Journal, Comments & Capstone

This week of PE was awesome! We had some ladies visit from BC Wheelchair Sports and were able to experience playing basketball, rugby and tennis, among other sports in wheelchairs. I was inspired at how many different sports/games can be played by including both able bodied individuals and participants  in wheelchairs. Experiencing wheelchair sports first hand was a much better and insightful experience than reading about how to include people in wheelchairs in PE from the text. I had a great time and feel much more confident in my ability to incorporate lessons that are inclusive of all throughout my career. It is awesome to know how many resources are readily available for us as future educators. I appreciated how these sports gave athletes with disabilities the opportunity to actively participate and engage in PE, instead of “participating” by keeping score or doing something else that does not neccesarily get them moving around. I will definitely be contacting the ladies from BC Wheelchair Sports to visit my future PE classrooms.

Jeevan Mann

EDCP 320

Prof. Steve McGinley

December 1^st 2015

Assignment 4: Cross-curricular Lesson

Based on the H.A.C.E (Health & Career Education) lesson I taught my grade 4/5 practicum class on bullying, I would extend the lesson to incorporate PE by having the students create and perform a dance with movements that are associated with the 4 types of bullying: verbal, physical, covert & cyber bullying. I would split the class up into small groups of 4-5, and have them use their bodies to creatively express movements that they consider to be associated with terms that are connected to the 4 types of bullying. Some example of words they could use to express bullying through movement/dance include: teasing, intimidation, excluding others, etc. This lesson would allow students to think critically of what it looks like to be bullied, as well as expressing the emotions involved of bullies, victims, bystanders and oppressors of bullying, while being physically active. The Big Ideas that are tied into my cross-curricular lesson of PE and H.A.C.E. from the new BC curriculum are the following:

Personal choices and social and environmental factors influence our health and well- being.

Developing healthy relationships helps us feel connected, supported, and valued.

My original H.A.C.E. lesson plan on bullying is below.

Today we learned about educational gymnastics. I had a great time moving around and exploring the space, and especially enjoyed playing with the parachute and planning our group dance. One of the guiding questions this week is: What are the legal responsibilities of educators in a range of movement contexts? We discussed in my group that as educators, we are responsible to find out and acknowledge any challenges our student may be facing in regards to carrying out certain movements in PE. We are responsible for catering to the various levels of movement that our students may have, by providing a range of movements– from low to high challenge. Encouraging students to push themselves is important, but allowing them to engage in challenge by choice is even more important. The answers to this guiding question go hand in hand with the following guiding question: What ideas are used to create a safer, inclusive and respectful environment? Challenge by choice is another major point under this question, as is respecting that students possess many different levels of ability when it comes to movement.  To create a safer and inclusive environment, providing various levels to a lesson should be implemented, as well as giving oral and visual demonstrations of how movements should be conducted.

This week the group teach was led by Jennie, Carrie and Travis. They did a great job at teaching us striking games. I believe the game we played was called Apples to Buckets. I had a lot of fun and will definitely be implementing games similar to this one when I teach striking games to students. One of the guiding questions from this week was what value embodied learning has. I believe it has a great value because many people are visual and active learners, rather than being told or reading about what they need to do. I learn a lot better personally from being active and actually experiencing something, rather than sitting and having someone explain it to me. This week was the first that an assessment was incorporated and implemented into the group teach. It was helpful because it gave me a guideline to follow to see what I was doing well, and what I could do to improve. The rubric that the group supplied us with was straightforward and easy to understand.

One of the questions from this weeks Guiding Questions that resonated most with me was: “What are ways we can incorporate team building, life skills & leadership games into our PE classroom?” I believe to do this, a teacher needs to build relationships with her students and make an effort to get to know them. This will enable her to see which students can work well together and which ones she can aid in improving their cooperation skills. Creating an environment where students feel safe and included is important. If students feel safe, they are more likely to take risks and want to do better in PE which is an overall great life skill to have.  To ensure that all students voices are heard and their needs are met, teachers can encourage students to have weekly reflections (similar to this blog) to express their experiences in PE. Having open communication is important to gauge how students are doing, whether it be one-on-one verbal acknowledgement, breaking off into groups and discussing the day, or through a blog.

Jeevan’s Week 1 Movement Journal Submission:

So far we have had one PE class, and I already feel like I am learning a lot. I did not know what to expect coming into this course but was excited because PE was one of my favorite subjects throughout elementary and high school. I could relate to some of the material in the ‘Hall of Shame’ readings we were assigned for this week, but some parts really surprised me. I did not consider games like ‘Duck Duck Goose’ and certain types of Tag to necessarily be bad games to play with students, but after reading the articles, I can see why they are not the best first choice. I am lucky that I had mostly positive experiences in PE, but I have witnessed others feeling humiliated because they were chosen last for a particular game or were made fun of by everyone else because they lacked a certain skill required for a given game. I believe that PE should be a place where physical literacy is expressed, learned and taught, and where inclusiveness and fun are also major factors.