Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Teaching the Golf Putt

For my lab D I had the task of teaching a golf putting lesson. I felt the lesson went pretty smoothly with just a few hick-ups. I started off the lesson a little short on time so I had to skip my instant activity and mover right into the lesson. From there I explained the cues on how to putt and had the students break into groups on the separate putting greens. After reminding the students to peer assess one another and give good feedback, I told them to begin putting and started to give my own feedback. Throughout the lesson I kept the students active as much as possible, which you can see in my time coding form. Also, to motivate the students to be on their best behavior, I set up WII Golf and told the students that which ever group was behaving and performing the best could switch over to the WII Golf. I found this to be very effective. As the end of class came a little early for the lesson, I aloud any students that had to go to class leave, while the rest finished the lesson. After watching the video I noticed it was a little rushed, but it had a lot to do with the short amount of time I was left to teach. I noticed because of rushing I wasn't able to further change up the task by dropping in cones on the putting greens and having the students putt around them. With more time I would have been able to incorporate this. I was able to verbally change up the task for some by asking to keep score with their partner or for another student who had an injured arm, I had her use a hockey stick and tennis ball to make it a little easier. Altogether I felt to students learned a lot and had a lot of fun.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

AAHPERD Conference in Tampa 09'


A few weeks ago while attending an APEM (Association of Physical Education Majors) meeting, I was presented the idea of going to the National AAHPERD conference. At first, all I could think about was how much money it was going to cost and the amount of class I was going to miss. But after a lot of persuasion by some of my fellow PE majors, I decided to go for it. Boy was I not disappointed. From the second I arrived to the conference I was over whelmed by the amount of people, information, and ideas from all over the country. I found one of the hardest things while at the conference was simply just deciding what sessions to go to. From learning to Brazilian dance to learning how to engage urban youth, there was an endless variety of educational sessions to interest everyone. For 5 days a struggled to try and fit in ever session I was interested in and barely came close. On top of all the sessions going on every day, they held a monster exhibition in the middle of the conference consisting of well over a few hundred stands. These stands advertised everything from the newest equipment on the market to new technology and inventive ideas.
Being a some what quiet person, I have to say in the beginning of the conference I was a little hesitant to introduce my self to all of these new people from all of the country. But very shortly after watching many of the older PE majors socializing, I went from have no confidence to a PHD in introductions and networking. By the end of the trip I had met the President of AAHPERD, sat down and had a long conversation with the Eastern District President, and socialized with many other professors, administrators, and even my old PE teacher from high school. The amount of knowledge I acquired from these people was just as, if not more insightful then the sessions themselves.
The last part and probably the best part of this trip was the fact that I left Cortland for Tampa with one or two new friends and came back with close to 20 great friends. The amount of fun and time I spent with the group was priceless. For an educational trip it felt a lot more like an amazing vacation.