October 18th, 2012

Today was the first day of the third lesson in badminton. Since it is my last few days here at the Victor Central schools I decided to allow the students to have a little freedom, and have fun myself in the lessons. When I did this I noticed something amazing. My attention from the students increased, and the impact of my instruction was greater! During this lesson the students were performing peer assessments on one another in badminton skill related stations. The assessments worked in a rubric type form with the cues to the skills right next to rubric. What this did was allow the students to teach their classmates how to perform new skills, and what they needed to do to correct previously learned skills. This I thought worked out great. At each station the students were allotted three minutes to do the skill between them and their partner. I used the score boards to measure the time, and allow the students to check themselves and manage how they would like to space out their time at each station. Also I decided to use the stereo system that is used with the Adaptive Physical Education classes to play music while the students were at the stations. The music is a tool that I really love to use. The beat gets the students active,and it is almost like a trigger for movement as soon as the students walk in the gymnasium. I wish I had thought of this earlier in the year, because it was such a great hit among the students. It was sad to tell the students I was leaving them, and this would be my last class being their teacher. Many of them were surprised I was a student teacher. I have been teaching since my first day there, with input and modeling from my cooperating teacher, and I did not let on that I was a student. Some were really let down by this. I will miss them as well. They were a great bunch of students.