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.

October 17th, 2012

Today began as an amazing day. I was finally bale to come in early and exercise before class. This week has been quite hectic. I am trying to prepare everything for next week when I go to Geneva, and wrap up all of the different obligations I have here at Victor. I am sure I am over thinking the whole situation, but I do not mind doing so, because it allows me to be properly prepared. My first class began with enthusiasm and at the same time some sadness. Due to our three day block schedule here at Victor today will be the last time I will be able to see these students. It is somewhat hard when realizing I will more then likely not be able to teach these students again. I tried to give these students my best lesson thus far to ensure that I gave them everything that I had and leave a positive mark on the students when I left. The first lesson went well and I really put a lot of emotion in my teaching to try and liven up the lesson. This worked and the students loved it. Also when I told them I was leaving and this would be my last class with them they became quite upset. I did not know they appreciated me so much, and it gave me a good feeling to realize this. The class after this I felt did not go as well as the first. The students were off task and did not understand the topic, I attribute this to the substitute that they had because I chaperoned a field trip the week before. This class left a bad taste in mouth. I really felt as though I failed them in not being able to help them understand the skills, and relay the benefits it could have for them in life. The last class though I knew I had to do do well in. The athletic director was coming to observe one of my classes. I began the class with an assertiveness I have only felt before during my portfolio interview. It was almost to the type of focus that you only get before a big athletic event. I felt as though I performed amazingly. My host teacher and the other teachers around me thought this was the best lesson I had ever performed. The students were on task and we were able to get through all the pieces because my organization was amazing. Over all it was an amazing day.

October 16th,2012

Today I thought was an average ordinary type of day. Nothing eventful really occurred. My teaching was clear concise and I was bale to get through my lessons efficiently. My host teacher, who I also coach with told me about a volleyball team that he had that were so good they would always win. Due to the fact that they always won the only way for them to measure their progress was to set small goals within game play so that they could measure if they were increasing in ability or not. I felt like that today. My lessons were well organized, and I felt like I was becoming somewhat monotonous with my teaching. So in order to come up with a way to measure my teaching I set goals within my lesson. Now I am not saying that I am amazing at student teaching, it was just a way for me to keep me "moving forward" in my teaching. For my last class my goal was to get into an application of the skills during gameplay. I had to focus on my time management in order to be successful with this goal. I was teaching three new skills, luckily though I was teaching these to eighth graders which most of this information was review to. We got through the classes with around four minutes to spare. This was just enough time to get into gameplay. So I reached my goal for the day. This does not mean I am going to stop though. I wish to keep this goal and build upon it in my last day of this lesson block tomorrow.

October 15th, 2012

Today was an interesting, but extremely busy day. From the start of the day I was moving around in preparation. I was preparing for the day, preparing for the lesson, preparing for the game, and preparing for my supervisor to come and observe me during two of my teaching lessons. For the first class I observed my host teacher. This acted for me as a model I could work from in order to better instruct students, and also many of these skills were new to me, so I was learning just as the students were. My first lesson I thought did not go as great as I wanted it to go. Many of the students were off topic, and my instructional delivery was not as efficient as I wanted it to be. I was trying to model what I saw in the first lesson, but this just caused me to forget key parts of  my lesson. The next lesson I promised myself would be much better. In all I thought the second lesson was an amazing leap in teaching. I was able to get the students excited for class, and motivate them to perform the skills to the best of their ability. In all the corrections I made in the second lesson saved me during my supervision. My goal is to increase every lesson and better myself, and I most definitely proved I can do this.

October 12th, 2012

Today was another first for me. It seems as though each day is a new learning experience, and because of this I always have to stay on my toes and try my best to be successful.  It started like an ordinary day. Me prepping for class, and then teaching the lesson. This lesson though I would have to say has been my best thus far. I feel as though the students are really starting to enjoy me being their teacher, and I can tell in their dedication to the lessons. Well what was different today was that I was chaperoning a field trip. Now I have been told this is quite out of the ordinary because I am only a student teacher, and to give me the responsibility of a group of students on a field trip is somewhat unheard of. I guess this goes to show that the Victor School District has a lot of faith in me. I am glad that this is so. I walked in to the meeting room where the students were at before we went on the field trip. I heard at least five voices from different areas yelling my name, asking if I would be their chaperon on the trip. It was good to hear the students say that, because it means they really like me as a teacher. We went to the cemetery across from the lilac festival. It was a scavenger hunt for history, and I just love history, so it I think I had just as much fun as the students. The trip went well, and we successfully made it back to the school. After we got back not much time was left for class, so I just taught the final half of last period, and coached volleyball after that. In all it was a successful and learning filled week for everyone.

October 11th, 2012

For being only the second day of the unit I felt as though the classes I taught went quite well. Many of these classes today were eighth graders, so these skills in badminton were mostly review. Even though they had a background in these skills I still took the time to explain to them the different parts of history, and scoring rules. I did this in a reasonable amount of time, and we were able to get in to game play for about fifteen minutes at the end of class. The seventh graders on the other hand I took more time to explain the rules, history, and techniques. They had some background of this sport form other Physical Education classes in different grades, but as in depth as this. We were only able to perform maybe five minutes of true game play with application of skills at the end of class. Today also was my big opening debut as the stand in head coach for the Victor Junior Varsity Volleyball team. The night before I had scripted all of my rotations, and the possible tendencies of Canandaigua who were our opponent for the evening. I was completely over prepared, but I need that in order to function in high stress situations. The kids caught on well and responded to my coaching. I do not know all of the details of the sport, so I put a lot of pressure on the kids in the sense they had to remember where they were in rotation, and when they should be subbing out. The first game began as a disaster. we were down 11-21, I thought we were done, because I have never seen a deficit like that be overcome. I called a time out, and it seemed like something out of the movie miracle. I gave them a speech, and normally I stutter, but the words came out clearly. I could see the kids eyes get big and light up with focus. We came back after that and won 25-27! I felt like I was going to drop after that game, but we still had two more left. The second game we came on strong, and we were up by many points in the beginning, but slowly we fell behind, and lost 21-25. Our third game would decide the fate of that match, it was the tie breaker, where our grit and determination would be tested. The score went back and forth through the entire match. We slowly started to get behind toward the end of the game, but somehow we got a good dig and scored tying at 21-21, and we got the ball for a serve. One of my back row players was rotating front and the front row player had to substitute in for them, because the back row player was only a specialist for that position. Well the kid that plays front was not paying attention, and when I had noticed it was too late, and he ran in after the referee had blown the whistle for service. This of course caused us to be out of rotation, and lose our serve as well as a point. I thought at that moment we had lost the match , and it was my fault as head coach not realizing this rotational error. I had put too much faith in the kids to keep track of where they had to be. I was devastated, but only for a moment. I re-focused and put my thoughts to the next play. We dug another ball and scored, getting the point and the serve back. The rally went back and forth again, points being put up on both sides. We battled back for the victory, winning 26-24. It was an amazing feeling. Wins like that are the ones I feel are true wins. The ones you have to battle for, and earn. The kids did well, and I feel as though I gained a little more respect from them tonight. It was an amazing experience and I thank my host teacher for allowing me to do it.

October 10th, 2012

This was the first day of the badminton unit. I have never taught badminton before, and I believe the last time I have even played the sport was five years ago when I was in high school. The first class I just observed my host teacher teach a class of seventh graders. This for me was an opportunity to observe and learn, giving me a platform to base my lessons upon. My host teacher is an experienced teacher who demonstrates great control over the students. Watching him teach is a great opportunity. I have not had many of these though, because of the odd scheduling of this semester. The next class I volunteered to teach the entire class. It went somewhat well, but their is always room for improvement. I felt as though I could have calmed down and explained the rules and history a little more in depth. My host teacher noticed this and allowed me to observe him once more with another seventh grade class. This helped because it allowed me to see what I had forgotten to explain to the students in the previous class. The last class I felt was an amazing class, because I was able to calm down and explain everything that I wanted. The students were seventh graders, and for some of their first times playing badminton I felt as though the did a great job. Next time though I will have to work on explaining the service rotation rules a little better. Every class though is a learning experience and my goal is to progress each class.