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.