Christopher Ngo Tiger PRIDE 9/26/14

Week 1 Reflection

My two days of teaching for my first week as a Tiger PRIDE Delivery Team member was on
Monday, September 22
nd
and Wednesday, September 24
th
. The topic for the week was cooperative
learning in which students were taught how to cooperate with following directions and work together
with classmates to accomplish a variety of tasks. The lesson was taught to 22 fourth grade students with
which the numbers fluctuated day to day. The students had no previously learnt skills taught by myself
as Monday was the first lesson I had with them. Activity took place at the outside playing grounds of
Cleveland Elementary and the equipment required to complete this lesson were cones for Monday and
cones, hula hoops, and soccer balls for Wednesday.
On Monday, for the psychomotor learning outcome, students should be able to perform basic
movement concepts like balancing, twisting, bending, and turning at all levels in order to make their way
across the lines during the cooperative learning activity. For the cognitive learning outcome, students
should also be able to discuss the strategies they implemented as a group to accomplish the problem
solving and discuss strategies they used at the conclusion of the activity and explain at least 1 benefit of
working together to accomplish a task. The key words for the lesson were together, teamwork,
listening, and talking to each other. To hit the affective learning outcome, students should be able to
include teamwork and cooperative learning concepts in this lesson in order to effectively accomplish the
task(s). Effective cooperative learning traits include smiling, high-fives, positive communication words,
encouragement, and accepting of all students ideas and potential strategies for problem solving.
Although there is not video evidence from Mondays class, I believe that I successfully achieved my
student learning outcomes. The lesson was very successful as most, if not all, of my students were
actively participating in the activity. During my assessment between tasks, during tasks, and at the end
of class, I received answers from a variety of students and they were able to recall all of the key words
for the lesson as well as provide benefits for working together to accomplish tasks. The students did not
have any issues with performing the basic movement concepts nor did the class lack hitting the affective
domain. If I were to change anything about my teaching episode, I would change the instant activity to
something more fun because the instant activity was very similar to the main activity. To better meet my
student learning outcomes, I would change my grouping strategies to place students who work better
together in a group because Mondays lesson had a group and a half standing around not wanting to
Christopher Ngo Tiger PRIDE 9/26/14
participate because they did not get along with their teammates which hindered the learning
opportunities of some students.
For Wednesdays lesson, the psychomotor student learning outcome was to demonstrate
movements necessary to effectively chase, flee, and dodge (faking, planting foot) during the instant
activity. The cognitive SLO is that students will be able to identify critical skills necessary for successful
cooperative learning and recalling previous key words of together, listening, teamwork, and talking to
each other. To touch on the affective domain, students will be able to gain confidence in engaging in
physical activity while staying on task. They will have positive experiences like smiling, cheering with
teammates, laughing, and high-fives with teachers and others. I did not successfully achieve my student
learning outcomes because I believe that I could have improved students psychomotor skills more than
I did and that students could have hit the affective domain more than they did. If I were to change
something to better meet my student learning outcomes, I would change the main activity. I
encountered some behavior problems after my instant activity and I altered the lesson in order to create
less chaos. If I would have explained the directions more clearly, then the students would not have been
confused and gotten more activity in to work on their psychomotor skills.
I did not successfully address the 4 criteria of a learning experience. I believe that I could have
done better on providing maximum practice time to my students but that was difficult to attain as there
were a number of behavioral issues that arose throughout the lesson. This hindered the overall flow of
the lesson and the students practice times were compromised. For Wednesday, my total activity time
was 2 minutes, instruction time was 2 minutes, and management time was 23 minutes and 42 seconds. I
could improve on my class and individual behavior management skills to decrease the time spent on
managing students and focus on getting students into activity. I may want to make lessons more fun to
keep the students interest. My first week was pretty rough in terms of getting students into activity.
When they did have activity, they were provided the opportunity to practice at a high level. However,
they did not get many opportunities as management time was very high and consumed most of the class
time. The more effective I get at lowering management, the more successful practice opportunities the
students will receive. I did not get the opportunity to offer students the chance to progress and develop
their skills because my management time was just too high. Once I get this down to about half of the
class, then the students will endure more practice opportunities.
During my two lessons, my teacher movement was fair. I believe that it could have been much
higher if I was able to better manage the class. Throughout the lesson, I remained either in front or in
Christopher Ngo Tiger PRIDE 9/26/14
the middle of the class and was not able to make my way and tend to individuals. Although my teaching
lesson on Monday allowed me to move more freely than Wednesday, I did not travel as efficiently and
was not as effective as I would have liked to be. I provided the cues of the skill for both days and they
were explained and reinforced but my instructions for Wednesday could have been better as students
were confused on what they were actually doing for the activity. On Monday, instruction was more
effective because all of the students were in front of me and actively listening as opposed to Wednesday
where students were off task and not paying attention to what I was saying. I provided feedback and
demonstrations throughout the entire lesson to individuals and small groups. Most of the feedback was
given during activity as I was able to give immediate constructive feedback. I didnt give as much
detailed feedback this week and I could focus on that in the weeks to come. As for the demonstrations,
my students were able to see and hear them but Wednesday was a little unclear as students continued
to ask me what they had to do once the activity started since they were not listening during instruction
time. I utilized a few students for demonstrations to show the class that the task was attainable. On
Monday, I did not have much equipment because it was line activities but on Wednesday I encountered
some difficulties with dispersing equipment because I elected to set up the hula hoops after the instant
activity which proved to be ineffective. I then had students moving my equipment so it delayed activity.
Collecting equipment did not seem to be an issue as students are very cooperative in bringing
everything back in a timely manner at the end of each activity. For the students who were disruptive in
my class, I sent them to either Reggie or Ji to deal with for the time being given that it was my first week
and they were there to provide me assistance in those matters. As the weeks progress, I will tend to
them individually as students are in activity and also talk to them after class to address their
unacceptable behaviors. My teaching did not show as much enthusiasm this week but I know that I am
capable of providing that for future lessons. Three teaching skills that I did well was teacher movement,
voice projection, and keeping idiosyncrasies to a minimum. I would like to work on my constructive
feedback, decreasing management time, and giving clear and concise instruction.
For my next sessions, I could improve on my weaknesses by effectively using my teacher
movement to assess students and provide feedback during this time. I could also decrease management
time by establishing a stronger presence as a teacher and have concrete ground rules. And as for giving
clear and concise instruction, I must learn the material that I am teaching for my lesson to go more
smoothly. I am looking forward to making these improvements next week.