Saturday, May 14, 2011

This was our final lab at St. Mary's and I must say that I had a great time this semester, the students have taught me so much and they have helped me start coming up with my own teaching style. You need to attack every age group differently but with the younger kids you really need to grab their attention quickly and keep their attention because at their age they have a very small attention span. I had a great time working with the older kids this past week, a few of the students even challenged me in checkers. Overall I had a great time with this experience and I look forward to working with kids in the future. Now, for some reason google documents wouldn't let me upload anything so my lab 6 is posted below for your viewing.





SUNY CORTLAND MOTOR DEVELOPMENT LAB
PED 201 – Professor Yang

Reflection: Lab Six



Name: ___________________________________________             Date: _______________


Tasks

A. To reflect on your experiences working with the St. Mary's students.
B. To gain knowledge and insight as to your individual "teaching style" through play and participation.


Answer the following questions to the best of your ability.

 

TASK A/B: Reflection on experiences working with St. Mary's students.



  1. Based upon observations and interactions with the St. Mary's students, describe what you have learned about young children? Provide examples of activities you felt were appropriate. Why? Were there activities that were not appropriate? Why? Some things that I have learned about young children is that they have a lot of energy and you need to be prepared for it. At this age the children have a short attention span so you need to really get them hooked to your game if you want a chance to explain it. An activity that I thought was appropriate was when I lead my basketball tag game. It was appropriate because it fit the skill level of the older kids and it was giving the students a chance to work on the skills that we had for our dribbling week. A game that wasn't really appropriate was the game our group lead for throwing. We had a ton of kids so it made it hard from the start. With this game the students were throwing under hand and all different ways except the way we actually wanted them to throw it. Even after we told them how to throw the ball they still were doing it wrong. This game didn't really work out because it was difficult to assess throwing and catching.



 
  1. Based upon your interactions with St. Mary's PRE K program, describe your experience. How was this different from working with the older age students? Did you enjoy working with younger age children? Why or Why not? To be honest I enjoy working with the older kids and when I become a teacher I want to work at either the high school level or the middle school level. It's different working with the younger students because when you play games you have to find games that involve basic movement patterns because the students aren't that developed yet. At this age you also need to find ways to connect with the children and relate things to them that they like. I did have a good time working with the kids, it was good to get some experience working with younger children.



 

 
  1. During your field experience, each of you worked with children in the cafeteria setting. Describe the fine motor activities you observed. Do you feel that working on fine motor activities is something we should work on in Physical Education. Yes I believe that we should work on fine motor skills in P.E. While I was in the cafeteria I saw a lot of students building with legos and even had some students want to play me in checkers. I believe that fine motor skills are an important skills to have in your life and the sooner you start working on those skills the better off the students will be in the future because their fine motor skills will be more improved because were working on them at a young age.






  1. Reflecting on your growth as a future teacher, what have you learned from this experience that has given you insight as to your individual "teaching style". Has your teaching style emerged based upon your experience and interaction at St. Mary's. If yes, in what way. If not, how else might this occur? I really learned a lot while teaching at St. Mary's, I learned that with the younger students you have to hook them and get them wanting to play your game otherwise they won't pay attention and they'll be all over the place. You also want to give the students positive feedback so the students know that you care and want to be there. I'm not too sure if my teaching style has really emerged yet because the way I teach younger students is probably going to be different than how I teach older students. I feel that my teaching style will depend on the class of students that I have. I also might have to adjust my teaching style for certain students because not every one learns the same and not everyone learns at the same speed. I also feel that with students this young you really need to try and connect to them and find ways to relate games to things that they like. If something is familiar to them then the more likely they are to want to participate. I had a great time at St. Mary's this semester and I feel that it will help me in my teaching in the future.







 

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