Yearly Archives: 2014

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Word of the Week 4: Geocaching

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This is the ultimate game of hide and seeking treasure, and a great way to bring technology into your PE lesson. Pronounced “geo-cashing,” this game uses GPS technology to guide geocachers to the location of a geocache – a small water proof container with containing a notebook. The coordinates are published online and accessible to everyone. There are currently 1.1 million active geocaches located in over 110 countries.

Robinson and Randall suggest geocaching is a great way to get students outdoors and interacting with the natural environment (2014, pg., 273). How might you utilize geocaching in your PE program? What are your opinions regarding bringing technology into PE?

Spotlight

Spotlight Saturday 2: PHE Canada

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Hi everyone!

For our second Spotlight Saturday feature, we’ve decided to take a in-depth look at PHE Canada and their website. PHE Canada stands for Physical & Health Education Canada, and has a longstanding history. Created as the Canadian Physical Education Association (CPEA) in 1933, they became the Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (CAHPER) in 1948, and then the Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance in 1994. In 2008, they became PHE Canada.

Their vision is to see “All children and youth in Canada living healthy, physically active lives”, and they strive to achieve this by supporting schools in becoming “Health Promoting Schools”, that include the provision of Quality Daily Physical Education and fostering healthy school communities.

PHE Canada has several advocacy aspects to their organization – they are involved in interacting with local, provincial, and national governments and policy-makers, to influence the healthy development of Canadian children and youth. They are a great resource for stats and research, and also provide ways to get involved in their mission – the page listing what teachers can do can be found here.

In addition to their advocacy and research/resource programs, PHE Canada also creates and supports programs and projects in the following four categories (which match up with their four pillars):
– Quality Daily Physical Education (QDPE)
– Health Promoting Schools (HPS)
– Quality School Intramural Recreation (QSIR)
– Dance Education

Within each of these four areas, they have a vast wealth of information and ideas. They are also involved, along with two other organizations, in Youth Mental Health initiatives. They are taking part in Young Health Program (YHP), and considering that mental health is a strong focus for the Education program this year (and also just an incredibly important thing to be knowledgable of as educators), it would be well worth looking into this aspect of PHE Canada’s work as well.

All in all, the PHE Canada website is fantastic, and the organization is making great strides in increasing the physical literacy of children in Canada, through programs, advocacy, and research. Check out their site, and see if you can get involved and incorporate some of their ideas into your work this year and throughout your career as teachers!

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Word of the Week 3: ‘Movement Concept’

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This little phrase caught our attention while reading Wall & Murry’s article this week. Wall & Murry  discuss the educator’s role introducing ‘movement concepts’ gradually to students – first as a floor activity before moving to apparatuses (1994, pg., 401).  We wondered, what constitutes a ‘movement concept’? And how do you know which movement concepts to teach , and which ones you should approach as ‘taken for granted understanding’?

According to Robinson & Randall, a movement concept answers the four following questions  (2014, pg., 319):
1. What is the body doing?
2. Where is the movement going?
3. What is the dynamic content or quality of movement?
4. With whom or to what is the mover relating?

With these questions in mind, what do you think is the most important movement concept to teach children at the start of a Gymnastics unit?

Note: Have a peak at the ‘Movement Concept Wheel’ designed by the University of New Mexico for an overview of different movement concepts  and how they relate to our broader understanding of what it means to be a physically literate individual.
http://www.ed.gov.nl.ca/edu/k12/curriculum/guides/physed/2100-2101/appendix_g-movement_concept_wheel.pdf

Spotlight

Spotlight Saturday 1: PlaySport

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For our first Spotlight Saturday, we’ll be taking a closer look at a fantastic resource – PlaySport, an online activity-based resource that helps children and youth develop an understanding of and competency with skills and strategies associated with physical activities and a wide range of sports. The site uses the TGfU approach (Teaching Games for Understanding) which is a great model for lessons.

This site will probably be a great source of ideas for activities during your practicum – you can search by the following categories:

Division: Primary, Junior, Intermediate, Senior

Activity Category: Territory, Net/Wall, Striking/Fielding, Target Games, Individual Pursuits

Movement Skills: Stability, Locomotion, Manipulation, Body Awareness, Spatial Awareness, Relationships, Effort Awareness

So for example, if I was teaching a Junior-level class during a target games unit, and wanted to focus on their manipulation movement skills, I could put those search terms into the website, and have a number of games to choose from. For this search, there were three:

Beanbag Boccia, where “Participants learn about and practise sending an object toward a target to accumulate the most points.”
Pinwheel, where “Participants learn about and practise sending an object toward a target surrounded by bowling pins while standing at different distances.”
Target 5, where “Participants learn about and practise sending an object to hit a variety of different targets.”

You can select any game and view a page with the information needed to set up and run the game (or download/print it). This includes things like equipment needed, safety concerns, adaptation options, and detailed instructions, diagrams, and even videos to demonstrate gameplay.

Have you had a look through PlaySport yet? What games do you think would be really valuable to use in your practicum classrooms?

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Word of the Week 2: The Four ‘C’s

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We couldn’t settle on a single word this week, so we chose four:

continuous, collaborative, comprehensive and criteria-based

These are the four ‘C’s that Robinson and Randall suggest are the “essential principals”  of physical education assessment “that must be constantly respected” (2014, pg., 102). If educators follow these four principals, Robinson and Randall suggest, students will be more likely to  achieve the outcomes of their PE program.

Which one of the four ‘C’s do you think is most important and why? Can we apply the four ‘C’s to subject areas beyond physical education?  Why?

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Word of the Week 1: Physical Literacy

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Caitlin and I are trying out a new feature on the blog – Word of the Week Wednesdays! We’re trying to get a bit more discussion going on here on the PE blog, and this may be a great day to do it. (Or maybe not – we’ll find out!)

This week, our word (well, we snuck a phrase in for the first week) is physical literacy – in our textbook, we have Margaret Whitehead’s definition that “a physically literate individual…moves with poise, economy, and confidence in a wide variety of physically challenging situations.” (R+R, 227).

What does this mean to you in a PE context? Do you agree or disagree with the definition we have been given it? What would you add? What does physical literacy look like to you?

Share your thoughts in the comments!

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Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities!

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Hi everyone!

Steve has asked us to share these exciting upcoming opportunities for professional development with everyone on the blog!

For the Pro-D Day on Friday, October 24th, brouchure here: 2014 QPDE Conference. This will be held at Douglas College, at the New Westminster Campus. (QDPE stands for Quality Daily Physical Education.)

At the end of April 2015 is the PHE Canada National Conference. It will be held in Banff from April 30 – May 2, 2015, and more information can be found here.

Thanks!