Tyler Bates

Tiger Pride
DT: Final Summary
In this semester of Tiger Pride I have had a great time getting to know my students and
learning more about who they are and what they are passionate about. My Tiger Pride class by
the end of the semester ended up being a total of 26 students. On top of that about half of the
students I was teaching were English learners and this was the most amounts of students that
have ever been in one Tiger Pride class. The class that I had taught was in 3rd grade and their
skill sets had varied from low skilled, average skilled and high skilled. The content that was
addressed over this semester consisted of cooperative learning, spatial awareness,
chase/flee/dodge, throwing and catching, passing/ trapping (soccer), passing/ball handling
(basketball), line dancing, and a cumulative lesson across what the students have learned in Tiger
Pride.
Though each unit had its ups and downs, I truly believe that I produced successful
learning across the whole semester. I felt that my students had really progressed in both their
psychomotor skills and in the affective domain of being positive and encouraging with one
another. The unit to me that stands out the most where I feel that my students progressed
exceptionally was in the unit on throwing and catching. They showed me that they grew
progressively throughout each lesson, and as we came back to throwing and catching for the
cumulative lessons, they remembered most of the COTS and they remembered the movements
especially for underhand tossing and catching. I think that in the beginning of the semester I
would change the way I taught, because I had felt like I had no control over my students and I
did not look forward to making a great lesson plan for my students. I would change the way I

interacted with my students and would make sure to be more enthusiastic and converse with
them outside of the school context. I would do this because I think that it would help me
produce a better connection with my students and want to give them my all in my lessons and
how I teach. It would have improved my thoughts that had gone into my lesson plans at the
beginning of the semester. Also, enthusiasm is truly important in any lesson because it will most
likely increase participation from the students because they know that you are excited about the
lesson.
I believe that overall I had provided adequate lessons and helped aid my students in their
learning experiences, but even so I do not believe that I collectively across all 8 weeks provided
all 4 criteria of a learning experience every lesson. I think the biggest dimension that needs to
be worked on in my teaching is providing the maximum practice time in each lesson. Even
though I put time and thought into my lesson plan to try to compensate for management time, it
seemed that I had never had lower than 6 minutes of management in each of my lessons that
consisted of 30 minutes each. I think that I need to work on how I transition, grouping, and
getting their attention quickly at the beginning of the semester. What I found that had been
challenging about trying to have my students reach 50% MVPA was that some students would
just not want to do the activity. Other reasons that made it difficult to have all students
participating 50% of the time was that students wanted certain partners which made it hard for
transitioning, and also trying to make an activity where all or most students participating could
sometimes take more thinking to actually create such an activity.
All of my students in every lesson had an opportunity to practice at a higher level. I was
able to ensure this by having tasks that had addressed the psychomotor domain, and for students
that had excelled in my lessons I had made extensions to each skill. I also made sure to have

application tasks to simulate game like activities and refinement tasks for those that had
difficulty with a particular activity. One thing that I think would increase their success in
practice opportunities would be to have them understand why each lesson is important, and be
more efficient in transitioning and grouping. This will allow my students more time to practice
their skills and understand why these motor skills are important to have. I offered numerous
chances for my students to progress and develop their skills by doing many activities each lesson
pertaining to the skill in each unit. I did this by trying to be as efficient as possible in my
lessons, and having extensions for the students so that I could keep reaching the Zone of
Proximal Development (ZPD) to where they could still achieve the task but were also challenged
in the activity.

I think I could improve this even further through creating more creative

application tasks that involve all students in the skill being worked on.
During each teaching episode I tried to be involved with them so I made sure to keep
moving throughout all my lessons and for the whole lesson. I would observe my students on the
perimeter in some instances but I also went through activity space and at times participated with
the students for encouragement and increased participation. In each lesson I made sure to
provide the COTS for each movement that was worked on, and I made sure to explain what I
meant through demonstrations as well as provide feedback throughout the lesson to reinforce the
COTS. I tried to be quick and clear on my instructions but at times it was hard to be quick with
my instructions because students were not listening which increased my management time.
When I did have instruction time I made sure that most if not all of my students were in front of
me and that they were listening to my instruction. I provided feedback to all of my students
throughout the lesson when they were in activity, to the low skilled students, average students,
and even the students of high skill level. There were times where I had to manage behavioral

issues and felt like I could have provided more feedback to students but I had to sacrifice it to
make sure learning was not disrupted. I learned that when providing proper demonstrations that
students felt like they understood the activity much more quickly. It was even more important to
have demonstrations that also had students in it because it helped students think that they could
do the activity because their peers are the same age as one another. I liked to use the whole-partwhole method when doing a demonstration to break down the skills movements and then I would
do the skill at normal speed so that the students could recognize the proper movement of the
skill.
I made sure that all of my students or at least most of them were listening and able to see
my demonstrations, and tried to make the demonstrations clear and understandable in each
activity. In every demonstration I made sure to have at least one student assist me but many
times I had more than one student in my demonstrations. Many of the students could then
replicate the movements needed in the activity following the demonstrations, but there were
times where I think I could have used a corrective demonstration to the students to ensure they
would not do something incorrectly or address the whole class when correcting a movement. I
learned especially that it is important to have equipment ready at the beginning of the lesson to
make sure that the students did not become distracted when I would put out equipment so I did
not disrupt the learning environment. When students were being disruptive, I learned that I
needed to address them if they were disrupting other peoples learning, but if they were doing
their own thing and I could keep an eye on them I would let them do their thing. My teaching
did not show consistent enthusiasm until midway through the semester, because I felt like I was
just managing my class and was too serious, so I made sure to be more enthusiastic in my
lessons. Some teaching skills I thought I did well throughout the semester is my control of the

classroom, showing demonstrations with students involved in them, and my teacher movement.
I would like to continue working my enthusiasm in the classroom, transitioning into the next part
of the lesson, and grouping/pairing my students effectively.
Looking back on my teaching experiences in my lessons I have some information I would
like to share with the incoming delivery team. The first is about when teaching elementary is
that it is important to be clear and concise when demonstrating and giving instructions and
making many activities so that students do not get bored of the lesson and can kep practicing the
skills in different environments or different applications. The next lesson is to make sure
students do not control the classroom, show them that you are in charge of the class and that it is
your way or the highway. After they realize they cant get away with such behavior the will be
more inclined to follow your directions. The final lesson is to not let a lesson that goes badly to
affect your mood or your outlook on teaching. You need to just move onward and make sure
that the next lesson goes more smoothly and better.