Teach PE Like a Rockstar: Table Tennis

I finally taught my last lesson for EDU 255 on the forehand topspin in table tennis for my Lab D lesson. For this lesson I had to teach for 20 minutes with a teaching style of "reciprocal", (students work in a partnership, the performer and the the observer, to give each other feedback on the criteria provided by the teacher), and my lesson focus was "motivation".

I started my lesson with an instant activity that would immediately get my students ready for physical activity, which was yoga that I learned from another student name Trish, who taught her Lab D lesson on yoga. I thought this was a great chance to scaffold her lesson of yoga into my instant activity that the students would remember. After my instant activity, I went straight into telling the students the class rules and explaining what my expectations were for them. I always want my students to follow three important rules: follow directions, safety, and respect. By following these rules, class would run smoothly and would be extra fun!

For my lesson, we were located down in the squash-ball courts in the basement of Park Center of Suny Cortland. I choose this area because it obtained the table tennis tables, and the courts were perfect size for playing table tennis. I had to use more than one court due to the progressions of my lesson, and because of the size of the courts. One room was for my instant activity and the overview of my class rules. The next room was where I explained the three cues for the forehand topspin, which was "reach, grease, and follow through". I demonstrated all the cues in this room with the students and had them practice first with their hand, a bigger size ball, and no table tennis net. We got into some competitions to see who could get the most hits in 1 minute between two groups that consist of 4 players and one table. The next room, I introduced the table tennis racquet, a smaller ball, and the table tennis net. I went over the cues and safety again just to remind the students of what I expected them to do.

Throughout the lesson I fell into some behavioral problems that needed to be taken into account. One behavioral problem came from a student name Stephanie, who began to make a scene during class with a student name Dan who supposedly cheated on her with another student name Leslie. I handled this situation at first by ignoring them so they would stop arguing, then I had eventually split them up to avoid any farther problems. Stephanie still was mad at Leslie, and began to argue with her again during class, calling her bad names; so I immediately sent Stephanie into a corner for 10 seconds away form the class so she can regroup and think about what better actions she could have taken. I thought this worked out well since everything went smooth again and everyone was well behaved. As Stephanie is in her 10 second timeout, she screams out a curse word to Leslie that was very inappropriate; so I removed her from my class and told her to stay outside until I was ready for her to come back in. Eventually I brought her back in, and we discussed again what the class rules were and for the remainder of the class, she finally behaved like she should in a classroom setting. I thought I handled this situation well, as in removing the problem and not stopping the class due to one student causing a mischief.

One thing I did learn from this lesson is that when dealing with older students, you wouldn't discipline them the same as you would discipline 3rd grade students. The students for my Lab D lesson were in 10th grade, and I was treating them like 3rd graders; putting them in straight lines to walk and putting them in timeouts. If I were to change anything about my lesson it would be treating my students appropriately and handling behavior problems appropriately. Other than that, I thought I did a great job introducing and teaching the forehand topspin of table tennis. I had great cues and progressions. My hook was very catchy that the students were able to relate to it. From Lab A1 to Lab D, I have grown so much as a future physical educator. I believe learning how to deal with student behaviors will come with time and experience, and I feel that I can teach in a real classroom setting right now if I had a chance to. I'm so excited about teaching now than ever before because of what I learned from Professor Yang in EDU 255. Lab D proved that anything can happen in a lesson, you just have to be ready for every kind of situation or problem. Teaching physical education is fun and I enjoy it so much that I can't wait to get out in the real world and teach and impact the lives of our younger generation.