Captian Hook and his Dark Knight come to class!!!!!!!

So it is a typical morning, i got to self defense at 8 am. Walk a far 10 feet across the hall to my second class of the day, 255 baby. This is where I am presented with a man wearing a funny hat and a parrot on his shoulder and another guy smiling with his phone out ready to send us on a mission. I'm thinking to myself what in the world are we doing today? As we get into the lesson we are told we are going on a scavenger hunt. I thought how cool, this is going to be so much fun. We make our flags, gather as a unit and prepare to go to battle with the other explorers. Our first clue sent us to get a picture with Penny (Everybody is Physical Education knows her). so we take our picture (I've never seen her so happy to be a part of something in my life) send it in a receive our second clue. Unfortunately the fire alarm went off. As we exited the building we were told to take take a picture with a Cortland sign. Objective complete. Our next mission sent us scampering down the sidewalk all the way to the Chugger Davis building, and then to the tennis courts. Now I'm a big guy and running is not my cup of tea, but I took one for the team. Drenching in sweat, running around, losing breath as every second passes. By this time the class was over, whooooo what a relief. Now this lesson was very fun and is kept everyone active the whole time. the only things that may have needed improvement was the fact that students were running through the building possibly disrupting class. Students could have also been in harms way when outside with traffic. The teachers also had no super vision over the class as we were outside so they might be some things to reflect upon to improve the lesson. At the end of class i took my heart rate monitor off and realized that my heart must have been working over time. I had an average of 108 bpm, hmmm i think it might be time to get a little more cardio in. Overall i had a great time during the lesson and would look forward to another scavenger hunt.

Who is that?????

I've heard before that you don't really sound like you hear yourself. I never really thought that it was true until I had the experience of listening to myself teach. One of our assignments for the class was to type out what we said word for word in a transcript form after teaching a lesson on ultimate frisbee. It was funny listening to myself because I thought it sounded nothing like me. But it was a good experience because you get to hear yourself speak from your students persepective. Another useful aspect that came from this assignment was the realization of the use of filler like "ummm" and "uhhh." These words tend todowngrade a persons intelligence. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way and we all have to be able to laugh at ourselves. You must fail fast and move on. We were also asked to complete a feedback form, this helps us track how many students were were able to give feedback to and why type of feedback we gave them. I was able to give five students feed back, next time I am looing to atleast double that number.

P.E Mini-Conference

Well this posting may be a little late, but it is better late then never. It was early on a Friday morning when Professor Yang's 255 classes were about to break the ice at the mini conference. No big deal right, I mean you only practiced the routine a few times we all felt confident that we wouldn't make total fools of our selves in front of possible future employers or co-workers as well as our peers. The classes came in chanting " WE WILL WE WILL TEACH YOU," followed by other activities that got everyone out of their seats helping ease any tension that may have been in the gym. We were mixing and mingling with firm hands shakes and smiles all around greeting our guests making them feel welcome. Once that was all over the real treats began. The guest speaker, Dr. Pasarini, really did a wonderful job and captured the audience's attention from the first word. His stories were very touching and I feel as though he is a inspiration to many. Following this speech we were able to break up and choose an activity that we were interested in and learn more about it. I personally went to DJ's presentation on sepak takraw. This is where I realized that my hand and foot coordination are sub-par. The thing I liked about his presentation was that i was about to use different types of equipment to help create a higher success rate as a student. Overall I thought the mini conference was a great experience and opened my eyes to many possibilities that are becoming available to teachers, whether it is heart rate monitors or wii game systems. I look forward to be able to attend any conference that is put on next year