Sharring a part of me with you

Seeing how my professor was kind enough to help integrate our class into the world of technology, and share that with us, I decided to share something too. Evan Tanner happens to have been and despite his passing still is an inspirational factor to my life. This video shows some of his thoughts on life and selflessness. To my understanding he was not only a very adventurous man, but one who lived a life worth leading. Once he heard of a playground being constructed for children he had never met or known, and it is said he called to volunteer. He's a man who had many money troubles, and without hesitation flew down the location to help out, simply because he felt it was a great cause. This is simply one kind act out of many, but never the less it is one that I find extremely inspirational. He's a large inspiration to my life because he lived a life full of adventure but he always seemed to look beyond himself. If you're interested in him, or anything about him, feel free to ask me or Google his name. Also He has a blog page that many consider to be more than how everyone blogs now, it's been referenced as reading a man's soul.

Harry Harlow's monkey experimentations

Harry Harlow's experiment demonstrated the importance of care-giving on a monkey's development. His experiment involved placing a baby rhesus monkey into a in caged location with A mother model made out of wire, and a second wire model with a cloth covering. With multiple groups he'd place a feeding bottle on either the wire or cloth model. To his findings regardless of which mother model provide the monkey with food, the monkey's built their dependency on the cloth model. This shows that comfort is extremely important to the monkey, It even favors comfort over the mother who feeds it. It's interesting to think that this could very much so apply to human infants as well. "This assembly covers about 97 percent of the genome and is based on 6X ... Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome" (http://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgGateway?db=panTro2). This statement shows that scientist have mapped out the human genome, and it is 97% equivalent to that of a chimpanzee. Showing that humans are much like monkeys, so this study could very likely allow us to better understand the cognitive development of humans!

Having fun at St. Mary's

St. Mary's was a lot of fun, as always this time around. With the exception of being nervous the few games, these experiences have been a lot of fun. This time I had the children play a game where the objective was to kick a soccer ball into the other teams pins located at opposite ends of the court. It's just like soccer except with multiple balls, and instead of a goal there were pins. I figured it involve a lot more running with multiple balls, and be a lot more exercise for the kids. I just recently began playing soccer and though it's a lot of fun, it has a far amount of down time. The game worked well for running, but It was a failure in the assessing category. It was difficult for the girl being assessed to be seen clearly kicking a ball. So my teacher then had me change the game up by making the kids break into two kid teams. This allowed everyone to kick the ball a lot more, and made it into a whole new game. Also we realized just one or two kids can dictate the game for the rest of them. During another students game I noticed one kid always held the ball for a long period of time. This could have caused some kids to become bored with the game from it slowing down. Or if one or two kids shoot down a game, it may influence others to follow.

Particular lessons are only learned through experience

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B2i0AptsgigGNDdjNDYzMmYtOWI3OS00NjgzLWE1NTYtNDY0NDdhN2NhNzY0&hl=en

Let Experience be your teacher

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B2i0AptsgigGM2Y2ZjM2MzMtNWNlZS00ZjliLTg2MzctYzg0NTE1MzEwMDNk&hl=en

Getting a curve ball

Last time at Saint Mary's I planned on teaching a game to the younger kids. Do to them being young, I was expecting to sell it through the Easter bunny pitch. Then we got thrown a curve ball, and had to implement our games to the older children. This meant not only was my prepared hook out the window, but my game as well. The game I had planned on playing would have been to simple and boring to the older children. So i had to Switch it up.
Luckily I had considered a few games for this particular skills assessment, so I went with a game that I figured was to difficult for the younger children. It was my favorite game in High school, they called it end-zone football. There are two teams, and the objective is to pass the ball into the other teams end-zone without dropping a pass(this results in a turn over at the location of the ball). The catch is once you catch it you can only take three steps, so it puts an emphasis on passing and teamwork. The game starts by the instructor just throwing the ball up, and what ever team gets it begins the game from there.
End-zone football seemed to go as a hit with the children. Joe even modified it so it didn't get old by placing buckets at each end-zone, and then requiring the kids to shoot the football into them to score. The kid's even asked to play the game after it was done. I'm very happy with how the day went. Despite my happiness with the day, I know I can do a lot better to sell and instruct the games. I look forward to getting better, and learning much more!

Learning through labs!!

SUNY CORTLAND MOTOR DEVELOPMENT LAB
PED 201 –Professor Yang
Locomotor Skills Part B: Lab Three

Name: Name: Matthew McConnell Date: __3-16-10____ Lab Group Day and #: _____Wednesday_____

Tasks
A. To observe the interaction between Cortland students and St. Mary’s students.
B. Locomotor Skills Part B Worksheet.


TASK A – OBSERVATION/REFLECTION

Observe the interaction between St. Mary’s students and Cortland students.

1. Observe the St. Mary’s student(s) as they participate in the activities. Describe the variability of the movement patterns you observed. Be sure to note with whom you worked, what grade they were in, and any differences in age, gender, or ability.

The only activity in which I was able to observe Stevie and Sandra was an activity in which the children how to move differently trough and array of obstacles in order to throw a bean bag at a dinosaur. Stevie didn’t seem to want to move threw the obstacles as he was shown. Even if someone tried to slide threw the cones with him, he would just run through them anyways. I feel as if this had a lot to do with how young he was. I Previously played with a child named Alvin the same age as Stevie (age 5yrs)the first week of lab during free time. Alvin too, really didn’t run fluently, or seem to fully grasp what was going on around him either. Stevie seemed to more so gallop than leap, or slide when he attempted to do either. For the most part he more or less ran instead of doing the designated forms of movement. He did participate fully in the part of the activity that required horizontal jumping. He still has a lot of development to go with those too, but he seemed to enjoy them. Instead of jumping with both feet and using his arms to help him, he kind of jumped and flailed a little. It was almost like the child jumping up and down in the movie “Big Daddy” when he was screaming kangaroo song over and over.
Sandra on the other hand Seemed much more developed, and only at a year older than that of Stevie. She fully understood everything that she was asked and shown to do, and did them all very well. She jumped from one place mat to the other with a two footed take off and landing, all while using her arms to aid in both. She also could cover a fair distance with her jumps, whereas Stevie more or less jumped up and down. The only No she had in any of her observation columns was for her slide. She didn’t completely bring her trailing leg to her leading one. She did partially, but only about half the distance, so it wasn’t close to contacting her leading leg. In both this lab and the previous one it seems as if the girls were further along the path of development then the boys they were compared to. This time there was an age difference, but also A very significant development difference.






2. Describe “teaching strategies” that YOU used today towards connecting with the children. What were they? How did YOU use them? What was the effect? Were there any strategies that were more effective than others? If so, why?

Personally I was assigned to the closet group on this particular lab day, So the only instruction I implemented to the children myself was for the end of the day cheer. I called everyone in to the center of the gymnasium. Except when I called to everyone I made sure my voice was loud enough so every corner of the gym could have heard me well, as we have been discussing in class. Some instantly came to the center while the others looked over but didn’t seem interested. Then I simply kept cheering for everyone to come to the middle, I was actually excited so I didn’t need to act like I was for them to come in. It seemed they picked up on that and all came in to the middle and cheered with us, even the children who were laying on the mats in the corner. Every time we go to St. Mary’s I feel nervous in some way, but this time I channeled that nervousness into excitement, and it seemed to work really well. Without a doubt I feel as if I took a lot from this lab experience.





3. After being at St. Mary’s for these past weeks and observing and working with the students, can you briefly describe an effective strategy (or strategies) that you used to capture the children’s attention and keep them on task for your activity.

Thanks to our lecture discussions on teaching, and the experience we’re getting at St. Mary’s I feel as if I’ve learned many new strategies for teaching the children. The basic one’s that I’ve learned are to: Get down to there level when talking to them- though You can’t get to low or they attempt to latch onto you. Also We have been taught to isolate the children from distractions by having them come into the corner. This prevents them from looking at other things that may be going on behind you. Also you have to sell your game or activity to them. I wouldn’t listen to someone monotone and with no enthusiasm, why would I expect the students to? It’s my job to make the game sound fun and interesting. Even the most fun activities are boring without enthusiasm. Next you have to demonstrate what your looking for to the children. If your activity requires leaping, some may hop or jump instead of leap if they aren’t shown how. Another great strategy is allowing for little variations in the game. If you change the game around even just a little, it’s like a whole new game to them. This way the stay active and don’t get bored fast. Lastly There is a variety of skill levels within the students, so you may want to incorporate options for how they do things. Some of the older students may get bored playing simple tag games with the younger students for they are generally faster and more coordinated. So if you create a game that allows everyone to be challenged and have fun individually or as a group it creates interest for everyone!




MOTOR DEVELOPMENT LAB-Locomotor Skills Part B
TGMD-2: Test for Gross Motor Development- Second Edition- Revised


Name of Students (first names only):___Stevie__/__Sandra Grades:__1___/_k____ Ages: ____6_/___5__
Gender: ___f____/____m____

Locomotor Skills- (Lab 3) Part 2
Skill Materials Directions Performance Criteria Child 1 Child 2
1. Leap Use a clear space During a game or activity, watch a student leap. Tell the student to take large steps leaping from one foot to the other foot. 1. Take off on one foot and land on the opposite foot. Y Y
2. A period where both feet are off the ground (longer than running). Y N
3. Forward reach with arm opposite the lead foot. Y N
2. hohoriHorizontal Jump Use a clear space During a game or activity, watch a student jump. Tell the student to jump as far as they can. 1. Preparatory movement includes flexion of both arms and knees with arms extended behind the body. Y N
2. Arms extend forcefully forward and upward, reaching full extension above the head. Y N
3. Take off and land on both feet simultaneously. Y N
4. Arms are brought downward during landing. Y Y
3. Slide Use a clear space During a game or activity, watch a student slide. Ask the student to slide facing the same direction. 1. Body turned sideways to desired direction of travel. Y Y
2. A step sideways followed by a slide of the trailing foot to a point next to the lead foot. N N
3. A short period where both feet are off the floor. Y Y
4. Able to slide to the right and to the left side. Y Y