Going International

So Lab C was the next teaching trial this semester. For this class Mike and I decided to teach everyone how to play a little cricket. Cricket is one of England's oldest national games that has been played for a few hundred years already. Since noone has really been introduced to the game of cricket on a frequent basis, we started off with the very basics. These were the fundamentals of Bowling(which is the equivalent to a pitch in baseball) and hitting which has many different techniques then a regular swing in baseball.

The first big step was getting acquainted with the game ourselves. This wasn't a very tough thing to do because the basic parts of the game are easy to pick up but when you start getting into the more specific rules, it gets tough because there are so many new thigns to learn. My part of the lesson was the techniques for bowling. I could easily relate and pick up what the fundamentals are because I have been playing baseball for almost my whole life and could pick up on how to do certain things quickly. The bowl in cricket requires the bowler to take a sprinting head start, take a crow hop, and throw the ball with a straight arm bouncing it in front of the wickets trying to knock them off. There are so many drills that you can do to introduce this skill to students.





Starting off my lesson with a quick game of chuck the chicken is one of my personal favorite things to do. This game keeps everyone active and has everyone paying attention and getting physical activity in. It also appeals to everyone because a rubber chicken is involved which makes things more fun. The first drill to start everyone off with is pairing upi and practicing the arm position when bowling. This skill needs to be worked on the most because everyone naturally wants to bend their arm when they throw so it will be the hardest to do on a consistent basis. The other drill I had everyone doing is approaching a target, which was a bowling pin, andd practicing the throw. I had cones set up as a lane for guidance so everyone stayed in a straight line so they didn't drift while throwing and they could get the hang of what an approach is like. I think this drill is the best one to do when teaching a bowl. You can easily progress through all of the aprts of the throw during this drill because the cones give good guidance to stay running straight through your bowl. It can be done walking as we did, or you can have them take a 1/2 speed running approach or a full speed approach.



After watching everyone elses lessons I knew that there would be some sort of behavioral problem I would have to deal with. The first one was Pat and Amy posing as a couple who wanted to be with each other during drills. I caught this and asked them to keep practicing but as I found out afterwards, I left them doing the drill next to each other which did not completely fix the problem. At the end of my lesson 2 guys started fighting over something and I quickly had to go get them to seperate and stop the problem. But as I was going after these two boys Pat and Amy decided to take a walk to the corner of the gym with each other. This was a great example of how you can get distracted by one problem and let your guard down thinking that some other problem won't occur at that moment which happened in this case. As a teacher your really going to have to keep your eyes open at every second even if your trying to fix something.

Overall I feel this lab went very smoothly. It is really getting easier and more automatic on how to teach a lesson. Each one that goes by gives more insight on what to look out for and what you need to do when each little problem comes around. Next test is Lab D. Hopefully this one goes according to plan and I can do my best lesson yet.



And Since I haven't posted in a while, Yankees = World Champs!!

Can he impress again?!

Lab B was a big day to show what I got. I had to watch everyone else teaching their lessons and do great and now it was my turn. Our task on this was to get a specific skill or drill and be able to get the whole class involved in learning something new. The drill I was assigned to was the circle drill. This involved having a circle of 5 or more people with 2 more people on the inside. The outside players were the offensive team and the 2 inside were the defender's. The offensive players had to stay in place but pass the frisbee to someone else without the defenders intercepting or batting the frisbee down. One modification to the drill was not allowing an overhead or hammer throw because that would allow students to too easily get the frisbee from one side of the circle to the other, not giving the defenders a fair chance. I really wanted everyone on offense to be focusing on their forehand and backhand throws while the defenders really had to work on forcing a pass to a certain side, anticipating which side that would be, and working together to get that job done.

Check out my whole lesson and what I said!

I think that I did a very good job running the class outside. Each time I've taught it's become more routine, and seems to get easier. On this particular day, I got to be teaching while just getting sick and losing my voice after a weekend full of yelling at baseball games. In the beginning of the class I let everyone know to listen extra close since I could not raise my voice too loud to get their attention.



The beginning of my lesson was a little long but I needed a bit of time to explain this drill to everyone. I introduced myself but didnt have the best hook. I definately could have had something interesting to say so they would be more drawn into the lesson but I'll learn from my mistakes and get a good one next time. The demonstration went really well. The drill was easy enough so that I didn't have to explain so many details to everyone and get them confused before we even started doing anything. I quickly had everyone get into 2 more groups and spread out so everyone had lots of room. One group only had 6 people in it and was forced to be in a box which I modified to be very spread out so they could pass to the person next to them since they would not have been able to pass to everyone if they couldn't pass to the person next to them. Everyone grasped the concept of the drill easily and looked to be having a lot of fun while going out. I tried my best to get around to a majority of the class and give them a little feedback. With a lot of people I did the good ol' "Nice job" or "Good throw" while not really giving the feedback on the skills I was trying to have everyone focus on but I did get around to a bunch of people and reinforce the lesson focus. After a while I made sure everyone was changing defenders so they could all get work on how to defend someone. One modification I made to a group was to add another defender so it was harder for the offense to get the frisbee across which made the drill more intense and fun for everyone.

Overall I think this lesson went really well. Aside from all the good things I felt I did, there was definately a lot of room for improvement. For starters I could cut down the time I spent talking to everyone and have them playing more. Another thing was the amount of waiting time for the lesson. Even though the drill called for the offensive players to be standing still, I could ahve thought of something to get them all going for a period of time. Yet again, This seemed a lot easier and less stressful to be inf ront of everyone doing a lesson. It's all coming together and I'm really moving forward with my approach to teaching.

Yankees ALDS champs! Big series coming up against the Angels. Lets Go Yanks!!

Take 2!

Alright so the second time around didn't come as a surprise this time. Before this I had a little bit of direction as to what I would try to do while teaching. A few things I had to keep in mind was the amount of time spent doing activities as opposed to talking and instructing.



This was much better the second time around. The way I went about instructing and managing my time flowed better then the first time I taught. While I was teaching, I had all the students actively participating for 54% of the time. That is at the right level of time you want to spend having the kids moving so your not talking too much and boring them. At the beginning I had them quickly come in and listen to a quick intro then had them go and start setting with a aprtner. This was allowing me to evaluate each student to see where I can start giving instruction when I bring them in again. Everyone seemed to have the concept and be fairly competent at setting so I could start at a more advanced level then having to teach the very basics. A quick check for understanding was done to see how well they knew the cues and what they were supposed to be doing. Overall I think this was a much more affective lesson based on how much time the students were able to practice the skill. I also walked around giving feedback to let them know how they were doing and giving helpful hints if they could use a tune up on something. It's getting easier and more of a habit to teach in a more effective fashion. Until next time.... Go Yanks

The Beginning!!

Well here goes nothin. It's the first post so lets make it a good one! This past week has been one giant learning experience. There has already been so many things we've gone over and learned in each class. Going to the first class and having ourselves recorded was a surprise. It was a great idea since it made us think off the top of our head and put together a short lesson on the spot.



So I got the video going and I think it was pretty good for a spur of the moment teaching experience In the beginning I was standing there giving instruction a lot to everyone on techniques. I didn't start with a game like I probably should have but it was the first day so its ok. I did go over hand position, where your legs should be and what you should do to get a good set. After I was done talking to everyone, when we divided into pairs, I had each person getting some practice with what I just went over. I probably should have been walking around giving some feedback but I was setting with someone. After when I brought everyone in I went over the techniques checking that everyone remembered. And that pretty much rapped up my mini lesson.

So that was what i thought about some stuff I did when I was teaching. I'll be back soon! Go yankees!