| Date: | 22nd February 2016 |
| Group or individual with whom I worked: | Year 7 boys, 6th form class. |
BEFORE my placement …
| What am I aiming to achieve from my placement today? What do I need to be mindful of? What issues/questions need to be addressed to ensure I achieve my aim? Do I need to be aware of particular theories, or have particular skills? Have I thought about all of the ‘what ifs’? |
| Before getting to placement I was aware that it was the start of a new half term, therefore I didn’t know what activity my year 7 class was going to take today. I therefore brought my resource folder into placement with me today, so when I knew what I was going to be involved in I could offer ideas for the lesson. Knowing that it was the first lesson in a sequence and the students would also be unaware of what they were doing it therefore it was essential that I found out before hand to ensure I could help keep them entertained especially as it was the first day after half term the students could be restless.
The second class I had today was the 6th leadership class, as previously established myself, my placement partner and the lead teacher were going to meet in our free period to plan the delivery of the lesson for the 6th form as their rugby tournament approaches closer the foreseeable lessons are simply touching up.
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DURING my placement …
| What did I notice happening around me today? What was I thinking and feeling? How was I involved? Did I do anything to intervene and change the situation that I found myself in e.g. how I conveyed a point or whether I decided not to do something I had planned to do? Did my reflections at the time change the session I had planned or my actions? |
| During tutorial time, I found out that the lesson with the year 7 boys was going to be football, a strong point of my own. I felt very excited for my first opportunity to teach my strongest subject, I decided to take a previously planned lesson plan showing the teacher before the lesson and asked if I could use pieces of it. With about twenty minutes of the lesson left, the teacher asked me to deliver a dribbling relay which I had planned for, I conveyed the point of short close touches when dribbling by modelling it in front of the class, I believe this had a positive impact as the students seemed to demonstrate the teaching points as well as completing the task as I expected.
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AFTER my placement … (based on the Gibbs Reflective Cycle)
| Describe the activities you undertook whilst on placement today. Set the context, what you did and what happened. |
| During first lesson whilst the lead teacher was taking the warm up, I set up a dribbling activity for the students. This was by setting up cone gates and allowing the students to dribble through one gate, and then attack another gate. The aim of this was to be able to dribble through as many coned gates as possible within the time frame. This would act as an indicator to their ability. When they were dribbling through the cones, I would walk around the outside of the coned area giving individual feedback not yet reinforcing the teaching points as they had not been formally introduced as of yet.
The students were then gathered to the whiteboard area, the teacher introduced the teaching points by asking the students what they thought was important for dribbling before guiding them to the right technique. I then worked with small groups of ranging ability, offering them the opportunity to ask me individual questions about the teaching points away from the main group. I also managed to challenge the higher ability groups by asking them to move quicker with the ball without losing it. I found that some of those managed to dribble faster whilst still maintaining some control of the ball whilst others technique became poor. Finally for the remainder of the lesson I introduced a relay style competition where the students had to dribble to the other end of the hall, back around and stop the ball for their partner. When this level of competition was introduced the form went downhill.
In my other lesson, the build up to the student’s tag-rugby tournament is getting closer. The students covered the roles and responsibilities of the day last lesson, so the teacher, my placement partner and myself designed a complication sheet, of different things to consider (see pictures) and possible problems the students may face. We then discussed this with the students and their answers were the same as ours. This suggests that they are on the correct wavelength this was found by using open and closed questioning, linking to the teaching standards. Finally, my placement partner and myself refereed a netball tournament for year 5’s hosted in the Bodmin Community College sports hall, this was due to the fact that a member of staff called in sick. |
| Document how you felt through-out your placement today. Were you anxious, confident, pleased or disappointed? |
| Once I discovered the new scheme of work the students would be moving onto was football, I could not wait to get started. I felt extremely confident within my self to deliver a football lesson, as I had resources with me.
During the HSLA lesson with the 6th form, I began to feel excited about how the day was forming.
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| Evaluate today’s placement activity. What went well, what went badly, what would you have done differently? |
| I think that the warm up activities went very well, the students seemed to understand the teaching points and especially that control of the ball was important. I feel as that by entering small groups offering feedback the students took more information on board.
I feel that the discussion and troubleshooting with the HSLA group also was productive. I feel that my designing a sheet with our ideas on it that we managed to push the students in the right direction but still allowed them to feel as if they were directing the conversation.
I feel though that given the chance I would take the emphasis off of competition at the end as their technique went down, whilst competition can be fun for pupils it is more important that they keep good technique.
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| Take a deeper, analytical and critical approach to today’s experiences. Can you make connections or apply academic theory or current policy to understand why today’s activities went well or went badly. |
| (Reeves et al, 1987; Green, 2008) suggested that if students have low competition within their lessons, then they will progress more. Prusak, (2004) claims that instead of adding competition, the pupils are challenged more by allowing them providing independent learning tasks that allow pupils to identify achievement. Green, (2008) even saw too much competition as “damaging” to low ability students. If some students are failing within competition. I believe that the current academic theory asks the question that why does technique decrease when competition is introduced within PE lessons? I believe that low ability students within the classroom were isolated when the rest of the students within the lesson had finished their relay they had to continue and when they were still running in the relay the effort was not the same. It was also apparent that students forgot about the technique of dribbling and just tried to be faster than the person next to them. Capel and Piotrowski, (2000) suggest that because PE teachers have had success in competition they see the benefits of competition more than the students. Capel and Piotrowski, (2000) suggest that competition can lead to cheating, failure to assist others and even a lack of co-ordination, which could explain why the level of performance went down.
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| Draw conclusions. What have you learnt from today’s activities and your reflections? |
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I have learnt from today, that competition can reduce the students’ form and technique. Therefore it is essential that a healthy balance is found where students can compete against each other, but at the same time that they still use the teaching points.
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| Action plan. How will you apply what you have learnt from today’s activities to the rest of your placement and your future professional and personal development? Do you need to undertake further research or reading? Are there courses that you need to undertake to fill a skills gap? |
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In future, I will use the current literature that can help me to implement competition within lessons without losing the technique. I will also use the advice of my UPT.
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| Have any questions arisen today that I need to discuss with my Placement Supervisor or University Placement Tutor (UPT)? |
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How could I still involve competition within a lesson, without ignoring the previous work?
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RETURNING to my reflections …
| It is often useful to return to your reflections after a period of time. Revisit the experiences you had; think about how you felt (positive and negative feelings) and re-evaluate your experiences. Do you feel differently about the experience now time has passed have your feelings changed in light of the experience or do you now view the experience in a different light? |
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Returning to my reflections I believe as if the competition whilst it can be more fun proved to be detrimental to the activity.
Whilst I am a big believer in competition and do see its obvious benefits, I believe that on reflection, the introduction of competition may be better timed. For example when the students are becoming more component with the skill.
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