Lab B Abbie Adams-HIIT

What-  When Dr. B first told me I was doing HIIT I had to think if I ever knew what this was.  After a few minutes I knew it stood for High Intensity Interval Training.  This seemed pretty intimidating.  My first time teaching an actual lesson and I was doing something I have barely heard of?  So, I asked around and looked through my resources I was given.  Wait I thought.  I do this everyday.  I'm on the Hockey team hear and like any other athletic team we train everyday and do stuff like this a lot.  This made me feel a little better.  So I collected a series of my favorite cardio and strength exercises and make stations.  After looking online I knew that I was working with some pretty high skilled students.  My goal was to have everyone get the best workout they could in the time allowed and burn a lot of calories.  I learned that as a teacher it is hard to rotate to all your students when you have 7 different people doing 6 different thing.  Also, it is hard to keep track of time.  My plan was to do each exercise for 30 seconds then rotate.  However, I did not have time to look at the clock to see when it was time to switch so I used my best judgment.

Gut:  I had a mix of emotions going on through my head the day of teaching.  I felt nervous, excited, confident.  I felt nervous because I have never made an exercise routine for anyone other than myself before.  I kept thinking in my head if this was going to challenge the students enough or be too difficult.  Its like my Coach always says, "I play on the line on how hard I can push you".  It was also nerve racking that I was the first person to go on the first day.  I felt nervous because I wanted to set a good example for what others in the class were supposed to do.  I felt excited about this lesson because it is a topic that I found out that I love.  I was excited because I could see myself teaching in the future in front of a high school class.  I also felt confident in my preparation.  I had good equipment and a good lesson.  I knew that this was going to push my students to do there best and I was happy that it did.  Overall I am happy about my performance in Lab B.  After watching the video I could tell that I was nervous but was happy in my overall lesson because my students learned something and stayed active the majority of the time. 

So What?  I knew from the pre-assessment that the majority of my students were either medium or high skilled in HIIT.  From knowing my students I assumed that the majority have trained in this way before even if they didn't realize they had.  When first organizing I knew I want the highest amount of repetitions in a number of different skills for the longest time.  I knew I would have a group of either 6 or 7 students so I arranged 6 different stations.  The fist rotation of 6 was focusing on mainly legs doing a cardio exercise followed by a strength exercise for about 30 seconds.  I arranged the space in a circle so it would allow me to see everyone quickly when I positioned myself in the middle.  I used hula hoops to store extra equipment and task cards for safety reasons.  And I had students rotate in a circle so there would be no collisions.  On the task cards I wrote out how to perform the skill and on the bottom I wrote how to make the skill easier and harder so the individual could challenge themselves by choice.  When giving feedback to my students I tried to correct their from without discouraging them.  For example I would say "Good job, just make sure you're keeping your trunk nice and straight".  I would try to look at every student before I blew the whistle to switch.  I felt I changed my position as a teacher nicely by walking around within the circle.  But, using another angle could have been helpful as well.  From the feedback perspective I used too many good jobs instead of being specific.  I was thrown a curve ball when John asked to go get a drink.  According to the text, "The ideal situation is to have students leave and take care of these needs without having to request permission of the teacher".  When John asked I said yes and he had one minute.  Knowing my student would have been helpful in this situation because I could develop a trust with them throughout time. 

Now What?  Now that Lab B is over I have a few things to think about.  I am happy with Lab B but I know I can improve.  I want to try to look at the students skills from different angles so I can provide better feedback.  I also want to work on providing more specific feedback to my students.  Using more names would be helpful in this.  Now that I know it is very hard to keep track of time especially in stations I want to bring some kind of music that stops every 30 seconds and pauses to let the students get to their spots and get ready to do the next exercise.  I really want to emphasis challenging advanced students and making harder skills easier for no so advanced student verbally.  Having them written on the card is nice but verbal communication is key.  After watching my video several times I realized I said guys quite a few times.  I want to delete that word from my vocabulary and I also would like to slim down on the word "so".  I want to come to Lab C even more confident and prepared than I did for lab B.  I'm excited to teach the whole class!!

                                                         Here's me teaching Lab B =-)


                  Watch my videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdoMrY6F3aI&feature=player_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ9RXrsCU5Y&feature=player_embedded