Artifact 5 - Volleyball Unit Intro and Lesson 1
Artifact 5 - Unit Plan Explanation
I chose to include this Volleyball Unit Plan (at least what we have planned so far) into my portfolio because I think that it shows an example of material created to plan for effective teaching in a classroom setting. The Unit/Lesson plan was generated by Brett and myself after our observation in our middle school. We designed the lesson plan, then taught it to our peers to make refinements and adjustments. Included also on this page is our reflection on the peer teaching experience. The tasks involved with making this lesson plan were including the BC curriculum, CAPS, management tasks, teaching cues etc. to create an effective and age appropriate, progressive lesson. In the process of creating, teaching, and adapting our lesson i learned the importance of flexibility. This trial and error method of teaching, accompanied with catering to the understanding and ability of the classroom can create effective learners who are willing to participate and learn.
Final Artifact
Final Artifact Reflection
This artifact shows the sequence of progression games in our pair unit plan teaching in the TGfU style. I think that it shows our commitment to progression of skills for students in understanding the tactical awareness and other strategies involved in volleyball. These games were incorporated after introducing students to the culminating game. These progression games helped students to better understand the skills as well as strategies in the culminating game, so that when we went back into the culminating game students could apply their new skills and knowledge into the game. After these progression games, the students were better able to complete and play the culminating games.
Learning Experiences in EPHE 452
Learning Experiences in EPHE 452 in order to generate evidence of developing competence.
- Linking readings on learning processes to PE practices modeled in class and discussed in academic articles.
- Show with examples of materials created how to effectively plan for teaching in schools, assess student learning and use teaching approaches that address the needs of all students.
- Document and reflect on own experience learning within different pedagogical approaches such as TGfU and Sport Education and articulate how you might be able to implement in your future practice as a physical educator.
Reflection Prompts
Assessment: To what level of competency do you feel you are performing the learning implied in this big idea?
Evidence: How does the evidence show your developing competencies in relation to this big idea?
Personal growth: What can you now do based on this evidence?
Goal: What is something you want to work on or improve on in relation to this big idea?
Reflection
Assessment: I think in this big idea I am developing a strong foundation. I feel that my partner Brett and I have created a series of documents that show planning for teaching and reflection. I feel that we also have adapted our lessons to student needs.
Evidence: I think that the evidence shows that I am willing to create and try new teaching strategies, and reflect and build upon them.
Personal growth: What I can do now is link and incorporate readings and external knowledge into this big idea to strengthen my understanding and execution of teaching plans.
Goal: What I want to improve in this big idea is being adaptive in my thinking, instead of just my teachings. Often times I get fixed in my mindset of my ideas being right and not looking at different perspectives. The co-teaching experience has really helped me in this and I hope to continue to improve.
Co-Teaching Reflection
Peer Teaching Reflection:
For our peer teaching lesson today we had 12 participants. We used 3 badminton courts set up, as well as the rest of the gym using markers for our progression games. The lesson we taught was meant to be the first of our unit for our grade six students. We also adapted our lesson before teaching because the previous volleyball co-teaching pair had some similar concepts.
Our intent for this unit was to get students lots of touches with the forearm pass and setting. Our cues were to bend your legs, get behind the ball, and we also incorporated some target practice with our peers. This however, will probably not be the case in our class based on our observation. Using these cues our objectives were to get a rally going and pass the ball over the net, while communicating as a team.
Having two co-teachers was beneficial because it offers more opportunity for us to help students individually without disrupting the rest of the class. We did not have any demonstrations which could have facilitated more understanding of the game and what is being asked of the students. We would have set up the gym beforehand, however based on time we left the gym as it was previously set up. We would have had more free space between the two courts.
We designed this class to have lots of on-the-ball movement to try to increase individual skill and understanding. However, since our class is quite athletic and experienced this was lost on some of them. We think that the cues we were giving were good, but were very simple for the skill level of our class.
When we put our peers back into our culminating game we noticed an increase in communication as well as skill. The games were more competitive, and rallies lasted longer. Our progression games allowed our peers to cognitively think about their body position, spacial awareness on the court, and communicate effectively to work together as a team.
We feel that we both need to work to incorporate demonstrations as well as clarify our cues in our teaching. This will allow students to have a better understanding of what is being asked of them, and greater skill acknowledgement. It was also brought up to us that we could have included more reinforcing cues during our culminating game, which we will bring into our lesson at Lansdowne.
In our upcoming lessons at Lansdowne we will use the recommendations by Tim and our peers to help improve our teaching. These include; creating boundaries and targets to move student’s partners around, as well as creating different shaped courts to force partners to think about their pass to an open space to gain a point.
In conclusion, we feel that this experience was beneficial. Having the chance to run through our lesson before teaching it in a school gave us important insights and feedback on how we can improve to better promote student learning and understanding.
Artifact 6 - Teacher Notes Reflection
The above pictures are feedback from our teacher at Lansdowne Middle School. She gave us feedback throughout the lesson on good ideas and areas for growth. In our lesson, we had varying levels of skill in volleyball. There were roughly 5 students who had a fundamental understanding of the sport, where the other students did not. This forced Brett and I to adapt our lesson to make it more simple for students to understand, while still challenge the volleyball players in the class. We did this through a series of progressions that allowed students to engage with out teaching cues for the forearm pass. They were get behind the ball and getting into athletic stance.
We decided to split the class into two courts, and we both monitored one. I found that in our separation, my court was struggling, so I incorporated modifications to our game. Students could catch the ball and throw it over, catch the ball and self pass, or directly pass the ball over the net. This allowed students to gain some confidence in their abilities.
There were a few instances in which students questioned our teaching methods, or joked around. Brett and I reinforced the behaviour with a reminder to be on task and cues to execute the task. By the end of the lesson, students were asking if they could do our activities again in the next PE block.