September 26th, 2012

Now today was a somewhat rushed day. It is a half day, which is the reason as to why i am writing this so early in the day. The class periods were cut down to about thirty-two minutes of class time. Once instruction, organization, and miscellaneous items were attended to, we were lucky to get in fifteen minutes of quality activity time in. I felt as though many of students did quite well with the limited instruction, and freedom to develop their skills. This was the first time for many of them that they had the opportunity to actually play the game of rugby. Now the students may be playing a game, but the main focus of the lesson is the application of skill, and how effectively they can do this while at the same time, being safe, and adhering to all of the specified rules. One strategy that I have been trying to implement for two reasons, is splitting up the teams by ability level. Now I am not segregating anyone, or judging them, but what I am doing is trying to make it so that all of the member of a group participate to the best of their ability. Usually within each class their are students that catch on to the activity a little better then others. I take one of these students that can grasp the situation better and I put them in a group of students that need further explanation. This I found works out perfectly. It causes the students to actually teach each other during the activities. I feel as though student to student teaching can really help those whose ability level is not quite there yet, because a peer can explain the activity in terms that they understand, and in turnothers would understand better. Now I am not leaving the teaching solely to the students, but instead giving them the framwork to build off of. This worked out great today, especially due to the short class periods. The second reason is to do this was to separate the off task students from individuals that would make them more off task. When they are in groups of students they can just perform the activity with, and do not have to worry about "being cool," they get a lot more of the activity. I am going to keep expanding on these ideas. I want the best for the student.