Teach PE Like a Rockstar: Power Yoga!

Today was the first day for Lab D! It was my time to teach and set the bar for the rest of the class since I was the first to go! My focus for the class was Power Yoga! This lab took a lot of time and preparation to get ready for considering I had to teach for 35 minutes, which is much longer then ever have before. Also I had to try and teach in the style of “practice”. On top of the task of teaching yoga, I also had a fitness/wellness focus of “why PE?” I had to introduce to the class.

I started off my lesson with an instant activity that would teach students about why PE is important! The activity was just a simple game of “speed walking” tag but the taggers had to carry heavy backpacks and pass it off when they tagged the next person. I was hoping with this activity the students would realize that when you have to carry extra weight being active is harder and not as fun because of it. So after they finished the short activity I explained that 31% of NYS students are overweight or obese so PE is important to teach students to live an active lifestyle instead of a sedentary one. Not only does PE give everyone a time in their day to be active but also can teach students activities they can enjoy in their own time.

Next I had everyone get a partner and find a station where there was yoga poses. There were a total of six stations and two people at each station. All the students were at a station for about 2 to 3 minutes and had to practice the pose and they could challenge themselves or modify the pose if they needed to. At this point in the lesson I walked around and gave feedback and helped them figure out the proper position. Also at one station I had my iPad set up for the students to record themselves while they were at the station. I would then use this as my assessment later on.

Then after everyone had been at each station I brought everyone back together as a group to perform a full routine. They followed a video that had specific directions of poses to perform including poses that they worked on in the stations. The video they followed I created myself, so during this time I walked around and gave feedback and corrections. The routine was 11 minutes long and was designed to get them working up a sweat! Then I closed my lesson by asking them to name a few poses and the muscles that were important to perform the position.

Overall I was very happy with how my lesson went! I feel that I have really grown since my very first day! During the first lab I was so nervous, my voice wasn’t very loud or confident. Then for this lab I felt confident in what I was teaching because of the practice and preparation I had done and I was excited to teach my lesson! This lab took a lot of work but I feel like it was worth it because everyone seemed to enjoy it! With this lesson I wanted the students to work up a sweat and have fun with it and I think by the end of the lesson I accomplished this! One thing I feel I did well was giving specific feedback. During the station I tried to make my way around to each group helping them on certain little things to make their poses better. I also tired to do this during the full routine! After reviewing the my lesson I think I gave each student specific feedback at least twice during the whole lesson!

While I was teaching Professor Yang asked a few students to act out to see how I would handle it. At first Eric said “Yoga is for girls!” so I addressed him by telling him to modify the position in any “manly” way he would like. That seemed to help that problem but then Eric and his partner Max were kept getting off task. At first I just would pay close attention to them and challenge them so they weren’t getting bored, but that didn’t seem to work. So Professor Yang suggested that I would separate them. Then when I had the class switch stations I tried to not make it obvious but split them up, so I had Emily join Max and then Eric was a partner with Devon. This was definitely a challenge to deal with because they were very persistent in getting off task, but it taught me a lesson for sure! Sometimes addressing students isn’t enough so you just have to break them up. Also this taught me that when you have an activity that involves groups or partners it may be best to break up the students yourself so you can make sure certain people are not working together if it could become a disturbance. Also because I had my iPad set up at one station it was almost like my extra set of eyes. After my lesson I reviewed the videos and it showed me how much I didn’t notice because I could in the background some students getting off task that I never noticed. I think from this if I were to redo my lesson I might keep the station time shorter and maybe have the challenges a little harder so they didn’t get bored. One last thing I learned from this lab had to do with my visual aids! I was making so many posters for each station that I ended up mixing up one of the instructions on a poster. So the directions didn't match the pose! Thank goodness it was only on one poster, but next time I will make sure to triple check my visual aids!!

Lab D was a great experience! I was really happy with the result of my last teaching experience for EDU 255! It really gets me excited to get out there and teach for real!!

Power Yoga Resource Packet