SUNY CORTLAND MOTOR DEVELOPMENT LAB
Spring 2010 – Professor Yang
A. To observe the interaction between St. Mary’s students and Cortland students.
B. To get to “know” some of the students at St. Mary’s through play and participation.
C. To make yourself aware of Stability (static and dynamic movements) across the different phases of motor development (Table 1.6, page 21 of Gallahue text)
TODAY IS FAIRLY INFORMAL! Have fun but be purposeful, try to learn a little about your students including their names.
* Assigned group stays with Pre-K for entire time
Observe the interaction between St. Mary’s students and your peers (Cortland students). Try to get an idea of the behaviors of the St. Mary’s students – Do they listen well? Do they remain on task? What do they attend to? What motivates them to play?
The students listen okay they could be a little more attentive when listening but for the most part they understand what you’re saying because when the activity starts they follow directions. They don’t remain on task real well because by 3 or 4 O’clock some of the students are starting to get tired and hungry so they would rather go do an activity by themselves or would just rather sit in quiet. They attend to activities which the instructors seem enthusiastic about the activities to be done and that is what also motivates them to play is the fact that the instructors are enthusiastic about the activity
1. Based upon observation, what are the differences in motor behavior and social between the St. Mary’s students you observed? What differences did you observe between grade levels, gender, and ability? Do you think that grade level, gender, and ability have any influence on motor behavior?
Based upon observation, the differences in motor behavior between the St. Mary’s students I observed was very hard to find because all of them seemed like they had the same type motor behavior of wanting to play and not just sit around and do nothing. The differences in social behavior were quite noticeable though because some students would rather just be by themselves in quiet type games and others want to play games as a group and have more fun with other people. The differences I observed between grade levels, gender, and ability were that the higher up grade levels had the more social and more active students as those students did not after 10 minutes become disinterested with the activity and would stay with that one activity if they could. The difference between gender was just a social one not really as much of a motor one at that age because the girls were more shy to be involved with the groups but once they were participating they were just as active as the same aged boys. However, ability did have an influence because some weren’t quite clear on what was goin on even with explanation and then when the game started they would be noticed not moving as quickly due to this lack of understanding. I think that grade level, gender, and ability does have some influence on motor behavior because some kids will tend to be able to be active for longer and will understand the idea required in the activity and be able to have fun in the activity.
2. Based upon your observation, what fine motor activities did you observe (describe these) when watching the St. Mary’s students? Were there differences between age? Gender? Ability?