The Program First of all I need to be sure to keep my values and beliefs at the forefront. Physical Education is not just movement. It is the pedagogical process of learning about movement, learning through movement, and learning in movement. So my program cannot simply be activity (why I feel I was failing my students with the Physical Activity Log idea I started out using ). Also, my activities and lessons need to create meaningful experiences for the students by being fun, delightful, challenging, social in nature, focused on skill development, and offer some personal relevance to the students. Keeping my beliefs in mind the next step is to ask myself some key questions: Why? Why are PE lessons important for my students? What are my PE lessons’ core purpose, has this changed now learning has moved online or does it remain the same? What? What content from my face to face program can be transferred to an online context? Which skills can I continue to develop in the students while they are at home and I remain at the school? What equipment is required? What equipment do they have access to? Are there one off games and activities that are available online that can assist with keeping the lessons fun and engaging while also allowing for challenge and skill development? How do I keep up social interactions within the program? What can be done to make classes personally relevant to the students? Who? Who am I teaching each class? What challenges will the younger students face that the older ones will not? How will I know that they are "getting it". A savior for me was OPEN - the Online Physical Education Network. This group was putting together online PE Units for the whole 2020-21 school year to assist members across North America stuck in online learning. By reviewing their resources and picking out the activities and learning that I felt best fit my students' and their needs and context I was able to piece together a semblance of a quality online PE program as the weeks moved along during our school closure in Nova Scotia. The Delivery As a PE Teacher the last thing I would imagine doing is sitting at a computer, looking at the faces of my students on a screen and delivering short, virtual lessons all day long. At first teaching to the screen was a massive leap out of my comfort zone, it would be for everyone I imagine. But this became easier with each lesson. The self consciousness of leading an exercise or activity while not necessarily able to see whether anyone is actually doing it gets lost in the joy of moving and doing the activity (well at least it did for me). The setup of your work station can assist with this. By using multiple monitors and signing into meetings twice you are able to both see what the students see from your presentation while also seeing what you are presenting. This setup made big difference for me at the beginning to boost my confidence, then later on I was able to trust myself and the students and while teaching from home used only the presenting laptop without seeing the students in action. The amount of content out there suggests we don’t have to reinvent the wheel to make an impact. As mentioned earlier, the sifting and sorting process is crucial, so knowing your ‘why’ is essential. For example, if your intent is to develop fundamental movement skills, you can considerably narrow your search for resources. Here’s a final summary of my key learnings about being the ideal online PE Teacher.
Sources:
Feith, Joey. (March 20, 2020). Distance Learning for Physical Education. ThePhysicalEducator.com blog. Long, Ellen and Davis, Melanie. (n.d.) Putting the E in Online Physical Education: Thinking Beyond Push-Ups and Jumping Jacks . PHE Canada Blog School Specialty Blog (Dec 5, 2018) 10 Traits of Great PE Teachers Comments are closed.
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