Tuesday, November 29, 2011

NYS AHPERD Conference

74th Annual NYS AHPERD Conference there were many insightful sessions to go to. The most insightful ones for myself were the Social/Psychology Of Teaching and Coaching, and Risk Management &Safety In Physical Education both presented by Rod Mergardt. The first session talked about how a sports team cannot be successful until there is a foundation of friendship, loyalty, cooperation, enthusiasm, and industriousness. Only until that foundation is build can the team start working well together and succeeding in the season. This thing that sticks out most from this session was his pyramid of people. The pyramid is broken down into 27% of people in your life are at the bottom of the pyramid, then 60%, then 10% and the last part of the pyramid was 3%. Rod Mergardt said that the 27% of the people in your life are a pain and you should cut out the people that only come and take things and never give anything to you or drag you down. This can correlate to the sporting team where they are the athletes that do not want to work hard and cause problems with other team members. The next 60% are the hard working people that need parameters and need to be told what to do consistently. These would be the athletes that are not your star players but are hard working for a short period of time and will give it all they have but will need to be taken out so a mistake is not made. The next 10% are people that are ones when a mistake is made don’t know how to handle it that they continue to make mistakes until they figure out what is wrong. These would be your athletes that have great talent but continue to think about a mistake and then their whole game is affected by it until you take a time out and help them with that problem and get them to shake off the problem. The last 3% are the people that everyone likes to be around. They always have a positive attitude and are willing to help out even if they don’t receive anything in return. These types of people would be your leader of your team. They are hard working, always asking questions on how they can improve their game. If a mistake is made they take that as a challenge to do better on the next thing they have to do. For example if they miss a open shot in a basketball game they then go on defense and make a great play. You can also challenge these athletes to show them they can still improve. At the end I was chosen to show how this works. Rod Mergardt asked me to jump as high as I can and make a mark and did this 3 times with 3 different types of encouragements. First encouragement was the other people in the room(the team) and the last was a reward.  

Mini Confrence

Exergame At the Mini Conference

At the Exergame booth you get a chance to use some of the technology that is being incorporated into some PE classes. One of the technologies at that the booth was an exercise bike that was hooked up to a Playstation 2. The game that was being played in the system was Cars, and the speed and direction of the car was controlled by the speed of your pedaling and the direction of the handle bars. With this exercise bike the students don’t have to play the game cars. They could be playing their favorite sports game and make rules to what they have to do when something happens in the game. For example when the student has a penalty in hockey during the man down time period the student has to be using only one foot to pedal or they can double the resistance on the bike. The next game that was at the booth was a modified Dance Dance Revolution that had the person punching and kicking a punching bag with the DDR Pad on it. The last equipment there incorporates the DDR pads on the ground and the DDR pad in the punching bag. The game that is being used is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The DDR pads on the grounds move the characters on the screen and combining those moves with punching or kicking the bag makes the characters do moves  to defeat the bad guys in the game.

Philosophys

Education
Education is a major part of every child’s life. I feel that it is a way to help them grow and to expand their minds to the vast array of information for them to take learn. As an educator it is ones duty to give all of the tools that the child needs to succeed in their life. It is also our duty to continue to learn more, so that we can keep giving to our future students. Educators should also be able to have major impact the student’s life and be there for the students. The last big part of education is that if it is made interesting and the teacher knows, loves what they are teaching the students will learn a lot more.
As an educator I will be able to touch and mold the minds of many students. I feel like this is a great opportunity to give them what they want to learn, and also what they should learn. Students should be learning Math, English, Science, History, while also learning how to interact, communicate, and other basic life skills to help them in all aspects of life.
In order for educators to help mold our future students we need to stay current with everything that is going on in the world. We need to be up to date with everything that the students are doing and getting into inside and outside of school. If we just think that once we are done with learning after graduation, then we are not doing our jobs. This is not good for multiple reasons it puts both the teacher and the learners at risk of either termination or injury.
Educators should also be able to not just teach the students but be able to help the student’s in any way that they need. The educator should be able to just make the students feel comfortable coming to the educator with problems with homework, school, home, or just life problems. If it is a friend when they are in need, a resource to help with a problem anything they should be there for the student.
With learning about the new technologies, equipment, content and games we can also show our students that we know what we are teaching them. This will make the lesson more interesting to them causing them to being willing to pay more attention and retain more information. With showing your enthusiasm in whatever the educator is teaching the students will feed off of it and enjoy that lesson more.

Physical Education

            Physical Education is just more than the core sports that are linked to physical education. It is a place where students can learn to improve their overall physical being and use the skills to continue to an active and healthy lifestyle. I feel that the major parts of physical education are to give the information needed for basic movement skills and life time activities. Physical education is also to give the students the information on nutrition and lifetime physical fitness and why it is needed.  Physical education will also show the students the different ways that they can continue lifetime physical fitness outside of the physical education in school.
            The basic movement skills are the foundations for anything that the students will learn. If they do not understand or cannot perform the basic moves they cannot use them to be active. So once the basic movements are learned the students then should be taught as many lifetime activities as they can in their physical education classes throughout their entire time in school.
            The students then should be able to understand why these lifetime activities and fitness is vital to having a long and healthy life. They should also be able to not only have the information for the physical activities but also the nutrition aspect of a healthy life style. If they have the different resources for nutrition and physical fitness they can continue to do this throughout their lives, and transfer it on to their children.
            With the information that is given in the physical education setting about the activities it is useless unless the students can do those activities outside of school. So giving the information to the students about facilities, opportunities, and where to get equipment gives them a better chance at having that physically active lifestyle.





Coaching
            Athletics is a place for students to increase their skills to a proficient level and use them in contests. It also allows for students to build upon their character from the experiences that they go through with their team. Coaching allows student athletes to learn more than just more specific skills but allows them to build leadership skills, learn about teamwork, and the value of hard work. The biggest part I feel is hard work no matter the size or capability of that athlete. With hard work it will always pay off in the end.
            Before the leader can emerge out of your team there has to be trust, friendship, cooperation, perseverance, and enthusiasm within the team. Once all of these are achieved then the players will start to have teamwork. This will create bonds between your players that will not only be on the playing field but off as well. The athletes will also learn to interact with different types of people and succeed with them. It will teach the athletes how to work together to complete a goal that is mutual between all of them. These can be transferred into situations later on in their lives like a workplace, family, or their group of friends.
            Athletics will also help the players build leadership skills by giving all of the athletes the chance to step up when they are needed and take control of a situation. It doesn’t have to be the most talented it could be that one that always motivates the team when they are down. It can be the one that helps the team calm down when getting frustrated. As you see these players you can help mold them into better people and players of the game.
            The next part is the biggest and most important part of coaching which is hard work. Hard work can show the players that anything can be achieved not only just on the playing field but off it as well. The harder that they work on their studies they can use those studies to get better at strategies or skills in their sport. With a situation where the player is not strong if the hard work is put in those skills can be increased. If it is that you are too small for something they can put the hard work in to use the size to their advantage.