Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Gym vs Physical Education
I was recently watching a Netflix with my friends and saw that The Wonder Years had recently been added. Since it was a show that I used to enjoy a lot when I was younger we decided to watch the first episode. The show went through the main character Kevin Arnold's life on his first day of high school. During his first day he goes to PE class and this clip shows what happens. Although the show aired in 1988 it was about a family's life in the 60's. It was interesting to know that even that long ago the term physical education was starting to be used. It is a little discouraging that people still use the term gym instead of physical education. Becoming a good physical educator will only help give physical education more creditability and hopefully get more people to stop calling it gym.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Time managenment
While reading the first part of chapter 4 about how class time is spent I began thinking about my one experience in classrooms and how that time was spent. I began to realize that in a lot of my physical education classes we had a lot of wasted time that could have been focused on something more productive. Some of the things I experienced in my classes when I was in school never really seemed like a big deal at the time but looking back on it I see how they could have been improved. Even when I was observing in the schools I saw teachers doing things that could have been done more efficiently. The biggest thing was taking attendance before each class. Another thing I noticed was cleaning up one activity and getting set up for the next activity took up a lot of time. However the biggest aspect that took up time was behavior management.
A lot of teachers will have the student’s line up at the beginning of class to take attendance. This seems like a huge time waster and there are many more efficient ways to do this in a class. Instead having all the students line up and wait for the teacher to call off everyone’s name in the class they should be given a warm up activity right away. By getting the students active right away it keeps students engaged and moving which is the main purpose of physical education. Instant activities are a great way to get the students moving and warmed up right away. Old fashion warms up can be repetitive and boring and in order to keep the students excited and on task we teachers need to spice up the warm ups. Other good things about having an instant activity is that students will come into class and not even have the chance to get sidetracked or off task. By getting them started in activities right away it could lessen the student’s behavioral problems. PEcentral.com has some great ideas for instant activities that can be used for students of all ages.
http://pecentral.com/lessonideas/searchresults.asp?category=60
Having smooth transitions in a class can provided teachers with loads of extra time that would usually be spent cleaning up and changing activities. Some of my teachers would spend 2 to 3 minutes in between each activity for clean up and set up. It seems that because they didn’t plan out ahead of time they were losing valuable time during these transitions. I think that it is important to know exactly how the class will change from one activity to the next. Using the students to help clean up and set up activities is a great way to save time and keep the students on task. If the students always have a job to be doing the distractions will be limited and they will be better able to stay on task.
One of the biggest concerns a new teacher has is behavior managements and keeping the students on task. Is the students are behaving inappropriately and the teachers can’t control them it doesn’t matter how awesome the lesson is. After observing many teachers and being a student myself I sadly still have no idea how I will keep the control of my classroom. I have ideas from each teacher I had but I will have to find my own style and work with different classes and try my best to keep the class on task. I have seen very strict teachers and very laid back teachers, both types of teacher where able to keep control of their class. I think that the biggest thing in behavior management is being yourself and doing what works for you. It is impossible to control student’s behavior but it is possible to control the situations you put students in. By controlling these situations and environments you can help to create a classroom that keeps students on task. By having exciting new games and activities that the students enjoy they will be more motivated to stay on task. It is also important to limit distractions and transition times because these can cause students to become off task quickly. A typical class will only last approximately 40 minutes and in order for students to get the most out of their class teachers need to use this time wisely.
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