It Takes a “Community” to Role Model

To support a student’s physical literacy journey, health and physical education teachers need to consider and use all the skills and resources at their disposal. By effectively doing this, teachers can create learning environments that enhance their students’ development of physically active and healthy lifestyles. Additionally however, we believe that to provide students with the wide range of experiences vital to creating the necessary levels of confidence, self-efficacy and motivation for students to choose physically active and healthy lifestyles, teachers also need the critical support of many others.

A wide range of teaching issues including planning, lesson delivery, and assessment impact the success of health and physical education teaching. Less often considered is the importance of role modeling. According to Cardinal and Cardinal (2001) role modeling is a powerful teaching tool. However, getting students to choose to be physically active and healthy depends on more than just good role modeling by health and physical educators. This critical lifestyle choice needs to be supported schoolwide, in students’ homes, and across the community. Within these different environments students face choices that will impact their physical activity and health habits. Consequently, in order to develop physical literacy through physically active and healthy lifestyles, it’s critical students are exposed to positive role models throughout their entire “community”.

Understanding “Community”
When trying to understand the composition of a student’s “community”, it’s important to consider who students are in regular contact with daily. In addition to health and physical educators, students spend a considerable amount of time each day with other teachers and school employees, family, and their extended community of peers and adults. Below, we examine the possible role and impact of each of these “players” within a student’s “community.”

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Take Home Activity Journals

Like many coaches and teachers across the country, once in a while I come up with what turns out to be a new and effective teaching strategy. New ideas often come to me while at professional conferences, reading online, or simply talking with colleagues. I then take the idea and modify it to best fit my teaching environment. One such idea I’d like to share with you is a take-home activity journal.

When my girls were in school, I can remember them bringing home a classroom journal. They had to spend time writing about a topic that had been introduced on in class. In physical education, I once heard a teacher talk about giving their students small stuffed animals to play with at home, then encouraging them to write about the experience in a journal. In one instance, the kids were even given permission to take the animal on vacation with them and write about it.

My version of physical education journaling comes from this idea. I call it “Fun With Buddy.” “Buddy” is a stuffed animal. It’s one of those monkeys with really long arms and legs that have Velcro on them. I was able to get these donated to my program and have acquired 12 of them. This covers all of our grade 1-3 classrooms. Our principal was able to find book money to get us grade-level appropriate books that support being physically active. I put together a journal with blank pages. Each page has a space for the kids to write about what they did with Buddy over the weekend. The pages also have a place for the kids to either draw a picture of what they did, or to stick a photo of them in action with Buddy. And to keep all the items secure, our Home and School Association (H.S.A.) donated string bags.

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Skill and Fitness Assessment Ideas for Students with Disabilities

Assessing the skills and physical fitness of students with disabilities can be challenging. Most physical educators are used to assessing general non-disabled students, but many don’t have the know-how and experience of testing and planning activities for students with disabilities (especially students with severe/multiple disability). Assessment is vital for skill and fitness prescription and for students with disabilities individualized assessment is critical. The following information gives physical educators who teach students with disabilities many practical suggestions for appropriate motor skills testing and fitness programming .

General Guidelines for Successful Skill and Fitness Testing

Motivation can be a problem for many students with disabilities because they lack the intrinsic understanding and concept of giving “100%” effort. Physical educators may need to find extra motivating factors for students to perform at their potential. For example, in the long jump teachers could have students with disabilities reach out and jump to a buddy, jump out for a favorite toy, or jump over a colored rope. Students could also reach for a ball or toy during sit-ups and Sit & Reach tests or listen to their favorite music on a treadmill test for motivation. Motorized treadmills are excellent for cardiovascular endurance training and testing because they provide a “steady pace.”

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The 2016 National PE & School Sport Institute: A Resounding Success!

Watch Free Livestream Keynote Video Now! This year we were fortunate to hear five talented individuals share how they view physical education as a part of the whole. Each keynoter shared different ways of thinking that were uplifting, transformational, funny, and inspirational. I have provided a few of my thoughts below on each keynoter with a link to their talks.

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It’s Kids, Health, and Physical Activity Stupid

Five years ago my wife and I moved into a new house. It was first time construction for us and turned out a pretty intense experience. Fortunately, when we started two years earlier we knew what we wanted the finished house to look like. Together, we sketched out a design. We then got our doodles translated into construction blueprints and hired a contractor. We chose a builder after looking at projects he’d previously completed. The homes were attractive, beautifully built, and he convinced us that he could translate our vision into reality.

Turns out we were right. We love where we now live and guests routinely compliment us on the beautiful wooden cathedral ceiling, open floor plan, unobstructed mountain and water views, and the house’s overall appearance. To date, no one has yet commented on how well our home meets the latest ISO or ICC construction standards. Now obviously, it’s important to know and follow proper building standards. Our construction crew impressed us with their skills, knowledge, and professionalism. As the house evolved it was obvious to us they weren’t just making up the various steps, but knew and were following some sort of building standards. We weren’t much interested in knowing or checking these standards but noticed that from time-to-time someone else would.

Foundation checks, framing checks, plumbing checks, electrical checks and so on followed the site, drawing, engineering, and other approvals. Now I’m not a builder, but I imagine this heavily checkered list was intended to ensure the builders followed best practices and met national construction standards: Presumably all with our best interests as future home owners in mind. And following proper building protocol was mostly a good thing, except of course when a particular standard was prescribed, yet made no sense in our situation. In construction as in other life areas, it turns out sticking stubbornly to standards isn’t always the perfect solution.

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Climbing Walls Promote Lifelong Fitness Habits Among Youths

Activity Provides Numerous Physical and Emotional Benefits

Physical education teachers who have spent decades teaching traditional exercise activities are now focusing on the vast benefits offered by climbing walls.

“Climbing walls are excellent for building upper body strength and improving balance, endurance and flexibility, as well as encouraging cooperation and team building with others,’’ said Pat Simon, coordinator of athletics and physical education for Milford Public Schools in Milford, Conn. “When a student makes it across the wall, it builds their self-esteem. It’s working out well at our school and this activity is catching on across the country.’’

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2016 National Coaching Conference: Pursuing Mastery in Coaching – Insight from (5) Perspectives

Expertise in coaching can be achieved by acquiring specific knowledge related to a particular sport (Côté & Gilbert, 2009). To be an effective coach, one must match his or her expertise within the context of the learning environment, focusing on learner outcomes (Boardley, Kavussanu, & Ring, 2008). Coaches that have achieved this level of effectiveness are often referred to as master teachers. Key characteristics have been demonstrated by master teachers in the context of sport coaching, such as the ability to teach the learner, to provide tactical instruction, and a desire to pursue personal mastery (Gallimore, Gilbert, & Nater, 2014).

During the 2016 National Coaching Conference in Seattle, WA, a panel of five experts in their respected fields shared insight on pursuing mastery as a coach. Based on their role on the panel (educator, ethicist, athletic administrator, researcher, and coach), each panel member shared 1) strategies for coaches to grow personally and professionally, 2) self-assessment methods to evaluate their progress in pursuing mastery, and 3) insight on what coaches can do to maintain a level of expertise?

The panel members included Dr. Steve Jefferies (Educator), Dr. Sharon Stoll (Ethicist), Erin O’Connell (Athletic Administrator), Dr. Wade Gilbert (Researcher), and Swen Nater (Coach). Dr. Pete Van Mullem (Lewis-Clark State College) and Sean Dahlin (Ohio State University) facilitated the panel session.

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