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!