Busy, busy, busy

We are 3 weeks into clinical practice II and I think I can finally take a breath. The last 3 weeks have zoomed by and I have barely had anytime to sleep, tweet, or blog (sorry Jeff Heil!). So I would like to take some time now to reflect on what has been going on during the last couple of weeks.

I am doing my clinical practice in PE at elementary school in Oceanside. So far, it has been a wonderful experience. I am also an assistant track coach and Oceanside High School. We have meets on Wednesdays and Saturdays so even on the weekends I am busy.

In elementary PE, we get to see each class for 30 minutes once a week. So throughout the week we get to see the whole school, K-5. This means that it has been difficult to learn all the of the students' names. Another aspect that has been somewhat difficult is trying to make a connection with every student. I feel that 30 minutes per week is not enough to get to know the students, so I try to maximize my time with them by talking and interacting with them as well as providing constant feedback throughout the class. I try to interact with the students outside of PE class. Usually my cooperating teacher and I have a lot of other tasks to do so we walk around campus a lot. When I see a student I try to say hi and ask how their day is going.

So far, I think my lessons have gone well. I am still trying to mange having a whole class and making sure I provide corrective and positive feedback to all the students. I found this to be the most difficult last week during our batting lesson for the third-fifth graders. I was running up and down the field making sure I gave feedback at least once to every student. Batting is difficult, especially for third graders so I need to make sure that they are performing the skill correctly so they do not learn it the wrong way.

For the primary grades (K-2) I have learned that one of the most important aspects is directions/ instruction. The directions have to be clear enough that they know what to do but concise enough that they are able to pay attention. When giving instruction I learned that they can not focus for more that about a minute, so there is a lot of guiding throughout the lesson.

Some of things I would like to improve on are to be more enthusiastic during my lessons. I feel that I am more caught up on trying to provide feedback and making sure I am doing everything well that I forget to have fun with it. I noticed the students really enjoy PE so I just need to show that I am having just as much fun as they are.

One last thing I would like to improve on is providing more assessments for the students. In elementary PE, students only receieve a citizenship grade from their teacher however, I still want to make sure that the students are learning the skills and content. So continuing on with my assessments will help me know what the students know already and if they are ready to move on.

Even though I have been busy day in and day out, I truly enjoy what I am doing. The students and athletes always put a smile on my face. Every time a student finally performs a skill or comes up to tell us something funny, my cooperating teacher says, "Why would you want to work anywhere else?" I say "I don't, I really love doing this!"