Tis the season

We finally made it, the semester is at its close and its time for some quality R&R, however before that it's important that we "Give Thanks" by doing our teacherly' duties in our communities.
Our objective was to volunteer some of our time to anything that would prepare us to be better Physical Educators, this could include anything from baby sitting (playing games with kids) to running your own after school program.
For me the semester had its ups and downs and I sometimes didn't have the time I would have liked to accomplish everything I'd like to do in one day. Some of the volunteer work that I was able to do included 5 hours as an assistant at the mini conference we held, I took attendance for all 3 presentations of the cup stacking. I got a lot of time to play one on one with Peter, Dr. Davis's son, he was really good!
Another time I was able to apply what I learned from school to the real world was when I went home a few weeks ago, my fathers friend does his own volunteer work at our local fire department, he teaches karate, I attended his class which was mostly middle aged women and younger kids, after a while the kids got comfortable with me and I was able to show them some of the very basic things I learned in Self Defense, it felt great to be able to apply what I learned to the real world, and it felt great to be looked at as a teacher in the eyes of the kids.

Fit School Update

Hello all, just an update on my lil crusade to establish a connection between our school and the Mens Health Fit School. This is the latest email I've sent to Adam (Co-Vice President, Director of FitSchools)

Hello Adam, I have an idea that would be mutually beneficial; our programs consists of roughly 850 Physical Education Undergrads, perhaps we could establish a good time for a workshop if that is something that would interest you, the mutual benefit is while your a guest at our school it would be my pleasure to show you around some of our classes and perhaps from what you see you'll find something to bring back to your host school, ultimately this depends on a few things: 1. What type of relationship your program would like to foster with SUNY Cortland. 2. If it is within your means to come to New York for a workshop, and 3. What type of support I get from my fellow students and professors. I must admit I'm not sure how the college Set's up workshops but I'm more then willing to find out, I understand the economy doesn't make travel the easiest at the moment but we could potentially plan for a down the line next semester or the fall for that matter.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Dustin

Like before if anyone would like to get involved just drop me a line. DustinCortland@gmail.com

I introduce... the revolution

So today I presented Dance Dance Revolution for my class, I learned a very valuable lesson today, that even when you think your prepared expect the unforseen... meaning that just because on paper everything sounds perfect doesn't mean that in reality it's going to work that way.

My major issue boiled down to one thing, time, my goal was to have a projection of Dance Dance Revolution so the student's would have a chance to play, the problem was I didn't have the knowledge or resources... or perhaps patience's to get the projector working, being that I was on a timed schedule when push came to shove I had to scrap the entire idea and move on to a different activity.

As far as pluses are concerned I felt very good about my warm up activity, I called it Kung Fu Samurai and the added element of music made it a big hit with the class, another criticism I would like to add about my performance is I didn't take the time to rehearse what I was going to say, so when I started to explain the game the rules weren't as clearly established as I would have liked, again on the positive note this is something I will remember and improve upon for my next chance to perform.

**Note to readers** I'll be adding pictures from today's lesson once they are available!

Click this Link to see my E16 Assignment.
Click this Link to see my feedback form

TIME CODING
Percent of M time = 4%
Percent of W time = 0%
Percent of I time = 52%
Percent of A time = 44%
100%

Grade:
Management <> 50% = 2 pts.
Instruction < 30% = 1 pt. Waiting < 5% = 1 pt.
Total Score (M+A+I+W)= 2

The letter from the editor!

Ah the power of persistence, 3 days ago I started my own personal campaign to have a program called Men's Health Fit School have an active involvement in our joint goal of gaining control of America's obesity problem, and today I finally got a response! I'd like to share a letter I received this morning from the Assistant President of the program, I view it as a positive first step in PERHAPS a collaboration between their program and our program, my hope is this is seen by someone who would like to contribute towards bringing the men's health fit school to our campus or a school near by. I'd like to share the message I received:

"Dustin,
I would be interested in hearing more about your ideas and how you would like to be involved with FitSchools. Thank you for your interest.
Best, Adam "

To view my letter please scroll down to the next article titled Letter to the Editor. Anyone interested in making this possible, please contact me and I'll be more than happy to get you involved!

Letter to the editor

Calling all Physical Education Majors, I don't need to tell you how hard it is being in this major, in Essenes were all competing against each other, doing as much as possible in two years to be one of the fortunate who get a job right off the bat. While we may be competing for the same job we are all motivated by the same goal, to help our GROWING young population from growing more then they should be.

I'd like to share a link and a letter I wrote, first the link (Fit School), this is a a program I was reading about several months before, the idea is they went to a particular school and with the aid of professional fitness experts they started a new program, the results of this program were very positive from everyone who was involved. This got me thinking of the possibility of having this program come to SUNY Cortland, or the Cortland School District.

I'd also like to share my letter to the editor, I'm sharing this with the intent to have someone see this and follow suite, lets do our part guys as future Cortland grads

Hi, my name is Dustin Pritzert and I've been meaning to write this letter for far to long, I remember reading your article about the Mens Health Fit School and it got me thinking of the potential for the program if instead of changing one school at a time you instead changed hundreds of schools at a time. I’m sure you saying, yeah that would be great but how? The answer to that question is instead of going to the problem, go to the source, which would be us, the student's who will be teaching for the next 30 years.
In our Physical Education program some of our unique curriculum’s include Self Defense, Adventure Activities, and Recreational Dance (you'd be amazed how many steps you take when you strap on a pedometer) all from grades k-12.
We also take the initiative in offering creative student created curriculum's such as Parkour, Dance Dance Revolution, and Ultimate Frisbee, just to name a few of the activities that veer away from the tried and true seasonal sport of the moment style of dinosaur PE.
As a student of Cortland we take extreme pride in having the best nationally ranked Physical Education program in the United States and I’m greatly looking forward to your reply, whether it be a yes or a no, oh and me being the persistent type, I’m going to mail this letter every day until I get a reply. Thank you.

So there you have it guys, perhaps this is my lone crusade however I'd love some input and any involvement anyone would like to share would be appreciated and welcomed.

Dustin Pritzert
Suny Cortland Physical Education Major.

The Parkour Jungle Experience

Last week we had are second crack at teaching our lesson plan on parkour, after our first attempt I felt confident in how we performed, we came into the lesson and I felt very comfortable standing in front of everyone and explaining the general concept, I liked the little things we included like the rocky music and the Mario theme for the line walking and jumping.



Perhaps the best thing I could say about my first lesson in parkour was it was organized, however while I hit the topics it was the little things that I needed the work on, the motivation, the hook, something to get the student's to enjoy the activities even very basic activities like walking on lines or standing on one foot.



The started work on my second lesson plan the day after the first one ended, I wanted to make it special, I wanted to grab people's attention, create a positive attitude, have activities that the student's would enjoy participating in.


My first idea was to have a visual aid to get there attention, my idea was the scale of awesomeness, the student's seem to respond well to it and it made me feel better overall about my performance. I think the student's appreciated the time it took for the lesson to come together the way it did, it shows that the teacher care and isn't in it for the paycheck, that just because they bring there work home with them doesn't mean they view that as a bad thing.





My second thing I was really happy about was my game, I decided to have the student's play a balance game where they stood on a poly spot and if they lost there balance they were out so to speak, saying it like that makes it sound boring but this is where I felt the pitch I had really went well, I called it the "he who stands on one leg test" and gave it a tribal council feel as well, the ising on the cake was definately the jungle music I had to accompany the game, the game itself didn't go ever as well as I had planned, mainly due to the student's exhibiting great balance which as a teacher threw me for a loop because I haden't antisipated that, luckily I quickly decided to add more balls which ultimately didn't help in getting anyone out. At the time I thought my game was an overall failure, however when I listened to the recording the background noise was filled with laughter and it seemed apparient that the student's were indeed having a good time.

Two of the things I still feel I have to work on is offering feedback to everyone and also eliminating filler words. The word "alright" is my acheleis heel so to speak, I probably said "Alright" 10 to 15 times, and also threw in some "Um's and Ah's" for good measure to see my complete transcript click on this link). The feedback is something I feel I'll be able to greatly improve on in my lab D, the main reason I didn't get to do that much feedback was because I had spent to long on the hook and the review game, by the time I had gotten to the new material I was pressed for time, another plus is I have a good history in DDR, I've played it when I was younger and have a very good understanding of where people are at on a sliding scale of progression, which will make my comment's more congruent. Another thing that could use some improvement would be my usage of time, granted I stayed on track for the most part and got the most of the time I had there is still plenty of room for improvement (to view my complete time coding sheet clink on this link)

In conclusion I must say I've done a 180 in my opinion as a Physical Educator, as a teacher I almost feel its the journey that's keeping me passionate about the major, I enjoy having to think outside the box and I enjoy putting all I can into a project and watching it slowly start to come together, I can't wait till my lab D, fair warning be perpared for visual aid explosion!

Nutritional Riches for the Poor College Student

I guess this would be a little off topic... being it has nothing to do with Physical Education, none the less I feel as a health conscience individual it's my civic duty to share the fruits of my knowledge.

I'd like to consider myself a self proclaimed expert on eating healthy on a budget, my experience in this field can be attributed to reading 1000's of food labels and a steady diet of nutritional info thanks in whole to men's health.

This first food secret is something I take extreme pride in, it's one I have never read anywhere on seen in any publication and in my humble opinion is the king of kings of eating good while saving your hard earned paper. The food my friends is Tina's bean and cheese burritos. Now I know what your thinking, burritos! How could something like that be considered healthy!? Tina's burritos has 14 grams of protein and 11 grams of fiber! Fiber which is slow digesting, which means you feel fuller longer, now what could the price of these handy dandy portable protein/fiber treats be? the answer my friends is a meager 75 cents a pop, or 3 for 2.00$ at price chopper. Eat them in caution though, there is no cure for flatulence.

Another food I'd like to add on my healthy food list would be string cheese, you see them offered for a dollar a pop at the corner store at Corey, however you can get a pack of 24 at price shopper for between 5 to 6 dollars, each one of those little cheeses has 8 grams of protein, under a hundred calories, and only 2 grams of saturated fat, which isn't bad at all considering your daily intake should be around 20 grams.

Thats all for now my poor college friends, tune in next time for more doses of wisdom!