My Blog

Week 13 of Student Teaching was incredibly long and tiring. My 10 th -grade classroom is nearing the end of their fitness unit and is ready for it to end. My cooperating teacher for these classes is doing a great job of allowing me to head the classes on my own and letting me experiment with new fitness ideas and concepts not typically performed in the classroom. This week I implemented cardio kickboxing on Tuesday via a video projection with instruction from myself. Unfortunately, the classes with video projections have not gone over as smoothly as I had anticipated. In my 2 nd period, the sophomores did a great job of following the video routine, however, the enthusiasm was sorely lacking, which was a surprise for me. I honestly thought the idea of kickboxing would be much more widely accepted by the students than it was. My 7th-hour class was not able to process the video as quickly as the 2 nd hour, nor did they demonstrate any enthusiasm as well. However, I do believe this was...

School was on Spring Break this week.

Week two of High School PE is in the books. The transition from Elementary to High School has not been as difficult as I had expected it to be. The biggest surprise for me has been how open the students have been to me as the lead teacher in the classroom. Students listen to direction better than I had anticipated, which has truly helped me in running my lessons. I am currently running 5 classes and 3 different units – Freshman Basketball, Sophomore Conditioning, and Junior Badminton. This week I began taking control of the warm-up and game portions of Badminton. This class is a six week unit, and they are completing the 4 th week of the unit. Currently, students are participating in a 15 round, round robin tournament with the 16 th rd being a “championship” round. I have been placed in charge of recording the winning teams of each round and up-keeping the record board. This Friday, 3/21 in the championship game. Being Juniors, this class pretty much runs itself. It is my main ob...

My Final week at my initial placement is very bittersweet for me. Although I know it must come to an end, and it does bring me one step closer to an actual license, I have really enjoyed my time getting to know these students both in the class and out, and I am going to miss my time here.             In the classroom this week we introduced the one-week unit of the parachute. One thing I really enjoy about teaching at the elementary level is that it truly breaks you out of your comfort zone as a teacher. First having to dance in front of the students, then performing jump rope skills I have never tried before, and now playing games every day with a parachute, like making a mountain or sitting in the igloo, being an ELED teacher truly makes you come down to the students’ level to understand the enjoyment of the material. It is not as easy as you think it would be to act silly in front of 22 7-year-olds for their enjoyment. As hard...

This week was an easier week in regards to planning for me. Last week we introduced and practiced the skill movements of the short jump rope. This week, the students practiced their movements in strategically placed stations around the gymnasium with partners, peer assessing each other and giving feedback while I observed and assessed the students in a formative manner. Beginning Wednesday, I completed my summative assessments of the students' abilities to complete their necessary skill movements in relation to their grade level.             The first-grade classes demonstrated a surprising ability to jump rope accurately, with 24 of the 43 students being able to complete 10 forward jumps consecutively. Of the students, all but 9 were able to accurately place their hands in the correct position and jump vertically while being able to time the jump to accurate pass over the rope when the rope hit the floor. While this may sound lo...

Week 7 of student teaching has been a very stressful week for me. Not only did I begin a new Unit, Short Jump Rope, but I have also been taping for the edTPA and I had my 2 nd observation on Thursday. On Monday my cooperating teacher received a call during my 3 rd period that her mother passed away, causing her to have to leave midway through the day. That afternoon I was watched over by either the principal or assistant principal of the school. Also, because of the passing, my cooperating teacher has been pre-occupied with family matters that I have had to take a larger command in the development of the unit lessons. Normally, this has not bothered me in the past weeks, but this unit has been the one I was most worried about because it is a very difficult lesson to teach. Trying to make sure I am hitting all the intricate points of the jump rope sequence while keeping students on task and assessing and giving useful feedback to over 20 students per class, along while attempting to ...