Last Tuesday’s Group Teach team introduced striking and batting games to the class. It was awesome to see how everyone’s energy spiked with the conga line and the warm up activity. Although I was a little wary due to my limited dance abilities, I could see how positive this could be for an elementary class where kids could dance around and be silly and goofy without being judged. I also appreciated how we were able to practice the basic movements of batting and pitching before moving on to the main activity.

I like what Steve says about how we are all on our own physical literacy journey. We learn at our own pace and we improve at our own pace, and that is what we have to keep in mind for our students as well. This is what makes the idea of assessment so tricky. Thinking back to my high school days, I remember assessment only ever being summative and never formative. I was never given feedback to improve my learning or to identify my strengths, weaknesses, and areas of improvement. I only remember doing beep tests and push up tests at the end of the term to determine my grade, but throughout the term we never had activities directed at working on those movements. Looking back on it now, I can understand how both forms of assessment are useful. Students should be able to receive constructive feedback on their performance so they can improve upon it before being subjected to a summative assessment.