Teaching Experience

Lesson Plans
Brittany Manns
Singles Strategy- Tennis
College Level
Lesson Objectives
To teach the class strategies to successfully play tennis during a singles match. Also, to have the students practice the strategies and become familiar with the concepts.

Equipment needed
· Tennis racquet's for each student
· Tennis Balls for each student

Warm up Activity
· Jog around the courts
· Stretch for 5 minutes
· Have 4 students at each court, two on each side, one up at a time. The two up will hit the ball back and forth trying to keep the ball in the singles lines. The goal is to keep the ball in play as long as possible. Once the ball is out of play the students who is currently up will step out to allow the students waiting to participate.
Lesson Organization
· Students will be in a half circle, facing away from the sun toward me.
· For the activities the students will be in groups of four at each tennis court, each with a ball and racket.
Lesson Focus
· First, students will be introduced to singles strategy. I will explain how the warm-up activity was actually one of the strategies.
o Keep the ball in play.
§ If you want to score you have to hit the ball over the net, land it in bounds and do this one more times than your opponent.
· Next, students will be instructed the next strategy.
o Keep the ball deep.
§ Keeping the ball deep will make your opponent stay back away from the net, preventing them from having the advantage; they cannot return the ball at an angle.
DRILL: Have students get into pairs, one on each side of net. Practice hitting the ball deep. See how many consecutive volleys each pair can get. 5-7min's
· Lastly, students will be instructed on the last strategy.
o When to use angles.
§ The goal is to hit the ball at an angle (usually in the service areas) away from your opponent preventing them from returning the shot. Use when your opponent hits a shallow ball
DRILL: Have students get a partner, four at each court. Have student A have three tennis balls and have student B with a racket. Have student A near the net in the middle of the court. Student A will lob the ball over the net towards student B giving them a shallow ball. Student B will hit the ball at an angle to the left or the right service area. Do 20 times each.
Ending Activity
Have students get into groups of four. Two on each side and only one person up at a time, rotating turns after each scored point. Point can only be scored after the ball has crossed the net four times. Encourage them to practice keeping the ball in play, using deep shots and angles to score.


Above is the lesson plans I developed for the PE class I taught in August, 2008.
While teaching this class I gained knowledge that helped me develop many of the seven goals.

Goal 3: I grew in this area because the experience way of learning now makes more sense to me. I now understand that with experience you learn more, because after teaching this lesson in tennis I learned more about this skill than any other skill I was taught by the other students.

Goal 4: I grew in this area because the entire class had the ability to learn the skill because I taught the skill verbally and with a demonstration so that the students who learn verbally could hear the instructions and the visual learners received a visual aid.

Goal 5: I grew here because I understand now the importance of developing a learning experience for everyone in the class.

Goal 7: With this activity I developed and learned the skills needed to teach. I had the responsibility of learning researching the skill to acquire enough knowledge to teach others. From the students feedback and the experience I now know more about the process of teaching
the skill.

One of my personal goals is to set up a sucessfull learning environment for students. I feel like I have worked on my goal with this activity.