Lab D Tyler Hall Stomping

I thought lab D was a great way to end our teaching segment for EDU 255. It was a real challenge with having to do an assessment, and integrating a heath topic as well as technology. Although I enjoyed the challenge I thought I took a step backwards from lab c after watching my video. There are many reasons as to why this is which will be talked about below.

Progression from Lab C

Throughout this class I think that I have improved greatly. I have in the fact that I feel a lot more comfortable teaching in front of a group without getting the nervous jitters before hand. I also progressed in the fact that I used the teaching strategies such as the signal of attention, expectations and checks for understanding more than I have. Although I have progressed throughout the semester, going from lab c to lab d I did not think I improved so much. In lab c I didn't have a lot of checks for understanding and when I went to lab d I rarely had any checks for understanding. Also in lab c I had a lot of good feedback but in lab d I barely had any feedback at all. One thing that was a positive progression was that I felt comfortable myself teaching this time. 

C9 Forms
For lab d, my C9 form was not as good as mine in lab c. Looking back at my video, there were many big factors that I left out of my lesson that I put on my lesson guide. On the C9 form my checks for understanding had a low score because I did not ask specific questions with them which is very true. When I asked a question it was does everybody understand? and that isn't very productive. In the future I need to ask more specific questions where the students will have to elaborate more than a thumbs up. Also, on the TA's C9 form was to give specific feedback. I thought that this was true and it happened mainly because during the heart of the lesson I had my back to the students when showing the steps. I did not get a chance to see who was doing it wrong. In order to fix that I should have faced them and done it. Also, I could have had the students doing a self-check with the mirror. The mirror was right in front of me and I did not utilize it. One last thing was that I had a weakness with energy when the topic of stomping is an upbeat and energetic unit. In the future I am going to show a lot of energy right away in order to get the students engaged. I will do this by coming into the classroom with my voice louder and in a better attitude. On my C9 form I made a comment to have a better demo. When I did the demo, I did not do a very good job doing it. I messed up a little bit which through it off. Also, when doing the dance I should have broken the steps in a more organized way than I did.

C11 Feedback Form
In this form I did not do a very good job during my lesson with. All of the feedback I gave was not specific and there was barely any corrective feedback. The only corrective feedback I gave was when the students asked me questions at the end with the creative dance part. In the future, I need to walk around more and observe the students and see how well they were doing and if they were struggling with the activities. Another thing I noticed was that the feedback I gave was not very good feedback. When I gave feedback all I said was "very good" or "nice". In lab c I did very well giving feedback as I did not do so well in lab d. Also, I noticed in the video but not when I was teaching was the number of students that were having difficulty. When I was teaching I did not think that many people were having difficulty.

C12 Peer Evaluation
In my peer evaluation form I received a low grade on all of the questions. I got a 5 on the clarity which most likely came from me not organizing the steps in a good way. In the future I would have broken the steps into step 1 and 2 together then 3 and 4 together, then 5 and 6 and lastly steps 7 and 8. Next was the teacher demo which I received a grade of 4. I agree with this one because I only gave one demo of the full dance. I thought I did good demos of the steps though. The next one was the teachers enthusiasm where I received a 5. Thinking back to when I was preparing this lesson, I didn't even think of being overly enthusiastic. Also, looking at my video also I did not have much energy in my voice. One thing I did not agree was that I got a low grade on the professional apperance where I thought that I looking professional during the lesson.

C13 Self-Analysis
In my self-analysis form I missed out on the statement of expectations, opportunity for clarification, and feedback and modeling. I missed the expectations because I never told the class that they were going to be tested at the end or even that they were being assessed on their affective behavior. I should have said it after I told the class my signal of attention. I miss the clarification because I did not give specific checks for understanding during my lesson when I did. I should have asked specific questions on the cues or even the classroom rules. The last one that I did not reach was the feedback. I did not give myself a chance to give feedback by standing in front of the class the whole lesson. In the future if I taught this lesson again. I would have them perform the steps when I'm not up at the front and walk around and give feedback on their steps.

Time Coding Sheets
In lab d, I did very well on the TA's time coding sheet. I got 4 out of 5 points on it which was my highest score yet. The point that I did not receive was  management time which was off by just 2%. I could have got the full 5 points if I set up the music better because I was messing with that during the lesson. That could have been the difference of me getting the full 5 points rather than just 4. Also, on the TA's time coding sheet I received 53% activity time which I would like to be at least 60% of the time. In order to do this my talking time needs to be cut down. One way I could have in this lesson was make a faster instant activity to get into. Mine took a little long getting started due to me having to explain it. In my own time coding sheet I got 75% activity time, 21 % lecture/demonstration and 4 % management. I reached 2 of the 3 guidelines. I really liked that I had 75% activity time in this one. Although it showed that I talked to much with having 21% lecture time. Another way that I could have cut out this time was that my first lecture was too long in my eyes. I could have broken up that lecture into several lectures that are not as long. I thought that would have cut down time lecture time. In the future I won't stick all of the talking into the first lecture and spread out the talking more evenly to see if that works better.

So-Fit
On the so-fit sheet, I did not do very well on. My management time was 42% when it is supposed to be 10%. This is not very close at all. In order to change this my equipment needs to be more ready. The piece of equipment that did not help me out with this number was the music player. It was not ready when I needed it to be. Next time I will have a checklist of what needs to be done before the lesson in order to be ready. For general knowledge I got 23% when it should be 15%. The lecturing time needs to be cut in the future in order for my numbers to be where they should be. The next one was physical fitness knowledge which was 3%. The last one was motor content where I got 33% when it should be 50%. The forms from early show that they same problems over and over again.

Goals
In the future I really need to focus on my checks for understanding and my feedback in my lessons. I thought throughout this class I did fairly well with everything else but those 2 components were by far my weakness. In the future I am going to write my checks for understanding in on my lesson guide and make sure they are specific. Also, for increasing my feedback I will put a reminder on my lesson guide to give good feedback.

Looking back on EDU 255 I thought that this class and the teaching activities were very useful. At my last junior college we never really had a class where we were taught how to teach. We would teach in our activity courses and just focus on the actual activity and not the format of teaching. I believe that EDU 255 is a great class to learn how to teach. I think that this class is by far the most important part of the curriculum.