Lab C- "Curling on Ice!"

Here we are now in November, and with this time comes the years colder weather, so our class prepared for it by holding the days lesson in the ice arena. My partner and I (Brad) taught our International Lab C on a Curling Unit. Curling, the sport form, began in Scotland in the 16th century. The game has now evolved to what we see today competed at the games highest level in the Olympics. Other Curling Associations are in place and are successful, but is just not popular enough, yet for recreation play.

Now into the bulk of our lesson but first have a look at our Lesson Plan. Brad started off the class period and got us all acquainted with the ice as everyone seemed excited with the change of atmosphere. The cues for the day were the 3 L's of Curling: locate, lean, and let go. These work for all the types of throws in Curling which are, the draw, take-out, and guard. My lesson focus was on the take-out throw as we targeted in on Locating the pin. I did this in two ways first through the game f King Pin, and then worked up to more of a game type scenario by throwing with the presence of a friendly stone. While teaching this lesson I felt comfortable and confident, even though before hand was pretty nervous. Once I got into the swing of things the lesson started to flow. Parts that need to be work on for the future is that I need to just say what needs to be said and get caught up on one issue. This will come with more practice of the lesson. This comes into play when explaining drills or games for students to play. For this lesson the activity time was down from my previous class, but that can be due to the differing topics. Have a look for yourself at my Time Coding Form. This document shows what is going on in the class broken down every 10 seconds.

After watching the clip of my lesson, I realized a few things: one I never really did a demonstration, and two I really did not give much individual feedback. You can see for yourself by viewing my Feedback Analysis Form. I did engage the class and interact with them going down the lines checking up on the scores. I would personally not really consider that Feedback, but could be more of a check up to keep students on task. Throughout the class however I did reinforce the cues while making my way across the ice trying to stress the importance of Locating your target before Letting go. Also in dealing with the ice and the set up of the class I was really in control, but that at the same time that made it more difficult for me to get around the class to every individual. Ways I could improve on these areas could be to possibly single out groups, and then point out the good and poor parts of their attempt. This could be used as a demonstration if the group really has the skill down and a good way to give feedback too.

In closing I have to say that its a good thing I did not have to do a Transcription Analysis Form because every time I addressed the class I said "you guys." Not until the very end did I say "boys and girls," so over the next couple of weeks before my Lab D teaching experience I will try my best to kick the habit. That's all folks! Thanks for reading!