Brydie Pye

Tiger Pride Fall 2014

Systematic Observations Report October 2nd

Overview:
On Thursday October 2
nd
I observed Brittni Beeman teach 3rd grade students physical education at
Cleveland Elementary School for thirty minutes. There are thirty students in this class. The lesson focus
was moving in general space. Their previously learned skills were body awareness. The outside area has
a large concrete area and a grass area available for physical education. The equipment needed for this
lesson was blacktop, beanbags, tennis balls, wiffle balls, hula hoops, and poly spots.

Systematic Observation Time Analysis
Within a thirty-one minute and 30 second lesson Brittni had 1065 seconds of the students in activity,
360 seconds of instruction, and 465 seconds worth of time spent managing the students. This means
that the students were in activity for the most amount of time, and in instruction for the least amount of
time. The implications for my findings are that the students are doing activity for a large portion of the
lesson which is exactly what Brittni wants, and she didnt have to manage the students for much longer
than she had to instruct them. Two strategies that Brittni could do to improve her performance in this
skill:
- Brittni did very well in this area of the lesson. She spent a lot of time in activity but there is
always room for improvement which in this area could be getting the management time less
than the instruction time which shouldnt be hard because there wasnt much difference
between the two sections in this lesson. She could do this by starting an activity when students
are being naughty and they will realize that there is no one to get attention from because Brittni
is paying attention to the activity so they will have to join in with the game. This will mean that
there is even more time spent in activity.
- To shorten the amount of management time Brittni could organize the packing up or handing
out of equipment more efficiently. For example, in one of the activities the class did the
students were in pairs and they needed one member of the group to get a piece of equipment.
Many of the pairs had both partners go get equipment which took longer to get equipment out
to everyone because Brittni didnt know that more than one person for each group was coming
up to her for equipment. If the instructions had been clearer/louder then the students would
have known that only one member of the group needed to get the equipment, and the
management time would have been half the amount of time it was.


Systematic Observation Student/Teacher Demonstrations
In Brittnis lesson she had five demonstrations; four student demonstrations and one teacher
demonstration. Only one of the demonstrations provided cues for the skill. They all were loud and
visible, but none had whole-part-whole demonstrations or corrective demonstrations, or visual aids.
They all were at the correct pace and with the equipment. Two strategies Brittni could do to improve
her performance in this skill:

- Provide more cues for each skill. Out of all the demonstrations only one skill had cues and that
skill only had one cue. Students can see the demonstration but they need cues to help them
remember different parts of the skill. These could be short but easy to remember.
- Include whole-part-whole or corrective demonstrations to make the skill clearer to the students.
Students interpret skills in different ways. If a corrective demonstration is provided then there is
Brydie Pye
Tiger Pride Fall 2014

less chance of a student getting the skill wrong because they have an idea of what the skill looks
like and what it doesnt look like.



Systematic Observation - Idiosyncracies
In Brittnis lesson she tended to use a few phrases a lot throughout the lesson. These were Ok, which
was used 61 times, Hey, used 40 times, and You guys, which she used 21 times. The implication for
this is that students wont feel as appreciated as they could be if their actual names were used because
then they would know that you know their name. It also doesnt sound as professional as it could be.
Two strategies that Brittni could do to improve her performance in this skill:

- Use the students names more instead of You guys. Even though Brittni is trying to talk to
more than one student when she says this phrase she still could say all the students names that
shes talking to. This will be more professional and it will make the students feel more special
because they will feel like the teacher has gone to the effort to learn their name.
- Instead of saying Hey, and then Tiger Pride, Brittni could easily take out the Hey, and just
say Tiger Pride, when she wants the whole classes attention. If the class doesnt listen to the
first call then Hey, could be used as a warning to show that she is getting annoyed because the
class isnt responding.