My Last Blog!

It is a great feeling that this semester is coming to an end because of all the hard work and time that was dedicated from all of us. This semester really was a challenge balancing my teaching, refereeing and classes. I had to effectively utilize my time management and stay on a strict schedule to ensure that I stayed on top of my game for all of my priorities. I am so excited about this winter vacation because I can finally let loose and enjoy some free time. This is such a great time of the year because everyone is so excited and joyful during the holidays. I love going out and partying during this time of the year, because everyone is in a good mood because everyone is looking forward to Christmas. I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season, and also a happy and safe new year! Lastly, I will like to thank everyone for all of your hard efforts and your part of my learning in this class!

-Nick

Will Indy go undefeated?

The Indianapolis Colts are still undefeated this season under the reigns of Peyton Manning. They have squeezed out many close games this year against many formidable opponents, including Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. We actually kind of gave that game to them, with some coaching blunders from the "best coach" in the NFL. But nobody is perfect... does that mean that Indy will lose this year..........YES!

You can find this picture at: www.patriots.com

They are going to receive their first loss of the year in the AFC championship against... yes, you know.... theeeee New England Patriots! Come on Tommy, I hope your wife is taking care of the baby and letting you sleep. I would actually like to see Tom reside at a local 5 star hotel and not be distracted from the baby and her. Personally, I think Giselle needs to let Tom be on his own from here on out into the playoffs, to let him focus and get his head in the zone. He cannot put himself in the position of sleepless nights and fatigue in his mental game, because that is his strongest attribute to the team. Come on Tommy, lets get some momentum today against the Buffalo Bills going into the end of the season for the playoffs!

Teaching Presentation

I am very excited to present my lesson to everyone this week on the last day of class. I take a quick tour of my gymnasium so everyone can see my "classroom" at Selser School! Everyone last week did such a great job and it gave me great ideas to use in my presentation. I really have enjoyed my first semester here at Springfield College. I have met so many great people and created many friendships. I really enjoyed class and learned so much from everyone and their presentations. I have used many of the new strategies that I learned this semester and have created a more effective lesson that I taught to my students. Thank you Dr. Lorenzo for your efforts in creating such an effective class and your creation in the projects that we have presented. I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season, and celebrate this New Years Eve because we all deserve it with all of our hard work!

Nick's view from the Couch

Hello sports fans and welcome to this weeks blog of my recap of sporting events that are too important NOT to talk about!

First up, I would like to congratulate the Dallas Cowboys on their huge upset over the previously undefeated New Orleans Saints. I must say Dallas did play well, and Tony Romo had a productive game for his inconsistent self. I think Romo played to his potential last night, but when I watch the Cowboys I am never certain of the performance I will see from him. He is very up and down, and on any given Sunday, he could throw 4 touchdowns, or 4 interceptions.... you never know. Dallas played very well, but New Orleans definitely didn't play their best game. Drew Brees did not look good at all, very inaccurate and not looking like the Drew Brees I watched against the Pats. Drew Brees, just the opposite of Tony Romo is very consistent. He has played very well all season, and last night he played very poorly.

You can find this picture at: http://www.espn.com/

Next lets move onto a different subject in College Football. The past two seasons we have been incredibly spoiled with the competition that has identified collegiate football. I strongly believe that we have witnessed the best college football player in NCAA history. His name is Tim Tebow, and was, in my mind, the greatest college football player to ever play. His desire, maturity, leadership, faith, and competitiveness really put a stamp on the game. He has been the college football poster boy for the last few years, and really became a great role model for all the younger fans. I will surely miss watching him, and really hope he can improve his game to be an NFL quarterback.

You can find this picture at: www.espn.com

2009 coming to an end!

January 1, 2010 is upon us! Celebrating a new year, and all of the great times, memories and accomplishments. 2009 was a great year with many new beginnings. I started the second year of my new job, I started graduate school at Springfield College, I became a soccer referee and also a basketball official. I am looking forward to a new year and many new challenges that I will face. It is incredible how fast time really flies by. It seemed like this year went by so fast, and everyone needs to remember to enjoy the ride, because once we get to our destination, it will all be over! You can find this picture at: www.elektroaddict.com

2009 WAS A GREAT YEAR, BUT 2010 WILL BE EVEN BETTER!

The Power of Mental Imagery

You can find this picture at: www.eruptingmind.com

In my opinion, I believe that mental imagery is one of the most important parts of a performers success. The ability of a person to see themselves performing a skill, and then executing it exactly how they imagined, is a very powerful skill. Lets take the golf swing for example, before you take that swing, stand behind the ball, and close your eyes. Picture yourself from a birds eye view and watch yourself produce a nice and fluid swing. Watch your arms and what they are doing in the back swing, and then how you come down and contact the ball with the follow through. This cognitive tactic is extremely effective while performing different types of motor skills. This a very important skill to practice and use as a physical educator. I have used this skill in my classes this week as I teach new discrete skills and the students take time before and after in mental imagery watching themselves perform. The students find it to be very effective and enjoy participating in the activities.

Nick's view from the Couch

The New England Patriots (10-6) are going into this Sundays game on a 2 game losing streak. The Carolina Panthers are coming to Gillette Stadium for a much needed win for the Pats. The simple fact that the Patriots are not playing well, and need to step it up for a much needed win coming down to the end of the regular season. Being a die hard Patriots fan it is very hard for me to watch my teams mediocre play this season. Tom Brady is now a little beat up and may not be 100%. He is not playing like the old Tom Brady of the super bowl seasons. He has stated that he needs to play better, and I'm not sure we will see that this season. I think that his knee surgery and minor injuries this year have slowed Tom down, but I also believe that he will be back next season, and look like his old 1997 self!

You can find this picture at www.patriots.com

Tiger taking hiatus from Golf

After much soul searching, Tiger Woods is taking an indefinite leave of absence from professional golf. He has apologized to the PGA tour and all of his sponsors for his mistakes and the embarrassment he has caused all of them. He states that he wants to completely focus on his family and the personal healing that needs to happen in the privacy of their home. Will Tiger and his wife stay together or will she file for a divorce? Kobe and his wife stayed together, and they remain together still to this day. This will be interesting to see what Elin will do, and where will she go if she decides to leave. Rumors are surfacing that she has purchased property back in her home country of Sweden. Will she take the kids? Find picture at: www.tigerwoods.com

One thing that upsets me now after the fact, after everyone knows that he has cheated on his wife, with multiple women, is the idea that he is so sorry for his mistakes and now asks for every ones respect when he now has to deal with this private matter. It is almost like he is trying to get people to feel sorry for him, that he was caught and now has to put his family through this awful time. In my personal opinion, I believe Tiger is a sociopath, and he doesn't really care much about anyone except himself. If he really loved his wife and children, he wouldn't put them through this, or even think about it. I think Tigers mind frame when he is on the course, being unstoppable, untouchable, the best.... carries off the course of play and into real life, because he didn't put much effort into keeping these women private, with text messages and emails directly from his account and cell phones. I will miss watching Tiger during his leave, and will look forward to seeing him return after he handles his business.

The importance of maintaining your routine

During this time of the year, it is crazy with different holiday events and programs that are going on in school. The students are practicing for the holiday concert and are very excited about Christmas and winter vacation. We also have a lot of time off in November and December, just having thanksgiving and now winter vacation in two weeks. The students still need to continue to learn and work hard during these exciting times. For this to best be possible it is vitally important that the teachers keep their regular routine during the day. Even though the kids will be taken out of class for special events and activities, we need to keep it as normal as possible. The excitement can bring certain behavior issues from students who are normally on their best behavior. We need to remember that they are young children, who get very excited about the thoughts of Santa and presents. Just think back when you were a small child, and how excited you were when the holidays came around. We need to plan in our schedule how we are going to incorporate the holiday season into our lessons and make sure that you are being respectful to all religions, beliefs and customs. This is a beautiful time of the year to spread joy and be cheerful. Lets make it a great holiday season for not only our family but also our students when they are in school!
This picture can be found at: www.poofcat.com/christmas.html

1st week of Officiating

This was the first weekend of officiating Suburban basketball games for the 2009-2010 season. I first had to complete my floor training on Friday night as I refereed 3 games in a row. I learned so much from the other officials that were there, as they helped me during time outs and the halftimes. After my first game I became much more comfortable and it started to come more naturally to me. So on Saturday I was ready for my first paying games. I did 2 games in Granby with my father, who is also a referee. They went really well and we had a lot of fun with the kids. Today I did 2 games with my uncle in Amherst, and I learned a lot from him who is a veteran referee who does High School games. This a perfect side job for me during the different seasons, but I can tell you that refereeing soccer is much, much easier than basketball! I am slowly learning the proper mechanics and hope that by the end of this season, I will have had plenty of experience and have great confidence to do High School games next year. I still have a lot to learn but I hope to learn quick and be a good and fair official!

You can find this picture at http://www.callitinc.com/

Nick's view from the Couch

The New England Patriots have now fallen on the road in Miami and fall to 7-5. Tom Brady and the Patriots offense could not come back late in the 4th quarter for the win. The Colts and Saints move to 12-0 and remain undefeated. Brady jogged to the locker room after his 58 yard touchdown pass to Randy Moss and it was later reported that it was an arm injury. He already was coming into the game with a swollen finger that was black and blue. The Patriots now can only do one thing to justify these loses. The New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts need to go undefeated into the playoffs, then the Patriots will beat the Colts in the AFC championship game, then beat the undefeated New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl! Only this sequence of games and wins will make this a successful season! I still strongly believe that they can win the big one if they get stronger on defense and Brady steps his game into All Star mode!

You can find these pictures at: www.patriots.com

Tiger apologizes to media for personal indiscretions

The Tiger Woods car accident has grown from a mysterious late night crash in his driveway, to public confessions of personal indiscretions. Tiger apologized for his "personal sins" and hoped that the public will grant his privacy on this family matter. It is evident that Tiger has cheated on his wife, Elin Nordegran, who is a former Swedish model. It has been reported that she has started to renegotiate her prenuptial agreement, and her payout is huge. There have been rumors ranging that the payout is close to 80 million dollars, if she decided to file for a divorce.

You can find this picture at: www.examiner.com

I have to give credit to Tiger at least for admitting his wrong doings. He could have tried to hide his problems but he came out to the public and apologized. I hope that Tiger and his family can work this out, and they do not damage their relationship with their daughter. I am extremely disappointed in Tiger, because he is a popular role model for many young people. Hopefully Tiger can learn from this and be a better person in the future.

Armor & Minutemen off to rough start

You can find this picture at: www.masslive.com

The new NBA development league team, "The Springfield Armor," brings excitement early to the city of Springfield, but has started off to an 0-2 losing streak. I am going to see a game because a former Hampshire League All Star is on the team and there is also many talented players that are in this league trying to make the NBA. They are fun games to watch and I think more people should take advantage of this high level of basketball that is being played in the city. The MassMutual Center is great arena and a fun atmosphere to have a great time at the game.

The Umass Minutemen (2-4) have started off on a rocky road with big loses from teams including the number 2 ranked team in the nation, Michigan State. Coach Derek Kellogge is in a rebuilding stage of his coaching career at Umass, and hopefully he will be over with it soon! This is a test of Kellogges character and coaching strategies that will either prevail him into the coaching world, or greatly hurt his reputation and pride. I am routing for him because I can remember how great of a leader he was when he played point guard for Umass back in the 90's. I hope he can bring the "glory days" back to Umass basketball in the near future!

Personal & Social Responsibility Model

I think that this is my second favorite instructional model presented by Metzler. As an elementary PE teacher, my favorite model is the Peer Teaching "I teach you, then you teach me". This model is very similar in many ways. As Meaghan and I described, the first domain priority that we agreed upon is the affective domain in the Peer Teaching Model. It is the same for the Personal and Social Responsibility Model, which enforces students to individually take part and "hold their own" with respecting and cooperating with others. These two instructional models are very diverse and are highly recommended for only effective teachers who clearly understand how to implement the model successfully. They can both be highly successful at the elementary level as well as the middle and high school as well. I really like this model because we are now focusing on teaching our students how to be respectful and cooperative individuals. We teach them what they need to do to successfully communicate with each other at an efficient way. As teachers, we are now focusing on how the affective and cognitive domains more so than the psychomotor. I really enjoy teaching these lessons because we are developing our students to be successful students! I am very excited about Lewis' and Virginia's presentation on Tuesday! Good luck !

Monday Night Football

The New England Patriots take part for the second time this year in the second highest anticipated game of the season. This Monday night the (7-3) New England Patriots take on the Undefeated (10-0) New Orleans Saints! New England is coming off a blow out over the New York Jets (yes kyle!) and now they are going to face their hardest challenge of the year so far. The Saints are playing incredible football, on pace to break the touchdown record set by Mr. Thomas Brady a few years ago. Drew Brees has come into his own, and now is ranked the 3rd best quarterback in the NFL. The best is a toss up between Brady and Manning, you know where my vote goes. This is going to be a great game, but I do have a few concerns. I am worried strictly on our defense and the ability to keep up with the Saints high powered offense. When we played the Colts, and lost at the end, our defense was tanked. Very fatigued because of the inability to substitute players. We are still banged up and have key members benched because of injuries. You can find this picture at: www.patriots.com

But there is one thing that we do have. That is Tommy Brady.

#12 on the field, #1 in our hearts.

I feel very fortunate to have him on our side, and I have complete trust in him. He will take us back to the promised land, and we will win another super bowl under his reign this year!

Are you ready for some football?

The Mysterious Tiger Woods Car Accident

Over the weekend, Mr. Tiger Woods received some press, off the golf course. The superstar golfer, who is ranked #1 in the world, is usually a superb role model for our younger generation. Very rarely, if ever, will you see Tiger in the news for "mysterious" and "awkward" happenings. While Tiger is on the golf course he sometimes seems immortal and "unbeatable" to his competition as well to all of his viewers. This weekend proved otherwise for Mr. Woods as he was involved in a one car, one person accident in front of his house at 2:30am. Many questions come to mind of what he was doing and where he was going. Rumors have started that he was caught cheating on his wife and then left the house in a fury. Maybe, but Tiger is not telling anyone the private matters that place inside his home. We know that he hit a neighbors tree and a fire hydrant next to his house. He was found unconscious in his car by his wife, who had to break the back window of the SUV with one of his golf clubs because he was locked in. As police and ambulance arrived on the scene, he was found going in and out of consciousness in the road, with cuts and blood on his lips. You can find this picture at: www.examiner.com

So what really happened that night with Tiger and his wife? Maybe they got into an argument and it escalated to him leaving the house very upset, and accidentally losing control of his car. Who knows what happened, but it really isn't any of our business. If this happened to you or me, we wouldn't be investigating the scene and trying to find all the gossip, we would be supportive and let the police and detectives do their job. I hope the best for Tiger and his family, and hope that he can fully recover from his injuries.

Not always a "Merry" holiday season...

As educators we need to remember that not everyone has a cheerful holiday season. Many families do not celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving because they either do not have a family tradition, or they do not have the money to buy the turkey and the other food. As teachers we need to be sensitive to every ones feelings and beliefs, so we need to be neutral as possible, even though the holiday season is very important to us. I really enjoy the holiday season and setting up the house with all the decorations and the tree, but a lot of students do not. Many students also do not receive presents during Christmas, and they have a bad experience during the holiday time. Students in class talk about what they are asking for and the presents that they are going to get, and some students don't say anything because they already know that they are not getting anything. These students can sometimes start unusual behavior problems and start acting out in class. But worst of all, some students don't have a family to even be with during the holiday season. This is going back to knowing your students. Are your students in foster care? Are your students homeless? These are the challenges that teachers are having more and more during these tough economic times of the recession.

Thanksgiving Break!

This week at school we only have Monday and Tuesday of teaching then the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving Break. In my classes I am going to start the introduction to my nutrition lessons and start to talk about the different food groups. I am going to discuss the food that we eat during our Thanksgiving meal and how they are either healthy or unhealthy for our bodies. An example of this will go something like this: What is the main course in our Thanksgiving meal? Student: Turkey! Teacher: That's right, what food group is turkey in? Meat and beans. What does turkey give our bodies? Protein! I will discuss how it is important to eat balanced meals with vegetables, grains, and dairy. Thanksgiving is a great example of eating a balanced meal because of all the different types of food that is served.

You can find this picture at: www.theholidayspot.com

We are now getting into the holiday season! After Thanksgiving it will be the first week in December and then we have winter break at the end of the month. The school year is absolutely flying by for me. With graduate work to complete as well as lesson plans, my busy schedule has made the time fly by. Christmas is always a very pleasant time to spend with friends and family and I am once again looking forward very much to the holidays!

Nick's view from the Couch

Lets first start off with the 4th and 2 call from Belicheck last week. Personally, I thought he was going to go for it right away. That's the kind of coach he is. He makes the risky calls, almost some would call it being cocky. Belicheck went for the win and they came up short. If they made the first down he would be sitting on the top of his thrown in the sports world. Their defense was gassed and he showed with that call that he has 100 percent confidence in his offense when he calls on them. Usually Brady and company come through on those plays, but that is why they play the game. I'm watching the Jets game right now and the Pats looked good in the first half but are slowing down a little bit now. Welker is playing fantastic and Moss has another touchdown for his 5th consecutive game. You can find this picture at: www.newenglandpatriots.com

Now lets talk about the Boston Celtics. They started off on fire playing very well and now they have cooled off tremendously. I think they are shooting too many three's. This might be a sign of age as we are one of the oldest starting fives in the league. Rasheed Wallace is taking way too many threes. Even though he is playing good basketball by playing excellent defense and rebounding, he is hurting us more then helping on the offensive end. I know it is still very early in the season, but I hope we stay healthy and start making some from behind the arc!

You can find this picture at: http://www.bostonceltics.com/

The Peer Teaching Model

Peer Teaching




I Teach You, Then You Teach Me



This extremely effective teaching model is my favorite model presented by Metzler (2005). As an elementary physical educator, I really love the objectives and overall goals of this highly social method of learning. Students are provided the opportunity to teach one of their classmates a new skill during the lesson. The students are divided into pairs (dyads) and one first takes place as a tutor, and the other is the learner.


-Teachers teach the Tutors, then the Tutors teach the Learners.

You can find this picture at: www.uogoelph.ca

The task presentation from the Teacher to the Tutor is very important during the informing process. Teachers need to inform the Tutors on how to be effective teachers. They need to completely understand the key performance cues and the task structure. They need to be good communicators when they are providing the cues and giving feedback, and they need to be sensitive to the learners abilities and needs.


The learners also need to understand how to be effective learners. They need to understand how to accept feedback from their peers, and how to be good listeners and respectful to the tutors. They also need to make sure they understand the key performance cues and perform them so they need to ask the tutors questions when they don't understand.

Domain Priorities

• Learner

1.Psychomotor

2. Cognitive

3. Affective

• Tutor

1. Cognitive

2. Affective

3. Psychomotor

Social Learning at its Best!