Throughout the semester, I have been doing
observations at Willow Valley Middle School. Over the course of this semester I
have been really struggling with how to adapt what I have been learning in this
class to a Physical Education class. I found that I was able to adapt
everything we have been learning to English easily, but I struggled with PE
because the goal in a PE class is to KEEP
the KIDS MOVING! So I set out to observe my clinical teacher with a
rejuvenated purpose. I wanted to see if she was able to use the things we have
been learning this semester, in her own classroom. My discoveries were motivating.
I found that my teacher used different
strategies that incorporated digital literacy, articles, vocabulary, etc
everyday in her classroom!! ON Tuesdays, she discusses nutrition. Her students
still do the designated PE movement requirements, i.e., they do their warm-up,
core work, the activity for the day. But they also get taught about weight training,
nutrition, yoga, etc. For the last few minutes of class, the teacher would
discuss a healthy eating habit and send them home with a worksheet, vocabulary
sheet, article, etc. Then on “Fit Friday” the students would bring back what
was given out on Tuesday and they had to discuss what they learned and how it
applied to them. The teacher set this process up fantastically. She made sure
to put up the vocabulary words on the white board in the gym and to remind them
of the work they needed to be doing throughout the week.
Last week, the teacher
got the entire students’ families involved. As a class, they discussed healthy
treats, and on sent home a sheet that the students had to discuss with their
family and decide what healthy treat they were going to try out that week. IF
the family wanted to share that treat with the class, they could bring that to “Fit
Friday”. Several students showed up with healthy treats. It was so neat! The students
were able to share their experiences and if they brought a treat they shared it
with the class. This only lasted about 12 minutes. Then for the rest of the
class, they did activities that they can incorporate at home. It was really
cool!
So I guess the moral of all of this is that
all of these strategies we have been learning about CAN be incorporated into a
PE classroom. This new found motivation is what inspired me to pick my
self-selected project of teaching two vocabulary lessons to my clinical PE
class. Stay tuned for my next post to learn how that went… J
This is almost exactly what I posted. I have been having the same problem-- English application, no problem! PE application-- umm....how? It has been interesting to see ways that teachers have done so. I liked the examples you shared from Willow Valley.
ReplyDelete"Fit Fridays"! I needed to be there! What a good way to get the families involved with what they are learning about in school. I can see how it would be hard to apply some of the concepts of this class to PE, but it sounds like your cooperating teacher knows how!
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