Here we have a link to the prezi I made regarding my best and worst moments in sports! I hope you enjoy it!

http://prezi.com/hfd0n1-h7qbq/best-and-worst-moments-in-sports/

E-Portfolio

Here is a link to my work in progress portfolio that will continue to be worked on for the remainder of my college career.


https://sites.google.com/site/jordanbaripe/home

Bittersweet symphany

When I first came to Cortland, I was positive what I wanted to do with my life was teach Physical Education classes. I didn't necessarily know what age group I wanted to teach and I definitely didn't know how good or bad I was going to be at it. However, at the beginning of this semester, when we began to go to Saint Mary's school I truly began to second guess my thoughts on what I wanted to do. The first day there are no questions asked that I was beyond intimidated and it probably was very obvious in my body language. As time went on in the semester however, I really noticed how I was simply just nervous and this is exactly what I want to do with my life. I am happy I noticed this too because I was very close to changing my major and trying something new. I would have seriously regretted it if I was to make that mistake. I belong in the major I am doing now. 

With the last and final lab we had at St. Mary's, I have a very bittersweet feeling about leaving. I am happy because that means the semester is coming to an end for obvious reasons, but the truth of the matter is that I very much will be missing the children and the group of peers I was working with throughout the entire semester. 

I definitely plan on volunteering at St. Mary's in the future because the people there are amazing and so are the students. I want to send a special thank you to everyone in our PED 201 class and to Dr. Yang as well for making this entire experience one to remember and a very special one indeed. 

Kicking and screaming!

At this point in the semester, we have played several games with the students in which I feel to have been very effective and appropriate for the children at St. Mary's. I strongly feel this way because although we are not there every week, I do notice improvement in each of the students on all of the skills our games incorporate. Every time we are there the kids har a good time and keep wanting to play more and more of what ever game we have then play. This is a good feeling and it makes me happy an also makes me realize that the games we play with the students are definitely appropriate for them. There are definitely some limitations to games an activities we can play when we are assessing the students. This is because either (a) the students skill level is not up to par to perform he game or skill and (b) there are many students in the gym participating and it can be distracting and get in tr way of what you are tryin to achieve. The movements we evaluated this past lab were the stationary bounce and kicking. We had evaluated 2 students, one male and one female ate age of about 5. The girls skill level in dribbling a ball at first was not very high. She was slapping the ball with her palm and wa by making good contact with the ball. She also had no control over the ball because of how she was attempting to bounce it. After Dr. Yang personally showed her the correct way to do it, she immediately improved and began to use her finger pads and had control over the ball. It really wa amazing to watch!! This same student was actually pretty decent at kickin a ball. Aside from being skittle choppy in her approach towards the ball, she had decent form. Her opposite arm swung forward and tr trunk also inclined backwards upon impact with the ball. Her biggest flaw I thought was her finish. She didn't ever leave her opposite foot even though your supposed to hop in the finish of a kicking motion. The boy we evaluated had a very low skill level when bouncin the ball. His contact was at about knee when it should har been at about hip level. Also, the way he made contact with the ball was more of a slap than anything. The one thing I must say he was good at was keeping the ball infront I him. Although his form and skill was low, he still managed to keep control of the ball, at least most of the time. This same student had a very nice kicking motion. He had a very continuous approach to the ball an had a very nice follow through in which he hopped and lande on his opposite foot than the kicking foot. Overall, both students were very good at some stuff and need work on other movements. Nothig of which us "rockstars" can't take care of! ;)

Exergame intro

This past week was by first experience with exergameing! It was honesty one of the cooler parts of phys Ed that I have been aquatinted to thus far. I think it's a genius way to engage the interest of younger, less physically active students! Being able to play Idance an games such as that are fun to play and they also require you to think and move all at once. Very similar to the brain bike. I like this idea because it forces the student to move in order to play the games. While using the bike, the computer begins to work and the games can be played as long as the bike pedals don't stop moving! I think this is great because kids love video games and now you can encorporate things the children are interested in within a classroom setting. This is something have to achieve as a phys ed teacher due to the fact that more and more kids would rather play video games than exercise or be outside having fun! Exergameing is a great way to arouse the interest of the class!!!!

A game for the youngins

It'a important for the children's phys-Ed classes to not only be about bein active and physical but also for concepts that open their mind and get them learning other things as well. The game I have come up with with it's variations will increase the students ability to think on the move, with partners or without. The materials needed would be foam animals with removable letters an also foam numbers. What I would have the students do at first would be to simply find the numbers I tell them to. Thy of course would be using locomotor skills to move aroun while looking for these numbers. Then I would have the students do some simple math while looking for the answers in the foam numbers. With the animal/letter foam pieces, I would expect the students to work in groups to formulate words and eventually short sentences together in groups. This can be words they are learning in class an/or simple words that I feel are important to be learning. All in all, the students will not only be learning their physical, psychomotor skills in my phys-Ed classes but also will be learning cognitively every day!

LAB 3 - TAKIN IT OUTDOORS

For the first time sense we have been to St Mary's, my group finally got to change up the scene. While for the past 2 labs we were gym group and special projects, we now were the cafeteria group. This is the older kids and we could have them do more skilled tasks than the younger kids. This was great. However, before we got to do this, we analyzed the younger students in games that involved throwing and catching. I had 2 students to observe which I will label as Student 1 and Student 2.

Student 1, was a male at the age of 5 and he definitely was lacking skills in both throwing and catching. The one thing he did very well was he had a good downward arc with his throwing arm which indicated that he was winding up to throw. However, he did not rotate his hips and shoulders, and his weight did not transfer feet. He stood square to his target and did not follow through beyond the ball release towards the side opposite his throwing arm. It was not the same for his catching abilities though. He did a great job preparing him self for the catch by flexing his elbows with his hands in front of his body. His arms extended awaiting ball contact and although he did not catch the ball every time, he did catch the ball a few times with great form when his elbows bent to absorb the force of the ball. I was actually impressed in his catching ability and thought his throwing needed a lot of work.

Student 2, was a female also at the age of 5. She did a great job in both throwing in catching demonstrating that she knew the skills but still needed to work on them.  Her wind up was evident with here downward arc of her throwing arm and she also rotated her hips and shoulders after stepping with her non throwing hand side foot. Her follow through was the one thing I thought needed the most work. She did not come across diagonally, she came straight down and it just did not look smooth at all. Her throwing was seemed very refined. She prepared with her elbows flexed and her hands out in front of her. She extended her arms to catch the ball. She caught the ball almost every time it was thrown to her with her hands only and her elbows bent every time to absorb the force of the ball. All in all, the students I observed did a great job in both throwing and catching. 

The highlight of this lab for me was when the children thoroughly enjoyed the game we introduced (European Handball). They engaged in it and took pride in succeeding. It became very competitive and they didn't want to stop when we told them time was up. This made me very confident because we were nervous that they either wouldn't like the game or that they wouldn't be skilled enough to play. We were foolishly mistaken because they not only enjoyed it but they excelled and played very well.  I'm looking forward to next week because we have the same group and I plan on introducing a new variation to the game.

The Oh So Great Debate

During this last class we had a really interesting debate about what part of physical education was more important to base a curriculum off of. The three categories were Sticks in Sports, Basic Movement Skills, and Life Time Activities. All three of the teams in the debate had good arguments although some were stronger than others. It was very interesting to hear what the class had to say and it was really cool for the fact that it put us in a situation that will eventually be part of our lives as a teacher in a school district, presenting ideas to the B.O.E.
Although my job in the debate was just to video tape the whole thing, I still feel that I got a lot out of it because I had to really watch and pay attention to each of the teams arguments. Its very important to know the advantages and disadvantages to all sides of an argument and paying attention and listening to what each team had to say gave me that opportunity.
If you ask me,  I think its most important to incorporate basic movement skills with life time activities in to a curriculum because the basic movement skills will allow students to become educated in moving that is used in all sports and physical activity. While teaching students sports with sticks such as baseball is important, it is not as important in educating the students to have healthy lifestyles and to teach them sports that they can stay active in for their entire life that will ensure their healthy lifestyle.

Thinking on your feet

So, I think it is pretty safe to say that lab this week was somewhat of a brutal experience at first. When we got there, my group and I found out that two of the people in our group who had planed not only 2 games that we were planning on playing but also a closing dance were not able to make it for their own reasons. This forced Max and myself to really think on our feet and improvise to make sure the lab went smoothly and we kept the students active at all times. Because this week was a theme of Valentines Day, we related all of our games to the holiday.  This lab somewhat confused me because we've been told that the students normally do not want to play a lot of tag; during the two hours at St. Mary's this week, the children were loving tag and kept asking and asking to play more and more tag games. This worked out pretty well considering one of the games I had ready for the class was a tag game. Eventually we left the gym for some time for snack time and the children also engaged in building with leggos and playing other games such as checkers and mancala. I felt really good about my self during this segment when one of the students grandfathers was talking to me and gave me and the rest of my peers some credit when I saw his reaction that my shirt said SUNY Cortland Physical Education. It seemed as if when he saw this he had felt very comfortable to know that his grandson was in good hands. This made me feel really good about myself and the fact that I am part of such a great program. To close off the lab we were in the gym and played a great game that the kids enjoyed which required the students to work on the locomotive movement skills of hopping, galloping, and running. It was fun to watch the kids play a game that we came up with on the spot that ended up with the them having a good time.
I am beginning to feel a lot more comfortable with talking and giving directions. I still have a lot to learn and experience but this is a great place to start and have under my belt in the future.

Child Abuse

Well I would just like to start off saying that child abuse is sick and its disgusting and anyone who does it belongs in jail for life. It is terrible not only physically but emotionally as well for many people that are close to the child and even more so for the child him/her self. The videos we watched in class regarding child abuse for our training to work at St. Mary's School were very intense and that is why there great for relaying the message about how horrible child abuse is and how serious of a matter it is.

I think its pretty safe to say that we all have heard about the whole Penn State University situation. Before talking about how disgusting Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant coach for the Nittany Lions football team really is, I would like to pay a tribute to Joe Paterno because he was an amazing coach and I feel bad for the situation he was in. Based on the sources I have read, he went to his AD and told him about what he had seen therefore he did what he was supposed to do. However, I understand the firing of him because they needed to "clean house". Okay, none of what was just said excuses the fact that Sandusky is a pig, a disgusting pig who deserves nothing less than to be locked behind bars for the rest of his life. He ruined the lives on innocent children and will always be remembered for that over his accomplishments as a coach at PSU.

I think it is important to know about what happened at PSU as well as SU whether or not teaching is your desired profession. Everyone needs to be aware of warning signs and physical signals that all point towards child abuse. It is wrong and disgusting and ruins lives.

Day 2 at St. Mary's

WOW! There are so many thoughts going through my head right now. Honestly I am so surprised as to how the children in pre-k were so welcoming to new faces teaching them. Today was actually marked a very important milestone for my teaching career. That would be conducting my first arts and crafts session with a group of students. And even though I may not have done all that great with it (even if I did do a good job) I feel great about it! The children loved the activity and they were asking me for opinions and one girl even asked me to write her name on her project for her. It felt good that these young children were learning from ME! Today truly reminded me of why I chose this profession and why I will continue to progress and improve my teaching skills.

learning through physical activity

As we have all learned, it is a fact that physical activity can effect a student positively not only with his skills in movement but also have a better knowledge of how his body moves. Learning to move and than learning through the movement is how a student will improve in his cognitive and affective motor skills. One way in particular would be by learning all of the basic locomotion movements that are used in all physical activity. Physical activity is a very important part of a child's maturation and is one of the most influential on all other aspects of learning.

Class on 1/23

I think its pretty safe to say that everyone in the class today was moved by the movie that was played in class. Its very powerful to hear from both the victims and the abusers through a first hand interview. It does nothing less that make you hurt for the victims. Its sickening to know that these people can go through years of prison and treatments to get over their illness, yet still have no hesitation to abuse again. Its disgusting, its pathetic and it needs to be recognized. That is why we as educators have to be aware of sketchy situations and do not leave yourself alone with a child and also make sure you do not touch the child anywhere that may be interpreted as inappropriate.

Day one at St. Marys School

"Wow!"
That was definitely the thought that went through my head walking through the doors at 3 o'clock Wednesday afternoon. I was not expecting the kids to be so young and wild. But the honest truth is that as time went on and I began to loosen up to the children, I began to have fun. The one thing that may have shocked me the most about the whole day was when one little kid decided that "I squeezed all of the air out of the ball". I told him I didn't do it and he yelled, "You're a liar! You and all of the college kids are all liars!" Now, I have always been good with children and am beyond excited to help teach these kids and perhaps have an effect on their lives. This one little incident made me realize that these kids are going to be very draining but at the same time it is going to be an amazing experience dealing with these kids to give me a better idea of what age group I may want to teach in the future.

1st post- creating the blog

Well I honestly thought I was very tech savvy until this assignment was made. I have never been required to make a blog and the only thing I use that is even close to a blog I guess would be twitter. But that is by no means a blog. I am very open to new things though and this is something I am looking forward to.
In regards to what I did over break that will make me a better teacher and help me further educate my students is that I made my first travel over seas to Israel. I spent ten days there with 50 people I didn't know and learned tons of information that I can share with anyone. Traveling abroad alone is an experience but the fact that I was with 50 people I had never known before definitely contributed to my experience.