Question 1-

Motivation is one of the biggest influences over a child’s education. Finding what motivates your students is one of the most challenging yet important skills to have as a teacher. One of the first things you can do to impact a student’s motivation is providing a positive learning environment. As we discussed on Thursday, a positive learning environment is one of the biggest contributors to student success. If a student is in a poor learning environment they will most likely feel uncomfortable participating and asking questions in class. As a result, if a student is unable to learn and feel comfortable in your classroom, their motivation to do work and engage will greatly decrease.

In order to ensure this doesn’t happen inside of my classroom, I will be sure to have clear behavior and academic expectations listed in my classroom. Even more importantly, I will be sure to review and strictly enforce my expectations with the class.

Another factor I have learned about in my foundation block class is the importance of a community. Environmental background, including where students are raised and how their community perceives education can contribute to student success and failure. In professor, Elliot’s class, we learned how the black community sees education as a form of involuntary assimilation to white culture. Being forced to do anything causes a people to often push away from what they are being compelled to do. Because the black community has these feelings of forced education, they tend to devalue it.

To make things even worse, black students often don’t have access to the same resources as white children. The reading “digital responsibility” explains impact technology resources can have on a child’s education. For example black student’s lack of access to these critical resources increases the achievement gap between these two cultures. Because of this difference, black students are far less likely to possess an equal level of motivation to complete their school work. Without access to this advanced technology, they are treated almost as second class citizens who aren’t afforded the same resources as every other child. In addition to their lack of motivation, they are surrounded by other people who were also improperly educated. These previous generations pass had a bad experience in school so they pass down their belief that school is just a waste of time.

As a teacher, I feel like it’s part of my job to prove to students why education is important. On the first day of every year, I plan on making a presentation to my students that proves to them the importance of physical education. I hope I will inspire them to see not only value in physical education but also their education experience as a whole.

Question 2-

STAGE 1 – DESIRED RESULTS
Unit Title: _Module 5 backwards design_______________________________________                                                                        Established Goals: Creating a unit where my students will understand how to create a workout routine and acquire the ability to demonstrate the proper forms of each exercise. I also plan on having my student’s create a meal plan which will allow them to know what goes into a healthy diet and how your diet relates to exercise. Hopefully, by the end of this lesson my students will know what it takes to be healthy and active for a lifetime.
Understandings: Students will understand that… ·       The ability to be active and healthy for a lifetime. ·       What does a good workout routine look like? ·       How to work well with a team.	Essential Questions: ·       What is considered an active lifestyle? ·       What is considered a healthy lifestyle? ·       Why is important to learn about what it takes to live a healthy lifestyle?
Students will know: ·       How to properly create a workout plan. ·       How big of a difference living a healthy lifestyle has on your mood. ·        Knowledge of how to preform basic exercises. ·        Last they will learn how to work with a variety of other people to complete different tasks.	Students will be able to: ·       Understand how much physical activity they should have in a day in order to maintain an active lifestyle. ·       Understand what a proper healthy diet consists of and what calorie intake they should aim for each day. ·        Last they will learn what a healthy lifestyle should consist of in regards to alcohol and drug use.

 

STAGE 2 – ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE
Performance Tasks: Create a workout routine with a partner along with a food plan. Your plan has to be specific, based on whether or not you are trying to: ü  bulk up and gain weight along with muscle mass, ü  tone your muscles but not gain weight, ü  or, determine  how to lose weight in a healthy manner and get back into shape.	Other Evidence: You must be able to demonstrate the proper techniques of each exercise you chose for your workout regimen. You must also only allow yourself three cheat meals where you can choose to eat out or make something special Last, your food plan should stay within the weekly budget assigned.
Key Criteria: The ability to construct a workout plan then properly demonstrate how to preform each exercise. You also have to make yourself a meal plan so you can learn how to map out your food for the week. This causes it to be easier to stick to a healthy diet. Also by putting a reasonable budget in place and only allowing them three cheat/eat out meals, it will give students the knowledge they need for when they leave high school and become in charge of their own meals. Healthy food also tends to be a lot more expensive so discovering cheap, healthy options now will help them find ways to stay on a budget while eating healthy.

 

STAGE 3 – LEARNING PLAN

Summary of Learning Activities:   I plan on spending the first half of the week of class going over safety procedures in the locker room. During this time, I will demonstrate how different machines work and explain different exercises you can do with them, along with showing the proper technique for each. Then I will spend the second half of the next week showing different free weight exercises as well as how to do super sets and demonstrate what muscle groups are easiest to focus on together when designing a workout. Then for the next week, I will spend the first few days explaining how to create a workout routine and demonstrate what a warm ups should consist of and so on. I will also get into what types of reps you should do and what kind of exercises are good for building muscle mass vs what’s good for getting toned or losing weight. Last, I will spend the remainder of the week going over what a proper diet consists of. This means I will discuss how different types of food impact your body differently and what meals will give you the results you are looking for. I feel it’s really important to be thorough during these first few weeks because students need to understand how go about getting in shape in a safe, healthy manner. Next, I will give my students a week to come up with a workout routine for themselves and their partner. Then, I will have them spend the next week making a food plan to go along with their workout routine. The last week of the unit will be spent with the students demonstrating the exercise routine they created and I will grade them on proper form. After that, I will have them sit down and explain why they chose those exercises and what type of results they were hoping to get. Then I will have them tell me why they chose the foods they selected and explain how their food choices connect to their workout routine.

Throughout my future career as an educator I expect to encounter diversity on a daily basis. Our schools are growing more and more diverse and as a result it’s important to understand how to make an impact on all types of students. It is very important to have a plan for how to connect with students from different cultures because they may have completely different experiences, customs and personal history.  For example, if you have a student from a different country, they could have grown up learning completely different cultural norms and values than your typical American student. One thing the book points out that you can do to connect with these students is to show interest in their background, whatever it may be. A way you could do this is by assigning content that relates to their culture. This could be done by having them write about their culture or what it’s like to be an immigrant in America. As a physical education teacher, one thing I could do is have a student teach the class their favorite game they used to play in their former country.  I could also ask them to share thought about their favorite sport, and ask if their cultural background had any influence on why they like that sport so much. Finding a way to connect your curriculum to a student’s culture is a great motivator for students to do the work because it’s something they are passionate about. As a teacher, leading by example by being open to new cultures and ideas is extremely important because you will influence other students to do the same.

Another important thing to do as a teacher is to avoid making assumptions. In the podcast Batman that we listened to for pluralistic, it demonstrates just how big of an impact expectations can have. The podcast explains how expectations have a tremendous impact on that person’s ability. For example, if we expect someone to be smart because they are Asian, they are likely to believe they actually are smarter and live up to that expectation.

Expectations also can have negative effects as well. For instance, if you assume a student is stupid because they are Hispanic that student is more likely to believe they really do lack intelligence, which would result in them living up to the negative expectation. Therefore, as an educator one of my main objectives is to be open to all cultures. One way to accomplish this might be that on the first day of school, I could have each student tell me something they are good at that makes them smart. By doing that, I will know that each one of my students are smart in some way and I will be sure to treat them as such. In conclusion, as a teacher I will be sure to keep an open mind to all cultures and do my best to focus on the unique benefits each has to offer.