Chapter 8 Leveraging Technology for Visual Learning

I picked this chapter because in physical education a lot of visuals are used and my first thought was, if this is a way I can try and incorporate technology into my classroom then why not read up on this chapter and expand my learning. 

To be completely honest, reading up on the drawing software did not interest me I wanted to get down to it and find out how I would/could incorporate drawing into my lessons in PE! BUT I kind of do need to know what software to use later on down the road and what is compatible with a Chrome book for my students if I were to give them these assignments. 

PROJECT IDEAS FOR DRAWING.... ahh ha, here we go! 

Here are a few that stuck out to me and the different things I would do with them from this chapter and adapt them to PE. 

A self-portrait, I could do this in my class, have the students draw a self portrait of themselves but in a physical activity environment where they are moving or playing. Adapting it to my class, PE. This would help them express what they understand about being physically active and I would get a sense of what that looks like in their world, video games maybe (even though that is not being physically active, playing outside or at the park, riding a bike or even playing a sport). A totally fun and new way to learn something about my students. 

Powtoon, I did this in this currently class and had so much fun with it. I would love to incorporate this into my class and teaching. Really thinking about it though, I would probably push this out on my fifth graders as they are the best with technology for the most part at the elementary school level and would learn a little faster than the kinders here! I think this would be great for creating a project about a favorite activity, sport or athlete. 

Maps, I saw maps and thought... hmmmm how could I use a map, no I won't ever use something like this or have my students create their own map and then it dawned on me!! UHH HELLO, the students could create their own map for an obstacle course, it doesn't have to be an actual geographical map. I think creating a map for their own obstacle course would be fantastic and I know a lot of my students who would love to do something like this, this excites me and I want to try it tomorrow... but I won't because I am doing Physical Fitness Testing, fun stuff..

Graphing, Like maps I though, hmmmmm how could I have my students graph something on the computer? I was so proud that with maps I had thought of creating an obstacle course that I knew I could think of something and as I turned the page I thought of the MILE! Students could graph their mile times and laps on a computer and keep track of their distance. This would give students that visual they need to see in order to know how they are progressing and how many laps they are running. With their times they can see if they are going faster and slower each time they run and they can hold themselves accountable. I could do this through google classroom which I just pushed out to my fifth graders this last week. 

This all excites me a lot and I can push most of it out through google classroom, I just don't want to give myself too much to do right now as a new first year teacher and I don't want to overload my students. I am just so happy I read this chapter and expanded my learning to help myself as a teacher and my students one day. 

Also just realized that is more than two takeaway resources, but oh well! I am happy to have read them all and found multiple I could use in my class of PE! :)

"You will be exactly as happy as you decide to be" - Unknown

Assignment 4A Dance Dance Dance

Here I am going to describe a dance lesson for fourth grade, and in fact a dance lesson that I plan on using this upcoming week for my student teaching. I am choosing to write about it because I need to differentiate instruction for the lesson and what better way to see if I understand differentiation by implementing it and reflecting on it afterwards. 

Warm-up:
- Students move throughout the boundaries doing a locomotor skill to music - running, jumping, skipping, fast walking
- When the music turns off students find their own partner
-With their partner students will jump to a count of 4 - 1, 2, 3, 4
-Music starts again and students do a locomotor skill again
-When music turns off students will again find a new parter
-This time students will march to a count of 4
-This is repeated 3 more times - clapping partner, twisting partner, & head bob partner
-After each of the new movements to the count of 4, students will do the previous move(s)
-At the end it will be put all together and students will - head bob, twist, clap, march and jump to a count of 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 - 5, 6, 7, 8

Activity:
-Students begin at “home”
-Students step R, L behind, step R, L together
-Students step L, R behind, step L, R together
-Walk backwards 4 times, R, L, R, tap L
-Rock back and forth, L step, R tap, R step, L tap
-R forward kick turn, do a ¼ turn to the left
-Repeat sequence many times over and over facing a new direction each time
-Once this is done a few times, students will be given the opportunity to listen to the music and practice alone or in a small/large group before performing the entire dance
-Entire dance will be performed 

EL: can hear the music and from previous classes they know when the music is on, movement starts, and when the music is off they freeze for next set of instructions. They can see what locomotor skill the other students are doing and copy that. If the student is not able to find a partner, I will find a partner for them or get involved myself and be their partner for a round. When doing the movement to a count of 4 I will hold up the numbers on my hand so the student can see. If this student has a friend in the class that helps translate they can partner up with them or stay close so instruction is translated correctly for them to understand. 

Special Needs Learner: can also hear the music and from previous classes know that when the music starts, movement starts, when it stops the student freezes and awaits for further instruction. Just like the EL student if the student can't find a partner I will help find one for them, or I will step in and be a partner if numbers are uneven and I need to. 

High Achieving Student: not much adaptation is needed here, the student can add some creativity to their movements and twist different, clap differently or add a twist or different skill to their jump. 

For all students there will be time to practice and each of the steps will be done on their own and slowly added to the next set of steps. Students will be asked to hold their thumb, up-understand the moves and can move onto the next, sideways-need more practice, and down-do not get the moves and need more practice. Once I see this from the entire class I can then keep practicing the steps just explained or move onto the next step. Students will have time to practice in their own groups and within these groups the students have a piece of paper with the set of steps listed above that they can reference. 

I look forward to implementing this lesson and making the adaptations needed to help each of my students to succeed in my class. I also look forward to after the lesson and my own self-reflection and feedback from my master teacher to see what worked and what did not. 

"Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive thoughts" -Willie Nelson

Assignment 3A

A grouping pattern that I would use and I read about in multiple places is called flexible groups. In flexible groups students work in either partners, small groups or large groups. All of which are done in a physical education setting in a one to two 50 minute class per week. Flexible groups allows students to work with all of their classmates over a period of time, well before half of the school year is over. I want all of my students in a class to experience working with others because using positive communication and collaboration strategies is important for their futures. 

As for heterogenous grouping in a PE setting, I would put students of different physical abilities in the same cooperative learning group. Allowing the students the opportunity to work with different physical abilities to learn different and new strategies from one another. A homogeneous group in a PE setting, students of the same level of physical ability would be placed in the same group. This grouping strategy I would try and stay away from because I do not want those who are advanced learners all together and those who are low achieving learners together because the low achieving learners will see that they are not the best and this could lower their self esteem and that is the last thing I want in my classroom. I will always lean more toward a heterogenous group in PE so that different physical ability students learn and work off of one another. A mixture of both would work too because it would have different abilities and some students with the same level of ability and those with the same level of ability can collectively work together to help others or learn from others. 

Based off Gardner's Intelligences the first group configuration I would pick would be bodily-kinesthetic. This would work for, whole group, small group, peer pairs and individual design. In all group settings the students can interpret the content of a lesson and execute it with their bodies.The second that I would pick would be linguistic, finding the right words to express what you mean, this would be best for whole group, small group, peer pairs and individuals. It would work for all groups in a PE setting because I want my students to be able to think about their thoughts and the content of a lesson and then find it within themselves to use the right words to express themselves with themselves or others. Working with others and being able to collaborate effectively is a skill students will need throughout their entire lives. Intra-personal would be the last of the intelligences that I would pick and this would be specifically for individual design. I want the students to learn how to understand themselves, what they feel and what they want. By understanding themselves it will help them to be able to work in small or large groups, especially if they know how to effectively share their thoughts. 

All students learn differently and interpret information differently as well, so by mixing up groups and having all kinds of learners contribute to large and small groups and students doing work individually it gives the students many different opportunities to not only learn the content and understand it to increase their performance. In physical education I feel it is easier for students of all abilities to work together toward success because they can ask questions to learn off one another or observe and watch and execute a skill. Standards are different for all grades in a PE setting, they build off of one another as the children get older but there is differentiation for the students. Differentiation is important because if there was only one pathway to reach those standards then not all students would be successful. By differentiating it gives the students multiple different pathways for success. 

"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose." - Lyndon B. Johnson

Assignment 3B

A lesson that I would create in a physical education setting that incorporates project based learning would be at the end of the year and it would be based off of how the students do the science fair. Instead I would call my fair the "Health & Wellness Fair".  At this fair the students would take an activity/sport, fitness component or health related component they learned about throughout the year in my class and create their own project after finding more information, research and interviews with businesses, companies and people in the community. The point of the Health & Wellness Fair is to connect the concepts learned in school and connect them to real life. I want the students to be able to see why learning the basic components and concepts in a physical education classroom setting only sets them up for more knowledge that can be gained in the outside world. Being physically active is something that every single student can do and be for their entire lives, even if it is just riding a bike or walking around the block, that is being physically active. 

With this project the students will have the opportunity to work in groups of 4 and design a project that is a blog, podcast, video, poster, pamphlet, presentation or play. Giving the students so many different opportunities to express their findings and understanding differentiates the projects as a whole from one group to the next, but it also differentiates their findings and understanding through the chosen work of their project. Also, with having the students go out into the community and interview people and businesses, it allows the students to see that there are resources that can be used outside of the school setting. 

This project would be based more toward the high school level, only because I would not want my elementary school students going throughout the community alone, it would not be very safe. High school students can drive themselves to get together, work together online and make phone calls if needed to get information. 

The Health & Wellness Fair would be posted up in the library, cafeteria or wherever there is space for each group project so that the entire school can go through at one point throughout a one week period. It will also benefit other students make the connection to physical education at school and physical activity concepts and components outside of the school environment as well. 

"To keep the body in good health is a duty....otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear." -Buddha

Assignment 2B

Since I want to be a future physical education teacher below I have written some of the ways I can differentiate instruction for the different populations of students I will encounter. It is all about finding ways for the student to be involved and still learn the content of the lesson.

English Language Learners 

• Partner with a friend/translator
• New students generally always make one close friend when meeting an entire classroom of students so I would try and recognize this as soon as possible and when working in groups or pairs I would make sure that the ELL is always with the student they feel most comfortable around.
• Visuals with pictures 
• Pictures are universal so by having a visual that the student can look as provides extra clarity as to what is being asked of them in the activity.
• Instruction translated in their native language 
• Translated instruction in the students native language tells them specifically what the content of the lesson is and what I am expecting from them. Producing written instruction in their language gives the student much needed clarity when I am giving most of the instruction verbally in English.
• Give objectives/vocabulary/lesson content beforehand 
• By doing this it gives the student the opportunity to prepare for the upcoming content/lesson. By providing the vocabulary it also prepares the student for words I will be using in my instruction, it will help the student slowly become familiar with the vocabulary and improve their English speaking skills.
• In daily journal that the students are asked to do allow this student to draw or narrate their experience, feelings, understanding and concerns 
• Giving the student the choice as to how they want to express what they learned gives them more of an opportunity to be creative and I want them to feel free in their expression where I am assessing what they learned and how I can better my future instruction.

Special Needs Students

• Modify equipment, a lighter/bigger ball for the student to kick 
• This will help the student feel more comfortable if they have a disability that does not allow them to perform the skill with a soccer ball 
• If the student does not do well in a big group put them in a smaller group or with a partner(advanced learner) 
• A smaller group should help with their social interaction and not having too many people to communicate with. Putting them with an advanced learner, the advanced learner can help "coach" them on what and how to do the activity/skill
• I will give them a specific task like being the equipment manager, where they clean up the equipment when the day is over - or line leader - something of importance for them to want to be engaged in activity 
• Giving the student a specific task will hold an important value to them and with it being important it will hold the students attention or allow them to be involved in an activity that their body may not allow. 
• Find a common interest like music and let the student pick a few songs to be played while activity is going on, keeping them engaged 
• Finding a common interest in general will build a relationship between the student and myself and with that relationship the student will feel more comfortable being out at PE. Here, by letting the student pick the music it keeps the student close to me since once I am done giving instruction and send out the students the music will be played. With having the student close they will hear all of my instruction closely and still gain some understanding of what I am asking of the students. 
• If they do not like loud noise have them wear headphones and give non verbal cues, so when I raise my hand with one finger that will mean go, rather than hearing me loudly say go or hearing the whistle
• Reducing the loud noise that the student is sensitive to reduces the stress level of being out at PE. I want the student to be comfortable and minimizing the sound for some students does this. I bring up this example because as a para we use headphones for our moderate-severe special education students and by reducing the sound with headphones they are more willing to participate. 
• In the daily journal that the students are asked to do, allow this student to draw or narrate their experience, feelings, understanding and concerns
• Giving the student the choice as to how they want to express what they learned gives them more of an opportunity to be creative and I want them to feel free in their expression where I am assessing what they learned and how I can better my future instruction. 

Advanced/Gifted Learners

• Become the coach/pairing with other students
• Since this student knows the majority of the content and excels at the skill(s) being taught this student can act as a coach or second teacher in the class. There will be boundaries set for this student on their delivery and interactions with the students but they are to help students who are struggling. In soccer in a kicking lesson, they can show the proper technique and add in some extra tricks for those who are ready for more of a challenge. This keeps the student engaged and challenges their thinking process because they have to know enough about the content to help others and be confident in their knowledge.
• Live demonstration
• Live demonstrations by students are always better than an adult like myself doing it because the students have someone the same age and body type doing the movements required for a skill and the students can mimic them. This keeps the student engaged and not just sitting listening to my instruction zoning off. 
• More advanced content/skill
• The student is clearly much better at the content and skills being asked of them to engage in so engaging in instruction that is made for the general population of students can be boring for them. Giving the student more advanced content/skill within the lesson challenges them and extends the time they are engaged in that activity. 
• Create a skill within the lesson
• Here I can give the student the opportunity to create a different skill within the activity the class is participating in. For example, if I am doing soccer, a kicking lesson, the student can come up with an activity/skill that can be used when kicking a soccer ball and share it with the rest of the class.
• In the daily journal that the students are asked to do, allow this student to draw or narrate their experience, feelings, understanding and concerns
• Giving the student an extra choice as to how they want to express themselves provides more of an opportunity to be creative and I want my students to feel free in their expression where I am assessing what they learned and how I can better my future instruction. 

Most of these differentiation strategies I have explained here will be used in my future physical education class, but they can all be used in each of my lessons as well. From soccer to basketball and softball everything listed above is generally the same across the board. 

"Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do." -Pele

Differentiation

As you can tell I have had this blog for previous courses. I am choosing to keep my other blog posts up so that I can add onto the information I have already learned and shared. Also so I can look back on my posts and use them in my future of teaching physical education. I do have an introduction about myself that is at the bottom of the page, so if you scroll all the way down you can read a little bit about myself and why I picked teaching as a profession. 

Differentiating instruction in physical education has a lot to take into account when developing a lesson for the students. Learning levels, body development, age/grade level and special needs to name a few. I am currently a para professional at the elementary school level and help teach grades transitional kinder all the way to fifth grade. If we are doing a lesson on throwing and catching I cannot teach the same content to kinders who are five years old like I would to fifth graders who are ten. There are so many different ways to teach a skill in physical education that at times I feel like it is never ending. Although it may seem challenging, it is a fun challenge because the students are not the only ones who are learning, I am learning as well. Throughout my career I will always be learning new things and strategies that I can use in my teaching and instruction. I find that collaborating with my peers will be beneficial and finding online blogs and data bases with information and experienced shared by other teachers is extremely helpful as well. Not all strategies used for differentiating instruction will be beneficial for my students and lead them to success but it does not hurt to try because out of all the students I see throughout a week of PE, it might just help one person and that is what matters. 

Throughout my time as a teacher I always have to remember to self-reflect and get feedback that I can take and analyze myself and make changes to my instruction so that I can reach a bigger population of students to help them be successful. For those that I do not help become successful in a PE setting I have to find new ways of differentiating instruction and help them as well. It is a never ending process, but I want to be a teacher to help the students, it is not for myself and it is not for the money, clearly, I am there to help the students learn through being physically active. 

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney

Course Reflection

• What was new to you?
• There was so much that was new to me while engaging in this class and learning for myself and from others through the discussions. I think the thing that was new and the most difficult for me to learn and incorporate into my assignments was how to incorporate technology into my work. Incorporating technology into a PE class is honestly such a daunting thing, but I think and have come to realize that I just have to take baby steps, technology is not as accessible outside like it is inside the classroom and PE is for the students to run around and learn through being physically active. I can say though that I have learned new methods of how to incorporate technology for the general population of students, English language learners and special needs students. 

• What previous thoughts and ideas were confirmed in our readings and activities?
• Going along the whole incorporating technology into a physical education setting, seeing feedback on my assignments and receiving comments about technology and how it is up and expanding in the world, especially in the silicon valley, that human interaction is still so very important. If anything it confirmed for me that PE is what I am meant to teach to students. Being already in the setting and going to school, I have tired to implement some of the things I have learned, even though I am only the para, so it gets hard to do so, but I do see positive change and again, confirms for me that this is what I am meant to do with my future. 

• What questions do you still have?
• Not that I really have any questions but I would have liked to get and shared the resources that we came up with in week 2 assignment 2B with my peers who are also wanting to teach PE. I think it would have helped me not only add to my own list, but helped me gain more information to put in my pot that is always expanding.

• What resources, tools, or instructional practices (if any) will you incorporate into your own teaching and/or coaching?
• A tool that I will for sure be using in my own teaching will be having my students create a blog, now I know what you are thinking, that is a lot of students, but I think for those who actually put effort into it will be rewarding. As stated before in the introduction I believe I am not one to share my feelings or write things down like this, I like to share my emotions through playing sports, but posting on this blog has helped me. It has helped lessen my stress about my school work, I can write freely to express myself and I can customize my blog however I want since it is mine. Allowing students to do the same will give me a better idea of who they are and how they like to do their work and learn. 
• Another takeaway I will take with me forever is the idea of the growth and fixed mindset. I am not as fully educated on it like I want to be, because I find it so interesting, but that is a topic I will definitely build my knowledge on and use throughout my instruction and career. 

• What was your favorite assignment? Why?
• My favorite assignment was in week 2 when we had to listen to the pod casts of learning differently. Although I only listened to two required podcasts I loved listening to them and I honestly listened to both to their entirety. I love that it was not just the speaker and her opinion, in fact, she gave very little of her own opinion. She used speakers that were doctors, professionals and parents who have gone through situations that she addresses. Thankfully I have the podcast station saved and will over time go through the rest to better myself as a future teacher. I enjoying learning as much as I can even though it can be overwhelming at times but it's ultimately not about me, it is about the students and providing them with the best education that I can in a PE setting. 

"The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are, and not who people think you are" -Goldie Hawn

Digital Storytelling

To start off todays blog, we are diving into the world of digital storytelling, something I have personally never heard of or explored as a student. Digital storytelling is just like it sounds, in the school setting a student would create a digital story to create an online based story, on whatever topic the teacher assigns. So naturally, in wanting to be a physical education teacher I think to myself, how does this apply to me? How will my students benefit from digital storytelling in a PE setting? I find it is always good to have questions because that furthers learning and pushes me to find new ways to do something, adapt or modify it to fit within a PE setting. The two topics I chose to read about I thought would be a good introduction to me as to what digital storytelling is and give me a good starting point on how to incorporate it into my own physical education class at the elementary school level.

The first topic I picked to dive into was titled, “How Digital Storytelling Improves Learning”, it can be read and found at http://30hands.com/blog/how-digital-storytelling-improves-learning/ . This blog written by Eric Braun taught me first how to create a story digitally and what steps to take and what content to put in one. I could totally use something like this in a PE setting by having either a individual or small groups work together to create a story about their favorite activity they engaged in over the course of the year. This would be done for grades 3-5 since I see them twice a week at 50 minutes each time. Toward the end of the year, a lot of instruction has been covered and many sports and skills have been learned, so the students should have a lot of information to pull from when creating their digital story. I learned from Braun that digital storytelling has a narrator who narrates the story over the storyboard and I think having students present in this form over their online based work instead of presenting in front of others is a direction technology is leading presenting. I also took away that digital storytelling makes the student or students be more knowledgeable about their content because they have to take different approaches on how they present their work, through visual thinking, communicating and presenting and it allows them to be more creative in how they tell their story. Allowing students to create a story about their favorite activity we did throughout the year will show me as the teacher how the students understood the material, what lessons I made interesting and how creative the students can be in how they interpreted the material by narrating their story, adding color, pictures, videos and words. The most important key that I have taken away from this blog is that when I want my students to do a project or create something on paper, change it up and have them do something different like digital storytelling, it can be done in a PE class on a PE topic!

The second topic I picked to dive into was titled, “Six Elements of Good Digital Storytelling”, it can be found at http://creativeeducator.tech4learning.com/v04/articles/Take_Six, this article is written by Bernajean Porter. Here I am going to break down the six elements how I understand them and how I would use them in the project I would have my students do that I stated above. Living inside your own story, when presented the story has to be convincing and the peers listening to the digital story narrated by the student or students has to keep the interest of the audience and make it a story that is enticing and fun to follow along. This could be hard in a group setting because each member of the group will have a different experience with their favorite activity, but they can break each of their favorite activity down and tell their own descriptive story. Unfolding lessons learned, as a teacher watching the presentation I can gain an understanding of how the students interpreted the activity through their storytelling, if they made a type of connection to it and how it had and will influence their everyday health. Developing creative tension, this one is tough for the project I had in mind, creating a story that has an intriguing situation and then is later solved at the end where the audience is engaged in the story and makes it memorable. The only thing that I can think of on how this aspect could be used in the story of a students favorite activity would be coming up with a new alternative way to do a skill that the other students don’t understand until the end of the story where it all comes together. This intrigues the audience, engaging them throughout the story and then explaining how they would execute the skill at the end. Economizing the story told, getting right to the point and doing it quickly with enough detail to do so. This can easily be done in any type of storytelling and some students will be quick and get straight to the point when telling their stories and others will take a little bit longer. I will give my students a time frame that I would like their stories to be within, with the hopes that they get to the point of what activity and why the activity they picked was their favorite or the most interesting. Showing not telling, music, sound and pictures can be used to help tell a story instead of using words. I absolutely love this idea because in PE, a lot of music, sound and pictures are used throughout instruction, so the students should be used it and incorporate it into their stories. This is probably a requirement I would have when creating a story about their favorite activity because I want it to be colorful and have fun music to keep the audience engaged, most importantly I want the students to be able to tell their story the way they want to and be creative while doing it. The last element is developing craftsmanship, goes along with what I just stated above. The digital story should be expressed through pictures, music, narration, bright colors and special effects. Of course these are all things the students will have to learn in previous classes like their own classroom teacher if this is something they do, otherwise I will have to spend some time to show my students how to do it. Unless I find an easy tutorial on YouTube that they can follow to create their own. In third grade and this being the first time they are doing this for me in PE, I would not expect as much as for when they are in fifth grade and have done it a few times in my class.

Now that I am in the beginning stages of learning what digital storytelling is, it is something I will future educate myself on so that it is something I can use in my future as a physical education teacher. I learn something new every time I click a new week in class and for that I am thankful to be gaining tools for my future.

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Ralph Waldo Emerson