Lessons Learned from Teaching PE in a Pandemic (A Follow Up)

(2 Minute Read)

Without a doubt, physical education has had a tough go, just like every aspect of life within the past 18 months. While the school year lent itself to many challenges, there are two big takeaways from this past everchanging school year that I will use to improve my teaching practice as education returns to normal, hopefully very quickly…

(1) Student Choice Was Key
Whether it was full virtual instruction, hybrid, or full in-person instruction the best adjustment I could’ve made to our classes was giving students the choice of which workout they could do. As local restrictions heavily limited what we could do in class; the bulk of activity in PE classes was bodyweight exercises. Students definitely missed the cooperative games along with competition and made no reservations letting me know that. In order to create some buy-in to the class activities, I went to a choice model (Shawley, 2014). While fully online Students could choose between workout A or workout B for each day of the week, upon returning to the building, when the entire class was completing the same Bodyweight workout, I would give students 4-5 slots to perform an exercise of their choice. This allowed students some individual freedom that they weren’t really able to have throughout the full virtual or even hybrid experience.

(2) Let Them Play
As restrictions let up in the spring my initial thought was to cover as much ground as possible. However, after welcoming all students back to the building every day it was obvious that they wanted one thing; to play games. While playing kickball, basketball, soccer, and variations of those sports day after day may not be viewed as the best academic practice in PE, I knew it was necessary for our students to have that glimmer of being a kid again and I just let them play. It was a joy to see them have a fun end to such a chaotic school year. My takeaway from this is that if things get so hectic in all other aspects of our student’s lives, let’s make PE the much-needed escape it can and should be for our students

A common term used throughout last year in education was, pivot, to signify a teacher’s ability to adapt and adjust. As an educator, I hope to never hear the word “pivot” again in the manner it was used this past year. But, I will “pivot” in making the two adjustments mentioned above to my teaching practice.

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References
Shawley, J. (2014, June 23). Choice strategies: Increasing differentiation in PE | Gopher PE blog. PE Blog – Read & Discuss Current PE Topics. https://www.gophersport.com/blog/increasing-differentiation-choice-in-physical-education/