What I have learned, what I can improve on

With only about a month to go in my second clinical practice, I wanted to take some time to reflect on what I have learned so far and what I can do to become a more effective teacher.  I was very grateful this semester to have a great cooperating teacher who has a great knowledge and a vast amount of experience in elementary physical education. I have learned a lot but I know I still have a long way to go.

What I have learned:

-It is very important to mark where students should stand, charts for where to go, and cones for boundaries. If boundaries are not clearly marked, students will roam wherever they want! It poly spots are not placed, they stand too close to one another, and charts with numbers especially during stations let the students know where to go next. All these components help with reducing the managerial component of teaching to maximize learning time 

Lummi sticks. Courtesy of Music Together.

-The younger the students, the more literal they take the content that one says. In a past lesson that I was observing my teacher was teaching a lesson with lummi sticks to kindergartners. They were tapping away, so my teacher said to put the lummi sticks down. She meant for the students to put them down by their sides but the majority of the students put them down on the floor. My CT had to tell them that she meant to just put them by their side. She later told me that when speaking with young students, one really has to say things very clearly because they take content very literal. 

-Music provides a lot of motivation for students. Even some of the students who are not as excited to be in PE, get moving when someone request music to be played. It is such a simple thing to do for the students and generates great results so this is definitely something I will keep doing. One of my favorite things to teach and probably the students’ favorite activities is exercise stations. My teacher had pre-programmed music so that students are at each station for a minute and have a 10 second transition. This is great because then I do not have to worry about pausing the music, it does by itself. It works well for the routines because they know they must rotate after the music stops. 

What I need to work on:

-I think I need to be able to provide more specific, positive feedback. I think I do a good job of providing corrective feedback. I let the student know what they are performing correctly and then what they are performing incorrectly and how they can change that. However when I provide positive feedback, a lot of the times I catch myself saying, “good job” instead of being more specific. I think I might start keeping a log of how many times I provide positive versus specific, positive feedback so I can be more aware of what I say to the students. 

-When the students are being disruptive, I usually wait for the students who are following directions to tell the rest of the class to quiet down. Sometimes this works well but sometimes it feels as if I am wasting too much time and with only 30 minutes per class, I cannot afford to miss too much time. I need to think of a better way to get the students attention.

I am really looking forward for the next month. We will be stating a unit on track and field and finish off the year with a lesson with the parachute and another with field day. I can’t wait!