Week3 in Badminton

'Time goes by fast and as we now starting to learn how to "play" the game of badminton, it seems we just started. Using the sport education model does have a learning curve or two. First, as the instructor I am new to this unit so as I try it out I learn what works and what does it but try not to do it to the expense of the students even though it will affect them in a way. Second, the students are new to learning this way so it takes them some time to adjust as well.

I do know a few things that did not work that I must be aware of for next time:
1) Student absenteeism is large at the moment (flu season, early classes,...) which makes role responsibilities a big deal

2) I notice using only a few roles a lot: coach, fitness leader and manager (which I should name score keeper). Because of the number of students attending and the space we have, I rotate students through being the official when needed so most times all students are moving and all get the opportunity to be the official. There is not a lot of equipment so I would not need a specific role for that either.

3) The warm-ups work awesome and I am having students create some warm-up cards on their own as part of an assignment so I am hoping to develop a set of perhaps 10 cards that next semester I can just have in a little box and students can pick out a card. I had the fitness goal setting but did not come around to doing it and even though I think it is important, I believe it would be great in the fitness class. Maybe when the routine is more comfortable for me but I do not wish to overwhelm the students too much.

4) I think I could have done better at instructing the serve... within the model, I used a more direct approach and I just did not feel like that worked well, maybe because I never use direct teaching and do not like being in a situation where I tell the students what to do. This week, I used the tactical games approach within the sport education model and I feel way better!

Tuesday I had students appreciate the game by playing real double and single games and using high and low serves. Thursday I let the students play 1 on 1 on 1/2 courts and discussed the clear and the lob. I started off putting the into a situation where the students had to start with a high serve which pushing the opponent back and makes them respond with an overhead stroke. I had all students one on one but always against a member of another team. Having them do the practice activity in a games situation is great but creating a small match really gets the students to think about strategies. After a few minutes of play, all scores within each team were added up and put on a board which we than counted up in the end to find the points for the application contest score.

Through questioning, the students thought of possible situations when you would use a clear (overhand/underhand) and lob. From their came the focus of the class where I wanted to get the students to move from their "safe zone". Most beginners in badminton seems to stretch their bodies rather than move, get under the birdie and hit so we discussed that and practiced it right in the game situation.

After 3 rounds of that, I wanted to really show the students what I meant by the safe zone and how students need to move and create some type of in and out, star motion. Where students are in the center and move to the birdie but come right back to the center to set up again. I explained the ready position and why weight distribution on toes or heels is important in badminton. I guided students into creating a circulation map. We use circulation maps in PE when observing student teachers to track their movement around the gym and I thought that this type of map can be used in sports as well, specially in tactical games. I modelled how to create such a map by using a dry erase board. I had two students play singles and watched one player. I followed the movement of the player on paper and put stars on the spots where the birdie fell if it was in the players' court. After wards, I asked students what information such a map can provide and I modeled how a coach would use it to provide feedback to the player as well as the opposing player. What was really noticeable was the lack of movement away from that safe zone so I accomplished what I wanted today.

That being said, I did probably make the wrong choice in the end. I chose to do a small application contest on the clear where the students had to try to get the birdie in the "end zone", it took 2 minutes. While I should have debriefed! I know how important it is and I know in this situation I made the wrong choice so I want to make sure I manage my time better next time.
Next class, students have homework and activity logs due and they will take the test. Also, I will continue to work on clear/drop and movement around the court. I may do a small skill assessment (mid way) and map but I am not sure yet... the test is not that long but it depends on how much time it takes students to complete it.

What I am impressed with is how students really seem to enjoy being in teams. One student who was absent yesterday emailed me to apologize that he was absent and that he knew it would affect the team. Last class we only had 1/2 the class show up so it does hurt the teams as far as scores.

There are two aspects of sport education that work amazingly well at this point and I see a value for this in every activity we teach, student led warm-ups and student coaches session. I see students testing each other on the history and laws of badminton and I also see them help each other out to develop the skills in the class. Two students in one class asked to stay after class for a 1/2 hour to play each other and to add badminton on their activity log. I was not sure about the logs and I will see Tuesday what they think about them but I think that as well is an aspect I will come to value!

As conclusion, lots of good things happening, dealing with the learning curve but really enjoying the experience.

Day three! Team management

Day three was all about the team. I started the lesson by allowing them to play a bit until all students were there. Once it was time to begin, I organized the group of students into their teams. Each class holds 4 teams with 4 to 5 students in each team. Each team has a coach, manager, fitness trainer, official and player. The player will take on the job of students who are absent if that happens. During the first day I took the students through the routine of the day.
I started off showing students the exercises on the fitness cards and the fitness leader lead them through the card they picked. Next, I told the students to join their coach and go over anything we talked about the last day. Because we did not learn any physical skills yet, the students went over the history of badminton.
I really like the inclusion of this coaching session because it helps those who were absent to catch up without having the teacher spend extra time with the students who were absent outside of class. The students spent a few minutes on the history and then went on to play in their teams.
After about 10 minutes, I explained some of rules and how to serve. Afterwards, the students practiced serving and we finished with a contest on serving between the four teams.
Most students were very active during the games and seemed to be having a good time.
In the second class I did have an unequal creation of a team where a student dropped the class due to being injured and so one team ended up with 3 students. At that point I asked a student to switch teams. I wanted to see what the other student would say and he said he rather stay with his team as he already got to know them. I thought that was really cool!
So we were able to solve the issue by having a student who had been absent before join the other team. She did not mind it as she was new in the class. I rather not change people between teams so I want to make sure next time I take this into consideration. I usually have students who during the first week do not show up or end up never showing up, or drop the class after a week.
I have thought about this and think that these issues may turn up every time so I either deal with them as they come up or I only create teams after the 2nd week.
Next class the students will go through the routine on their own for the first time and we will learn how and when to do a clear.

Day two! Getting a baseline!

Today was Day two in my badminton classes. As always, the students in 8 AM class looked exhausted. Usually there is a turn over happening in the first week where I still receive many new students that as a result won't know anything about the syllabus so I end up spending some time with these students. I always try to design my class in such a way that it is ok for me to do so.

Here is how the class went:
As soon as students came in, I checked with some basic questions whether or not they brought the required materials and are ready to play. I checked to see if they gave themselves a Personal and Social Responsibility score out of 4 and explained it again if they forgot. Then, I gave them a name tag and off they went to explore the game of badminton. I always like for the students to gain an appreciation of the game by just exploring it in stead of going straight into skill development. Most students enjoy that and it slowly wakes them up :)

As I finish introducing the new students to the course syllabus, I bring the class in to explain the skill assessment portion. They all paired up and one person stands in a designated square with a birdie and racket. On my signal, the person with racket gets 15 seconds to hit the birdie up into the air. It must be at least net high and keeps it going while staying within the box.
After 15 seconds practice they receive 3 rounds of 30 seconds where the partner counts up the number of hits. After one person does it, the other person does the same routine.
That assessment gives me a good sense of the skill level of the students.
Following that exercise, I organize the students into doubles and have them play "keep up".
With 4 people, keep the birdie in the air. As I come around, I watch the students move into space, look at shot placement and accuracy, decision making and returning to base. From their, according to game play I put them in A, B or C which is advanced, intermediate and beginner.
Then I can put them in teams of 4.
In the first class I have a variety of A's, B's and C's so I did not put them into groups yet. I will do so by next class. In the second class, all students happen to be categorized as A or B and with 15 students it was easy to make 4 groups of 4 + one extra, which was fulfilled by Dan.
As soon as I got the second group into teams, I asked them to tell each other 2 things about themselves, name a coach and give the team a name according to a country (not USA). SO we got 4 teams:
1) The Swedish Seniors
2) The Flying Dutch People
3) The Fighting Kangaroos
4) The Vietnamese Venom
I think the teams were very creative and they seem to get excited about starting some small competitions. :)

As I started the last 10 minutes of class, I went over some history of Badminton and some basic rules. I completed with a debriefing of what has been learned and what we will do on Thursday.

When I returned to my office, it was time to create the team playbooks. Given that I do not have a fund for teaching, I was prepared to buy cheap folders in Wall Mart but than found they had colorful clipboards on sale for 50 cents each so I bought a different color for each team.
In the clipboard I now have the following:
1) Pledge of sportspersonship
2) Daily Routine
3) Fitness Cards (3 warm-ups specifically designed for badminton)
4) Fitness check sheet
5) Roles and Responsibilities check list
6) Team Points Score sheet
7) Rubric for P/S Responsibility

Next class I will take a picture of each team and create a title page with their team name.
So far, I got my goal accomplished: be organized and get students excited.

One thing I so far really enjoy and look forward to seeing how it unfolds is the team points. Each team can earn points if all team members are in class actively participating. They can also score points if they win challenges.

What is next? Thursday is all about getting the routine together. I will quickly show a few stretches and exercises on the warm-up cards. Then I let the fitness leaders lead the warm-ups.
Next I will allow some time for the group to meet and go over the theory we discussed. Following I will explain the sheets in the Team clipboard and students will sign the pledge. I will provide a short lesson on the serve and do an application contest. We will do the scoring together for the day and they will finish by creating their own cheer.

I am excited! So far so good!

Sport Education Model - First Experience

Cover of Sport Education Seasons

Well, there you have it. Day 1 has passed.
Besides having the past days being chaotic as far as catching up with papers and exams after going to the PETE conference, I would say bravely to have chosen the task to experience with a new teaching model. The Sport Education Model is brand new to me. In fact, even though I had heard about it, the first articles, research and text I read on it was Tuesday! A little bit late don't you think to start changing the complete design of my course? Yes, I agree but I am hoping it will be worth it.

Last Saturday I was in a session with Dr. Mohr and Dr. Townsend who are at Appalachian State University. They are the authors of the Sport Education Seasons Book.

In that session, the authors discussed the design of their Basic Activity Instructional Program (BIP) at the university where they use PE majors to help teach the BIP courses. I find that very intriguing. In my own education in Belgium, we as PE majors were also involved in instructing activity programs. Usually not at the college level but at the K-12 level. I think any experience the PE majors get as far as teaching PE is awesome. So I started to think about this idea just as I was finishing up creating my own model for helping new GA's with teaching BIP courses.

They use the sport education model as well so while I wanted to try out my own Instructional model for helping Teaching GA's in their first year of teaching BIP courses, I also wanted to try using the sport education model as they (Dr. Mohr and Dr. Twonsend) believe it to be a very effective model for teaching BIP courses.

SO here I go! I was in a slight panic thinking about the fact that I already printed my syllabus and was teaching this course today! I had 2 days to get organized and change my thinking towards the design of the course.
I email both Dr. Mohr and Dr. Townsend and they have shared many materials with me regarding teaching badminton using the sport education model.
So I started with the creation of the syllabus. I used the syllabus I received and altered it a little bit towards the needs of myself being new at this and the context in which I teach. The courses they design are 15 weeks long while ours are only 8 weeks long so I changed a few things.

A few preliminarily observations:

• they use physical activity logs to encourage students to increase their fitness and skill level outside of class. I find that interesting. I created these and hand them out and the students seem to be fine with completing them. The model indicates that you can provide them choice between a personal fitness plan and a physical activity log but I only chose the PA log as I do not see myself having enough time to test fitness levels. While we will be working on fitness throughout, I wanted to start small... and perhaps add more next semester. I just find 8 weeks very short, and really with Thankgiving, it is only 7 weeks we have class. So this is the one area I still need to explore.
• The students will be organized into teams of 5 to 6 and each student will be assigned a role.
• I will use several roles: coach, manager, official, fitness trainer and player. While all are players, the one assigned to the players' role will take on the role of missing students if there happen to be absences in the class.
• The course is designed as a season, with practices, tournaments and championships.A practice would consist of: Warm-up/coaches meeting, skill/theory/tactical review in teams, skill/theory/tactical instruction session with instructor, practicing skills and tactics, contest, and debriefing.
• The first day we go over the syllabus, the second day I will do a skill/tactics assessment and later will create the teams, the third day I will organize the teams, explain the daily routine, learn the history of badminton and do some badminton team games that foster team building. Than the teams are made and we go for 5 lessons through the above routine learning the basic skills and tactics. Later we prepare for the tournaments and we finish with a championship. The final day is a celebration.
• Throughout the season the students will receive 3 tests and 3 assignments. The tests will gauge at their content knowledge while during the assignments I will attempt to have the students connect badminton to the importance of physical activity. The 3rd assignment will be a personal reflection of their experiences using the sport ed model to learn about badminton. In one assignment I will use technology, probably collaborative wiki assignment. And in the other one I will have them the students create either a warm up card specific for badminton, a game card or a skill card that can later be used in my other classes. Each team will have to design 2 of each and they get to choose which one. (these assignments are not completely set yet)

After designing my syllabus, I was talking with Dan about it (who is a new GA in the program). I also mentioned my model I wanted to try out so I thought of a research/paper idea. Dan mentioned how he would like to get started with some research so we decided on a case study.
Dan would shadow 1 of my badminton class this next 8 weeks. After a month, we will sit down and I will explain the steps within my model to creating peac courses. Later in the 8 weeks he will design his Spring courses. In the Spring, we will have frequent debriefing sessions but throughout the entire process we will keep a blog of both our experiences.

Now for the first day:
- Overall I think it went very well but had some students who were let us say "less engaged" which bothers me.
- I guess what mostly bothers me is that some students will go out of their way to get an override, I talk with them and explain to them beforehand that they must be serious about being actively involved. It is often these students who look like they do not want to be there. So, I only had 1 or 2 that seemed somewhat distracted but I will monitor their activity level and involvement carefully next time.
- I explained what I meant by social and personal responsibility and showed the difference between a student in attendance and a student in active engagement. Some students I found seemed at times like I was discussing stuff they knew already. But in fact, when I asked students to move into the badminton court, some would not know the lines and when I asked them about the new scoring system, some students did not know those things either so I know they already learned 3 things!
1) Scoring till 21
2) yellow lines = badminton
3) any player can make a point, not only the server
- I had make to make it clear that using a cell phone in class was not appropriate ( I am all for technology but there is a place and time) and funny thing, I had a student in the open text someone... I actually read it out loud (because it was not harmful really, innocent I believe work related note) and said what would happen if I would see it used in class.
- The 2nd class I think I ended better as I let them just experiment with the racket and birdie.

What's next?
This weekend I have a few tasks:
- Read sport education book
- Create warm-up cards
- Create skill and tactics assessment
- Write out lessons for Tues/Thurs
- Create Personal and Social Rubric
- Check Badminton books

I am happy with day 1, now let's see how it progresses!

zi8 is here!

Zi8 vs Zi6 Kodak Video Camera
After just mentioning to people that the zi6 Kodak digital video camera is the best video camera for PE teachers to use to observe their pre-service teachers I found out a new version just came out!
It is the zi8!



A few informational videos on comparing the zi6 and zi8 resolution:
1) Going to Germany! These guys are funny.
2) Wired: videos and other information.

zi8:
- external mic jack cable
- HDTV connector
- Flexible USB connector less possibility for breakage
- It has 720p (60fps) and 1080p (30fps)
(zi6 only has 720p)
- appears to be lighter and sleeker
- Cost about $179 vs zi6 being $149

Use Video Camera's in PE!

I am here at the PETE conference and some people were asking about the camera I use.
Just a quick note as I keep forgetting the type of camera I use in PE and I think it is awesome.
Using the Kodak zi6, I can tape all my students and they can look at their teaching session right away. I can also directly upload the video's into Youtube, Ning, wikis or other sources.
These camera's are great because you can use them just to tape moving students but I find them also useful to tape motor development sessions. You can slow down the movie so you can analyze the specific movements.
Here is what the camera looks like:















You can review the images right on the camera or upload them to the Internet for students to view. It takes only a few minutes to upload the movies.
At this moment, the product retails for about $150 but at times it goes on sale in Walmart and you can get it as a much cheaper price.