Hannah ANthes - Lab D - Cuju

                                                                       What

            In my portion of the lesson, I was teaching 10^th grade. Prior to my teaching, students learned the basics of juggling. In 9^th grade they learned how to keep a flat foot, to have a tight angle and to keep their eye on the ball when playing cuju. Transitioning into 10^thgrade, students were beginning to incorporate strategy of how to keep a juggle, while adding in shooting and formation. In this class, encouragement was essential. This sport takes a lot of skill and practice. It may become frustrating at times. Throughout the lesson, students were told to encourage one another with positive and uplifting words. The class was broken up into three groups of four.  They worked on two different types of shots. They were power and finesse. Power shots were used when a formation was farther back from the goal, while finesse was used when the shot was close to the goal. The different formations could have been a square, diamond, circle, and triangle. This idea was meant to help establish organization when trying to shoot on the goal. There was a lot of positive encouragement that occurred in the class. When giving the instructions I only stated “use positive and uplifting words.” Students brought it upon themselves to encourage even more. Jim for example, continuously kept giving high fives to the other members of his group. I heard Mike say “we’re a team, let’s go.” The word team, is so important. It identifies a group of people who are united towards the same goal. I’m sure all the members of his group felt very included. One other component that went well was that students comprehended the usage of the two different shots. There was a distinction for what they were trying to accomplish depending on how far away they were from the goal. When practicing, it was nice to see the students using the cue words and communicating to one another in this way. The whole idea of power and finesse went very well.

     

Here is a photo of me going over the main cues for shooting .

Gut

            Going into today’s class, I was a little concerned for the students. As previously stated, juggling and shooting at a goal takes a lot of practice. Unless there were a lot of soccer players in the room (which there was not), controlling and shooting a ball is a new concept for a majority of the class.  I was really excited to see the different groups succeed. When they got the ball through the hoop, it was like a reward for working hard to accomplish that task. I thought to myself “Wow! They are making this sport look really fun.” And the smiles on their faces showed me that they were having fun. We did have a lot of smiles, but as I expected, I also saw a look of frustration on some of the students faces. This is where the words of encouragement came in. When another student or I saw frustration one of us would encourage the student that was having some difficulty. I tried to always start with something positive, and then explain one thing they could fix and then assure them that they are doing okay. I felt very proud of the whole class for putting in a good effort. This sport is very hard. With the help of the other coaches and students, we were able to work together to create a safe environment, physically and emotionally.

                                                                   So What

Building this lesson, I had to keep in mind the success rate.  “For many physical education activities, a very high rate of success is probably not appropriate for the teacher to aim for. In some activities, 80 percent success is too high (e.g., basketball free throw shooting). The teacher must consider the nature of the activity and what a skilled person would consider successful and then adjust this downward for a beginning learner” ( Rink, 2010, page 11) While participating in the shooting for cuju, the students’ aim in the whole activity was modified to allow for a higher success rate. For example, the goal was lowered so that students could pass the ball through or bounce it in. When juggling the ball, students were allowed to let the ball bounce, hit the ground and continue juggling. Lastly, when in game play, if the ball hit the goal it was worth one point, if it went through, it was worth two points. There was an opportunity to earn more points through this modification. These modifications were used to help the class benefit as a whole. Those who were more advanced did not have to apply these modifications. They could stick to the traditional rules of cuju; those who were beginners and just wanted to get the hang of the different concepts could apply all of the modifications. This allowed for everyone to play on the same court, no one was excluded. This style of cuju was able to reach out to the entire player and meet their needs. It was about doing what is best for the student, not what is easiest. For the formations, the students could also design a complex pattern or keep it simple. Whatever they decided was according to their comfort level. Another option was picking the size and texture of the ball the students would like to practice with. This once again allowed the student to choose what was most comfortable to them. At the end of class, students could leave knowing that they accomplished something and they were accepted no matter what level or skills they came with. Their efforts contributed to the class to make it a better learning environment.

                                                 

Here is a photo of some of the students practicing juggling , they allowed a bounce to help control the ball when shooting at the goal.

  Now What

After doing this lab, I learned that one of my weaker areas is getting the attention of the students. It is very hard to communicate information if the students are still participating in the activity. After reviewing the video, I see that I need to freeze the learning environment, take a moment to explain what needs to be said , and then allow the students to continuing practicing . One of my strengths is pace and timing. On the video, I can see myself moving consistently from one group to another. Each group was given and equal amount of my time. I did not favor one group over another. In my portion of the lesson, I got through everything that I needed to teach and clean up. The next teacher was able to take what I had done and then smoothly transition into their lesson. Some things that I can do better in my next lesson are to space out the gym even more and use my signal of attention even more. I would also like to try to add in even more styles of learning. Each person learns differently, and it is my job to promote what the lesson is so that each student is learning and doing it in an efficient way.

                        Reflections of Lab A B C D and student learning

Through this progression of labs I have learned so much. In my teaching I have seen so much growth as well. From the first lab I barely could speak loud enough for the camera to hear me. Now I can be heard loud and clear because I found my teaching voice. I discovered early on that interacting with the students was one of my strong points. I made a good rapport with each of them. Now in lab D, it is very natural to use a student’s name and to go in depth with them, really making sure that they understand what they are doing and why they are doing it. In my c11, it shows that in eight minutes of teaching, I used a student’s name eight times. That is a good rate of one name per minute. It shows that I have developed and  am in tune with the students. In lab A, I took too much control and did not give the students enough time to have the student practice. The time they were active was not enough. In Lab C and especially Lab D, I was able to explain, teach, and then get the students into motion. Instead of constantly explaining everything, when the class as a whole struggled with a task, I was able to turn it into a teachable moment and make modifications when needed.

            A few things I did throughout the four labs to help enhance the learning of the students was to be professional. One can only make a first impression once. From the very beginning I identified myself as the teacher. I came in looking and acting in a professional manner. Before the students even came in my equipment and supplies was already set up. This showed the students that I was ready to teach and the students should be prepared to learn. When teaching my voice was firm and I used my signal of attention to re-group. When using my visual aids, they were neat, colorful, and provided cues for the activities. This helped the students remember the basics of what we were doing for that class period. In each activity every student was active. There was not a time when one student was standing or sitting from lack of activity. It was very helpful to ask certain individuals why they thought we were doing a certain task. It showed me that they were learning the main objectives of the lesson. To benefit the whole class, providing boundaries and safety cues kept the environment for each student safe. I believe that this ensured confidence because the student knew that they were safe. Having this confidence and safety makes the whole class more enjoyable. Modifications were also very important in lab D. The simple change of allowing the students to bounce the ball and changing the texture of the ball made a great difference. They were able to learn the different shots better with more control. The end result made more sense to them because the progression of juggling to juggling with a team, to shooting the ball was more evident. These were some of the ways I was able to enhance the learning of the students for my segment of the lesson.