Tom Hughes Lab B Strength Training

WHAT?
When I looked at the pre assessment and saw that 90% of the students were high skilled, I was not surprised.  Weight lifting and staying in shape is a big part of most peoples lives.  I didn't want to walk into the class and teach everyone everything that they already knew about strength training.  I wanted to show them something that most of them have never done before.  I chose to do my first class with resistance bands because I felt that most people knew what they were, but never really used them before.  I wanted to show them something that if they wanted to, they can go out and purchase one for a cheap price of 10$ and be able to use it at home, while traveling, or just when there's not enough time in the day to make it to the gym.  So I set up five different stations that the students would use resistance bands or partner assistance to perform an exercise.  I didn't receive the resistance bands that I was hoping for but instead I had to use a set of thin bands that were either too short or kept snapping.  When I realized that I had no choice but to use these, I did my best to tie them together and make longer bands.  I regret doing this because it was very unsafe to use these bands as a strength training exercise when they were weak and prone to snapping.  I ended up having to modify one of my stations to use body weight and gravity to do a squat instead of using the resistance bands.

GUT?
My instant activity went much better then the first time I used it because it related better to my topic and I created boundaries for safety.  I defiantly could of taught my lesson differently.  For instance, I first demonstrated all 5 of the stations and then brought them all the way back to station 1 to start.  As I did my check for understanding, I realize that students will forget the important cues if you overload them with too much information.  I should of demonstrated one station at a time and then had them perform the exercise before moving onto the next station.  The students did get to learn at least one resistance bands exercise for each muscle group.  Unfortunately, I was pressed for time so I ended up skipping the back station which was the bent over row.  I feel that skipping this station was for the best though because I did not want the bands breaking in the students faces as they did the exercise, especially since two bands broke the station before.

My strength training visual aid!

SO WHAT?
After reviewing my lab B on video multiple times I realized I made some key mistakes.  I did not provide a safe environment for my class and even after I realized there were unsafe aspects of my lesson, I never said anything about the bands tendency to break.  "Safety takes precedence over all other concerns.  Regardless of the cause, unsafe conditions must be changed either by stopping the activity of the entire class or of the individuals involved or by removing the unsafe conditions in a less obtrusive way"(Rink pg.134).  Immediately after I realized that these bands were not made for these exercises, I should of stopped activity and modified the exercise. I do think that I did a good job with my positioning though because I kept the group of students in my view the entire time.  "Teachers responsible for a whole group of learners should never remove themselves for long periods of time from a position that allows them to constantly view the whole group"(Rink pg137).

NOW WHAT?
After teaching strength training for the first time, I know what I need to improve for next time.  I need to make sure that my environment is safe before I even begin teaching.  Since my next class will be in Tomik Fitness center, I will have to make sure that everyone knows the proper way to use each exercise that I choose and that everyone takes extra care with the free weights.  In the next class I want to teach the students how to calculate their 1 rep max on 4 or 5 machines.  I also need to give each station a little more time because the amount of time that I gave for my stations in lab B was not enough and I ended up running out of time.  Next class I will be using the reciprocal method, where students will work in pairs and one student will perform and the other one will provide feedback.  This is similar to what I did in lab B but the students didn't really have the chance to provide good feedback.  For my next class I want to make sure that everyone is communicating and providing helpful feedback to their partners.

Modifying my exercise after the bands kept breaking!

                                         Here is a video of my Strength Training lesson!