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