St. Mary's Lab 2

During this lab I observed two students, in which I was looking at their running, galloping, and hopping skills. The two students that I observed were Jane, who was six years old and female, and Dustin, who was six years old and male. Both of the students were at the same age and meant that they were in the same grade level, which was either first or second grade. The games in which I observed these two students play were zany zoo and barnyard chase. Running was the first skill that I observed and Dustin met all of the performance criteria. Jane was missing a few performance cues which included that her arms weren’t in opposition and her elbows weren’t bent. Jane was running with her arms down at her side. Also, Jane didn’t have her nonsupport leg bent around 90 degrees. Galloping was the next skill that I observed and I saw that both Jane and Dustin met all of the performance criteria for galloping. The last skill that I observed was hopping. I wasn’t able to observe Dustin hop because he didn’t get to hop during both of the games. Jane did get to hop and I observed that she met every criterion except she didn’t have her nonsupport leg swing in a pendulum fashion to produce force.

I observed different teaching strategies within the two games that I observed which were zany zoo and barnyard chase. During the beginning of the zany zoo game, one of the Cortland students gave the children the directions to the game. I felt that he went over the direction well and he didn’t make them too complicated. He didn’t give too many directions for the game at once which also helped the kids get to understand the game rules. The thing that I thought that he did the best was that he was really projecting his voice very well and had the attention of all of the kids. During the beginning of the barnyard chase game I felt that the two people giving directions to the game presented them well. They didn’t make the directions too complicated throughout the game and the kids seemed to understand it pretty well. The only thing that could have been better was that the Cortland students should have projected their voice better to keep the kids attention throughout the game. There was also one more game that we played at the end of the lab which was chuck the chicken. I felt that the TA that gave the instructions to the game did it perfectly. He was projecting his voice very well and had all of the kids’ attention. He also demonstrated what needed to be done in the game and used a few Cortland students to help him show the kids how the game was performed. I feel that in order to be effective in teaching you need to be able to project your voice, give an adequate demonstration, and also have the children’s attention constantly on you.