I am going to be a physical education instructor, and I will have minors in adaptive PE and health. While we were going through module 5, I thought a lot about how it would pertain to me teaching PE in the future.
Since I will be able to teach Health class, I will be able to teach classes in the classroom and in the gymnasium for regular PE. We talked about establishing rules and expectations, and also a flow to the classroom- which is very important and should be established early on. Many parts of module 5 I can see pertaining to my Regular PE classes, along with my health classes too. Although many parts of my Physical Education classes will be instructed with teacher centered learning in order to explain an activity or game, I will incorporate many student learning activities also. Some of the ways I will do this will be by having an cooperative learning unit in my curriculum. These are activities that require students to work together to achieve an outcome that requires physical fitness but may also require strategy to complete the task. Sometimes students will need to all think together, and sometimes students will have to divide up jobs/tasks to complete the activity. The students will achieve positive interdependence, individual accountability, face to face interaction with peers, interpersonal and small group social skills, and group processing skills. Below I have a video that shows some examples of cooperative learning activities in which students need to work together to figure out good techniques to accomplish their goals.
https://youtu.be/hCJMEXfLdlM
Speaking of goals, I think a good technique that we went over is making the goals clear and well known to students. I may even give them shortened lesson plans as we do new units so they can keep on track and they will know what’s expected. And if they are successful in what we are trying to learn, they could be rewarded with a student choice day, choosing between 3 activities that have had good feedback. To assess how the students did, I could do a number of different assessments- A formative assessment such as an exit slip, or asking a few questions pertaining to the lesson. I could also do a summative assessment which would be something like a written text at the end of a unit.
Keeping students motivated is also very important. As Anita Woolfolk explains,”Motivation is usually defined as an internal state that arouses, directs, and maintains behavior.”(pg 476) You can achieve this by doing student learning activities, including technology in your lesson, involving students in your planning for certain activities, encourage peer assistance/ help so they can help teach, giving in depth feedback so the students can see what exactly they did well and what they need to work on to better themselves, and keeping the class structured and well thought out to where there is many activities to keep the students interested- which in turn keeps their motivation levels up. I want to teach in a way that the students are intrigued and want to learn, and don’t want to just get a good grade.
Incorporating different design works and principles can add a much needed structural element to class that can not only help the students, but help the instructor to stay organized. Backward Design is great for this! First you identify your desired results, then determine acceptable evidence, and finally plan your learning experience and instruction. I personally like this backwards way of planning because it can keep you focused on your main goal instead of getting a bunch of material that may be good, but doesn’t pertain exactly to your original goals for the students. I will definitely use this a lot while teaching.
We had the opportunity to use the Backward Design on our lesson plans, and I really liked using it a lot. While learning a subject with Blooms Taxonomy, the design requires students to master the material in stages to fully grasp it- Remember the material, understand it, apply it, analyze it, evaluate it, and then finally be able to create their own work from what they have learned. I believe that this was accomplished in my lesson plan.
My lesson was Healthy Relationships.
Stage 1- I established my desired goals for the students which were to Compare and contrast the characteristics of healthy relationships and be able to demonstrate communication skills that foster healthy relationships. The students will understand things like ways to handle difficult situations in relationships and which relationships are unhealthy. Along with answering some questions like “Who can I go to for help about a relationship?”
Stage 2- I would be able to see my students understanding of the material during my performance tasks. These included playing a game where the students must read off scenarios given on the board , and contemplating their own ways to best take care of the situation. The students also would write down characteristics of a healthy relationship in a small group, then talk about their input to the class. They would play “Kahoot!” and do a worksheet both having to do with healthy relationships.
Stage 3- I used a variety of different methods to teach in my learning plan. It consisted of using videos of real life situations pertaining to the main goals, a question box in which a student could anonymously get any appropriate question answered by the class, and role playing scenarios. I believe that these are all very different ways of learning the material and would satisfy a lot of the students who may be diverse in their learning styles.
As I have mentioned why I really liked using the Backward Design- It just really keeps me focused on the final objective at hand. I think that it kept me from straying off into different topics and unneeded material. I will be sure to use this framework in my future.
Woolfolk, A. (2014). Educational psychology: Active learning edition. (12th Ed.). Pearson.
Awesome post Luke! I really think that you have some great ideas throughout this post. I like how you took time to focus on goals and talked about allowing students the chance to be able to review the lesson plan before the start of a unit. I think this is smart to be able to keep them engaged and knowing what to expect like you said. Do you think along with viewing the lesson plan that it would help to ask the students a few questions to see what their prior knowledge of the unit is? Just a thought for discussion!