Student Teaching Week #1

My First week of student teaching has been an exciting yet exhausting experience. I am placed at an elementary school with my cooperating teacher being the only Physical Education teacher in the school. This week we began a two-week basketball unit. Tuesday, we began developing dribbling and ball handling skills. On Wednesday we continued to improve upon said skills through physical activity by the name of “Dribbling for Treasure.” On Thursday we began developing the students’ cognitive and psychomotor knowledge of the chest, bounce, and overhead passes. Friday was a “Fun Friday” lesson for the students, which we allowed the students to participate in a shooting activity, “Around the World.” During the lesson, I used this time to pre-assess my students on their psychomotor ability to perform the jump shot, set shot, and layup, which will be implemented into next week’s lesson plans.

            Having prior knowledge of the cooperating teacher and the students of the school while working as a substitute in the past, the cooperating teacher feels comfortable with me as an educator in her classroom and, as such, has already incorporated me into the lead teaching role as of the 9:40 AM class, Wednesday. To date, I have already led 25 classes, and have implemented one of my own lesson plans (developing proper chest, bounce, and overhead pass technique,) themed around the cooperating teacher’s style while following two of the cooperating teacher’s lesson plans. The cooperating teacher has been extremely valuable, assessing my teaching ability while in her office, and offering me various types of feedback for improvement in my teaching.

            The first full day of teaching was rather nerve-wracking. I lost a sense of time in my first class, being five minutes late, and the homeroom teacher had to come in to let me know. Every class after that was out on time, however, I did not leave time for reflection and closure. According to my corresponding teacher, reflection is the most important activity in a daily lesson. It allows the teacher to gauge the student level of knowledge of the content, allow the students to unwind, and create a complete feeling of inclusion within the student/teacher relationship.

            Students have been respectful, with a willingness to follow direction and have demonstrated a cognitive and psychological understanding of the knowledge being asserted within the lesson by myself. I have been noticing that, through the incorporation of constant review and reflection throughout and at the end of each lesson (a portion of the class my cooperating teacher has specifically pointed out as necessary to knowledge retainment and a part of the Danielson model her curriculum is designed around) the majority of students are demonstrating apparent high percentages of knowledge retainment through formative assessments. Our goal for next week is to achieve a 28-point increase in average on between the basketball pre-test taken last Monday, and the post-test to be taken next Thursday.

            I have come to notice the style in which I wish to teach in heavily resembles that of my cooperating teacher, which has made working with her extremely insightful and pleasurable. Each lesson, the teacher incorporates either content-specific vocabulary terms (word wall), Heath related information such as knowledge in the bodies systems, and ways to improve physical health, and nutrition information to aid the students is making proper nutritional choices. Before, this is something I had never thought of incorporating into an elementary setting. However, seeing the effects the information has on the students, I fully expect to incorporate into my own teaching. For example, on Thursday I spoke to the students on the importance of water and its effect on the human body. This morning, I had five new students with water bottles in the classroom, with three of them coming to me to explain their choice was based on the three minutes I committed to water importance.

The cooperating teacher holds a strong belief that students should be self-sufficient when it comes to their ability to take care of themselves and has created an environment which strongly encourages students to learn within themselves. Her warm-up activity centers are completely student-centered, where the small groups work as a team completing partner based physical activities.

As stated before, with the oncoming summative assessment of student knowledge in basketball coming next Thursday, I am hoping to learn that my ability to lead a classroom and exchange the knowledge necessary to warrant student success on the assessment is noticeable. My cooperating teacher has stated that the two 1^st grade classes are demonstrating proficient growth in the psychomotor abilities at the level of which she would aspire, and I hope the cognitive abilities are just as noticeable in the summative. Through next week, my goals are to continue to establish the student/teacher connection between the students and myself and establish the expectations I hold to the students as well as continue to withhold the cooperating teacher’s expectations as well. I also plan on implementing at least to more of my own lesson plans into the unit and hope to discover that the plans I wish to create for my future students are as engaging and educational as the lessons currently being used by my cooperating teacher.

For Friday’s activity, “Around the World,” in accordance with IPTS section 3,  (3D - understands when and how to adjust plans based on outcome data, as well as student needs, goals, and responses,) in order to establish an accurate opportunity to children of lesser physical strength in the younger grades (1-2), playground balls of a lighter weight and hula hoops hung from the backboard in addition to the regulation sized rims and basketballs were readily available to allow students to perform the lesson at a successful rate of completion as those with proficient to exceptional strength for said age group. This also allowed me to accurately assess students’ ability to identify the key component of basketball of accuracy.

 Throughout the duration of all classes, in accordance IPTS standard 4, learning environment, classroom management is evident with my use of words, phrases, and maneuvers throughout the lesson that promotes safety and allows students positivity without facing hazardous situations. For example, when I blow the whistle students are to place the basketball between their feet. When the whistle is blown, I always point out the first student I see listening to direction and reward them by commending them to the class and giving a fist bump. This gesture, I have noticed, has become a game to the students. Students are placing the ball between their feet at the sight of the whistle to be the first one to be seen following directions. I am constantly rewarding positive behavior as opposed to exposing negative behavior.

My goals for this week are to incorporate more technology in the classroom with the possibility of video-based examples, and electronic gifs to play during practice activities to visually aid in education, and better establish a comfortability in time management within my classroom.