My Life in Education

In the field of physical education, motivation is arguably the most important aspect when it comes to instructing the students. Sure, students need to be motivated in other classes as well, but the motivation necessary to get a student to run a mile is completely different than the motivation needed to get them to use proper grammar.

When it comes to motivation, one of the best ways to effectively design instruction is to use Backward Design. Backward Design is a process that teachers can use to design learning experiences that begins with the objective. This objective is what students are expected to learn and/or be able to do at the end of the unit or course. The teacher then proceeds “backward” to create lessons that achieve those desired goals. The Backward Design process is successful because it takes the end goal and just fills in the space, in whatever way necessary, to achieve said goal.

The Backward Design process was somewhat difficult for me to understand when I first learned about it. This video does an excellent job at visually explaining the process and showing why Backward Design can be so effective in any instructional situation.

In my future classroom, I believe I can use the Backward Design Process very effectively. Certain instructional strategies do not translate well when they are used in a physical education setting, but in the case of Backward Design, it is the complete opposite. Setting clear, achievable, and realistic goals when you introduce a new topic is extremely important in any case; and even more so in physical education. Take running a mile for example. If every single day when I talked to my class I told them to run two laps around the track (1/2 mile) as a warm up, they would do just that. They would run it as fast as they could just to get it done. Then when it was time to run the mile, they would be burned out at the end of the two laps because that is all they know how to do; that is all that their body is trained for. Instead, if I make it clear from the beginning that the end goal is to be able to run a mile, then the students will run the two laps with that mindset. They will save energy knowing that they will, at some point, have to run more.

There are countless examples in which Backward Design can be used in physical education. An article from the Online Physical Education Network (OPEN) described other ways that Backward Design can be used. “FITMAN is a variation on the game hangman, but with physical education vocabulary and less violence. The rules are simple; we buy letter guesses by doing a repetition for every open space in our word puzzle. You could do jumping jacks, arm curls, left-handed dribbles, etc.”

For my own lesson plan, I decided to do a flag football lesson. Here it is in more detail:

Module5OnlineActivity

I designed my lesson using the Backward Design process. I first established the goals of the lesson. I wanted to make the desired results clear cut and realistic. I then moved into explaining the ways in which I will be assessing my students and what key criteria I will be on the look out for. Lastly, I devised a learning plan to explain why I chose flag football to teach those specific standards.

In stage one, I used Bloom’s Taxonomy to illustrate what the desired results of my lesson will be. Blooms Taxonomy is largely knowledge based. Therefore, after I established the goals in stage one, I then went on to list what knowledge the students will gain and what they will mentally and physically be capable of.

In stage 2, I included many different assessment strategies. It was in this stage that I was able to be more specific and solidify certain performance actions that I will be assessing on.

In stage 3, I concluded my lesson plan by showing how the standards and goals can be achieved with a lesson like flag football. Flag football is a team sport that uses many different complex motor skills. It is very easy to see skill development and skill application. I think flag football does a really nice job in demonstrating how it meets those standards.

I think that using the Backward Design process really helped me to create a thorough lesson plan. Making sure that the desired results are clear to the students gives them something to work towards. That is extreme important in physical education and a good way for the students to see themselves progressing.

References:

Standards, Outcomes, and Fun! (n.d.). Retrieved April 24, 2017, from http://openphysed.org/open_blog/standards-outcomes-fun

Teaching to me is a really eye opening profession. The amount of differences you are exposed to as a teacher are second to none, and to me, that is what makes it such a rewarding career. There really are no other jobs that expose individuals to the amount of different situations and different people that  teachers have to encounter everyday. At most jobs, the only people you ever have differences with are your colleagues. Teachers have to face those same differences with their colleagues; and on top of that, they also have to deal with all the differences they have with their students.

In my future career as a teacher, I expect to encounter a lot of differences. Nobody is exactly the same as someone else and differences are present in all professions. It would be naïve of me to think that I could go my whole career and not experience anyone different than me. When it comes to differences between the people I am working with, I expect to encounter these when lesson planning with other teachers in my department. I have certain ideals and morals when it comes to how to teach material to kids and how to asses them. They are a little more traditional and strict than most other teachers and I think that when differences emerge, if at all, it will be here.

Differences with students will be much more common. There are so many different students I will be in contact with; all of whom come from different backgrounds, half of my job will be dealing with differences. The best way that I, as a teacher, can identify and plan for these individual and cultural differences between my students is to make myself vulnerable. By making myself vulnerable, I hope to show my students that it is okay to be yourself and let your guard down. As we saw from the videos A Girl Like Me, Killing Us Softly, and Jane Elliot Brown Eyes vs Blue Eyes; as a society we tend to put too much emphasis on looks, skin color, and gender. We judge people on things that cannot be changed. In all classes, including physical education, this can be detrimental to a students’ success. If you are not able to be yourself and step out of your comfort zone, you will never achieve anything. I hope that my students will look at me and view my class as a class where going above and beyond and stepping outside your comfort zone is not looked down upon, but encouraged.

The one difference I might encounter the most in my future teaching experience has to do with the importance of physical education. More and more we see physical education being de-emphasized and a lot of children believe it is not important. I think I will have a lot of moral differences with my students over this topic. When this difference arises, I plan to show my students how important physical fitness is to them long term and by trying hard now will benefit them greatly down the road. I think this difference is the most important one to overcome because my students need to know how important the things that I am teaching are. If they think that it is irrelevant, they will not learn anything and I will not be doing my job.

I know that this video is long, but it does a great job at showing how a teacher is able to discover the individual differences of each and every one of her students. The teachers says in the video that, “by systematically studying the differences in background, abilities and needs of the children in her room via observation, accumulative records, behavior journals, discussion with other teachers, parent interviews and staff conferences, she can teach all the children well”.

https://youtu.be/laCG2E2iB3s

References:

Videos – Learning How to Know Your Students, A Girl Like Me, Killing Us Softly, and Jane Elliott Brown Eyes vs Blue Eyes