First Real Experiences!

This semester was a semester filled with firsts. I FINALLY got into the phys ed program and I FINALLY got to start having practical experiences in a real school setting. For 6 weeks this fall I would visit Dryden Elementary School for our PED 201 lab. It was a great time! In group's we had to come up with activities and games to play with the students while observing them and seeing how developmentally different they all are. We observed children between the ages of 5 and 10 which are grades K-5. It was amazing how much stuff you pick up by actually working in a real school setting instead of doing peer teaching.

Each week had a different theme where we had to observe different movements of a certain student of our choice. The first week was an introductory class. We had a list of activities we wanted to play with the students so we could get acquainted with how the full 2 hrs would run each week. The second week was a different story. This weeks focus was on throwing and catching. Each week had a different lab that we had to fill out after the class so we had data to write about and analyze afterwards. Take a look at what I wrote! At some point during the 2 hrs we would each have 1 student taht we would work with and play different drills that we thought of to best demonstrate their ability in the certain skill. For this particular week I worked with a 5 year old boy named Caleb. Compared to the other boys in our group he had a low ability level because of his age. He was not very coordinated which is to be expected because he is just beginning to be in good control of his body. A lot of these activities and labs were also designed to help develop the skills of each student.

Another aspect that we went over was how we taught a class. While observing the student's we would also be taking note of what kind of games, motivation, and attention aided to a better organized class. Believe it or not but there are certain things that work better then others when trying to get a task accomplished. For example in Lab 5 we were specifically observing what kind of thigns got and kept the attention of the students best, and what kind of games were appropriate and relevant to what was going on.

Overall, the 12 hours of experience I got was better then any 12 hours of peer teaching I could do because it really showed me what to expect in regards to behavior, participation, and ability level/game modifications.