|
Fitness
Testing and Motivation
Our district follows the traditional
model of assessing student fitness levels
twice a year. The results of the student's
scores for each year are sent home every
June, allowing parents and students
to examine the information. Although
I incorporate the components of fitness
into my daily instruction and activities,
I do not believe that having students
measure their progress at only two points
(fall and spring) on these items is
very motivating or helpful to the student,
or myself, if I am seeking development
and improvement. The span between the
measurements is too great.
I would like to devote more time to
specifically developing and assessing
these components. Rather than 2 assessments
per year, I am seeking to assess each
component 6 times during the school
year during these five minute periods.
I believe that more frequent assessment
will result in a number of positive
outcomes. First, assessment will become
more efficient as students will become
used to it as a way to measure their
progress. After a few assessments, the
time required to conduct them should
also significantly decrease. In fact,
it is my goal to have students assessing
their own levels independently. In addition
to "feeling" the effects of
improved fitness, students will see
concrete evidence of progress all year,
which will increase their motivation
to continue doing what I am asking of
them. I will also be in a better position
to observe trends and to make individualized
adjustments to my instruction.
Also, because I am able to teach my
students every other school day for
45 minutes, I have the ability to allot
five minutes of every class period to
a specific fitness component without
significantly altering my lesson plan.
I can make that time up through faster
transitions and becoming more efficient.
I will also continually embed development
of these components in the other activities
of my lessons. However, during these
five minutes I will either have activities
devoted to improving a specific component
of fitness, or I will conduct a formal
fitness assessment.
Instead of having students solely practice
the fitness assessments over and over,
which would become quite boring, I will
utilize a variety of activities for
strength and flexibility to develop
student fitness and to get them more
familiar with the tests. Students will
also be able to perform these activities
at home. Because the amount of time
per class devoted to improving fitness
assessment scores is not substantial,
and because I am instilling in students
that regular assessment of their health
and fitness development is a desirable
trait, I believe that "teaching
to the test" in this circumstance
is a positive. For cardiovascular endurance,
obviously five minutes is not enough
time to result in improvement. Practice
for that component will be incorporated
into my lesson activities and plans.
The 5-minute practice time will focus
instead on instruction in pacing, form,
breathing, and heart rate education.
Skill Development
It's no secret that today's students
are not as active as previous generations.
Computers, video games, and television
all compete for children's time. Consequently,
students are not getting the repetitions
and skill practice outside of school
that they used to, and physical education
may be the only place these students
do receive skill practice. If we want
students to become competent and proficient
in a variety of activities (NYS Learning
Standard 1A), how do we provide ample
practice time while at the same time
expose students to a variety of activities
that they may learn to enjoy and select
outside of school? I have already written
in a previous article (Secondary
Section, May 2006) about teaching
in themes and stressing related skills
(an overhand throwing motion is the
same as a volleyball serve, which is
the same as a tennis serve). I have
another idea that I'm hoping will have
a positive impact on skill development,
and allow me to still offer a variety
of activity experiences to develop my
students' gross locomotor, non-locomotor,
and manipulative skills in a challenging
and safe environment.
My school offers the PE
Central Challenge every year to
our 4th graders and it is one of the
most popular periods of the year. Students
even come to school early for extra
practice time. It is great to see the
students focused on practicing the six
skills for a couple of weeks, and to
witness their improvement and control.
I wondered why we can't have a challenge
all year of skills, and have a checklist
of 100 skills that students could try
and achieve. So, this fall I will also
devote the first five minutes of each
class to students practicing to accomplish
tasks. The tasks will vary each class,
be repeated often, and will cover a
range of grade-level-specific skills,
such as skipping, gymnastics, juggling,
volleying, kicking, throwing, and dance.
The tasks will be related to district,
state, and NASPE benchmarks. All six
of the PE Central Challenge tasks will
be included for 4th graders, and many
of the challenges will be related. In
other words several tasks are simply
more complex/difficult executions of
the same general skill, meaning that
students could accomplish multiple challenges
in one try. For example, jump roping
for 90 seconds without a miss would
accomplish the tasks of 30 seconds,
and 60 seconds without a miss, as well
as the PE Central Challenge task.
As students accomplish the skill tasks
I hope they will be motivated to try
to meet even more challenges. There
will be enough challenges and difficulties
that even the most skilled will remain
engaged in trying to check off challenges.
I will be better able to provide specific
feedback and assistance to meet the
needs of each student. I believe that
this time spent on accomplishing "challenges"
at the beginning of each class will
make my instruction easier. The more
students practice, the more skilled
they will become which will increase
their competence and confidence. I also
believe this will maximize time on task
for all of my lessons, and allow me
to cover more by being able to spend
less time reviewing.
I believe this approach will provide
frequent exposure and practice of all
the skills I teach, rather than covering
them at different points of the year
and then not teaching them again. In
other words, I hope this approach will
provide the ample practice time of skills,
while at the same time allowing me to
provide a wide variety of diverse experiences.
This idea will be especially helpful
to students who really like a particular
activity; they will have the opportunity
to work on it all year if they choose,
instead of trying other activities.
Either way, I hope this will make my
students more active, either by trying
to see if they can get to 100 challenges,
or by finding one activity and performing
it more frequently than in the past.
This challenge approach will also tie
in very well with my focus on themes.
For example, students will experience
the similarities between the overhand
throw and a tennis serve much more frequently
than they have in the past.
Bulletin Boards
I am very open about the fact that
I do not do well at maintaining bulletin
boards. I struggle to keep it dynamic,
motivating, and visually appealing.
My creativity seems to end with my lessons!
Using the classroom instruction ideas
from above, I am going to try two strategies
that will allow me to keep a dynamic
and interesting board without having
to come up with new material each week/month.
- Fitness Testing: Using results
from my fitness assessments and class
activities (see above) I can track
and post the classes that have reached
10 miles, 11 miles, half-marathon,
etc… as a class distance during
the most recent run. I could also
post the average laps/distance or
do graphs of individual and class
improvement, healthy fitness zone
achievements, as well as track the
distances on a map of where students
have traveled. The statistics may
also be grouped by gender or grade.
I could even post the results of cooperative
contests. These ideas would also work
well for the other components of fitness.
- School
Challenge/PE Challenge: I will post
the results of the School Challenge
and list the students who have 5 challenges
completed, 10, 20, etc….This
could motivate students to keep going
to get more challenges and see how
far their name could move on the board.
I may also incorporate the Olympics
into this idea, as students will be
returning to school shortly after
the Beijing Games conclude.
Because the content on the board will
be changing frequently, I will only
need to worry about keeping the board
aesthetically interesting. The graphs
and other charts will likely look very
similar from update to update, so I
will change the clip art and photos
around these items so that students
and parents will notice that the board
has new material.
Finally, if I have room on the board,
I would like to integrate some reading
and ELA content to my bulletin board
to make it interactive. I would like
to have a large crossword puzzle that
students could submit answers to and
that I fill in as they complete it.
The solution words would come from the
class activities, or from specific locomotor,
non-locomotor, and manipulative skills.
That's it for my ideas. Keep in touch
and let me know your thoughts! If you
try something out, let me know how it
works. If you have an idea for a monthly
topic, or would like to contribute an
article to pelinks4u, please
contact me. Thanks!
|
