Kinetic City

Kinetic City is a website that has many games and activities that children can participate in. There are many different aspects to the game that I found while I was playing around on the site. If you are on the main page and click on "Enter The Lab Car" you will find that there are three sections. They are Mind Games Creative Writing and Art, and Hands on Games and Activities. If you click on the section that says "Enter Kinetic City Mission to Vearth" you will encounter four different sections of games. These games include Omega, Phi, Sigma, and Tau. In the last section you can enter is the Science Gym. In this portion of the site there are eight different sections of activity that you can use to find different activities to participate in with the class. In this section they have already built lesson plans, or activity plans, that can be participated in with the class. The one activity that I found particularly interesting was the Respiration Relay. In this they included all of the material that was needed, as well as what information the students were supposed to get from it. If you would like to see some screenshots that I took form the website just click on the link below to see them.

I think that this website is good in some ways. I think that it is good because it works with the childrens' reaction times, as well as their knowledge on certain subjects. Although I think that they could improve it more to have the children moving more instead of playing some of the stationary games, they also have many activities that the children can do in motion. One of these games includes the Smart Foot. With this the students are able to work out while they are also playing games.

255 Final Kinetic City

What did I do?

For my volunteer hours I do not have a great amount of documentation. I worked at the APEM table during the apparel sale for 3 hours and I also refereed at the APEM Hoops for Hearts tournament for 3 hours. Besides those six hours I also volunteered with my profressor at college and went to a school near SUNY Cortland to help inform young girls about how technology can be used in school (2 hours). It also showed the girls different forms of technology that can be used in Physical Education. I also helped volunteered to help other students at SUNY Cortland organize their schedule for the next year for 2 hours. Although I had many other hours of community service and have helped in other ways I find that these hours are the most important. This has been an extremely busy semester for me, but I hope that I am able to volunteer more this summer in my home town.

Students and Exercise - How Important Is It?

In Canada at CBC News they have been doing many studies in the United States as well as Canada about the use of aerobic exercise and how it helps stimulate brain function. In Canada, at City Park Collegiate School in the Saskatoon Public School they have been using this theory to help improve their students ability to concentrate and comprehend the information that they were learning in their class. This school is located in the lower central part of Canada above North Dakota.

The teacher of the class, Allison Cameron, has been working with her students very diligently in order to help them in their ability to perform better in the class room. This peace is highly interesting to me because I see how well it has improved the students ability to perform in the classroom, as well in their lives. It reinforces my belief that exercise is vital to students.

I do not think that the physical education teacher was involved in this experiment because it was being run primarily by the teacher of the class. It is now shown whether or not the physical education teacher helped with the program or not, but they showed a clip of the students participating in their p.e. class while they were at the school and many of the students were not actively participating, but were instead standing around. Even some of the students were just standing at the side of the gym watching everyone play while they lean against the gym wall. As you can see in my following blog posts from when I am teaching, I try to have all of the students that are in my class continuously moving. (Lab D)

The following video is about a group of students with discipline and learning problems at a school, City Park Collegiate, that is designed for students that are no longer accepted at other public schools. From this program it has shown that the students had improved their push-ups by 277%, their sit-ups 224%, their sit reach by 21%, and decreased their BMI by 5%. Besides improving their physical strength and fitness, they also maximized their academic success. Their fluency increased by 121.4% and their comprehension by 230%. In their studies in reading 27%, their writing by 33.3%, their sight words by 36%, and their math by 17.3%.

One of the articles that is also listed on the website, entitled "School Recess and Group Classroom Behavior" which was published in Pediatrics talks about the students ability to improve their academic ability. In the article it states, "research suggests that recess may play an important role in the learning, social development, and health of children in elementary school." This is very vital because it shows that students activity is very important to their learning.

A second article that is present on the website is "Effects of a Classroom-Based Program on Physical Activity and On-Task Behavior." In this article they are talking about a test that they constructed in order to show how physical activity throughout the day, in the classroom, can benefit students ability to learn. In this article they state the benefits of physical activity, through either recess or physical education, and how it improve students "concentration, mental cognitive, and academic performance." It also talks about how it has not been proven yet, but it might help the students by reducing their "fidgeting, self-stimulatory behaviors, and school-related stress." In the article they also talk about how if students receive instruction for a large amount of time without any activity their learning ability can actually be hindered.
They tried to help the students ability to learn in the classroom by having them participate in what they call Energizers. These are short bouts of exercise that last about 10 minutes. In this study they used pedometers to assess the amount of physical activity that the students used. Whether they were in the control group, who did not participat in the Energizer programs, or the other group who had. From this study they were not able to see any significant difference in the students academic performance. This could be because they only had the students wear the pedometers for a week, and in effect did not have a great estimation in the amount of activity they were participating in. In another study that they do for this they should assess the amount of activity that is done for longer than twelve weeks and keep track of the students steps with the pedometers more frequently. By doing this they would have a better assessment of how much the activity that the students get affects their ability to perform in the classroom.

Physical Education is becoming an integral part of school. There has been talk of having a regents created in New York State for Physical Education to test students knowledge on physical fitness. By doing this it will test how well the teachers are doing to educate their students on lifelong fitness, as well as what type of curriculum needs to be created ins schools to improve the students knowledge. It is apparent that something needs to be done because of the ever-rising level's of obesity in the United States, and this may be just the thing to kick start a higher knowledge in fitness for the younger generations.

Lesson Reflection from Lab D

In Lab D I taught a lesson with the stability ball, focusing on the core muscles. I noticed from reviewing the video that I did well in the lesson but that there are still many things that I need to make improvements on. Although there are some things that I still need to make better, there are also many things that I have already become highly competent in.
The lesson was only about thirteen or fifteen minutes long, making it very hard to include everything in the lesson that was really needed to make it a complete. I realized from the lesson being so constricted for time that I was not able to have the students participate in as much physical activity as they should have. If the lesson had been longer I would have been able to have the student's practice the tasks with more repetitions and for a longer period of time.
One other thing that I could have done was give the students more feedback. I was only able to identify that I gave three of the students feedback, and realize that I should have given more. I hope that later I will be able to give the students more feedback so that they know that they are doing the task properly, but I also want them to be able to realize what they are doing wrong on their own.
One thing that I think was very important is the fact that I referred to safety very frequently. Safety is a key issue in physical education, and it is very common for students to "monkey around" and put themselves into situations that can cause harm to themselves or others without thinking of the consequences. In the video that I have posted above there is a section, from 2:35 to 2:55, that I find very vital to teaching a lesson. I told the students about being safe while they are using the stability ball, and I told them this in a serious manner while adding some humor to try to keep their attention.
Even though I had already told the students not to throw the stability ball's at one another there was still an incident that occurred. One of the students, at the end of the lesson, randomly stood up and threw the stability ball at another student. As soon as this happened I controlled the situation by removing the student that had thrown the stability ball from the area that the other student was in. Since it occurred at the closure of the lesson I had the student that had committed the wrong doing come up to the front and stand with me while I was ending up the lesson. Once the class was completed I talked to the student so that the rest of the class was not distracted by the encounter and could continue to learn. I think that this is good because what happened between those two students was not a concern that needed to be dealt with while the other students were present.
I also think that I did well teaching the lesson in respect to being clear on the content. I think that I spoke clearly with what the tasks were, and the students all knew what I was talking about based on what I said during the lesson. I also asked the students frequently if they had any questions to make sure that they understood, and no one asked any questions. Because they did not ask any questions I concluded that I had done a good job when I was giving my explanations.
A large part of my lesson was that I included a video that I had created with two other people in the class that were also teaching with the stability ball. In this video we recorded a person performing an action while the person that was going to be teaching that lesson gave instructions to the task. We then took all of the short video's that we had made and created a DVD. In that we included pictures of the different instructors of the task and also the cues for the asks. I think that the video was very good because while it was playing the teacher can manage the class and help any students that may need it, or handle any other situations that need to be solved. Creating the video was also very nice because it was unique and something that no one else in the class had done.
Overall I think that this lesson was a success. Although I may have left out some very information, there were a lot of different things that I did do. I hope that in the future I am able to continue improving on my ability to teach, just as I have throughout my present teaching class.

Honor and Shuttle Ball Day 2

In this past weeks lab I switched positions with my partner and now, instead of teaching Shuttle ball, I taught the instant activity, Honor, and a lead up to Shuttle ball. In this weeks lab I was not able to be video recorded, so I am not able to assess how effectively I used my time, nor am I able to assess what I said. In spite of these things I think that I did very well with the second part of the lesson.
The instant activity went well and it seemed as though everyone knew what I was talking about when I explained the activity. I also changed the activity so that everyone in the class was participating in physical activity instead of just the students' that had "won." I had the students' that won had to do five push ups while the student's that were not quite so fortunate had to do ten sit ups. After they had finished the task they then had to get up and find a new partner.
Since I was only introducing the main activity, Shuttle Ball, I did not go into great depth. I had a person first demonstrate the different cues; the kick, the bounce, and the knock. After the person was done I had them separate into groups of two and practice the skills with one of the three different types of balls that they were given.
After all of this I concluded the class with a short ending. Considering all of this I think that I did very well with the lesson. This is partially due to the fact that we have worked on all of this in previous classes, and hopefully with the next lesson that I teach I will do even better!

Shuttle Ball

Shuttle Ball is a revised name that me and my partner gave the game Shuttlecock. Shuttlecock is a game that is played in China that is essentially the same as Hacky Sack that is played here in the United States. In this game there are main moves that are used; the bounce, the kick, and the knock. The bounce is when the ball is bounced off the knee, the kick is when the ball comes off the top of the foot, and the knock is when the ball comes off the inside or the outside of the foot. Other actions that can be used are from the head, the chest, the shoulder, or the abdomen. The upper extremities are essentially the only part of the body that is not allowed to be used.
I think that while I taught this lesson I did reasonably well. One thing that I would change would be to stop saying "umm," and "ahh" as frequently as I do. It have repetitively done this throughout all of the lessons that I have taught, and it seems to be a pretty difficult habit to break since I don't even know that I am saying it.

Ultimate Frisbee- Who Knew it was so Dynamic!!

This past week I taught a lesson on Ultimate Frisbee. Before my class started to work on this sport I didn't realize that there was so much involved with playing it. Whenever I had played it in the past we weren't given very detailed instructions and mainly just played without any true knowledge on how to set up the proper offense or defense. Now after having participated in teaching and being taught in my class here at Cortland I know a lot more about the sport and will be able to apply that knowledge in the future.
While I was listening to myself teach the lesson I realize that I say ahh a lot. I think that I use it as a filler to give myself more time to think about what I am going to say next, but hearing myself say it repetitively I realize that it can become quiet annoying. I hope that when I teach my lessons in the future I try to refrain from saying it as often and instead have more confidence in the message that I am trying to convey to the class.

Do I use my teaching time efficiently?

There is supposed to be more than 50% of class time in Physical Education devoted to the children moving. Because of this it is vital that a teacher is able to give instruction clearly and in a short amount of time, while still giving all of the necessary information. This is a very difficult thing to do since sometimes student's don't listen, and some tasks may have complicated rules that include a lot of detail. A way to decrease the amount of time that student's are standing around is to break up each class into different sections of teaching a task or a game. For example, if soccer is being taught you can break up the sections of the game, or skills, that need to be learned by the student's. One class could be devoted to kicking, the next to trapping, and etc.
In the lesson that I taught for one of my recent classes here at SUNY Cortland was how to catch a soccer ball as a goalie would. When I used the time coding form that we were given in class I saw that I could have managed my time a better. Over the 2 and a half minutes that I taught the lesson I the vast majority of the student's time was spent equally in activity and instruction, which were both equal to 40%. The next time I am teaching a lesson I am going to try to cut back on the amount of time that I spend instructing and instead try to use it as activity time.

Feedback! Is it important?

In my opinion feedback is very important. I remember being in high school, middle school and elementary school, and during that time I remember how I did better in certain classes because of the feedback that I received from my teacher. When I say feedback, I am talking about the positive feedback that the teachers gave me.
An example of positive feedback is to say compliment someone on how well they are doing something. Neutral feedback and negative feedback are also forms of feedback, but using positive feedback is the best one to use because it encourages more than the others. Neutral feedback, which is usually given by saying that they are doing well but can improve it in some way, is also used to show a student how to do something right that they may be doing incorrectly. Negative feedback is given by telling a student that they are doing something wrong in a very rude manner, and most likely not fixing the problem in the end.
I think that by giving positive feedback you are allowing the student to realize how much you care about how hard they are working on what you are teaching them. By giving them feedback it is also showing them that what they are doing is right and it keeps them trying hard because they want to continue to receive praise!

The First Lesson- What I said!

After watching the lesson that I gave on being able to catch a soccer ball as a goalie would I have gained more information about the way that I project my voice across the gym. Watching the video made me realize that I need to be louder when I talk to a class so that I am sure everyone can hear me. I also found that I say "alright" quite frequently and need to change the way that I talk when I teach and use a wider variety of words. Here is the verbal transcript that I wrote up while I was watching the video. It was very hard to hear everything that I said but I think that I got most of the words.

Guinness Book Basketball Dribbler Record Holder

Mr. Odhiambo is the World Record holder for dribbling the most basketball's at a time. During this video he talks about his drive to be the best basketball dribbler that there will ever be. By achieving his goal he is showing that if you just set your mind to do something it can be accomplished. By showing this he has impacted many lives and most likely the people that he impacts will have more of a drive to do the things that they want to. His amazing ability of being the best at dribbling basketballs and being a great fifth grade teacher is very obvious in this video. Every teacher should have the same passion about what they are doing as he does!

PED 255- The first attempt

During my PED 255 class here at Cortland everyone in the class had to come up with a lesson to teach off the top of our heads. We were given a few minutes to decide what type ball we wanted to use, a volleyball, basketball, football or soccer ball. For my lesson I taught the rest of the class how to catch a soccer ball like a goalie. With only the short amount of time that there was to teach the lesson I think that I was able to give the rest of my classmates a very good beginner lesson on the proper hand positioning of how to catch the ball, and also what to do with it after they had caught it. Everyone else that was in my group also did a good job of explaining how to do certain skills. After watching the video I think that all of us will have a better sense of what we do while we are teaching and try to break any bad habits that we may have formed!

Monster Mash/Infant Mash

During my PED 201: Motor Development class everyone was put into groups and assigned to come up with a skit showing infant's movement abilities. My group used the "Monster Mash" song and altered the words into infant's movement abilities. We also dressed up in "diapers" and put on bibs. One of our group member's dressed up in a lab coat and we performed the skit in front of our class. Here is the video from what we did. I hope that you all like it!

Working with the Children-Lab 6

I learned many things about young children while I was working at St. Mary’s. One thing that I learned that is vital when you are teaching is the amount of energy that they have. In order to keep up with them a high intensity or high energy level is needed in order to be able to teach them effectively. Teaching with high energy will grab the kids attention and keep them focused on the task or game that’s going on. I felt that the game that we played called “popcorn popper” was very appropriate for the students at St. Mary’s. They were all able to participate together and everyone seemed to have a good time. It also worked well because the children learned how to throw and catch better. They learned how to throw better because they had to use the proper technique to get the ball over the wall barrier, and they had to catch better because they had to learn how to catch balls that come at them from different angles. Some activities that were not as appropriate would have been the kicking game that we played because everyone was not given an equal opportunity to kick the ball. Another factor in this was that some of the kids might have gotten discouraged because they were not able to make a goal like the other children in the class.

While I was working with the PRE K students I learned that there are many alterations that need to be made in order to teach them. They are not able to communicate very well, and are often unable to tell you exactly what they mean when you are trying to get information out of the. I found this very hard because with some of the kids I was unable to understand them, and as a result of this I was unable to help them. By not being able to help them I felt that I had in some way failed. I did not like this and hope that in the future I am better able to learn how to communicate better with children of this age group. The PRE K students also do not yet have a lot of the movement abilities that the older kids have. I expected this to happen and changed the games in order to suit their abilities. I liked working with the younger children because it teaches me how to work with the different age groups. I do not plan to get a job working with this age group when I start looking for jobs, but if I get an opportunity to work with them I would not overlook the idea. I think that working with kids of this age would be very rewarding because they are nice to teach. If you work with older students, they tend to get lippy and give you problems, whereas with this age group they just tend be more willing to learn and participate in the games that you are having them do.

Throwing, Catching and Kicking Reflection-Lab 5

In class we had the children participate in two games. The first was a kicking exercise where everyone was working to make a “goal.” One station included a hula hoop with a cone on the inside of it, another was a blue mat positioned so that it stood up, and the other two were goals created by two cones. If a child scored a goal they were able to go over to the goal board and either write their name, or if their name was already there to put a dash next to it. In the end this just created a great deal of chaos. The children were all bunching around the goal sign because there was only board with three stations. If we had made three goal boards I think that it would’ve been a lot better because the children would have been able to kick more. In all I think that the game was a good idea, but with a few moderations it would work a lot better.

The second game that we had the children participate in was for dribbling. In the game we placed hula hoops all around the gym with balls that the children inside of them. We also had music. Russell brought in his cd player and I brought in my iPod. When we played the music the kids were supposed to dribble, and when we stopped it they were supposed to find the closest hula hoop and place their ball inside of it. We had the kids stand next to a hula hoop so that they were all sure to have a ball. Then we started the game. Russell was working the music while Andrea, Kate and I were all helping the kids with their dribbling. We also switched up which hands they were able to use. The first time we just let them use whichever hand was more comfortable to them, and then after that we designated a hand that they were supposed to use. Many of the kids were not as good with their weaker hand, but starting them at a young age will make it easier for them to use it in the future. I think that this game worked better than the first because all of the kids were participating at the same time and none of the kids felt left out if they were unable to score a goal.

Lab 4- Remembering the Children

Some difficulties, or challenges, that I have been facing at St. Mary’s is being able to remember the children’s names. I realize that it is extremely important to try to remember their names and I just can’t seem to do it. There are many factors that come into play and work against me remembering the children’s names. One of which is the fact that we are only there for one day in the week. Only being around the kids for one day is hard because we aren’t able to form a connection with them to get to know who they are. Another problem is that we are not working with the same kids every week and are instead in a rotational basis as to which group we are working with. This causes problems because once again we are not around the same children enough to be able to associate a name with their face. I remember the children’s faces, but I am not able to remember the name that goes with that person. As each week comes around I do not want to continuously ask the children their names again and again because I do not want them to think that they are unmemorable because they all are!!!

One thing that could be done to help remember kids name more easily is to give them all name tags, but that would just end up being expensive and time consuming in the long run. I am not sure of what else to do, but I know that once I am teaching I will be able to remember the kids’ names a lot more easily because I will be around them more frequently.

Motivational Speaker- Mr. John F. Edwards

Mr. Edwards is a motivational speaker that has received many awards. Recently he came to my college to give a speech on how to be successful in life, but mostly in your profession. Going to his speech taught me a lot about how to be successful for when I get a job in my profession later. He stated that success was 85 percent attitude and 15 percent altitude, and that having a good attitude will increase your altitude. By saying this he means having a good attitude it is inevitable that success will happen.
The main thing that he stressed that is vital to having success at the workplace is communication. He stated that "the art of communication had become a dying art in corporate America." When he said this I think that he was trying to say that people are starting to become incapable of working together or relating to other's. This is causing a decline in the success that a business has.
He also said "communication is nothing more and nothing less than relationship development." Could this be linked with the rise in technology that has been happening? I think so. If you look at the way that children are growing up today, and how much technology they use, it is obvious that they are not communicating with each other as much as previous generations have. Today there are more games than I can remember and also more texting and computer use than there has ever been in the past. I do not see that technology use is going to decline, it will instead most likely increase, and because of that the people that interact with kids need to involve them in activities outside of that. There is no reason that kids can't play outside or in the house without technology and instead use their imaginations to make up games. By having kids do this I think that it will increase their ability to communicate well with other's and inevitably make them more successful when they become adults.
Mr. Edwards also talked about culturalization in society. Smaller groups are now being created in societies instead of having one large group. A prime example of this is the neighborhood that you live in. A few generations ago everyone knew their neighbors and would sit on their front porches to socialize, now very few people know their neighbors and even if they do it is highly likely that they do not socialize with one another. Instead people sit inside or on their back porch and only talk with the people within their household or people that visit them. By this happening people are not as friendly and are not able to communicate as well with people that they don't know. This is not good because now many people try to do work by themselves instead of working with other people. This is bad because two minds, or more, work better than one. It is often that when a group of people work together they are able to come up with more ideas than if they were working alone.
From what he said at the conference I realized that I am a person that is rather good at communicating with others. I take what someone says into account and do not discourage their ideas if I do not like them. If I happen to find something wrong with what they say I just try to expand on what they were thinking. A large part of this could have been from when I was a child because I didn't stay inside to play video games very often. Instead I was outside playing with all of the kids in my neighborhood. We made up games, rode our bikes, roller bladed, or played various sports. I hope that all of what he said ring's true and that when I start my job I am able to communicate well with the people that I work with to create a positive working environment and also one that I can excel in.

Locomotor Lab Part B

There was a wide variability of the movement patterns that I observed, but what it really comes down to is whether or not the students were able to perform the locomotor movement. The students that I observed are all able to perform the movements, but some are better able to perform the movement better than others. There were two students that I assessed, but once again one was a girl and one was a boy, both of which were in kindergarden and at the age of five. With these two children I saw that both of their skill abilities were about even. They are both at the mature level for the leap. With the horizontal jump they are both at the initial level. The last movement that I assessed them on was the slide. With this they were both also at the initial level.

There were many teaching strategies that I used while I was working with the children. I was enthusiastic, human, courteous, properly dressed, and I got down to their level whenever I was working one on one with a student. I think that by doing all of these I made it so that the children were more comfortable with me and were better able to relate to me. In my opinion the strategies that was more effective than others was getting down to their level and being enthusiastic. By doing these the kids were more passionate about what we were trying to have them do and they also felt more comfortable talking with me.

Locomotor Lab Part A

There is a very wide variety of the abilities that the students at St. Mary’s have with their locomotor movements. All of the students are able to run with pretty mature ability, but their abilities to gallop and hop were not very good. I think that their ability to perform these tasks weren’t as great because they do not have to do them as often as they run. It is obvious that doing something repetitively makes it easier to do. The same goes for learning different subject materials in school, and also all the different sports that there are.

My class observed two children while we were at St. Mary’s. They are both six and in kindergarden. The only difference between them is that one is a male and the other is a female. With their running abilities I saw that both of them seemed to be mature. The other two abilities that I was observing them on, the gallop and the hop, were not as good. I realized that they were not the only students struggling with this though, the rest of the students at the school were having trouble as well. The boy was definitely a little bit more developed in the gallop than the girl was was, but I think that from what I saw they are still in the initial stage. The boy also seemed to have more ability to perform the last locomotor movement that we had them perform, the hop.

Many of the people in my class first explained the activity that everyone was going to do and then from there they let the students perform the task. I did not see that they were correcting the students if they were not doing any of the tasks wrong, but instead let the students perform it as they thought that they should. I think that this was very good for the kids because they are able to develop the tasks at their own rate, and can observe the kids around them to see if they are doing the activity correctly. This also helped us because we were better able to observe the two kids to evaluate where they stood with their ability without someone helping them to improve first.

Another thing that everyone in the class did really well was being happy and cheerful. With this I noticed that all the kids were happier to be there and really wanted to participate in the games. I noticed that some of the students were better able to perform the tasks that they were assigned, such as hopping and galloping, because they were more excited about participating.

I think that one of the main things that was more effective with teaching was when there were materials used for the games. One of the groups had the kids bring balls back to their hula hoops and another had the kids running around trying to capture the other kids “flags.” I noticed that by using these things the kids were more excited and became more active in the game.

A large part of interacting with these kids is being excited to be there. Our class is at the end of the school day, so it is sometimes very hard to muster up the energy to be cheerful and bubbly around the kids. In spite of this, it is definitely something that has to be done in order to keep their attention and I think that we do a really good job of having a high level of energy for the children.

Assessing Children's Motor Behavior

Grade level, gender, and ability have a huge impact on a person’s motor behavior. I noticed that the grade levels of the children also alter their ability to perform motor and social development. The older the children were the greater their abilities were. The gender of the children also alters their ability to perform certain abilities. When children are younger they all seem to have the same ability, but as they grow older the boys and girls seem to develop certain skills better than the opposite sex. The ability of the students is also altered by the students based on their coordination. Some people are just naturally coordinated while others have to learn how to do certain tasks. Since many of the children at the school are very young they have not yet learned how to perform those tasks and still look awkward while they are trying to perform them.