You are on page 1of 3

Nicholas Plourde April 10, 2014 Lesson #2 Demonstrate Throwing and Catching a Football when Running Routes Alicia

Harlow East Longmeadow High School


In my second lesson teaching at the high school level there were definitely some areas for which I was pleased with and others that need some more improvement in terms of my planning and preparation. One aspect that I was very satisfied with in regards to this teaching behavior was the tasks in which the students had to complete. In having them go directly into certain tactics for the sport of football rather than introducing the basics, was perfectly tailored to their age level in light of the fact it is a unit that they have already had practice with several times prior. On the other end of the spectrum, I felt that I needed to establish accommodations for the learners with respect to their alignment in their performance of the activities when not every one of them is present. This was an instance that led to confusion of those within the class during this teaching, which, as a result, caused unproportional group formations. In the future, I will make sure to create exercises that are more engagement-friendly for the students, because a major issue in this instructional episode was that there was a lot of time where they spent waiting due to not having created backup classroom organization structures when all of the learners were not physically there. The content within my lesson had to be adjusted from the original plan that I created in order to meet the demands of my students. With this alteration, my greatest success in relation to this component was the information that the learners were expected to take away from my instruction. One of the major importances from this circumstance was that it forced the students to critically think about how the different pass patterns made known to them in it would impact their performance when playing football. A negative that resulted from this change in content is that it was too complex for some of the learners to grasp. Although the class was familiar with the sport, it seemed as though they were unaware of what they were being asked to execute based on the fact they had forgotten what these throwing plays are or they were never addressed to them in their previous lessons of the same unit. To ensure that this does not occur in the future, I will ask more checking for understanding questions on what they already know about the main topic of the lesson so that I can get a gauge on how my guidance can be adjusted accordingly. For my transitions and classroom management of the lesson, I felt as though I did well in one of these elements, but struggled in the other. Furthermore, throughout the course of the class period I was able to limit the amount of time where the students were moving between its various segments. This was accomplished by having them travel to an area in close proximity of where they were practicing the skills interpreted. However, classroom management was probably my greatest constraint in trying to secure the periods of the teaching where the learners participation in the tasks correlated to their academic learning time. The complication in which was the main source for this

manifestation was that I did not outline clear expectations for behavior to the class at the beginning of the class period as well as desist unruly conduct of the adolescents; ultimately, giving off a demeanor that implied to them feeling as if they had a sense of control over my instruction. In order to prevent the students from carrying out these actions going further, it is critical that they are made aware of how they must manage themselves and that I travel throughout the learning space with my back to the wall so that each learner is in my realm of vision in an effort to hold them more accountable. In relation to the delivery for which the content was presented to the students, I am conscious of the fact that there are definitely factors that need to be improved upon, while I utilized other pedagogical tactics as effective approaches to give the class necessary resources to succeed. By issuing several demonstrations and informal questions about the material in focus to the learners, they could then apply the knowledge from these instructional strategies to their own performance in an effort to enhance it. The feedback on the efficiency for the implementation of these methods seemed to reap benefits for the students due to their comprehension of what was discussed to them. With that being said, the lack of confidence in which I portrayed when offering this guidance is an aspect that can be associated as an unfavorable behavior during this teaching episode. The reasoning behind why this transpired was that I had a hard time trying to come up with the right dialogue that the class could better understand, where it, in turn, made me come off as though my content knowledge was weak. If I can devote more effort to rehearsing what is planned for my teachings from this point on, then my hope is that this issue should never come up again. The feedback that I provided my learners with was that of which was useful, but incomplete at the same time in reference to the different segments of my lesson. Additionally, the positive and corrective comments that I issued were helpful to students attainment of the concepts presented to them. It was often that they used my input to implement fundamental execution in response to what was focused on through these instructional statements. Unfortunately, the frequency in which they were administered was lacking, where it was often that for extended periods of time no commentary was given to the class other than what they should not be doing in regards to their conduct. This was a problem that arose on various occasions based on the fact I was too involved with the offtask behavior that the learners were engaging in that those who were executing the tasks properly went unnoticed. My greatest challenge in helping to deal with this incidence in the future is to incorporate the pedagogical strategy of overlapping in an effort to increase the feedback that I grant to my students by successfully dealing with these disruptions. My cooperating teacher offered much suitable insight regarding whether or not they felt I applied the necessary teaching behaviors that correlated to a sufficient lesson. From this critique, she noted that my review of learning outcomes, performance, and behavior was one of the better traits I exhibited throughout my teaching episode. My closure is as to why I believe that this was an attribute which manufactured positive results from the learners since I touched upon elements of the class period that went well and those of which did not go so well for these particular aspects. The quality in my performance that she feels I need to work on is having appropriate voice projection, tone, and enthusiasm. This can be related back to the fact I did not display a certain poise that promoted assurance in relation to the content that was taught, which unfavorably affected how the students carried out their performance and behavior. It is vital that I do a better job, from

this point on, of making sure the appropriate steps to convey effective instruction are taken preceding its implementation in order to target these areas of my presentation by already having established a solid base for how the material will be relayed. The most important thing that I learned from todays lesson is how the difficulty of content dictates the learners involvement in its activities. My instruction was constructed in a way where the students were comfortable with the primitive concepts for football, which seemed to be fitting when first explaining the material to them. Though as they went into activity, they had a hard time employing what was discussed with motivation levels that were non-existent. In fact, some of them completely gave up at trying to execute the tasks to the point where they actually started to sit down and do nothing. Other individuals were even coming over to me to say that they did not know how to execute the primitive skills for which the entire teaching was formed on. Thus, the creation of tasks that are developmentally appropriate which target the weaknesses of the learners is crucial for their overall learning.

You might also like