Lucky for me, incorporating gaming into my class comes naturally. In PE, the game is usually the curriculum itself. Every day in my class, students are “playing” something while learning/honing new skills and concepts. I believe I’ve implemented both game-based learning and gamification with my classes in the past. With game-based learning, the content is the game itself. When I have my students play capture the flag (after a brief explanation of basic rules and objectives), the onus is on them to figure out the best strategy. In this example, the strategy is the content and the students are learning the content through gameplay. Edutopia’s article “3 Ways to Use Game-Based Learning” explains “When using games, try to avoid intervening when students are figuring something out” (1). Over the years, I’ve gotten better at keeping my distance and observing my students’ brains work together to figure something out. A less experienced me would jump in and help immediately if I saw a concept wasn’t being perfectly understood at first. But I now see the great value in allowing students to figure out the best strategy to go about achieving their objective. Gamification, as opposed to game-based learning, is when game elements are introduced to support the content being learned and to help motivate students. The best example I can think of for gamification with my classes is with the team building unit I’ve been teaching for the past four years. Throughout our team building unit, students are put into teams of 6-8 and are shown a wide variety of collaborative games in which they must work together to achieve a particular goal. The games are all explained and/or modeled through direct instruction, demonstrations and cue cards. Therefore, the content is taught directly to students before the game begins, not through gameplay. The gamification aspect is enhanced with “cash” being earned through successfully completing a team building objective. Over the course of two weeks, teams go through each team building “station” and are potentially awarded a certain amount of "money" based on how successful they were in achieving their objective. At the end of the day, every teams’ “banker” deposits their cash, and totals are tallied up on a big scoreboard. I’ve incorporated scoreboards and even tournament brackets into some other units we do, however it’s important to always keep the balance between competition and sportsmanship. Sometimes introducing a scoreboard when unnecessary in PE will only lead to overly-competitive teenagers and hurt feelings. It’s important to know when to gamify and when not to.
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I just completed a flipped lesson plan and rarely have I been prouder of a professional creation of mine. I began exploring with Edpuzzle and was shocked at how few good PE videos I could find. I ended up finding a perfect 2:20 heart rate video on YouTube and created my own Edpuzzle by adding in five multiple choice questions. Then it was time to check out Nearpod. Again… could find very little useful stuff on there for PE. I began creating my flipped heart rate lesson slide show and after a few minutes, I was getting in the Nearpod groove. I was not in love with not being able to embed links within a slide with text. I also did not love not being able to italicize, bold, underline or change any fonts within my slides with text. Maybe one is able to —but these functions at least were not cooperating on my Mac desktop. I embedded my Edpuzzle Heart Rate video at the beginning of the Nearpod slide deck, as it serves as a perfect intro/hook. I utilized the Mac screen capture (command/shift/4) very much throughout this creation. I embedded a screenshot of portion of a google spreadsheet table. The last part of the lesson is an embedded a google form as a means of assessment and data collection.
So I had my flipped lesson, but now it was time to create my screencast. I thought of this screencast as a sort of “accompaniment” to the Nearpod slide deck. In other words, while students could probably successfully execute this lesson with just the slide deck, I wanted the screencast to be a tool to help support students’ understanding of the content and assignment. After creating my first screencastomatic, I wasn’t totally in love with my “script” and the flow. I exported the video file, dropped it into iMovie and started made a bunch of small edits there (and added background music, hopefully it’s not too distracting!). Elementary teacher Eric Sheninger offers a variety of “blended learning” options and makes the claim that students can ultimately learn in ways with technology that they simply couldn’t without it. Makes me wonder if I should be utilizing the flipped classroom more. Could my students learn more effectively from this lesson than a more traditional worksheet, pen and paper heart rate lesson? To recap, for this flipped lesson creation I used the following tech tools: Edpuzzle (first time) Nearpod (first time) Screenshots Screencastomatic (first time) Google Sheets Google Forms iMovie Can you tell I am proud of myself? I never really utilized Google Forms in my practice until we transitioned to distance learning in April, although I do have decent experience with it from my credential program and various professional development courses.
During distance learning, Silverado students were given a list of bodyweight workout YouTube videos, choosing one workout to complete Monday-Thursday; at the end of the week, they completed the SMS PE Survey in which they checked off the box(es) for the workout(s) they did each day. The survey ends with these three short answer questions: What other physical activities (if any) have you done this past week? Which is your favorite workout? Any other comments, questions, or concerns? This Google Form essentially served as an assessment tool for me, while holding students accountable and giving them an opportunity for reflection and satisfaction. But what I was pleasantly surprised by was how amazing of a tool it is for collecting data. I was pretty blown away by the response summary pie charts, bar graphs, lists, and conversion to Spreadsheet. While reading up on Forms and its add-ons this week, I was able to envision a few more potential uses for Forms and my teaching. In the past, I’ve done pen and paper sign-ups for intramural sports, activity periods, tournaments, and other various activities/events at Silverado. I plan to transition to having students sign up for things like this with Google Forms, as well as for checking in and out equipment. Choice Eliminator and CheckitOut seem like useful add-ons for these purposes. Choice Eliminator makes it so choices on the form are removed after someone chooses them, and CheckitOut can move choices from “Checked in” to “Checked out” and back when equipment is checked out… “Create a ‘Name’ short-answer question and you can see the paper trail of who checked equipment in and out and at what time in the spreadsheet of results.” Student activity logs can be another great use of google forms in PE: “Create a form with the student’s name and all the information he/she needs to submit. Each time he/she submits, it’s logged into a spreadsheet where students can review that data and submit it to you” (Ditch That Textbook). Finally, I can ultimately see myself using forms as a data collection tool for my action research/capstone project. I still have a way to go in figuring out exactly what my action research will look like, but at this time I think my end users are other PE teachers and coaches, and I’ll want to do research around them. I think I can use Forms to create a survey which will ultimately be shared with my end users and gauges:
The Education Week article “My Favorite Teachers Use Social Media: A Student Perspective” reveals the powerful potential of using social media in the classroom from a student perspective. High school Freshman Katie Brenmar explains that all of her best and most engaging teachers have used social media to interact with their students, such as her middle school math teacher who posted homework assignments and reminders to her Instagram page so students have no choice but to be reminded of important class stuff while checking their feeds (1). I couldn’t help but think of the way my colleague, good friend, and fellow Napa High baseball coach Jason Chatham utilizes Instagram for a similar purpose. Jason created a Napa High Baseball Instagram page and is super active with posting not only important calendar items and updates, but also uses the page to promote our players and program in a humorous and always positive way. It’s the perfect example of a positive use of social media in school.
While reading “Teach Students to Use Social Media (The Right Way) and the Possibilities are Endless,” I was able to envision how I might be able to use social media in a high school PE setting. New Jersey high school English teacher Bayly DiPilato uses Twitter in a similar fashion to the middle school math teacher who used Instagram to post assignments, but takes it a step further by "constantly retweeting articles that are relevant to their English class in the hopes of teaching her students how to use Twitter personally and professionally” (2). This is when a lightbulb clicked in my brain as to how I could effectively use social media for a high school PE class. I’m not big on assigning my students work to do at home, only to add on to their already demanding academic work load. I wouldn’t need to post homework assignments or make any part of this mandatory. But very often do I spend time interacting with interesting content on the internet related to my subject… Why not share it with my students who care to follow my class Twitter account? Sources: When I was informed I would have to quickly develop a distance learning physical education curriculum for over 800 students at Silverado Middle School, I wasn’t really sure where to begin. I ultimately kept it very simple… I created a “Lesson Plan” google doc which was shared with every student in the school. Within this doc were 20 links to various bodyweight workouts on youtube and directions for completing one workout a day. The lesson plan doc also included a link to a Survey which was to be done at the end of each week, for students to reflect on their workouts and “share” the work they’ve done. That was the extent of my integration of tech tools to Silverado Middle School’s distance learning PE…. A google doc, google form, and youtube videos.
After exploring the massive library of tech tools shared with us this week, I wish I could’ve known about some of this stuff a few months ago. One tool which immediately caught my interest is Coach's Eye. I can see this being applicable to PE, but can REALLY start to imagine its functionality with my high school baseball players. With Coach’s Eye, one of my players (or students) can film themselves with any camera, upload the video to Coach’s Eye, and I can provide direct feedback to them based on what I see in the video. In addition to verbal or written feedback, I can analyze movements in slow motion and mark up the video to effectively analyze movement and relay exactly what I am seeing back to the athlete. An example of a secondary PE lesson incorporating Coach's Eye... Each student will film his or herself doing five modified pushups with their knees on the ground (more difficult than it sounds to find the proper technique!). After assessing techniques, I can provide effective and instant feedback to every student by sending their video back to them “with coaching.” Students can then re-film themselves, making the necessary adjustments based on feedback, and send me the new video showing their progress. When imagining Coach’s Eye application to baseball, the possibilities are endless. Slow motion video analysis has been a major tool for baseball players of all levels – whether we’re analyzing a batter’s swing, pitching, running or fielding mechanics. Coach’s Eye will add a whole new element to real time coaching, with clear feedback sent immediately and saved directly to an athlete’s phone. Equity: The Quality of being fair and impartial. How can we as educators, be fair and impartial with our students? How can we get our students to understand the inequities in our society and stand up for what is right? After exploring resources from Common Sense, KQED, Stanford and the ADL, it’s apparent we need to be facilitating open and honest (and potentially uncomfortable) conversations in our classrooms.
I would begin my digital literacy unit with focusing on equity by introducing students to various videos discussing the topic. I stumbled upon one video which I think would be a useful introduction to the topic of equity: “5 Things You Should Know About Racism.” (1) Starting students off with a video is a low stakes activity which can be effective in reeling them in. Following the video hook with a classroom discussion on empathy vs compassion would be the next logical step for my equity lesson. Getting students to then understand the difference between empathy and compassion would be a major step in educating students about equity. KQED’s resource, 4 Tools for Kids To Help Develop Compassion and Social Change reveals the importance of understanding empathy vs compassion: “Empathy allows us to sense other people's emotions, like grief or joy, and imagine what someone else might be thinking. Compassion is similar, but also involves a desire to help the person.” (2) Finally, I would place students into culturally diverse groups (breakout rooms if done digitally), in which they would work together to complete this Living Room Conversations activity… “In Living Room Conversations, a small group of people (ideally six) come together to get to know one another in a more meaningful way. Guided by a simple and sociable format, participants practice being open and curious about all perspectives, with a focus on learning from one another, rather than trying to debate the topic at hand.” (3) In this activity, students are required to interact with each other and have challenging and honest conversations about race and ethnicity in our society. I believe secondary physical education is the perfect place for students to collaborate together while developing the social skills and maturity necessary to take part in an activity like this. Sources: 1. https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/race-and-racial-identity 2. https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/48430/4-tools-for-kids-to-help-develop-compassion-and-social-change 3.https://www.livingroomconversations.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/race_and_ethnicity_3.pdf When considering high school PE, teaching digital citizenship doesn’t exactly seem to be the most practical lesson, as we rarely incorporate devices into our PE classes when we’re at school. However, with our current situation and the implementation of distance learning across the country, we need to be ready to teach and learn in an online world. Educating our high schoolers on digital citizenship will not only allow our world of distance learning to become a safer place, but will also hopefully ultimately make the internet a better place for everyone.
Distance learning in PE might entail students partaking in physical activity in front of their webcams. We all know this is something that many people are not going to be super comfortable with. The fear of being bullied for what you look like while exercising is very real. One way to directly make it personal for students is to bring this factor to light, and have an open discussion about our embarrassment. We all experience this! Another way to make digital citizenship personal for students is to have them investigate this awesome source below, and have them think, pair, share (or class discussion) an example of a time they have encountered something from this list while online… then brainstorm ways to combat that instance of cyberbullying. Various Ways of Cyber Bullying Finally, students will be encouraged to have an open discussion about a time cyberbullying affected them or somebody close to them, and the ways they dealt with it. Did you (or they) handle it as well as they could have? What do you wish went differently? Personalized learning and competency-based learning take many forms in education today. Rather than just being one thing, personalized learning can entail a wide variety of educational philosophies and teaching styles. I like Katie Varatta’s definition of competency-based education in the article Teaching in a Competency-Based Learning Environment: "students moving through education based on mastery of skill rather than seat time, lessons personalized to the individual and students taking ownership of their learning."
So in a high school physical education class, what might competency-based learning look like? Example 1: While giving a lesson on how physical activity affects the heart rate, the teacher can begin with instruction to the entire class, defining the basics of heart rate to the whole group (physical activity's effect on heart rate, maximum heart rate formula, resting heart rate, target heart rate, etc.). Then after measuring their resting heart rate, students can be encouraged to partake in any physical activity of their choosing… something they like to do in their lives, then re-measure their heart rate and see the benefits of their favorite physical activity. Example 2: When giving a lesson on flag football, some students, through prior experience with the sport, will have excellent background knowledge and already be aware of intricacies and variations within the sport that inexperienced students will not. For this lesson, I would instruct the whole group first, teaching essential rules which would ensure the safety of the students, as well as familiarizing them with basic concepts. Then I would break the students up into groups by experience and abilities, allowing those students with good background knowledge to agree, as a group, on which variations they will play with (e.g. how many blitzes per four downs, two completions for a first down vs gaining 10 yards, “five Mississippi” or another countdown before rushing the quarterback, allowing or not allowing quarterback runs, etc.) Believe it or not, a good percentage of students would know all of these concepts specific to flag football and would not need a ton of instruction to get a good game going. On the flip side, that would allow me to put my focus and good teaching energy into the more beginner level groups, helping coach their games along, and stopping and re-teaching something when necessary. This falls in line with Laura Hilger’s example of giving different levels of writing instruction to various smaller groups based on what that group needs: “While they are working, you might be pulling small groups to go deeper on the focused mini lesson or individuals that need further interventions or support.” (Teaching in a Competency-Based Learning Environment). Example 3: When teaching a Weight Room class to high school students, you will encounter many students with wide ranges of physical capabilities. It would be flat out dangerous to expect all students to be able to handle the same weight or number of reps with particular exercises. It would be important to get students to self-evaluate and find the appropriate workout for themselves. Student agency will be an important factor here – students will be expected to take the “curriculum” into their own hands by getting to understand their own bodies better. Then, students would be divided into smaller groups based on their abilities and each individual would be set to go at an appropriate pace for their own development. |
About Dustin Green:High School PE Teacher Archives
March 2021
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