Katie Lupo Lab B: Aerobics

What: For my lab B my instant activity was called "The Luck of the Draw" this game was all about having fun while getting the boys heart rate up. I started off by getting them into two different groups. I then explained to them that I had a deck of cards laid out on the other side of the gym with an exercise written on each. One at a time, one person from each team had to high skip down grab a card and high skip back. As a team they had to do as many exercises as the card said to do. If they picked an king, queen, or a jack those were all 10 exercises and aces were 11. Whoever had the most cards at the end won the race. Having the boys all do exercises before the lesson got them warmed up and ready to go. The next thing that I did was brought them over to the three cues that I had made up. I explained that there were all kinds of different aerobic exercises that are out there like step and dance. I chose to do dance aerobics because I thought it would be a fun activity that really gets you out of your comfort zone. I taught them two different dance steps, the mambo and the grapevine. When I say that many of the students had said that they have never done any kind of step aerobics so I didn't want to make it hard on them. I really wanted to hook them in when I asked about what the benefits of dance aerobics was. Some benefits are that it is extremely cheap, you get a high intensity work out when you do a full routine, and you can really find classes everywhere for this activity. While I was teaching them most of the boys picked up the steps fairly quickly so I didn't challenge them as much as I should have. I had them get with a partner to see if they could nail the steps together at the same time. I do wish that I made them get back into their groups of three and made them work on it that way as well. I tried making sure I showed them different angles of the steps so they could see how it looks at each one.  After they were taught both steps we had a little routine that put the two steps together. As a group we worked on the little routine and they all were so good I should've put in another step. I ended earlier than I wanted to but I brought them all back in and asked what the two dance steps we learned and also asked them to describe each one. 

GUT: While I was setting up I was so nervous I was shaking and all I could think about was how I didn't want to forget anything. I kept trying to tell myself that I need to just stay confident and I'll be fine. I got them into their instant activity and after I was done realized that when you do any kind of relay race you have to still have everyone moving and that was the one thing that I forgot. While one person went down to get a card I was suppose to have the rest of the guys jogging in place until the teammate got there. This made me really angry, I felt like I was just trying so hard not to forget anything that I ended up forgetting a lot of important things. After this point I felt like I had pretty good control over the class. I was proud of the way that I explained the steps and how I showed my students the steps. There was one point when I got really nervous and that was when I realized that the class was definitely very skilled at the steps that I taught, I knew I didn't have anything else planned so I did the only thing that came to mind and that was to grab my phone and do the routine to the song. I didn't feel like this was my best lesson. Teaching aerobics is something that I really never want to teach again, it is hard when you know nothing about the subject and I think that's why I was so nervous. 

So What: In the lesson I really wanted the class to perfect the steps that I had chosen. Before I taught I really didn't think I was going to have enough time to finish all that I had planned because I really didn't think that the class was going to perfect the routine as fast as they did. In a way I could be somewhat proud because maybe that means that I taught the routine well, but I definitely should've had a plan B just in case. I don't think I challenged that boys as much as I could've. Teaching step aerobics was just really hard for me to do. It's not only hard to come up with a routine myself, but I was really hard for me to think of how I could modify the steps. When someone was having trouble I just did it with them in slow motion that was really the only thing that I could think about doing. When they nailed the steps all I could think of making them do the steps with a partner at the same time. 

Now What: For the Lab C I really need to learn from what I did with lab B. I need to continue to go into it with a clear mind but also try to better prepare myself even more than I did. I need to have a plan B if something happens like they perfect the moves that I wanted them to do. Maybe teach myself 3 more moves than I plan to do so when I finish early like I did for lab B I can incorporate those moves with the others. I also learned a lot about managing my time. There was so much I wanted to do in lab B but I didn't think I'd have time to fit it all in so I took a lot out. Next time I should go through and pretend that I'm teaching and actually time myself that way I can plan if I need to add stuff or take things out. For lab C I am also going to read a lot more things on water aerobics by doing that I hope to gain a lot more confidence.

Here is a picture of me showing the cues.

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