Day 5 Reading Notes

The questions on the first page of the readings in Davis (57) are some really tough questions. I would say that this is a sensitive topic for a lot of people and is really challenging to think about how they would be more inclusive in their classroom. When Melinda gave the example her professor did when they had to write down offensive words on the board on the first day it seems like a unique way to almost acknowledge the elephant in the room especially if the class is going to be discussing a lot of diversity issues. It takes a lot of bravery as a professor to be able to talk about sensitive issues and I really think this would be a challenge to not only talk about it but manage student responses. In chapter 8 about teaching academically diverse students I would think one of the most important pieces of this would be to really get to know your students to be able to use the diversity in the classroom as a way to expose other students to people who are different to them. The use of office hours provided it is a smaller classroom would be very important and perhaps might be something the teacher requires at the beginning in order to know her audience better.

As a coach I have to motivate our athletes to be giving all that they have during training sessions. If the training sessions are not intense or productive then it usually reflects in our next game. With 20 games it can be hard to keep all of the players motivated especially ones that maybe are not getting much playing time. We have discussed a lot in class about students who love the material as much as we do, but what about motivating the student who just isn’t interested in the material? Some ways we have talked about to combat this are to vary activities for different learners, be enthusiastic and offer grade incentives. I would be really interested in discussing some different ways to motivate students other than the ideas above. Instead of offering grade incentives would giving students who have good attendance a few more days on a large project be a good reward or does that still seem unfair to students?

On page 25 of the Learner- Centered Teaching document the author talks about the student making their own decisions in regard to their learning. When I went to college I was 19 because in Canada at that time we had 5 years of High School. The age of true freshman here seems to be 17-18. If you think about it a student has already made the huge decision of to go to college and where to go. However what about the student who was pushed or forced to go to college their willingness to learn and to decide their own learning will be much different than a student who is perhaps paying for college themselves. How much does motivation to be in college affect the students desire to learn and how can the teacher address this?

Course Objectives

After completing this course, students will be able to….

1. Demonstrate retention of the material

2. Explain key concepts in own words

3. Apply a sociological perspective to sporting events around them

4. Demonstrate an awareness for social inequalities in sport

5. To be able to connect the impact society has on sports.