As we start another school year, teachers get excited and start having all these new ideas on many different topics. I have seen teachers get excited about decorating their classroom, getting a new set of students to teach, new school clothes or shoes, a new subject or grade level to teach, new staff to help mentor or guide, and even start setting their goals for the year to try and accomplish. Like many, I get excited for all those too, but more importantly, I always set new goals each year to try and incorporate into my teaching. This ranges from new ideas or lessons into my curriculum, new decorations around my gymnasium, or new equipment that I have purchased. I always make it a goal to work on improving my assessments and how to grade my students. I always tell myself that I am going to take time for my students and build a better relationship. Last year, I threw everything I have done the previous 12 years, in the garbage and started fresh, new, and different. I found many new resources and co-workers/friends through twitter to help me, and I taught all new lessons, not repeating from previous years. I implemented a few things (talked about in previous blogs) that worked well this first year of rediscovering. This year I am going to work on a few set goals through the word COURAGE. If you have not read Tanner Roos blog on “20 Seconds of Courage” (https://www.capnpetespowerpe.com/single-post/2018/01/01/Guest-Blog-Twenty-Seconds-of-Courage), I highly recommend it. To me this means having the courage to do something different, something new, and continue to reflect on my previous years. This means the courage to get involved with my state organization more, and possibly on a national level. To me this means having the courage to reach out and help those new teachers who need it, or teachers who have taught for years and are struggling. The courage to ask administrators to attend various professional development or even presenting at our district meetings. The courage to step out of my comfort zone and teach a lesson which I previously have not or are afraid to do. This means to have the courage to host a workshop for the Northeastern District of IAHPERD and even co-present with Carl Meister (@Mr_MeisterPE) at the IAHPERD Conference in November. Since connecting with so many other Physical Education leaders in person and on Twitter, I have gained the courage to better my teaching craft. Not only has it helped me plan and deliver higher quality lessons, but my students have benefited from me continuing to learn and share with so many others. I have seen and discussed many new ideas with others and I cannot wait to finally get back into my classroom and share them with the young, smiling, eager to learn students that I interact with on a daily basis. - Matthew Holben (@holben_pe)
* Always a BIG shout out to Tanner Roos (@MrRoosPE) and Carl Meister (@Mr_MeisterPE). Thank you for all you have done for not only inspiring me to become a better professional, but others as well!
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As the we enter the last month of the school year, it seems that parts of the past year have gone by fast and other times, it seems to go slow. This year seemed like there were more fast times than slower times. I feel like it is due to the fact of changing many aspects that otherwise have made it seem slower at times. Changing Curriculum I have changed many aspects of my curriculum this past school year, ranging from the word usage I use in class (i.e., activities instead of games, skills units instead of sports units, instant activities instead of warm-ups). I have changed my calendar for the year to rotate skills and then revisit them again the second half of the year. iPad - Mobile Teaching/Sharing/Communicating I was able to raise funds through donors choose to help motivate my students in class. I was able to get 3 iPads to use in class and also to help aid me in presenting information to my students and communicate with parents. I have only started to scratch the surface on what students can use with the iPads and hope to come up with more ways to incorporate them. Projector I have been able to get a projector from our technology department to use in class. It has been one of the greatest assets to use in class this year. Creating gifs, google slides, and Plicker questions to use almost daily. I would not have originally ask for one, but this year was about getting out of my comfort zone and taking risks. Taking that risk has help motivate my students to be more active, but also motivate myself more to get creative to teach them different ways. National Standards This school year, I focused more on the National Standards instead of my state standards. Not to take anything away from the State Standards, but I dove more into the National Standards for the different skills for the grade levels. Next year, I am planning on combining the National Standards and my State Standards together in an effort to give more feedback in my lessons. ClassDojo ClassDojo was a huge success for me to help with keeping track of student’s skills and feedback for parents and also report cards. Being able to share and communicate with parents was an aspect that I have always struggled with in my previous 12 years. This year, I had more conversations with parents about my program and also gave them “sneak peaks” in class with videos shared on ClassDojo. Plickers/Plagnets Such an easy and instant way to assess students on the different skills or knowledge of what was discussed in the lessons. I also like using it for survey questions about different topics and voting on different activities. I also started using it with students to help keep track of different levels or progressions in the activities. More Reflecting on Lessons I have spent more time this school year reflecting on my lessons than I did in the past 12 years. I put more thought into WHAT I was teaching, WHY I was teaching that skill, and HOW will they know they learned it. The hardest part was coming up with WHY I was teaching it, but plan to look more in depth this summer in creating a sheet with the various activities and the WHAT, WHY, and HOW. Connecting with Other Phys Ed teachers State/National; Twitter One of the best things I took away from this school year was connecting with other Physical Education teachers/leaders from Illinois. But it does not stop there, it extends around the country and world all thanks for the courage to sign-up on Twitter. Twitter has been the BEST professional development someone can learn from. There are so many quality Physical Education teachers on twitter who share much of what they do and it is free! They all gave me the courage to stand up for my program and encourage me to do what I have always thought I should have been doing. I thank all those who shared with me, as I share with them. This past month has also been extremely difficult for my family and myself. We recently lost my father-in-law suddenly and unexpectedly. It has taking my attention away from the ideas and things I have been doing with my students. We should never take things for granted and spend as much time with family as you can. People always say they take a break from work and take time for themselves, and this is true. Not only should you take time for yourself, but also take the time to appreciate the loved ones around you! You do not know what tomorrow may bring and should cherish every moment that you can. - Matthew Holben (@holben_pe) * Always a BIG shout out to all of YOU, who have shared their ideas, lessons, videos, conversations for not only inspiring me to become a better professional, but others as well! The other day, another teacher that I have known and have not seen for years, teaches in a fourth grade classroom in a another school district, started talking. I asked him how his school year was going. He basically said that he was at a point close to burnout and having issues with his students. I listened to him talk about how he was basically doing almost the same lessons and assignments he taught the previous year. His students have become disruptive and a few behavioral problems have arose. As he was telling me this, I found myself thinking back to a little over a year ago when I noticed that I was having the same problems. I was becoming unmotivated and tired some of the lessons I have been teaching. I was almost teaching the same units and basically the same lessons from the previous years, with added in new drills or activities I have seen on other websites. I was not putting much thought into how or why I was teaching and the students were not getting much out of the lessons as I would have liked them to be. It came to a point when he asked how my school year was going. In my mind I wanted to ask “Really, you want to know how my school year was going?” I actually got really excited and a smile drew across my face. So I started with the basic of how my students are doing and then got into how I have thrown out my previous 12 years of lessons and have started from scratch. I said that I felt like a first year teacher again, busy with planning and changing basically all that I have done and I am loving it! He looked surprised that I am starting all over on my lessons plans and I told him it was because I was doing the same lessons and units for 12 years. I became comfortable and in a rut; I was trapped in a box and I wanted to break out. I started this blog this school year because I wanted to not only share my thoughts and ambitions, but more of reflection on new ideas and concepts that I have changed this past school year. We just ended the second quarter, which means we are about half-way through the school year, what better time to reflect on the first half of the year. Like any good educator, reflection on how lessons or units go, is a good indicator on where to go next or what to improve on. I could not be happier on how the school year has gone for the first 21 weeks. I am happier to go into school and teach students new lessons or concepts. Moving into Skills Based Units instead of Sports Based has been great. I think elementary students do not need to know the rules of sports, but rather than knowing how to perform the skills needed for the sports. When they get older into 4th and 5th grade, I have talked and worked on the basic fundamentals of the games, but not into depth. I am their TEACHER not their COACH! I have only started diving into the National Standards for Student Learning Objectives. They have been specific what the students should be meeting and how it builds from year to year. As I plan my lessons, I always have a copy of those standards for each grade level nearby and have looked at them plenty of times. I have also hung the standards that we are working on that day or week to remind myself what I want the students to be working on and accomplish by the end of the lesson or the week. I do, however, need to spend more time thinking about my lessons for the grade levels and what other standards are used in the lessons, rather than just standard 1. With the National Standards, I have changed my dry-erase board of our daily schedule and activities, but added the WHAT, HOW, WHY of the lesson for the grade levels. Before I would have what we were doing for the day on there for the students, but they either would not look at the board or they would still ask me. I then replaced it with that to help me think more in-depth of what I am teaching the students, how will they know what they learned from the lesson and why they are learning it. I have done alright with the board, but still struggle on the WHY the lesson is important. Sometimes on the board, I leave that part blank. To help me, I have created a google sheet file with the different activities that I will be doing for that skill and have listed the WHAT, HOW, WHY for each activity. It has helped me look at the lessons and planning to think deeper of how am I going to get my objective across to the students. Technology has played a HUGE part in my classroom this year so far. I am so glad when I asked a year ago if there were any projectors laying around not being used! It started with one question to the Head of Technology, that has changed how I teach to benefit my students. I have used many slides and GIFs from others that have created and been using them for years to help teach my students and now allows me to be more mobile in the classroom to help others that are struggling or help other challenge themselves to the next level. At the beginning of the school year, I asked for the district to purchase an iPad for me to use on a daily basis for assessments, attendance, create google slides, and create GIFs. They told me to first try Donor’s Choose to raise the funds, so I did. As I was filling it out, in the back of my mind, I kept saying “No one is going to donate money to purchase an iPad for me to use to help my students!” but long behold, I was wrong. It ended up getting funded and I received an iPad. I have used it everyday since getting it and so glad that I took that chance. I have also received 2 iPads for student use, so I am trying to piece ideas together for what I can and will let the students use the iPads. I have seen some good ideas from other Physical Education teachers do with student iPads, but slowly going to try some of the ideas out soon. To help with assessment of skills and knowledge of the skills, I have started creating my own version of skill-based rubrics for the students. Before I would use pencil and paper to mark off if the students were able to perform the skills and then later go into the computer to type it up, but with the iPad, I have put those into a google sheet and can instantly put in for each student if they can perform the critical elements of the skills and add any comments. This helps me be more mobile in the classroom where I walk around as students are performing the skill and help correct if need be. With the 3rd through 6th graders, besides the google sheets with the skills, I have also implemented the use of Plickers for daily questions. Questions will range from specific skill questions, to how their team worked together, to self assessing, to a survey of if they enjoyed the activity or not, or keeping track of what level or progression number they are on. Students responded well with them so far and I like having the different assessment options. The questions on specific skill questions, I do grade those and use towards report cards. I have found that at the beginning of the year when I demonstrate and show the critical elements of a skill to the students, not many will pay attention or stare off into space. I had many students not get an A in Physical Education the first quarter because of incorrect answers that I dealt with many parent phone calls and emails. When I explained to the parents what Plickers are and the idea behind them, it was better viewed as valuable. Now when I am talking about skills in class, I have better attention on me and what I am explaining compared to before. I tell them that anything I may say in class could be part of the daily question. The one thing that I may change for the next year is anonymous plickers. I feel like these would give a better sense of what the students are know and understand and not just copy off of everyone else. I did take away of the Not Yet, Almost, Got It, Wow columns and students can put their plicker anywhere on the board. I felt like students would just put their plicker in the column that the majority would go with and I did not sense they were giving their true answer. Every teacher should take the time every so often to sit down and reflect on what they have done, how the lessons were going, how the students were behaving, what things can be changed, how can things be adjusted to better suit the students' needs. This year has been a big adjustment for myself in the classroom on what I was doing before, how I was handling things, and what needed to be changed. I challenge everyone else to take the time to sit down and just reflect on a lesson, a unit, the class environment, a single student, or even themselves to see what has worked well and what has not! - Matthew Holben (@holben_pe) * Always a BIG shout out to all of YOU, who have shared their ideas, lessons, videos, conversations for not only inspiring me to become a better professional, but others as well! Every school year, I always have some goals set for myself to try and incorporate into my Physical Education program. During the current school year, I have set the goals of changing my curriculum to reflect the skills rather than sports, new lessons plans for the students, incorporate technology with the help of a projector, make better connections with my students, interact with parents face-to-face and through online, and being involved with my school on the next level. Plickers/Plagnets Each year I have struggled with assessments and trying to see if students really understand what I am trying to teach them. I have created psychomotor rubrics and assessed students since day one. I have always struggled with the cognitive and affective assessments. Since adopting the national standards this year, I made it one of my goals for this year. I played with a few ideas on how to assess students quick, easy and came across the Plickers. It has been one of the best ways I have found to assess students in multiple ways. At first, I was not sure how I would do it but then bumped into the Plagnets from Mike Ginicola and Tanner Roos. Watching the videos and asking a few questions, I jumping into it with printing off the codes and numbers and began cutting, sticking, and laminating the Plagnets to use. I then asked the maintenance staff if there was an old magnetic write board laying around and they found one, they hung it up and I start using it right away. It has changed how I have taught my students and will recommend it. There are so many ways to use them from asking questions for answers, keeping track of skill progressions or levels, how they feel towards activities, feedback on lessons, attendance, and surveys about which activity they would like to do. ClassDojo I signed up for ClassDojo last January once I saw some of my second grade teachers using it, it sparked my interest. I have always thought about how I can communicate with parents more than just the few I would see at parent/teacher conferences. The big kicker was seeing Mike Graham use it in his Physical Education program. Since using the program, I have had great responses from parents at Parent/Teacher Conferences. It was the most I have ever seen parents at conferences and everyone mentioned how much they like seeing what we are doing in class with videos and the instant feedback about their son/daughter. Being able to make my own specific skills and feedback has been great to communicate with parents on what and how they are doing in class. Monthly Newsletters I have always admired teachers who send monthly newsletters home weekly/monthly, but with 400 students, that would be alot of paper to use. Since I was going to use ClassDojo, I found it a lot easier to send home monthly newsletters to parents so they know what is going on in PE that month. I know it will not reach every home, but those who sign up with ClassDojo will get to see it. I have gotten positive feedback from parents who have seen them. I try to include important dates for the month, my contact information, and what skills we are working on for that month. I also try to remind parents to have their son/daughter bring their gym shoes and so a little bit of info on being physically active. Self-Assessing I have only started playing with the idea of self-assessments with students on how they did that day in class. I started with 3rd up to 6th grade with it. Reason I would like them to think about how they did in class that day, is to put more accountability into their learning. I want them to reflect on their effort Technology This year I am working on getting more technology in the classroom from a projector, to making google slides, to making pictures, videos, and GIFS, to assessing students on an Ipad with google sheets as I walk around helping them. At the beginning of the school year, I applied for an Ipad through donors choose. I figured it was far fetched for someone to donate money for 1 Ipad for a Physical Education program, but to my surprise, it went through. I am very thankful for all of those who donated to help my program and cannot wait to start getting more creative for my students. WHAT, HOW, WHY On my white board, I would put up the warm-up activity, the lesson focus, and the activities for the different grade levels. This year I saw an article by Joey Feith about the What, How, and Why we teach to the students. I thought it was a good idea since it helps me think about the lesson and why I am teaching it to the students. It was a struggle at first, but as I go through the year, it become easier. I just have to become a little more creative on why I am teaching what I am, but it makes me really think about the lessons that I am presenting and, how the students will know if they learned the concept, and why it may be important to know the concept or perform the skill. Since the first day of classes in August until the holiday break, I have added and implemented new ideas and concepts into my classroom. With these changes, I am hoping to help motivate my students to become more active during class. With these new changes, I am hoping it will bring greater joy for the students in class. From plickers to classdojo to self-assessing. For me, I have in corporate more technology into my daily lessons, a monthly newsletter to share with parents what we are working on in class, and more importantly the WHAT< HOW, and WHY I am teaching the lesson for the day. - Matthew Holben (@holben_pe)
* Always a BIG shout out to Mike Ginicola (@HDPhysEd), Tanner Roos (@) and Joey Feith (@joeyfeith). Thank you for all you have done for not only inspiring me to become a better professional, but others as well! As one of my goals this school year is to reflect on my Physical Education program, my lessons, and everything that I have been changing to not only help my students learn more, but to help me to become a better teacher and a better person. Every year, I attend the Illinois AHPERD Convention to watch a lot of great demonstrations of activities and to try and catch some good lectures to help me become a better educator. Over the years, I sit on the side and take pages and pages of notes on the different sessions I have watched and when it is over and I go back to work the next week, I take those notes and put them in a binder. I have a binder filled with the past 10 years of activities that sit on my shelf and I will go through every once in a while to try and remember what I saw. Every so often, I would use something that I saw and do that activity with my students where it fits in.
Well, I figured this year, since I am already changing my Physical Education program, I am going to change my mindset on attending the IAHPERD Convention. In the sessions, the presenters always need volunteers to help demonstrate and at times, it seems like no one jumps up to help them out. There are lots of physical educators that just want to sit and take notes. This year, I am going to #BeTheChampion (our convention theme) and be one of those that jumps up right away to help the presenters. There was only one session that I sat down for, but the other 11 that I attended, I put my stuff down and was one of the first ones out on the floor. This year I was going to learn by doing. I was not going to sit and take notes, but instead, get up and move. I am a Physical Educator and I learn by doing! This year, I engaged in conversations with more people at the sessions than I have in the past. One of the main reasons in because of Twitter. The people that I have met on Twitter and had conversations with has been great for me this past year. I have learned so many great things from these conversations, but more importantly, so many great new friends to share ideas with and to not feel alone on my own “island”. I learned so much from these conversations that I had with them and hope that they will continue after these past 2 days. These conversations were spur of the moment and so much information is shared. It is a great way to learn directly from what others are doing in their program, but also what I am improving on in my own program. One of chats that I try to participate in on twitter is #iaherdchat with all of these great Illinois Physical Educators. Over the past year, I got to know them on a twitter level, but this year at the convention, I wanted to meet them face to face. I wanted to put a face to their twitter handle. One of the best ideas to help with this was brought up and was implemented by Carl Meister. He was going to create a shirt for himself and wear it at the convention with his twitter handle on it. He unselfishly offered out to those on twitter if anyone would like do the same. There was a good amount of responses of those who participate in the #iahperdchat that wanting to do the same. He got all of those interested in wearing the shirt and their twitter handles and took care of the ordering. The plan was to wear them and get people asking about the shirts and what they were. I had a dozen ask me where I could buy the shirt from and a dozen ask me what it was about. I gladly explained everything to help promote a bigger #iahperdchat and get more involved to share with others. I personally want to thank those that made my 2018 IAHPERD Convention the best one I have ever attended. I made so many new friends to share with, to help me in my journey this school year, and I hope to help them in anyway possible. They have spurred me to keep on working on my adjustments for this year and have encouraged me to step up in ways that I have never thought about before. They have been a great sounding board and I have learned a lot from them. They have inspired me to continue being a better Physical Educator for not only myself, but for my students. They unselfishly share their ideas and thoughts and I hope can do the same for them. So I want to say a HUGE Thank You to... Mike Graham Daniel Tennessen (USOPEN) Mark and Becky Foellmer Will Navis Jason Denk Roy Anderson Carl Meister Derrick Biehl Kelly Zerby Heather Isler Nik Broekemeier Bo Phillips Eric Chan Jodi Barasky Todd Weimer Ryan Regan -Matthew Holben (@holben_pe) Since joining twitter in November 2017, it has given me the courage to make some changes. Changes that I always thought should happen, but did not act upon. Changes that should take place, but never knew WHAT changes to start with, WHY they needed to change, and (more importantly) HOW to make these changes. I have always questioned my program/curriculum, but never knew where to turn. Being on my own “island” when it comes to teaching, I do not have anyone to bounce ideas off of. No one who would support me and give me feedback on my teaching. I felt alone and stranded. Background When I student taught back in 2006, I did 8 weeks in a high school and then 8 weeks at the elementary level. When I taught at the elementary level, I ended up taking the position when the previous Physical Education teacher went on her maternity leave and then she decided not to come back the following year. I basically fell into the position and I do not regret taking the position. I love the school that I am at and the school district is very supportive of its employees. In my school, I am the only Physical Education teacher for grades kindergarten through sixth grade. I see every student in the school and have built up the curriculum. When I took the position 13 years ago, there was no curriculum, nothing to base my teaching off of. The previous teacher would just do what she wanted to do. She would just play sports activities and whatever the students want to play. When she left, she made me a CD of all her lessons and that was that. So when I took over, I sort of went off with what she did. I stayed with the sport-based units and worked on the skills for each of the sport. I figured those covered the state standards and that was fine. We would do drills of the skills and then put all the skills into game play. No one said anything, no one bothered me and I could do what I wanted as long as I got the kids moving, they received grades and no one got majorly hurt. Everyone was happy, everything is fine. Eventually, I started to just show up to school, teach all day, and then just go home. It got to a point where I did not enjoy going to work and it became redundant. The main reason for starting to think of these changes happened because of a class I had and some of the issues that starting arising. Issues where students did not want to come to class. Issues where students wanted to sit out and not participate. Issues where students would purposely forget their gym shoes at home so they could sit out. Issues of behavior from students who normally would not act out or play around. I had to think of something and had to think of it FAST. I noticed that students just did not care to be in my class. Was my class just not interesting anymore? Daily Warm-ups The first change that I started with immediately was my daily warm-ups. To be honest, I did the same Daily Warm-ups everyday. I thought that if they would do the 5 Fitness Tests daily in class all year long, their score from the Fall Fitnessgram tests to the Spring Fitnessgram tests would increase. Then I finally sat down and looked at the scores and compared them, I noticed that they did not improve much and mostly stayed the same. My 3rd through 6th graders would come in and start with a 3 minute jog around the gym and then a minute walk. Some would jog on their own, some would jog with a friend, but most would just walk and talk. This is where I would find myself saying to them that they should be jogging not walking and talking with a friend. After saying that, some would start jogging, but that would only last a lap or two around the gym and then back to walking. Then came to sit-ups with a partner, they would just do a few and go back to talking. Push-ups, forget it! Most would just lay on the ground, only do a few, or do them incorrectly. Then a different stretch everyday and then shuttle run in 2 groups. Day in and day out. I then started Friday Fitness Stations, where each Friday was a different set of stations. I found myself repeating how to do the exercise or station that they needed to do and even then, there was no effort. I felt like I was at a dead end. Once we were back from Winter break, I threw out the daily warm-ups and started with Instant Activities. Activities where they were constantly started moving and we played different tag games. They were out of breath and sweating after a few 1 minute rounds of tag. They seemed to put more effort into not getting tagged then they did during the 3 minute jog. I then started adding in the exercise component of the tag games and they did not realize that they were working on muscular strength and endurance when they got tagged. I figured I was now on a better path to get my student’s heart rate up. Sport-Based Units vs. Skill-Based Units Like I mentioned before, I started teaching off Sport-Based units where I would do a sport for 3 weeks (6 or 7 days on how our schedule panned out). I would spend the first few days working on drills of a skill (soccer - dribbling, passing, shooting) and then play lead-up activities for the last 3 or 4 days. Then I would switch to another sport and run it the same way. Each year, I would try to find and think of different drills or lead-up activities for the sport units to change things up from the year before. Somewhere deep down, I knew this is not the best way to run my program and that there has to be a better way. Each year, I would get students asking me what sports we were going to be playing. I would have parents at conference time asking how their son or daughter were doing in basketball or volleyball. I would have parents ask me to work on soccer shooting more because their son played on the area’s soccer team. Parents would ask when I would start basketball because their son was trying out for a team. Parents would call me “Coach” and in my head, I would say that I am not a coach, but their son/daughter’s Physical Education Teacher! I did not go to school to be a coach; I went to school to become an educator. National Standards I noticed many of the Physical Education teachers on twitter where running their program based off the skills of the National Standards. I knew this would be better for my students and also for me. This was basically my first exposure to the National Standards. I knew this is where I wanted to head towards. I knew I had to dive deeper into the National Standards and let that guide my program to create my curriculum. I noticed teachers talking about looping their curriculum and revisiting skills to help students master the skills throughout the school year, rather than for 3 weeks. Cliff Roop directed me to Joey Feith’s blog about “Unpacking the Standards” (https://thephysicaleducator.com/2017/04/18/unpacking-the-national-standards/) This definately opened my eyes more on the standards and then started thinking/creating my calendar for the upcoming school year. New Beginnings This is where I begin my new construction project. I placed my hard hat on my head and grabbed the tools I may need. Like any construction project, I know it take time and lots of effort. Change is always difficult task that take time. I recently watched Ben Lander’s blog about “Change takes Time” https://www.thepespecialist.com/changetakestime/ He is definitely correct where any type of change takes time and is a challenge. It takes time for the students to adapt to the new concepts. It takes time for getting things when you need or want them. It take time to throw out your old lesson plans/curriculum and start new. It takes time even for me to adjust my old ways into something better for myself, but more beneficial for my students. I believe I am now on the right pathway to help not only my program, but to help advocate our profession. - Matthew Holben (@holben_pe) * Always a BIG shout out to Cliff Roop (@HDPhysEd), Joey Feith (@joeyfeith), and Ben Landers (@pespecialist). Thank you for all you have done for not only inspiring me to become a better professional, but others as well! I want first start off by saying THANK YOU to a bunch of people. Without many of them, I would not have had the courage to advocate or have the courage to change my practice, my lessons, my thinking on how teach/work with my students.
Like many Physical Education teachers, we teach on an island. I am the only PE teacher for the entire school. My island is 65 feet long by 50 feet wide. In 2 days, I see all 300+ students in the building. Each class length is 35 minutes, with 1 minute between classes. That is if classroom teachers pick their students up on time and are not late, and teachers bring their students down on time and not show up early. I feel like my gym is a revolving door, out the doors on one side of the gym and in the doors on the other side. There is not much communication between the other 3 schools in my district amongst the PE teachers and I have tried over the years to change that. I learned only willing people who want to change things, will change them. When I started teaching 13 years ago, I was lucky to get the position I still hold to this day. I student taught at the school and the previous Physical Education teacher was pregnant and leaving for maternity leave in May. I finished student teaching and then was offered her leave as a substitute. Not knowing where I would be teaching that following school year and looking for a job, I said yes and have not regretted it since. When she left, she gave me all her lessons and units and I finished off the year for her. While I was taking her leave, the principal at the time said that she decided that she was going to take the following year off to be at home with her kids and asked if I wanted to take her extended leave for the next year. Of course I said I would, so I would have a paycheck and not have to go on all those interviews. Over the next school year, the previous Physical Education teacher then decided she was done teaching and was staying at home, so my district offered me the position at my current school. With all of that said, I never had a mentor under the Physical Education umbrella. Yes, I had a mentor as a new teacher, but it was a 6th grade math teacher that was retiring at the end of my first year. She was very helpful with things around the school, but not in the Physical Education realm. So as I was going through the year, I would look at the previous Physical Education teacher’s notes and lessons and based my year off that. I would adjust as I saw fit and remembered what Physical Education was when I was younger. So I set up lessons and units under the different sports. Each unit would take a day or two on the different skills (dribbling, passing, shooting) and then use those skills in different lead-up activities. I almost ran those skills like drills that a coach would do. Year after year I would add different activities into the lessons, but still ran them about the same way. Once year 8 or 9 came along, I started questioning my teaching style (sport-based) and began looking for other ideas. At the same time, my family was getting bigger and I had less time to devote to my work. I would then revert back to my old ways because it was comfortable, no one complained about how I was doing, and my evaluations were fine. Everyone was happy except myself. I couldn’t stop thinking that there was more that I had to do for my students. There is more that I can help them with. There was more that I was missing in the Phys. Ed. world, but was not sure where to turn. Mike Graham I want to give a big shout-out to Mike Graham for the one to inspire me to join Twitter. Without him, I would not have joined back in November of 2017 and would not be on the journey that I am on now. I remember sitting in his presentation on a Thursday morning at IAHPERD Convention and was thinking that I needed more resources than what I was using. I sat and wondered where he got all his ideas. Ideas and lessons that I only dreamed about. I thought about who he bounces his ideas off of to help create and enhance his different activities. After his presentation, he had a twitter account and could contact him about anything we had seen. So I jotted down his info and got his business card. I was then sitting in another presentation and remembered his card, so I took it out, downloaded Twitter and began searching. My eyes opened wide to the amount of info that he was willing to share with others! (PICTURE OF WIDE EYES). I had never seen so many activities in one place, articles on different topics, and even class management. I thought that I had an OK program, but turns out, he was doing things that I have not seen or heard of. All I kept thinking about was if there was more out there, and there was! Mike Ginicola I came across Mike Ginicola’s page after seeing some different types of activities and started digging deeper. I notice that he was using the plickers program and I thought this was a great way to assess students fast, quick, and easy. Such a simple concept and there was no paper, pencil for students to bring or me to hand out. He made videos on how to make them, how to use them and also different ways to use them in classroom environment. This opened a huge window of opportunity in the gym that my administrators and other classroom teachers have asked me what they were and how to use them. I am always happy to share what I know about plickers/plagnets to them and give Mike all credit for bringing these into my Phys. Ed. world! Tanner Roos With the plicker/plagnets discovery, I came across Tanner Roos. He designed some to work well with my students and he is another great resource to help build them and use them. Since created a set for my classroom, there have been many ways for me to use them. From the simplest way to take attendance to asking them questions to self-assessing their own efforts in class to keep track of what level or progression they are at. He was very informative and willing to help me create questions Jason Steele I started following Jason because he was willing to share lessons that I would then adapt into my own classroom. One thing that stands out that I saw from Jason was the High Five Fridays! He would make these crazy signs to hang up around school to help encourage students and promote a safe and happy environment. Then the other day, I see him post videos about Friday Dance Parties! He makes it fun and inviting for the students that I want to drive hours to his school and join in the festivities. As he is the leader in the #iTweetPE organization that helps other Physical Education Programs, I think is a great cause. Any cause that a Phys Ed programs help other Phys Ed programs are needed. We might not get the funding that other classrooms may get, it is important Phys Ed programs help each other out! Don’t forget that Jason and Tanner have a weekly show on youtube called Let’s Talk Phys Ed were they interview other PE teachers from around the WORLD about anything and have different contests. There have been many different guests on the show, but always entertaining to get to see another side of things other PE teachers do in their classroom and what they think about different topics. Kevin Tiller & Ross Chakrian These two I give a big THANK YOU for giving me the courage to ask for a projector for class. These two have a huge database of gifs and videos that I quickly too advantage of once I received a projector from my tech. department. I saw a huge advantage as a teacher use I received the projector so now the task, skill, or challenge could be on repeat on the screen and I can walk around the gym helping those who need the help and not just stand in front and observe the students. I then got to thinking, “I can do that! I can create gifs and videos!” so I started playing around with imgplay and clips apps and started creating videos and gifs to use in class. I use my little iphone se and began creating the gifs and putting them into google slides. The students have been more engaged since making the different videos and gifs that it has been a better atmosphere. A better atmosphere to where students want to come to school and see what they will be doing in class. There has been more participation from students who would normally “forget they had PE that day” and students who do not want to leave because they have not finished the different challenges. Cliff Roop & Bart Jones At the beginning of the school year, Cliff started his own blog about more reflection on his teaching practices and we came into conversation about it. He wanted to keep himself accountable for the changes he was implementing in his Physical Education classroom this year. He talked about unpacking the standards, which lead to mapping out his school year planning. It got me thinking and after he suggested reading Joey Feith’s blog, got me thinking that was a good idea to start planning for the year. I would plan ahead in my previous years, but basically ran the same type of units from the previous year. So I started planning the year and had many discussions with Cliff and Bart about what they were thinking and what I was thinking. I got stuck a few times and I knew I could go to either one for help and they would shine some light on the subject. After many revisions and discussions, I finally put together a yearly map of the skills I wanted to use and then looking at the standards and how to incorporate them to better suit my students. Pete Charrette As many know, Pete is retired from teaching, but continues to have a big impact on the Phys. Ed. world. Not a day goes by where someone on Twitter posts about his Word Wall, or his I CAN posters, or different skill station signs. He has decorated gymnasiums around the country without even stepping into them. He has helped countless number of students who walk into a gym and see his posters and they know what they will be working on and how to do it. Students have learned a bigger physical vocabulary because of the words that have been placed around gymnasiums. Becky Foellmer Becky has been the go to person when I have any questions about technology and incorporating it more. Since getting a projector for class, I have used it almost everyday. I began incorporating google slides with different instructions, pictures, gifs, plicker questions, videos, and music that I had to learn a lot for the technology for class really quickly. It has been a lot of playing around, changing things up, seeing how others use it and adapt it to benefit my students. She has passed me to anyone else, but if I need help and she is not sure, she looks it up and helps me figure things out. She has helped create the site cbhpe.org to collect different ideas for Physical Education and Health that could be used and I have taken advantage of and also help create some to share. Wife and Kids Since starting all this journey with my teaching, there has been one who thought I was crazy at first, but she has always been supportive. Kristy, my wife, has listened to my crazy ideas and always interested in new “projects” that I suddenly create from inspiration of others. She does not get too mad when I stop what I am doing and write an idea down. She does not get angry when I wake up at 3:00am (one reason is because the baby crying) but I get an idea and I go downstairs to work on it. Sometimes when my phone goes off with a notification multiple times, she makes the comment “Another Twitter Chat tonight?” She is a teacher also, so she understands the process of planning for the year, planning daily lessons, grading assessments or writings, and reflecting on the day. All of this in a teacher’s daily life. My kids are supportive towards me when I want to show them a new google slide that they can follow along with. They enjoy playing Rock, Paper, Scissors and then do an exercise. The enjoy dancing along with the “Man in the Superhero Shirts”. When it came time to make the plickers/plagnets, we found how durable they were when then dropped them on the kitchen floor many times. Without all of the different roles my twitter acquaintances or family have played, I would not have been able to change my mindset on WHAT I was going to teach this year, HOW I was going to teach this year, and WHY I was going to teach this year. The many teachers who have shared their ideas, opinions, and even lessons for FREE, I thank you. You all made a huge impact on me and what I teach, but also a huge impact for my students! They will have a better understand about physical literacy and hope I can instill in them the idea of a healthy life-long lifestyle. A lifestyle that incorporates movement and activities in many ways that they will enjoy for years to come. I hope that they will one day look back and think that I had some impact on their lives as they move on into the later years of their lives. I look back almost a year now and think about how all of you have impacted my teaching and my life. I look at what you have done to help not only me, but other teachers and your students and hope one day I would have the impact on another teacher like you all have on me! THANK YOU TO ALL! |
AuthorI am a Physical Education teacher starting my 14th school year. I have been at the same school all 14 years. Starting this blog as a new project to share my thoughts and ideas. Archives
August 2019
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