time. The students of the academy were very pleased with my teaching abilities.  They left the seminar with a vast amount of skills learned and impressed me how they applied those skills on the mat.            

2nd Annual ExerGame Expo

Wow! That is the first word that came out of my mouth as soon as I walked in the ExerGame Expo.  The Expo was exhilarating and opened my mind to all new types of ways to teach Physical Education.  It’s amazing how video games can be implemented to challenge an individual physically.  My favorite game was Street Fighter with the punching bags, the punching bags were touch pads, so to fight your opponent you had to actually punch the pads.  The game was extremely fun and tiring.  The highlight of the expo is my favorite game, IDANCE DDR, unfortunately I’m not that good but I always have a fun time playing.  SUNY Cortland was fortunate enough to be the first to use this new equipment.  This video above is the IDANCE equipment we used during the Expo.

Lab B...Ultimate Frisbee

I was excited to teach this lesson on Ultimate Frisbee and it made it more exciting that I wasn’t too familiar with this sport.  This experience gave me the chance to practice, learn, and teach a sport I had never seen or played before this class. If you listen to my mp3 recording, you can have an in depth experience of my Ultimate Frisbee lesson.  I had many strong points I instituted in this lesson but after examining all of my analysis forms, I am more aware of some of my weaknesses.  Some of my previous weaknesses I improved on but there were few I repeated from my last lesson.  After reviewing my feedback analysis form, I need to give more constructive feedback to my students.  This will help my students know what they are doing well and what they need to work on.  I felt it was resourceful to integrate a few Spanish words during the lesson.  We counted “Uno, Dos, Tres” which was part of the progression to my drill.  I believe it’s essential to incorporate all different subjects in Physical Education lessons.  As you can see in my time coding form, there was less than 50 percent of activity time.  One way I could have maximized activity time is to break up the class into smaller groups, and practice the drills with less people.  The tool I find most useful to becoming a better teacher is my transcript form, using this I am able to see every word I say.  I can’t wait for my next lesson, it will be interesting.