Extra Credit

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Lauralee Chokran
Z1643967

KNPE 245: Section 1 Extra Credit Project April 18, 2011

Setting On April 14, 2011, I observed a first grade physical education class at Davis Elementary School in St. Charles, Illinois. The class time was from 12:45 to 1:15. There were twenty-five students in the class and one physical education teacher, Nancy Matteson. The gym was the size of a basketball court and it had a regulation height basketball net at each end. Three of the walls around the perimeter of the room were padded, and wall space above the padding in the room was decorated like a rock climbing venue. The fourth wall was a stage that stood about three or four feet high and had stairs on either side. I the center of the gym, there was an electronic room divider that was not used during the warm up the class. Student art work was posted on the padded wall on the opposite side of the student entrance to the gym. The space was clear of equipment with the exception of four cones spaced evenly on the side where the students entered the room. The floor of the gym was a very hard surface and sounds seemed to echo throughout the room. Mrs. Matteson described the floor as being ³unforgiving´ because it did not absorb any sound or shock. She indicated that she had to take extra safety measures to prevent students from falling and getting hurt. Content Before the class arrived, I had a chance to talk to Mrs. Matteson for a brief minute. She told me that during the last class that they met, they worked on the underhand throw and they learned a new game but did not have much time to play the game. She told me that she was going to make an effort to allow for them to play the game again. As soon as the door to the gym opened, Mrs. Matteson gave the students her undivided attention. The students walked in and were talking and playing and wandering about the gym. After waiting a minute, Mrs.

Matteson clapped in a pattern and the students clapped a pattern in response. Silence immediately in the gym. Mrs. Matteson tells them that this is not the way that they had practiced entering the gym. Tells them they need to line up on black line and go out to re-enter correctly. Once lined up she asks how they should enter. They respond that they enter quietly. Then she asks where they are supposed to go when they come into the gym and they respond that they are to go into their squads. They file out and then come back in. The students go quietly to squads and sit down on floor. Them Mrs. Matteson asks them to check laces and raise their hands if they need ³shoe-tie´. Four students raise hands and Mrs. Matteson asks them to go over to ³shoe-tie´ area. Two additional students go over and they help to tie shoes while Mrs. Matteson has the remainder of class stand to help with a math pattern of jumping jacks. She tells them they are going to fifteen jumping jacks. They count as they do them. Mrs. Matteson reminds them of proper form, saying, ³Open, close.´ Then she asks them to figure out the math pattern if they are going to do ten. They count to ten and she asks what they think they are going to do next. They say five. They do five jumping jacks. Then Mrs. Matteson asks what number they were subtracting each time and she calls on a student to answer that they were subtracting five. Then she has them do stretches. They touch toes and hold and then stretch up and hold several times. Then they roll shoulders back and she asks them to show good posture. She asks why they need to have good posture, and she starts to answer and they join in, saying, ³makes us feel good and makes us look good.´ She has them line up at north black line for´ four corner´ warm up. The students begin walking around perimeter of gym when Mrs. Matteson whistles. Then she mixes it up, having them skip, gallop, high knee skip, stop, and reverse. She reminds them that there is no passing and to stay on line. The kids continue while Mrs. Matteson corrects a boy and then when he does not change behavior she asks him to sit in the center of the gym. She has them rate

their behavior during warm up with thumbs up, side thumb, or thumbs down. Girls say side thumb and boys say thumbs up. Mrs. Matteson says she thinks the girls are right. She talks about changing that for rest of time of the class. Next Mrs. Matteson talks about the game they played last time. She wants them to decide on a name for the game and has them brainstorm ideas for a name. Then she tells them to use resources to write down the name they think is good and bring it to class next time and they will vote on a name. After that Mrs. Matteson goes over the things to remember when underhand throwing. She says they should look at the target, swing throwing arm back, step forward with opposite foot and then swing forward and follow through in front of body to let go of object. She demonstrates as she explains. Then she has the students stand and face stage so they can practice underhand throwing an imaginary object. They go through the steps several times and Mrs. Matteson walks around the room giving cues and fine tuning. She tells two students that they had good follow through. After this Mrs. Matteson asks squad five to get a bean bag, then squad four, and so on. They line up and she counts off by twos. Mrs. Matteson sends ones to one side of gym and twos to the other side. Then she settles them down and gets their attention. She goes over the rules of the game. While doing this she goes to the rectangle in the center of side one and tells them that this is ³jail´ and they must go to jail if they get hit with a bean bag. She explains that they are to underhand throw the bean bags under the divider and try to hit the feet of a player on the opposite team. They can also underhand throw their bean bags to the jail where players from their team are waiting to be freed. To get out of jail, players have to be able to touch a bean bag with one foot with the other foot inside jail. Once free, they can go back to their side with that bean bag and begin underhand throwing again. Mrs. Matteson stresses that the students should play fair and go to jail when they get hit. Otherwise, she tells them that the game is no fun. Then she lowers the room divider to about a

foot from the ground and turns music on. While the children are playing, Mrs. Matteson walks around making corrections individually. After she corrects a few students who were not swinging their throwing arm back, Mrs. Matteson stops the music and claps to get their attention. They clap back and turn attention to Mrs. Matteson. She demonstrates the arm swing back and explains again. Then she turns music on and continues to walk around the room to fine tune their throws. She whistles the pattern and reminds them to play fair. After about five to seven minutes, Mrs. Matteson turns music of and whistles the pattern and the children clap response and give her their attention. She asks them to sit where they are and has children put bean bags in a bucket according to squad number. After putting bean bags in bucket they can get a drink and line up on the black line. Once they are lined up, they go over the underhand throw, demonstrate it, and cool down by stretching up, down and side to side. Critique Classroom Management When the students entered the gym, they were very loud and distracted. They did not go to any particular meeting place and continued talking and playing until Mrs. Matteson stopped them. By using an established routine, Mrs. Matteson did not have to spend a lot of time quieting the students. According to the authors of our text, this is ³one of the seemingly hardest routines to teach children in physical education«,´ (Graham, Holt/Hale, and Parker, 2010, p. 133). She was able to get the attention of the students quickly by using a clapping pattern to prompt the children. Mrs. Matteson clapped, and then the students clapped in response. She repeated the clap pattern, and they responded three times before she had the attention of all the students.

In response to the manner in which the students entered the gym, Mrs. Matteson used the positive practice strategy that our textbook recommends using on for a group or class when they demonstrate inappropriate behavior, (Graham, Holt/Hale, and Parker, 2010, p. 153). By practicing the desired behavior, students learn to do it on their own every time they enter the gym. She gave a quick reminder of the routine that they are supposed to follow upon entering the gym. Then she asked them to line up so that they could exit the gym and re-enter the gym in the appropriate way. When the students re-entered the gym, they filed in quietly and most went directly to their assigned place and sat down. Another class management strategy that Mrs. Matteson used was the shoe tie check. Because of the fact that the flooring in the gym was such a hard surface, Mrs. Matteson has to be extra careful to ensure that the students are working in the safest environment. Many first graders are still in the process of learning to tie their shoes. Often times they tie them too loosely and they come undone quickly. Her shoe tie check effectively prevents tripping accidents that would likely occur if she did not have a system for checking the students¶ laces. The best thing about Mrs. Matteson¶s strategy is that it did not take time away from teaching the class. Cognitive Domain Mrs. Matteson incorporated cognitive learning many times during the lesson. In the warm up exercise, she challenged the students to figure out the math pattern that they were using to determine the number of jumping jacks they were going to do next. The students all gave their answer. And then she followed up by asking what number of jumping jacks they were subtracting each time. Since this was more challenging, Mrs. Matteson called on a student who had his hand up to answer.

Next Mrs. Matteson quizzed the students informally asking them why having good posture was important. She prompted the correct answer which all the students answered together with her. She started by saying, ³It makes us,´ and the students answered, ³«feel good and look good, too!´ Another time that Mrs. Matteson stimulated the students to think cognitively was when she had them make suggestions for a name for the new game they learned on the previous day. The students really enjoyed this and by listening to the ideas that they had, I was able to get a pretty good idea of what the objective was for the game. Psychomotor Domain Throughout the class, from the warm up until the cool down, the students were engaged in movement activities. All of the activities that Mrs. Matteson planned in the lesson were age appropriate activities that the children seemed to enjoy doing. The first thing Mrs. Matteson had the students do was to stretch and demonstrate good posture. Stretching exercises help prevent injury during subsequent activity. Stretching becomes more relevant as activities become more intense, but incorporating stretching into the daily routine, in my opinion, is a great practice. Next, the warm up activity allowed the students to review and practice the fundamental locomotor skills of skipping and galloping that they had learned previously. The skill proficiency level of the warm up activity was the control level. It was designed to help the students master and expand upon their traveling abilities. The students expanded their abilities by performing stops, changing direction and changing levels. Mastery of traveling activities helps prepare the students to participate in games, dance and gymnastics at the utilization and proficiency levels, (Graham, Holt/Hale, and Parker, 2010). While I observed the students, I noticed a wide range of

ability level especially when they were skipping. Some students had difficulty maintaining good balance, while others were able to raise the knee very high and maintain excellent balance. Some students could maintain balance and good technique while moving at a higher speed. By good technique, I mean that their arms were swinging opposite of the raised knee and their eyes were looking straight ahead. The warm up was a health-related fitness activity. The component that was most addressed during the warm up was cardiovascular efficiency. Other components used to a lesser degree were strength, flexibility, and endurance. Of course, body composition could also be impacted if the activity was repeated on a daily basis in addition to taking other steps such as eating healthy according to the recommendations given on the food pyramid. The main focus of the lesson was the underhand throw. To develop the skill theme, Mrs. Matteson reviewed the key points of the throw and demonstrated the motion. While Mrs. Matteson was reviewing the key points, the students were seated in their squads facing her. This style of teaching is called direct instruction, and, while it is not considered the best method for children of this age, I thought it was appropriate under the circumstances. The lesson that Mrs. Matteson was teaching was actually an extension of the lesson that she taught the previous day. It is likely that Mrs. Matteson developed the skill theme much more thoroughly during that lesson since she told me that they did not have much time to play the game yesterday. I think that using direct instruction was appropriate since it was quick and allowed plenty of time for the children to practice the skill while playing the game. Once she reviewed the skill, Mrs. Matteson had the students stand up and demonstrate the motion of the underhand throw simultaneously without actually throwing anything. While the students demonstrated, Mrs. Matteson scanned and moved around the room. She also provided cues for the students. I did not notice that she made any individual corrections, but I did notice that she told two students that they were

demonstrating the underhand throw perfectly. Most, if not all of the students appeared to be able to perform the task at the control level of development. While the students were playing the game, Mrs. Matteson walked around each side of the divider giving cues and fine tuning their throws. After a few minutes, Mrs. Matteson stopped the music to remind students to swing their throwing arm back before tossing the bean bag. I noticed that the students¶ accuracy improved tremendously after reminding Mrs. Matteson reminded them of this. The game was age appropriate and the children really enjoyed it. The main focus of the game challenged the students to practice underhand throwing at a low level for accuracy, from a moderate distance, and using varying levels of force. Since the students were not catching what was being thrown, the students were able to focus their attention entirely on the task of throwing. There was one hundred percent participation and it was designed to allow for a range of throwing abilities. The students appeared to be engaged and challenged while practicing and playing the game. Affective Domain In the beginning of class the students did not follow the established routine. Once Mrs. Matteson had them re-enter the room, they did a great job of following instructions that were given to them. During the warm up exercise, the students were traveling around the perimeter of the gym. For the most part, they students were respectful of each others¶ personal space and did not crowd each other. The students were encouraged to work together on a team during the game. The design of the game also required the students to follow the rules on their own and to be honest when they were hit with a bean bag and go to ³jail´. Mrs. Matteson reminded them that they needed to be fair and play by the rules before they began to play, and then she

commented twice while they were playing the game about how impressed she was that the students were playing fair. The students also displayed good sportsmanship during the game and helped get each other out of ³jail´. Conclusion I think that, overall, I observed a well planned and well orchestrated lesson at Davis Elementary. The environment was not the best because I thought the hard floor surface was very dangerous for first graders. The floor also seemed to echo all sounds, making the noise level seem higher than it probably was. It was also the type of floor that would be very slippery if the proper shoes were not worn. Safety was clearly a top priority for Mrs. Matteson in planning and execution of lessons. I learned a lot about classroom management while observing this class. I think that Mrs. Matteson¶s strategy for getting the attention of the students was genius! When she clapped, they responded, and silence immediately filled the space. I also thought that the routine that Mrs. Matteson referred to as ³shoe-tie´ was an excellent strategy that helped keep the class moving along while making sure that all shoes were tied tight. I thought the idea for having the students choose a name for the game was an excellent brain stretching activity that encouraged both critical thinking and creativity. I would have liked to have observed the lesson on the previous day since I think that more time was spent on the skill development part of the lesson. I completely understood Mrs. Matteson¶s reasoning behind using direct instruction during the skill development simply because of the limited amount of time they had. Judging from how engaged the students were in the activities, I am fairly certain that direct instruction is not Mrs. Matteson¶s typical teaching style. One thing that I was confused about was the way that Mrs. Matteson referred to herself. Rather than saying to them, ³I am «´ she referred to herself in the third person, saying, ³Mrs. Matteson is«´ Other than that, I found the lesson to be creative, age

appropriate and filled with movement activities that were designed to challenge a wide range of abilities. The students had fun participating in health-related fitness activities during the warm up and the cool down at the end of class, and developing a skill theme during the main lesson.

References Graham, G., Holt/Hale, S. A., & Parker, M. (2010). Children Moving (Eighth ed.). New York: Mcgraw Hill.

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