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!
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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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