PE Major:1

John Metcalf

Physical Education

10/6/17

Submission II reflection

Introduction

While at Pittsburg State University, the college of education and all of my amazing

physical education teachers, have given me all the tools and knowledge necessary to become a

professional, effective teacher. My professors have taught me everything from how to make a

lesson plan to how to include everyone in physical fitness. While I know I still have room for

improvement, as I always will as a teacher, I feel like I am like I am fully prepared for my

professional semester and excited to continue to grow as a teacher.

Learners and Learning:

In my time at Pittsburg State University, I have developed an understanding of

where to find the resources, strategies and how to adapt a physical education lesson to the

students with exceptional needs. I learned this through Adaptive Physical Education class and

Overview of Special Education class. In Overview of Special Education class we went out to

the schools worked one on one with students that needed special accommodations. In those ten

hours of field experience I saw some of the strategies we talked about in class in use and other

that were not mentioned in class, that worked for my cooperating teacher. Now most of the

adaptations we talked about in overview of special education seemed more towards students

with mental disabilities. So in Adaptive Physical Education class we focused on the physical.

We learned how to adapt physical education lesson plans for students that have little or no use

of their legs or for students who have visual impairments.

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In my clinical field experience I was able to refine my skills at managing the learning

environment by organizing,allocating and coordinating the resources of time and space. I

improved those skills during my four teaching experiences. Only two of the were required by

the clinical class, but on a couple of days that my cooperating teacher was gone I was able to

teacher two extra classes. With the gym being smaller than any other gym I have been in before

it challenged me to make use of the space while keeping it safe for all of the students. My first

teaching experience went pretty well except for the fact that I lost track of time at the end of the

class period. That was a great learning experience for me and is one of the main reasons I now

wear a watch. The rest of the lessons went without any major problems.

I learned in Theory and Fundamental Activity III class, how to design experiences using

strategies that enhance learner motivation and engagement. I learned this during our dance

untie. I'm not much of a dancer, but Dr. Spresser was able to make the dances fun and enjoyable

for the whole class. We went to George Nettels Elementary school and had the students dance

with us. We incorporated the same strategies that Dr. Spresser used on us that made us have fun

with the students that acted like they were too cool to dance or were embarrassed to dance. The

strategies worked and the students had a lot of fun.

One of the things I know I need to work on is how to access information about the

values of diverse cultures and communities. How to incorporate languages, experiences cultures

and community resources into practice. I haven’t had much experiences with other cultures.

Also I don’t really know how to incorporate languages and cultures into a physical education

classroom. So I will be paying attention to what my cooperating teacher does to incorporate this

into their lessons in hopes of improving in this area to make me a more well rounded

professional.
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Content

I realize that content knowledge is not a fixed body of facts, but is complex, culturally

situated and ever evolving. I will keep abreast of new ideas and best practices in the field by

continuing going to college even while i'm a teacher. I will go to are state conventions and make

an attempt to go to are national conventions to continue my learning as a professional.

KAHPERD (Kansas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance) is are

state association and they are holding are state conference is in Topeka this year. I am planning

on going to it this on October 25th-October 27th. While there I plan to improve my knowledge

over content by attending to as many of the presentations as I can.

Even though as a physical education teachers we try to move away from technology in

the classroom, I know how to use supplementary resources and technologies effectively to

ensure accessibility and relevance for all. In my Methods and Materials for Academic Literacy

class we gave many presentations using various kinds of technology. I became more familiar

with using prezi, powerpoint and the elmo in a physical education setting. This will help me as a

professional because I will be able to effectively use these resources in a physical education

setting. I also observed in my field experience in carl junction on how to use youtube

effectively. My cooperating teacher showed a video on how to play the game of handball to the

students before teaching it himself. I feel like it benefited most of the students understanding of

the game than if they didn’t watch the video. Other types of technology we can use in a physical

education setting is pedometers. These track how many steps you have taken and can be a cool

tool for a physical education teacher if they can afford them. You can use pedometers and

challenge your students to walk the height of Mt. Everest. Which will have your students

learning geography as well and being physically fit.

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What I need to improve on is having a deep knowledge of student content standards and

learning progressions in the discipline. While I have had practice while working with the

content standards in many of my classes, they just haven’t stuck in my mind yet. I keep finding

myself having to look up the standards each time I have to write a lesson plan. To fix this I plan

to study the content standard more while in my professional semester.

Instructional Practice

In my Measurement and Evaluations 1 class we learned about, how to analyze

assessment data to understand patterns and gaps in learning, to guide planning and instruction

and to provide meaningful feedback. Are main study throughout the semester was the basketball

test. We all went to the gym and had to do the Harrison Basketball Battery test as are control,

since it is an already proven basketball skills test. Next we had to create our own basketball

skills test and compared the two results to see if we had made a more reliable skills test.

One of the way I would engage learners in using technology would be to use an app

called imovie. Using the app I would record short films of my classes performing different

skills. I read about this while doing a paper for my educational psychology class. The teacher

that did this made a short video about every day, I would probably do a video about every

month of all the different activities we have done. The daily videos became a big tool for him as

a teacher because he could film them while doing a lesson and go back later to see what the

students are struggling with. His “daily highlight videos” even started getting posted on the

school website and became a huge proponent for his Physical Education program.

One thing that i'm going to work on during my professional semester is understanding

the theories and processes of curriculum design (appropriate sequencing, developmentally

appropriate instruction, builds on learners’ prior knowledge and experiences). I plan on working
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with my cooperating teacher and studying how he/she sets up their curriculum. This will further

my knowledge of setting up a curriculum when I become a teacher.

Professional Responsibility

In Overview of Special Education we read and talked in depth over all of the laws we

need to know as a professional. Dr. Flynn made sure we knew that we were mandated reporters

and that we only needed to suspect that something was wrong to make a report and notify the

authorities. We also talked a lot about FERPA and how everything we see, we are not allowed

to talk about. That's why when we wrote are reflections for any of our field experience classes

we weren’t allowed to use the student's name.

When using information and technology as a professional you have to make sure you

use it ethically, legally and safely. You do this by giving credit when credit is due. Which

means if you use someone else powerpoint make it know it isn’t your own. Doing this will also

teach the students about copyright laws.

I need to work on understanding and knowing how to use a variety of self-assessment

and problem-solving strategies to analyze and reflect on my practice and to plan for adaptations/

adjustments. I will work on this weakness by observing my cooperating teacher to see what

he/she does to self assess the lessons he/she teaches. I will also talk to my cooperating teacher

about self-assessment; what they currently do and what they did when they first started

teaching.

Conclusion

As my time here at Pittsburg State University comes to an end, I think back

on everything I have learned throughout the years and how it will fit into this final
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semester. The more I think about it the more excited I become. To change the

lives of students, like my teachers did for me throughout my many years in school.

To be able to make the same kind of differences as my teachers did with me. I

know I still have some things to work on before I become a teacher, but that is

what being a life time learner is about always improving yourself for your

students.