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Reflection essay:
Standard 3. Planning and Implementation

3. A My partner and I taught a 5th grade class at Jackson elementary school. We had about 12 students

total and only taught on one half of the gym. Our goal for this six-week mini unit was for our students to

be able to understand the cues of pickle ball, be able strike a variety of objects and feel confident by then

end of the lesson. When implementing objectives into my lesson, I made sure they were aligned with the

state and national standards and grade-level outcomes for my 5th grade class. Standard 1: The physically

literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns. Strikes

an object consecutively, with a partner, using a short-handled implement, over a net or against a wall, in

either a competitive or cooperative game environment. (S1.E24.5). During our first lesson we had our 5th

grade class strike either to the wall or to a partner as a pretest to see what the students already knew. We

also had different stations throughout our lesson where students were able to either strike against the wall

or strike independently. We also had nets made out of jump ropes and cones that the students could strike

over with each other consecutively with a balloon. Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies

knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.

Recognizes the type of throw, volley or striking action needed for different games and sports situations.

(S2.E5.5c) Throughout the lessons, our goal was to introduce different ways to strike the ball whether it

be a backhand or forehand hit, whether it be a lob shot or drop shot. During my second lesson I had my

students partner up with each other. One student would bounce pass the tennis ball to their partner and

they had to determine whether it would be a backhand hit or forehand hit and try and rally it back to their

partner. Standard 3: The physically literate individual demonstrates the knowledge and skills to achieve

and maintain a health-enhancing level of physical activity and fitness. Engages actively in all of the

activities of physical education. (S3.E2.5) All of our students were engaging in all the activities the whole

time. No one sat out during my lessons. Standard 4: The physically literate individual exhibits

responsible personal and social behavior that respects self and others. Engages in physical activity with
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responsible interpersonal behavior (e.g., peer to peer, student to teacher, student to referee). (S4.E1.5)

When students were going from station to station they were being really supportive of each other even

though they might not of liked that person. Students responsible with equipment and were respecting the

activities I had planned for them. One day I was a tad bit late and all the students were supportive when

asked to start with a walk and talk. Overall, I feel like my activities and objectives were aligned with the

national and state standards.

3. B Over the six-week unit, we implemented pre-control, control, utilization, and proficiency

tasks. My partner and I started off by implementing pre-control tasks with a pre psychomotor

assessment with some basic skills after demonstrating the cues needed for pickle ball. After

demonstrations by the teacher, we moved into skill exploration with the equipment. Each student

was either told to partner up and strike to each other or strike to a wall. This helped us as

teachers to be able to plan our future lessons with the students depending on their skill level. We

noticed that most students were at the pre-control or control level, so when looking at certain

skills, we used our DAC chart to help us come up with activities that would be appropriate for

their skill level. For the second lesson, we started off by implementing very basic skills like

being able to mirror their partner while completing certain tasks and being able to strike the ball

off of a bounce thrown by their partner. Once I felt like they were getting more comfortable with

these skills I let them try and rally back and forth without a net to see if they could continuously

strike back and forth with their partner. I noticed that they were performing the cues correctly but

were not able to consecutively rally back in forth. So, for the next lesson we chose to practice

more basic skills like striking up with your dominant and non-dominant hand and also being able

to strike down consecutively with either hand. Once I felt like they got the grasp we had them try

and walk as they were striking to see if they could still be in control of the ball. After noticing

that it was a little difficult for them, I decided to do stations for my next lesson using ballons and
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beach balls modifying the equipment, so the students could be more successful with their hits.

Students were also able to rally with the wall at a station and were able to try and rally with a

partner using a balloon and a mini pickle ball not trying to focus on the cues. The goal for our

unit was for our students to be able to understand and demonstrate all the cues necessary to be

able to play in a game of pickle. Even though we never quite reached that level, stressing those

certain cues and progressively getting more advanced helped the students grasp the concept and

were almost ready to play a game of pickle ball. Below are a few of the extensions we used to

help create our lessons.

GLSP Extension Refinement Application

NA Can you balance your balloon

Pre- Balance balloon on paddle for more than 10 seconds

control without dropping it?

NA How many times can you hit

Pre- Strike balloon/beanbag in the your object without dropping

control air in own self space it?

NA After each hit and catching,

Pre-
Hit against a wall in self space can you hit the wall in the
control
same spot 5 times in row?
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NA Can you drop your object

Pre-
Striking up onto your paddle and hit it up
control
5 times without missing a hit

or catch?

Variety of tennis, How many times can you

Striking down foam, and whiffle ball strike the ball down without
Control
or shuttlecock and leaving your space

different paddles

Same as above Every time the ball hits your

Striking up without stopping paddle say a letter of your

Control name. can you spell your

name without dropping the

ball?

Variety of equipment How many times can you

Striking up and down alternate hitting the ball up

Control
and down without missing or

losing control

3. C When creating my lesson plans, the whole goal was to make sure students were being active

the whole time during class and not standing still. For this unit especially, it was hard to

implement some sort of movement while also trying to get the students to focus on the cues. One

game I implemented into my lesson was a life size game of tic-tac-toe using bean bags and hula

hoops. Even though students were standing in line waiting for their turn, I had them do some sort

of exercise. In order to be fair I chose the first few exercises and then let them choose the next
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exercise but it couldn’t be one of the ones I used. I was able to utilize my resources by finding

different activities on PEcentral.com to help me find creative instant activities to get the students

moving.

3. D Throughout the lesson, my partner and I noticed that students were struggling using the

foam tennis balls not matter the task or skill, so after a few lessons and students struggling and

not being able to succeed I implemented balloons and beach balls at one of my stations, so the

students were able to really focus on the cues and be successful. Also, at another station, I made

a mini pickle ball net out of 2 cones and a hula hoop allowing for the students to be able to rally

back and forth with each other successfully. I gave students who were higher skilled different

options of different modifications they could use. Some different option for equipment was using

a lollipop paddle versus a plastic pickle ball paddle. After observing the students at different

levels, I decided to challenge some students who I could see were bored during some of the

activities by asking them to switch from their dominant to non-dominant hand if they felt

comfortable with it. If the students were able to complete that we had them flip the paddle over

every other one. One thing that is important is challenge by choice and during my 3rd lesson I

had different stations and told the students that they were able to choose if they wanted to work

with a partner if they felt comfortable or try it by themselves if they were just having an off day

and wanted to work alone. During one of the stations I noticed a student who looked super bored,

so I decided to challenge him and see if he wanted to try with his non-dominant hand which still

wasn’t a challenge for him. After modifying it many times, I soon found something that

challenged him and that could help him improve his overall performance. During one of my

health-related fitness activities I noticed that students were confused, and space became an issue

so I decided to switch up the game on the spot to builders and destroyers because I knew the
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students had played it before and they would instantly be moving after being grouped. Being able

to modify on the fly and challenge those students who are higher skilled is important for a

successful lesson.

3. E The only technology I implemented into my lesson was a plicker assessment assessing the

affective and cognitive domains. At the end of two of my lessons I had the students meet me in

the middle of the gym and handed out plicker cards to each student. Students were asked a series

of 3 true or false/ multiple choice questions about the different cues of pickle ball we covered the

past few lessons. Learning these cues now can help these students in the future not only with

pickle ball but any other sports that require the same set of skills such as badminton, tennis or

table tennis. Below are a few of the questions that were asked. Following that assessment, I had

the students complete another assessment based off the affective domain asking questions about

their confidence level and if they were being supportive and encouraging during the lesson. one

of the main goals during my lesson was to make sure each student was being encouraging of

other students despite their skill ability which is important at a young age because students need

to learn how to interact with other students as well as learn sportsperson ship. Learning these

things inside the classroom with benefit them in the long run by creating friendships and learning

how to be supportive.
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3. F Some metacognitive strategies that I can implement into my future lessons would be

bringing ipads for my students, having them record themselves at one of my stations and then try

and learn based off their mistakes using hudl technique. When students see their own mistakes

through video they have a better chance to correct their form. Any self-assessment I think would

benefit students to be able to think how they did and grade themselves and really think about

how they could improve.

4. A Over the course of my 3-week lesson, I feel like I had a mix of verbal and non-verbal

interactions with students that conveyed respect and sensitivity across all learning experiences.

Going into my first lesson I knew it was going to be challenging going into a new atmosphere

and not knowing any of the 12 students I had. None of them were going to have respect for me

right away it had to be earned and I like I did a good job being assertive when I had to be but

also calm and relaxing when I had to be. After getting frustrated with the students during the first

lesson, I decided to make sure students were on task before moving on. There would be times I

would tell the students to “freeze” and they would continue to play with the equipment. Noticing

that right away I would stay frozen and wouldn’t say a word until all students were in the frozen
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position with their hands on their knees not messing around with the equipment. The students

started to know I meant business and soon realized if they wanted to play they would freeze

when I told them to freeze. One thing students really enjoyed was being able to choose what kind

of exercise they were doing, and I even let them decide whether they wanted a bigger game of

tic-tac-toe or two mini games. Allowing the students to choose made them have respect for not

only me but the game or activity they were participating in because since they were able to

choose it made it more enjoyable for them. Checking for understanding helped me see if students

were paying attention or not during instructions which made the activities a lot smoother when

actually performing them.

4. B One thing I think I did fairly well on when teaching was having student demonstrate

different tasks whether it was at a station or if I had to pause the class and use a student who was

doing it correctly as an example of how it should be done. Without demonstration the students

have no idea what you are envisioning it look like, so utilizing your students for demonstrations

is key. There was one instance when I noticed a lot of students swinging their rackets hard hitting

the ball in all sorts of direction, so I asked a student if I could borrow his paddle and

demonstrated the proper way the activity should be done. Showing this helped the activity go a

lot smoother and not as many students had to go chase their ball across the gym. also, during my

3rd lesson I had six stations that required student demonstration, so they knew what was expected

at each station even though I had pictures of the activity that doesn’t always justify what it

actually is supposed to look like. While walking around to each station I noticed a student who

was struggling with rallying to himself against the wall, so I asked to use his paddle and

demonstrated, but while I was demonstrating I was saying the different cues hoping he was learn

from me demonstrating it. Throughout the whole lesson, my partner and I explained and
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demonstrated the cues each day in hopes that they would worry more about the cues than

actually being able to rally to each other.

4. C During one of my health-related fitness activities I noticed that students were confused on

what was being asked and students were not able to consistently move without getting tagged.

On the spot I told the students to freeze and went to grab cones to change the game. Instead of

continuing that game and explaining it over and over till they got it, I decided to change the

activity to destroyers and builders. The reason I chose this game was because it was short and

simple and didn’t need much explaining. After observing that class before I knew that they have

played this game before which made it easy to set up and quickly got the students moving around

for their warm-up. As students came in for my second lesson, the goal was to have all equipment

set up and ready to go before they got into the gym. I was a little behind time and was still in the

process of setting up, so instead I had the students do a quick walk and talk to buy me a little

time to finish setting up so students weren’t sitting around watching me. Not only did this walk

and talk allow me time to set up, but it helped the lesson go a lot smoother allowing them to

socialize before beginning the lesson for the day. As I was walking around to each station I

noticed a pair that were using the paddles incorrectly while playing the mini game of pickle ball,

so I told gave them certain lines they had to stay behind so they were not hitting each other. Not

knowing whether your lesson is going to work or not I found it very useful to have back up ideas

ready to go just in case one of my activities didn’t go as planned.

4. D Showing up early to teach helped me as a teacher be successful throughout my lesson

because I was able to set up all my activities and have them all ready to go so when the class

came in we could get started right away. Since I was my teaching time was at 8:00 am I was the

first lesson for the day allowing me to get there 30 minutes early and set up all my activities.
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Before teaching at Jackson, I thought transitions were going to be a challenging thing to do

knowing you had to switch from activity to activity in a short amount of time. After teaching

lesson one I learned quickly that asking students to help pick up and set up certain equipment

will subtract the time it would take if you did it yourself. For all of lesson two and three I was

able to utilize the students to help me transition from activity to activity. One of my activities

required 16 stations which going into I thought would be a mess, but all of my 5th grade students

were more than happy to help me pick up all the stations, return all the crayons in the box, and

put their coloring sheets in a pile. I think in the future I will make it some sort of competition to

see what team can help bring the most equipment over the fastest and make it organized to help

speed up the process. While the students were cleaning up the stations I was setting up the next

activity by putting paddle at each station that was already previously set up so by time they were

done cleaning up I was able to start immediately with instructions for that activity. One of my

main focuses throughout the lesson was to make sure after each activity my students were giving

their partner or partners high fives to be supportive despite their skill level. During one of my

instant activities, I had a game where they had to save one of their classmates but in order to do

that they had to give them a high five and tell the person receiving the high five had to say,

“thank you for saving from the black hole”. This allowed the students to socialize and be

engaging during the activity. One of the safety cues I was really stressing was to make sure they

were watching out where they were going so they wouldn’t run into someone else as they were

swinging their paddle. Especially with a unit such as pickle ball it is always important to stress

safety cues while using hard plastic paddles that can really hurt. Because we only had half we

had to set up matts to split up the gym. There were many times my students were not watching

where they were going, and they were running into the matts knocking them over onto the other
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side. One of my routines was to make sure my students were staying in self-space with their eyes

up making sure they weren’t running into other students. I think positive behavior is important

for young students because when they hear that they are doing a great job it could make their day

which can help them stay on task during each activity knowing you are watching. While they

were either at stations or practicing the different cues to themselves I would walk around and

give positive feedback to students letting them know that they were doing an awesome job.

4. E During my lessons, I had a lot of visuals to help enhance my student’s performance. During

one of my health-related fitness activities I had the students rotate stations as soon as I said go.

each station had 3 poly spots which were the designated spots with a picture of the exercise I

wanted them to perform. I had a before and after picture to help them grasp the concept of the

exercise. Another visual I had was a coloring sheet. I think this coloring sheet was a fun way to

get kids to want to hurry to each station because they got the satisfaction of completing one of

the stations, so they were trying to hurry and complete all the exercises before we moved onto

the next activity. Another great way to incorporate visuals was by having some sort of them

during the exercises. We decided to do TMNT themed for one of our health-related fitness

activities. This got the students excited and made it enjoyable.

5. A For my assessments I created plicker questions to help me get a better understanding of

what the students knew and what they didn’t know to help me with future lesson plans and what

I needed to focus on. At the end of my first lesson I created an exit slip which showed different

pictures of people demonstrating different cues that we went over in class. This assessment was a

fill in the blank to see what they knew based off other people performing those cues. At the

bottom of each question I gave a hint of what it could be to help the students if they were

struggling on it. Below shows a graph of each student and whether or not they got the question
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right. A lot of the students struggled with this assessment I think not because they didn’t know

the answer but because they either didn’t care, or they ran out of time. I think in the future I will

rarely give a written quiz and will stick to more authentic formal assessments.

5. B During the end of my first lesson I implemented a cognitive assessment assessing them on

the cues to see if they knew them before even asking. At the end of my third assessment I gave

another cognitive assessment also on the cues of pickle ball. both assessments were different

because one was fill in the blank and the other one was questions off the plicker app asking them

true or false questions about the cues. The goal throughout the unit was to stress the importance

of the cues to be able to be a successful pickle ball player for and for them to take a sort of pre-

test about the cues and ask them later on in the unit to see if they could retain the information.

The summative assessment was very similar in the fact that there was a question about the cues

to see if they could retain all the information throughout the unit. Throughout the unit we could

tell that their confidence level went way up, and they were able to understand the cues even

though they might not be able to fully demonstrate them.

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5. C A reflective cycle is a very important part of teaching because you are constantly adjusting

your lesson trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t work and put it into action. As

teachers we reflect on everything we do to make sure we are doing the best possible job to make

sure our students are having a successful life for a lifetime. During one of my peer teaches I got

to test out one of my health-related fitness activities and it didn’t go as planned, but after being

critiqued and reflecting on how I did, I modified a lot of the activities so that my students would

have a successful time. I noticed that when students were going from station to station the

students kept moving so I ended up putting poly spots during my actually teaching at Jackson

which helped my students be in the right spot. During this six-week unit we were being videoed

and had to write reflections based off our videos. Even though I do not like watching myself on

video, it was important for me to watch myself to see how I could improve for future lessons.

Not only did it help me, but it helped me be able to pick out the students who made need extra

help or who need to be challenged during the lesson. Overall, reflection is key to being a

successful teacher and being able to constantly see where you can improve because no one’s

perfect and can use reflection to help them improve to be the best teacher they can be.