PHED 239 High School Module Teaching Reflection Template DIRECTIONS: Include the following information to help you

u organize your reflection paper into the different sections/paragraphs. A. Teaching Behaviors: For each teaching behavior, reflect on what went well AND what needs improvement AND why. You are NOT reiterating what you taught! 1. Planning/Preparation 2. Lesson Content 3. Transition/Classroom Management 4. Content Delivery 5. Feedback given by you to the Students 6. Feedback you received from Cooperating Teacher B. Final paragraph - discuss what was/were the most important thing(s) that you learned while teaching today. FORMAT: Top of first page should include the following information. Your name Date of lesson taught / lab day Lesson # (1/4) Lesson focus Name of cooperating teacher Name of high school Submit reflections via google drive one (1) day after your teaching episode. Remember to use correct grammar, spelling & punctuation deduct .25 for each mistake. If after the first reflection there are significant grammatical mistakes, you will be required to seek assistance from the Writing Center prior to submitting all future reflection papers - - documentation required - submit maximum of three (3) days after teaching episode! Joshua Lombardi February 6th, 2014/Thursday

Lesson #1 of 4 Backhand Serve in Badminton Mr. Gerry East Longmeadow High School

A. Teaching Behaviors: For each teaching behavior, reflect on what went well AND what needs improvement AND why. You are NOT reiterating what you taught! 1. Planning/Preparation I thought the planning and preparation for this lesson was very appropriate and worked well with the lesson. For example, while lesson planning I planned to have an uneven amount of students which made it easy during the teaching epsiode to solve the problem. While planning, I planned so that groups of 3 could be allowed if necessary and the third person would rotate in for someone on their team with every point. This allowed students to receive the maximum number of OTRs because everyone had an equal opportunity to participate. While planning I needed to create a better motivational object or a higher extension for the first activity which was simply performing the backhand serve without volleying. Now, reflecting on the lesson I realize I could have had the students aim for their partners racquet and the partner who wasnt serving would choose where their racquet was held. Even a simple extension like this would have kept the

students practicing their backhand serves rather than me having to remind students when they were advancing before I wanted them to.

2.

Lesson Content The lesson content was appropriate for these students because the

students had played badminton before, knew the rules of badminton, but they have never practiced the backhand serve in badminton. The students understood what I was teaching them by the end of the lesson even though it took some corrective and positive feedback. The backhand serve was somewhat of a challenge for the students at first; however, once they practiced and I gave them some feedback their backhand serves looked good. The content was challenging enough for the students where they had to work both physically and mentally; this was evident because not everyone understood why a backhand serve would be used right away and not everyone understood how to perform the backhand serve right away. 3. Transition/Classroom Management Most of the transitions during this lesson were quick and effective. With the exception of the first transition, the students were moving quickly and didnt waste any time. I think this is due to me encouraging the students

during the first transition when I saw they were being sluggish and told them to pick it up. The students seemed to respond well to me encouraging them like that and it set the tone for the remainder of the lesson. One thing I would change about classroom management would be the location in which I had the students put the racquets and shuttles at the end of the lesson. Even though I didnt have the milk crate on my side of the gym I should have had the students put their racquets on the floor closest to the dividing door. This would have eliminated me having to pick up the racquets and carry them a farther distance than necessary; especially because I had an extra minute or so where the students could have done this. One part of the transitions that I would change if I taught this lesson again would be to better describe how the students rotate from court to court during the games. This is probably because the idea I had for rotating courts made sense in my head; however, I did not do a good enough job of explaining what I wanted. The rotation method I had planned was very effective and efficient I just needed to do a better job of explaining to the students what I was looking for. This did not cause a major problem or modify the lesson in any way but it is something that definitely needs improvement. 4. Content Delivery

I feel as though I delivered the content well to the students and they were understanding and learning from what I was teaching them. For example, even after I demonstrated, some students still did not understand how to put the grip of their racquet higher than the head of their racquet while serving. After I provided those students with feedback and demonstrated several times for them, they understood what I was looking for and they were able to perform the backhand serve. I thought this was a relatively simple lesson for the students to learn because the students have used a backhand shot while playing badminton before. The only difference would be serving and even though its with that same backhand and thumb grip position it was somewhat difficult for the students. I was very glad to see that all of the students could perform a backhand serve efficiently by the end of the lesson. An area that I need to improve on is focusing on the why of the lesson. For example, I should have had students thinking about why a backhand serve would be used as well as what situations would be appropriate for the backhand serve to be used. If the students were really feeling up to it I could have had them think about how to deceive their opponent while using a backhand serve. I know at the high school level its very important to focus on the why because it keeps students interested in the lesson and motivates them to use what they are being taught during gameplay. At the end of the

lesson I did touch a little bit on why the backhand serve would be used; however, I did not go as in depth as I would have liked.

5.

Feedback given by you to the Students I thought I gave the students a lot of really great diverse and meaningful

feedback. I used a lot of specific feedback to fix the students form while performing the backhand serve and I also used positive feedback when the students performed the serve correctly. Also, I found myself saying a lot of nice volley, nice smash, or good backhand. This is important because it provided a reminder for the students that I was constantly watching them and I wanted them to succeed. I also found myself providing a lot of individual feedback that was both positive general and corrective specific. There are two areas of feedback that need improvement; more global feedback and I want to try to be more of a commentator during gameplay. Even though I provided a lot of good individual feedback it would have been appropriate for me say to the students I like how everyone is performing the backhand serve or all of these backhand serves look great because all of the students were very good at performing the backhand serve. This also would have alerted students that I was paying attention to all of the them at the same time. As for being a commentator, I feel as though this is something that comes along with

becoming familiar with the students and once I really have their names down pact then I will feel more comfortable doing this. Today, I just did not feel very comfortable being a commentator for game play but I am going to try to do this next lesson as Im sure the students will really enjoy it.

6.

Feedback you received from Cooperating Teacher For todays teaching episode Meghan provided me with feedback. She

provided me with a lot of great feedback and we talked about some things that should be done differently and some things that I need to work on. For starters, something that took me a little while to pick up on was that there were extra shuttles as well as the shuttle container on one of the courts that the students were playing on. While no one got hurt this is still a safety hazard and it was something that could have been avoided with a few simple words, make sure the court is completely clear before you begin playing. It would have been completely appropriate to put that responsibility on the students as they are old enough to see any hazards and clear them off or let me know and I would have taken care of the problem. Eventually I did see the problem and thankfully no one got hurt; however, this could have been a costly mistake and I need to pick up on hazards like this more quickly. Another thing that Meghan

and I talked about was the waiting period that should be used after blowing the whistle. Immediately after blowing the whistle I began talking and not all of the students stopped their activity and began to pay attention to me. This is a very simple fix, all I need to do is count one-one thousand two-one thousand and then begin talking and all of the students would probably have their attention focused on me. Meghan and I discussed that for badminton doubles its very important to cover the topic of communication which I did at the end of the lesson during the closure. When I discussed communication, I explained the why of communication and why its important to communicate with your partner and how communicating can minimize mistakes. B. Final paragraph - discuss what was/were the most important thing(s) that you learned while teaching today. While teaching today, I learned how important and effective it can be to just talk to the students and try to relate to them. For example, the students definitely did not have much respect for me at the beginning of the lesson; however, towards the end of the lesson that level of respect was elevated. During the lesson I tried just talking to the students to see what their interests or hobbies are and I tried seeing if anyone played sports or anything like that. In a way this brought me down to a more friendly level with the students and they responded to me doing this. I definitely maintained the student to

teacher relationship with the students but I also got to know them a little bit and this benefited the level of respect they had for me. The most appropriate time to talk like this with the students would be before class, during the warm up, or at the end of class; however, today I did not do that. Instead, I did it during the middle of the activities; this caused one of the students to get off task. While this was not a huge problem and the positive definitely outweighed the negative this is something I will work on during my next teaching episode. Another important lesson that I relearned today was that I need to display my enthusiasm more effectively. This has been my biggest problem while teaching and there has only been a few teaching episodes where I have effectively displayed my enthusiasm. I notice a huge difference in lessons where I display my enthusiasm versus lessons where I do not display my enthusiasm. The students respond and feed off the energy a teacher brings to a lesson. This is something that I need to be more mindful of when teaching because it makes a huge difference in the lesson. Starting the lesson off with that high level of energy and enthusiasm sets a great tone for the rest of the lesson and makes the lesson run much more smoothly. Quite frankly, its a lot more fun to teach a lesson with that high level of enthusiasm because of how the students respond to it. This is something that I fully plan on focusing on

during my next lesson.