On Friday September 18, 2009 I completed Lab 2A during Dr. Yang’s Education 255 class. I went into the class more relaxed because I had time to think about what I was going to teach compared to the first day when we were told we would be giving an impromptu lesson. I anticipated doing a lesson in soccer focusing proper techniques of heading a soccer ball with cues, practice, and a quick drill. Unfortunately, another student did a lesson on heading prior to mine. I opted to teach another aspect on heading rather than doing a lesson twice. However, I did not anticipate an incident like this to occur. I had to think of a new technique to focus on minutes prior to teaching so even with my prior planning I still ended up doing a spontaneous lesson. I opened the lesson by having the students grab a soccer ball. Instead of bringing them in to talk about the lesson, I opted to have them get a soccer ball and start dribbling around the gym for about thirty seconds. I used this as my instant activity and it help reduce the amount of time standing around or waiting to get a ball. After this I brought them in to talk about the lesson. At this point I had worked myself up and was nervous because I did not have the time to put ideas together like I desired. Recalling the lesson and looking back at the video I can hear myself stumble to find the right words. I mixed skills focused on in prior soccer lessons and struggled to get the word “cues” off the tip of my tongue. Once I calmed down and took a breath to regain my composure I seemed to have more confidence in myself and in my lesson. I explained a couple of cues that I wanted to focus on: planting the foot next to the ball, pointing the toe down, and keeping your eye on the ball. Next, I had the class line up on the wall and practice the movement I had described and showed to them. At the time, and during the lesson it became clear that I did not properly explain myself as I saw students passing the ball against the wall rather than using the cues to help the movement. What I should have done next would be to practice this motion in full with out the ball. This would have given myself a better transition into actually shooting the ball. Again, I will criticize my action of lining the class up at the foul line to shoot at the red mats on the wall. The spacing and the size of the mats just seemed ideal at the time. I should have told those who were waiting to do the “foundation” or a basic skill of dribbling the ball between your inseam of your feet to keep them moving and to allow them to have more touches with the ball. Looking back I could have also allowed the class as a whole to line up across the gym at the foul line and have them act as a firing squad and tie that into the lesson by saying something such as: I heard in Mrs. Smith’s history class you have been learning about the Battle of Gettysburg, now we are about to do some shooting of our own, on my command aim, and fire! I feel like this would be more interesting way of working on shooting and I could focus on parts of the group as we did this a few times.
I have found quite a fair share of criticism during my short lesson but what caught my attention while watching the youtube video was that during the drill, when I had the students line up and practice their form against the wall, I had walked behind the students to observe their form but had stopped to move basketballs that had been in the area from the previous lesson. I did not recall doing this in my lesson but looking at the video I felt like this was a good effort to keep a safe environment for my class by removing potentially dangerous situation such as tripping of the balls. I learned a lot during this lesson and now will be prepared with more than one lesson to teach in the future. Also, I know that learning is achieved by making mistakes and fixing them. I plan on reducing and eliminating the number of mistakes I make in the upcoming Labs so I strive to become the teacher that I know I am capable of being.
Take a closer look at my lesson by checking out the links below
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