So, this is it, the grand finale. Lab D was a great experience for me. This lesson provided me with lots of information to be used in my future teaching endeavours. A few things that I thought I did well within the lesson is keep people active. After viewing the time coding form for the lesson I noticed that I had students active for the majority of the lesson! This was a big accomplishment for me because I knew it would be challenging to keep all the students involved for that long. I also felt that I did a good job explaining the drills and making sure everybody had a good idea what was going on.
I also felt that I did a great job incorporating the idea of stress management into my lesson. Initially when presented with the challenge of needing to somehow teach stress management during the lesson was intimidating. However, I was able to incorporate it into the lesson in a way that made it fun for the students by allowing them to go a little wild and have fun in a non traditional way through table tennis. Another area that I thought I did well with was dealing with Justin when his behavior was out of line. Although I made the mistake of letting him an Colin continue to be partners, I learned from the experience and was able to keep him in line when I spoke to him. I also believe that I did a good job keeping my feedback congruent to the skills and managed to speak with a lot of the students. As far as the lesson focus, I had the task of teaching a Reciprocal teaching style, which meant that students need to be taught the skill, then provide feedback and analysis to the other students. I incorporated this into the lesson by having the students watch each other as partners, and then offer constructive feedback to them. I felt this was excellent because it allowed students to remain focused on the cues of the serve, which were open-close, and hit-bounce-bounce.
However, there is no such thing as perfect teaching. I did notice a few areas I need to improve on. Although it was eventually corrected throughout my lesson, I noticed that with my dialogue that at certain times I referred to the class as "guys". Although it may not seem like a big deal, I understand that this is a potentially large issue to some people. An alternative that I try to use is saying things such as everybody, class, and students. I also did not thoroughly go over my classroom rules and procedures, or introduce a solid safety statement. I realized this and eventually delivered them throughout the lesson, but I should have mentioned them sooner. I know I still need to keep practicing these things, but I know I am improving each time.
I also noticed that I did not follow my lesson plan exactly as I had intended, or use most of my progressions as thoroughly as I wanted to. I think this is because I wanted to focus on keeping the students entertained and active, and realized my activities maybe were too simple for students at a high school level. I did feel however that I did a good job adapting and managing to keep the class focused and active on the skills.
The observations I received from teaching this lesson will definitely help me to improve student learning in the future. I will continue to devise ways to keep the students active for more than fifty percent of the lesson like desired. I also will concentrate on making more age appropriate progressions for future classes so that I can continue to challenge the students. Lab D definitely was a crazy experience, but like I have said time and time again, each time I practice I improve, and I can only wait to keep moving forward in my career!
I also created a pretty cool collage and video slide-show to help remember the lesson, and to allow people to see all the work that goes into this profession! Hope you enjoy the experience as much as I know I have!
