We began this field experience without a strong understanding of how to approach thirty grade eight students in a volleyball unit.  We started by basing our teaching on the TGfU approach and tried to stick to our lesson plans as much as possible.  However, we soon realized that our lesson plans were too advanced for the abilities of the students and it was in learning how to modify what we had planned and how to think on our feet that we gained a lot of knowledge.  

    On the first lesson the students had been told what we were there to do and went along with the tasks we had planned fairly easily but without much enthusiasm or initiative.  The students listened well to directions and although there were a few students who wanted to turn the volleyball lesson into a dodgeball one, the lesson did go quite smoothly.  The major problem was planning a lesson that was geared toward two on two play and moved through the basics of the forearm pass at a fairly quick pace.  For most of the students just passing with a partner was difficult and so the lesson had to be modified and instead of two on two, it ended with passing with a partner, with the option to use the net or for overhead pass.

    In the second lesson the difficulty was more in trying to keep the students with higher levels of ability interested in the tasks.  Again the problem was aiming for a two on two game, despite that it had proved too difficult for the previous lesson.  When the two on two was attempted there was a lack of control and very few groups were able to have continuous rallies or competition.  The major improvement in our teaching came from having to teach on Halloween and trying to manage a class full of mimes, NFL football players and rock stars.  Our technique was to draw the disruptive or less interested students up to the front to demonstrate the skills and it had the effect of quieting the whole class.  Once the students understood that we were the teachers they stopped deferring back to their usual teacher and their participation and focus also improved.

    For the final lesson we stepped back a bit from two on two and just tried to focus on two on one.  The goal for this lesson was to get the students to make three controlled passes before passing the ball over the net.  This lesson was a lot more effective and students began to work with a teammate in a modified setting before the continuous rally.  We were also better able to modify the games so that the advanced students could have a two on two game while other students worked on passing to a target (setter), which was likely because we were working together and were more able to give individual feedback.  This class was our best and the students seemed to be more enthusiastic about participating.  There were still students who were easily got off track, but the students who in previous lessons had just observed and weren’t very eager to participate began to show more interest, which have been related to them being more comfortable working with us and asking questions.