Evidence of Professional Growth

Artifact 1: Content Knowledge

This video was made for an earlier education class, in it I talk about my understandings and beliefs towards education. Though it has been some time since I created it, I still feel as though my point on view on education is well explained. Ultimately, I see myself as a teacher who teaches for social justice issues using strong relationship building, physical activity and a safe environment. Don Hellison and Kevin Kumashiro’s writting truly have helped to guide me on my path.

Artifact 2: Growth and development

In the following section, I want to show some growth that I’ve made over my time learning how to teach. The first portion of the following text is from my EPE 100 class. In this class we were tasked with responding to the day’s learning and coming up with with thoughts surrounding the subject. After doing my initial thoughts I had a question that I didn’t have the answer to. I returned to this document recently and found that I could now answer this question using the experiences I’ve had over my internship.

Date: September 21, 2017

Today’s Topic: Relationships in Physical Education

Relationships are an important aspect of physical education; our goal is to teach personal and social responsibility. Relationships fall into the social responsibility and to teach this concept properly we need to establish what a teacher student relationship is. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the company of your students, but our job is not to be friends with them. We need to be able to engage with students in a way that we can show interest in their ability, and help them feel more empowered in their ability to take their learning into their own hands. One way to do this is to have students who are more advanced in a skill to help others who are unfamiliar with the movement. This not only a means of developing student relationships but also builds a bond between the teacher and the student as it demonstrates you trust them enough to be of help with an activity.

Initial Thoughts How can we deal with student tension? How can physical education be used to defuse bad relationships? If we use TPSR to teach kids and we give them the responsibility and trust them to do something and they neglect it, how do we move forward with that situation?

Reflection This is still a tough question for me, putting them in a team could result in poor consequences and separating them won’t help either. I feel suspension is a typical course of action and won’t make things better either. Perhaps using a self-reflection approach would work? Our relationships with students need to allow us to confront students in the situations. Being clear as to what our reasoning for teaching in this manner is and why it’s important for them would be the best approach I can think of.

Date: February 8th, 2021

The question was “what could I do as a teacher to help diffuse conflict between students, and I don’t mean a little bickering in class, I mean genuine disdain for one another.” I pointed out then that typical consequences surrounding issues like these will result in suspension or talking with parents. In some cases, I believe that interventions like these may be necessary. I do however think that consequences like these do little to diffuse the matter at hand. Ultimately, I believe that TPSR is a strong was to help deal with issues like these through self reflection. I had an experience like this with students during my internship. Two eight grade girls on more than one occasion were at each others’ throats. I think on of the best skills I learned through this was mediation, sometimes as a teacher the best thing you can do is give students the platform to mediate in a peaceful way. What I ended up doing was holding these two girls for a few minutes after my class. The first thing I did was announce my intention. I told them that the behaviour they were showing during class was disruption not only their own learning and the learning of the students around them. I asked them both to spend five minutes writing down their thoughts on the situation at hand. They then shared what they wrote to one another without interrupting. With a better understanding of how the other person felt about the situation, I had them work together to come up with a solution. They agreed that the best solution may be to write apologies to each other, they then added that perhaps the best way to get them to get along better was to have them work together in small amounts during class so that they could get to know each other better. In this case if found it interesting that students who could not stand each other found that the best solution may in fact be to build a stronger relationship together. For the rest of my time with them though there was still some bickering here and there, they disrupted the class significantly less than before. I do not believe that a solution like this would work for every pair, but I think the process of sharing thoughts in a safe space together is a strong approach to issues like this. Every situation needs to be dealt with and adapted to on an individual basis but for now this will be the approach I take when conflict arises in my classroom. This also gives rise what I genuinely believe to be the second of my educational “rocks”. Relationships are key to being successful in education, I will always put my best effort in to build relationships with my students and have them build strong relationships with each other.

Artifact 3: Diverse learners

The following is a quiz is one of the methods I used as a summative assessment for my orienteering unit. I was working with a group of grade seven students, and though most of them didn’t have any issue with this kind of assessment, I had to adapt for some of my students. I had one student who was legally blind and three more who had difficulty with reading and writing. Knowing this, presenting them with a quiz like this would have been setting them up for failure. Instead, I took time to meet with them individually during class time to administer the evaluation vocally. I could see that this helped put them at ease and all of them ended up doing well on the quiz!

Physical Education 7P Orienteering Study Sheet

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ICRvAreNwI3d2P1dltmOa-YoUlP9TpNr/view?usp=sharing

Things you should know for the quiz

At least three different ways you can figure out directions by using nature around you and explain why they work.

The three different categories of wood used for firemaking and how to identify each kind.

Be prepared to explain the order in which you would use categories of wood for firemaking and why the order is important.

Be prepared to list at least five things that would bring with you in your wilderness pack! (No food or water!)

Be prepared to explain the survival rule of three.

Be prepared to explain the differences between the two kinds of shelters we talked about.

Be prepared to explain which of the two types of shelters you think would be better if you were stuck out in the wilderness.

Two Types of Shelter

Fallen Tree Shelter

Lean-to Shelter

Items to bring in a survival pack

Hatchet

Bear Spray

Compass

Wire Saw

Water Purifying tables Water proof Matches

Name: _________________

Physical Education Orienteering Quiz

Question 1

When using a compass, the black arrow on the casing of the compass should always _________________.

Be pointing North
Be pointing away from your body
Be pointing towards your body
Be pointing East

Question 2

The red needle on the compass will always point in which direction?

Magnetic North
True North
True South
Magnetic South

Question 3

If it takes Janelle between 60 and 62 steps to go 50 metres, how many steps should it take her to go 75 metres? Pick the closest approximation.

Approximately 75 steps
Approximately 83 steps
Approximately 122 steps
Approximately 90 steps

Question 4

Cohen and his friends are building a fire. Cohen is searching for the kindling, how long should the sticks he’s searching for be?

About as high as his knee
About as long as his elbow to his fingertips
About as long as his full arm
About as long as as a pencil

Question 5

Marley is searching for the tinder, how much of it should he look for?

Enough to fill her arms
Enough to fill a backpack
Enough to fill a circle made with her hands
Enough to fill one armful

Question 6

Ethan is gathering the Fuel, how thick should each piece be?

About as thick as his wrist
About as thick as his thigh
About as thick as his neck
About as thick as his waist

Question 7

Jacey is building the fire, in which order would she want to use the different types of firewood?

Tinder, Fuel, Kindling
Kindling, Tinder, Fuel
Tinder, Kindling, Fuel
Fuel, Tinder, Kindling

Short Answer Questions (2-3 sentences)

Question 1 PART A

Name three different ways you could figure out your directions if you did not have a compass.

______________________________________________

Question 1 PART B

In full sentences, explain why each of your previously mentioned methods (PART A) works for finding directions.

Question 2

Using bullet points, list five things that you would bring in your wilderness survival pack.

Question 3

Using bullet points, explain the survival rule of three.

Question 4

Using full sentences, name the two types of shelters we talked about and describe two reasons they are different.

Long Answer Question (4-6 sentences)

Question 1

Using full sentences explain which of the two types of shelter you would make if you were stuck in the wilderness, and explain three reasons why you choose it over the other.

Artifact 4: Management and motivation

The book in the photo is by an educator who has been very influential to me in my upbringing as a physical educator. Don Hellison preaches for the use of Teaching personal and social responsibility in the classroom. This has helped me and will continue to help me in the management of my classes. By nurturing a class environment that practices respect of oneself and others, strong relationships are build and meaningful learning is achieved.

Artifact 5: Communication

https://drive.google.com/file/d/105FNRxm9n5_2QENtOFOJYirW-mukvQ09/view?usp=sharing

When teaching students it’s important to approach education in a variety of ways. Direct instruction is great but can’t be the only method of teaching offered to students. One approach I’ve been learning a lot about recently that I’ve really come to appreciate the use of the outdoors as a method of letting students learn. The great thing about the outdoors is that you can use a variety of methods, direct teaching, inquiry based learning, or guided projects it can really do it all!

Artifact 6: Planning and instruction

The following links are to a project I worked on a couple years ago. Myself and a partner were tasked with planning a semester long unit for wellness 10. This project was huge in terms of building knowledge necessary for the creation of a worthwhile unit. It is to this day the most detailed plan that I have created and I has served me as a guide for how I planned my units and lessons during my internship. I imagine that in my future career this is how I will plan my year to be ready for the year ahead.

Year Plan:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HDkZcaowMVyFRL80ADsXJwNlhq09El7KtOOYDhacokM/edit?usp=sharing

Unit Plan and Lesson Plan

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t-RtTsFImYYRC2DhZkq77CztFCppRB-ObPfXFL8wjwA/edit?usp=sharing

Artifact 7: Unit Frameworks/Course Examples

From the beginning of my journey towards becoming an educator we were always that assessment was extremely important. It is so important in fact that when designing unit and lesson plans, we were told that it was the first thing that we need to think about. Whenever I start planning a new unit, the first question I ask myself is, what outcome am I wanting to teach and how do I plan on assessing my students? This model is called backwards by design and I can’t begin to imagine how teachers planned without using this method. The following is a unit plan I created along with my favorite of the lessons that I created for it. This unit was especially fun because none of the kids had played kin-ball before and I was really fulfilling to watch them engage in something new!

Date	Outcome / Indicator(s)	Description of Lesson
Nov.2		Games Day: I will introduce students to an Omnikin ball and have them play a game with it.
Nov.3	8.6 / (a)	FULL LESSON #1: For this lesson I will introduce the students to the basic rules of Kinball. We will practice volleying the ball in the air. We will begin to think about what kinds of strategies we can apply from other sports into a kinball situation. We will practice setting up for a hit, switching hitters, calling out for a hit.
Nov.5	8.6 / (b)	FULL LESSON #2: For this lesson, we will apply what we have learned about volleying a kinball, in a volley-ball type game. Students will need to think critically and apply skills related to open space both offensively and defensively, skilful placement while striking, and collaborative movement.
Nov.12		Games Day: Allow students to practice and play Kinball
Nov.13	8.6 / (b)	FULL LESSON #3: For this lesson, students will be split into their teams, and together must come up with a defensive and offensive strategy/tactics before they can enter the game. Students will write down their strategies and come and confirm them with me prior to being allowed to rotate into the game.
Nov.17	8.6 / (c)	FULL LESSON#4: For this lesson students will have the option to write their Kin-ball quiz today and use any left over time for a game or electing to have a full day of games today and writing their kin-bal quiz on the 20th. For this lesson, we will learn to apply our sending skills into kinball. Then we will focus on how we can use those skills to our tactical advantage while looking for open space on the court to strike to.
Nov. 20	Assessment	Today is meant to be a games day. Based on what students chose to do the previous day. Students will write their quiz today or will have some time to play one last round of kin-ball.

Date	Outcome / Indicator(s)	Description of Lesson
Nov.2	8.6 / (a)	Today is meant to be a Games day for students, due to time constraints during my 3 week block however. This class will be using this day as instruction for Kin-ball. HALF LESSON #1 PART 1: For this lesson I will introduce the students to the basic rules of Kinball. We will practice volleying the ball in the air with any part of our body.
Nov.5	8.6 / (a)	HALF LESSON #1 PART 2: We will begin to think about what kinds of strategies we can apply from other sports into a kinball situation. We will practice setting up for a hit, switching hitters, calling out for a hit.
Nov.10	8.6 / (c)	HALF LESSON #2 PART 1: For this lesson, we will apply what we have learned about volleying a kinball, in a volley-ball type game. Students will need to think critically and apply skills related to open space both offensively and defensively, skilful placement while striking, and collaborative movement.
Nov.12	8.6 / (c)	Today is meant to be a games day, due to the restrictions on time during my 3-week block however, I will be using this time for instruction with the 8P. HALF LESSON #2 PART 2: For this lesson, we will apply what we have learned about volleying a kinball, in a volley-ball type game. Students will need to think critically and apply skills related to open space both offensively and defensively, skilful placement while striking, and collaborative movement.
Nov.13	8.6 / (b)	HALF LESSON #3 PART 1: For this lesson, students will be split into their teams, and together must come up with a defensive and offensive strategy/tactics before they can enter the game. Students will write down their strategies and come and confirm them with me prior to being allowed to rotate into the game. HALF LESSON #4 PART 1 : For this lesson, we will learn to apply our sending skills into kinball. Then we will focus on how we can use those skills to our tactical advantage while looking for open space on the court to strike to.
Nov.17	8.6 / (c)	For today’s lesson, students will have been given the option to write their Kin-ball quiz today or on Nov. 20 during their games day. HALF LESSON #4 PART 2: For this lesson, we will learn to apply our sending skills into kinball. Then we will focus on how we can use those skills to our tactical advantage while looking for open space on the court to strike to.
Nov. 20	Assessment	Today is meant to be a games day. Based on what students chose to do the previous day. Students will write their quiz today or will have some time to play one last round of kin-ball.

Lesson Plan

Subject/Grade: Physical Education / Grade 8PLesson Title: Kinball BasicsTeachers: Mr. Brodland November 3rd, 2020
Stage 1: Identify Desired Results
Outcome(s): PE8.6Design and implement, collaboratively, plans to develop the performance concepts and application of tactics and strategies to enhance individual and team performance, involved in each of: target games (e.g., bowling, curling, archery, golf, bocce ball)striking/fielding games (e.g., long ball, softball, slo-pitch, cricket)net/wall games (e.g., badminton, tennis, table tennis, volleyball, pickleball)invasion/territorial games (e.g., double ball, basketball, soccer, soft lacrosse, touch football, floor hockey, ultimate frisbee, rugby, team handball)low-organizational and inventive games (e.g., walleyball, capture the flag, prisoner’s base, speedball, kick the can, snowsnakes, bombardment). Indicator(s): Discuss and apply the various concepts involved in the different types of games (i.e., target games – sending away, wrist action on release of object, starting in aiming position; striking/fielding – placement of the ball on the field, covering bases, base running; net/wall – spatial awareness, positioning on court, returning to `base’ position, position of body, trajectory, depth, angles; invasion/territorial – keeping position, penetration, defensive positioning and movement in passing lanes, support for ball carrier, locomotion, on-the-ball movement, off-the-ball movement). Objective: The objective of today’s lesson is to teach students the basic rules of kinball, how to set up for a hit, how to score the game, and how to call out a hit.
Key Understandings: (‘I Can’ statements): – I can apply performance cues from movement skills I’ve learned previously into striking in Kinball. – I can apply performance cues from previously learned movement skills into receiving in Kinball.	Essential or Key Questions: What key skills can you bring from other sports into kinball? How do those skills transfer to this sport? What tactics/strategies can you bring into kinball from other sports?
Prerequisite Learning: Performance cues for Sending, receiving Tactic and skill knowledge for striking/fielding games
Instructional Strategies: Back to the wall teaching: I will always be certain to have my back to the wall and all students in view. This way I can make sure students are listening as I instruct and I can more easily ask questions and demonstrate.
Stage 2: Determine Evidence for Assessing Learning
I will use my essential questions after class to gauge whether or not students are listening to the instruction, If they have understood the rules and if they can apply skill transfer across sports. Additionally, I will be taking students self-assessment grades out of 10 for their engagement and contribution to the lesson.
Stage 3: Build Learning Plan
Warm-up: We will do our dynamic stretches and our laps x6, followed by our static stretches. Additionally, I will introduce the students to a new assignment in which they will be expected to lead the dynamic stretches. Students will be grouped up alphabetically, and will lead their classmates through the dynamic stretches at the start of every class. This will be graded on how successful they are at keeping their classmates in check, and that they perform all the movements appropriately. Additionally, I will be monitoring the rest of the students to make sure they are respectful throughout the warm-ups and not deliberately causing trouble for the leaders. Set (Engagement): Length of Time: 5 Min For the set today, I am going to pull students in by asking questions about striking and fielding games.If I told you the main objective of Kinball is to stop the ball from hitting the ground. What sports does that sound like to you? In which other sports is it important to try and keep the ball from touching the ground? Development: Length of Time: 15 Min Practice: Today I want to show students the appropriate form for sending a Kinball. In a ground of four, three people kneel and hold the ball over their head. The fourth person claps their hands together, yells out “Omnikin!” followed by the colour of the team they are calling on to catch the ball, as they do this they hit the ball with both hands together. I will split students into groups of four, and have them take turns practicing hitting the ball and giving the other teams a chance to try and volley it up. Activity 1: For our activity today we will attempt our first Kinball game. Normally the game is played with three teams on the field, but for the sake making sure all students get to play. We will do four teams of four, and two teams that can rotate in every 3-4 minutes. Closure: Length of Time:5 Min Before we leave, I will have students gather and ask them this question:So now that we’ve played the game a bit, what other similarities can we draw between kinball and other sports?	Materials/Resources: Kinball Coloured Pylons Dynamic Warm-Up Sheet Possible Adaptations/Differentiation: As an example, a student who may be using a wheelchair, the game could be modified to allow for a certain amount of bounces before counting it as a point against them. The game could also be modified to play more like a game of kickball or longball, to alleviate some of the quick reactions and changes in direction necessary for receiving. Management Strategies: I will use my whistle to get the attention of the students if things become too chaotic. Repeat it: I will have my students raise their hands and repeat the instructions before beginning the activity.

Artifact 8: Reflection

Reflection is an important part of teaching practice. We may be professionals but that doesn’t mean we make mistakes. We also know that mistakes in their own way, are good. This is because they help us learn, the following photos are some feedback I received and some reflection I did on my very first lesson. The pages are filled with lots of things that I need to fix! Over time and with more practice, the amount I needed to adjust became less overwhelming. I was only able to achieve this through reflection because it helped me pinpoint my weaknesses and work on them.

Artifact 9: Technology

Technology has advanced what we are capable of doing as educators and one of the most beneficial learnings I’ve had in University was trying something new surrounding technology. In my ECS 410 class, my group and I were tasked with finding a different way to teach and assess a unit of our choosing. Being as video games were something we all shared an interest in and since it’s something many students connect to today, we create a unit surrounding playing a video game. This unit helped get me thinking towards how I could even make use of movement based video games in my classroom as something fun that could serve as an interesting change of pace for students! The following link leads to the presentation my group and I created for the class!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Vj46P-YPPt6JJXOWH9Yj9dllN088iLvf4lzFBvKzJ4s/edit?usp=sharing

Artifact 10: Collaboration

In terms of collaboration, the first thing that I though of was a project I worked on during my EHE 300 class. In this class we were tasked with interviewing some of the teachers that were present at the school that we were working at that semester. Being able to interview these long term teachers really helped me see a new perspective on teaching health. Further, I was lucky enough to attend the same school during my internship which was fantastic because I managed to make use of the connections that I had previously built in EHE 300 and got to use the same people as mentors when I needed advice during my internship. I am grateful to them for everything I learned and this project taught me a lot about communication, mentorship and collaborating with others in teaching.

Questions with Mike Kirby (Grade 6)

Can you describe a similarity or difference that stands out between the way you teach and the ways your teacher(s) taught you as a child?

A lot of the ways I teach I teach now come from the things I saw as a students. As an elementary student I did not have a hard time being successful, I felt a reason for that was because my teachers presented topics really well. I was taught mostly through direct reaching so that is the method I’m the most comfortable with when I teach, I have started to branch out more with teaching methods as I have become more comfortable with the material. When I first started out however, I used almost exclusively direct teaching. Now, I like to use stations and inquiry learning as well but I feel that I have changed more in my career in the past five years than in the rest of my career. Part of using mostly direct teaching is familiarity and I figured since it’s worked for me, it would work for the kids as well. I have come to find that, things are quite different from the way I they were when I was a student. I came from a school that was firmly middle class and almost all students had a very similar level of ability, but that is no longer the case. This has changed my teaching strategies because I need adapt to make up for those gap in knowledge or varying abilities in my students.

In terms of our curriculum being outcome based, from year to year students are expected to have attained a certain level of proficiency in every subject area. How do you manage to change or adapt things to help students who may be above or below grade level?

I can be extremely difficult some time depending on all sorts of factors. You definitely need some form of outside help. I depend on my Learning Support Teachers (LST) to help me sift through cue folders and other background things I need to know before I teach. In addition, I need their help to co-plan some of the material I’ve created for my students with varying ability. Another important aspect is to get to know your students, I’ve had discussions with teachers who have taught my students in previous years who explained that X student never had any problems with math but I’ll notice shortly in that there are definitely problems with math. The goal is to then use your relationship with that students to try and understand the way that they think so you can approach teaching in a different way. It is a difficult thing to do, but it is something that every teacher needs to do because kids are very diverse. I’ve found over the years that sometimes the hardest students to teach are the ones that are more advanced because everything is geared towards the middle, and it tends to be easier to find material for the students performing on the “average” and “lower” levels than it is to find material that challenges the “advanced” students.

Do you find to accomodate for students who are on either end of the “skill” spectrum, that from year to year you need to change the way you would teach something in health class? For example sex education is something students might have varying levels of understanding at this age. Do you find you need to approach a topic like this differently every year or do you try to keep it consistent when you start a difficult topic like this one?

At the start of the year, I would say I like to keep my teaching about the same, I like to recycle what I did. I almost always by the end of Septembre find however that I need to approach it differently just because of the combination of how kids learn best and where they’re at in terms of understanding will change every year. As society seems to change so to does what my student’s understand when they reach my class in grade six. Some classes five years ago had a much better understanding of certain sex education topics. There are definite changes from year to year I would say.

If it changes from year to year like that then, do you have a method of keeping track of how lessons went and how they may need to change?
I just keep short anecdotal notes in each of my unit plans that remind me of things I may want to adjust or look at for each of my topics. Teaching needs a constant process of reflection, I don’t do it necessarily every day but whenever I’m preparing something like a unit test, I will always refer back to those notes so I can adjust things differently to fit my class’ needs.

As an emerging health, physical education and french teacher, I can definitely say that society has biases in terms of what it values as important knowledge. Classes are sometimes pushed aside to make space for subjects that are deemed “more important”. I personally would consider my three main domains of interest to be considered less valued. My question to you is, how would you go about keeping your students motivated in a situation where they don’t see the value in learning about a certain subject? What teaching methods do you use to combat this?

I feel like that depends on the student, I’ll sometimes have students in math class ask me when will this ever come into play in real life? I think in some subjects such as health class they will see how it may connect to real life but the grade they get for the class really doesn’t matter to them. So the key is to find a topic or learning method that they can use to really latch onto the subject. French is likely the least valued subject in this school, none of the students really see the value of it. In my class however they really loved the end of unit project I did with them and so they always kept on wanting to do that kind of activity after we finished doing boring things like vocabulary and grammar. It was a bit like a reward, whenever we got through something “boring” they would have this activity at then end waiting for them. Another thing I like to do is call students out at random to answer questions. Just using a class list I’ll pick students from it and have them answer a question about the subject, this just makes them a little more alert because they know they could be called on at any time to answer.

When looking at health class in specific, do you feel you have a specific instructional strategy that you lean on the most? Why do(es) it/they work for you?

It does depend on the subject, but for health I really like working in small groups with students. I great for reading and writing based tasks. Projects are always good to use in health and in any subject other than math. However, I am still the most comfortable with direct teaching. In health class I would say my most used though is class discussion, A lot of health outcomes at this age really lend themselves to showing a video, or using a little bit of direct teaching and leading them into a discussion. The more student centered a class like health can be, the better because it can sometimes be a little bit dry, but if the students are engaging in discussion it will keep them more attentive to what they are learning.

If you like to use a lot of discussion in your health class, what kind of assessment methods do you like to use in your health class to go along with it and how would they work?

When I use discussion during the class, I might do something at the end of class like an exit slip where they explain a few things that they’ve learned during the class. Some of the struggling kids, you won’t get as much information but for those that are buying into the topic will have a lot to say. That information however is really useful at the start of the semester because then I know who has an interest in the subject and who I can use as group leaders to facilitate group discussion in the future. I also like to use debate and having group leaders to help get others engaged has been quite helpful to me.

So do you then strategically place these students when creating groups?
Absolutely, and it doesn’t even have to be the students who are understanding the best, sometimes it will be the best organizers that will be spread out, or the students that are best at getting others involved in the group work. That way you don’t have students who miss out because they are shy or don’t feel competent in a certain subject area.
It’s interesting to me that you say that because, I come from a Physical Education background and there is a massive focus on building relationships and trust within physical education. A strategy like this one wouldn’t be possible without really knowing your students well.
Usually I’ll start the year off with some group work that doesn’t reflect much on their grade. By doing this I can observe to see who is less likely to participate, who’s going to be disruptive, who’s bossy, but also who is best organized, who leads discussion well, which is all helpful information for the rest of the semester.

Do you often attempt to incorporate health class cross-curricularly? Or even outside of the classroom?

In health class I have done some cross-curricular things, but I find it a little more difficult to do that other subject areas. I’m much better at doing cross-curricular with science, social and language arts, and I think that has more to do with my abilities and understandings of those subjects.

Is there anything on the health curriculum that you think is missing? And if there is, do you go out of your way to teach it even when it’s not an outcome?

I can’t understand why they didn’t take some of the science based stuff out of health class because that could be dealt with elsewhere in my opinion. I think there is a desperate need for more teachings that talk about mental health. Every year I have students who struggle with anxiety, depression and other mental health issues like Tourette Syndrome. It isn’t mentioned at all in health and I think that’s a disaster actually.

So you’ve taken it upon yourself to insert it into your teaching?
Yup, it has to be in there so I try to mix it in with reading be it in health or Language arts. I try to incorporate mental health and issues such as diversity in with short stories so that it gets the students at minimum recognizing and thinking about those issues.
So if you’re adding things to the curriculum that you believe to be important, with the allotted amount of time you have in a semester or a year, do you have to sacrifice other topics to make up for it?
I find that the language arts curriculum is so huge and vague in terms of what needs to be learned that you can fit something like mental health into it without causing issues. You don’t even really need to lose time from other subjects or topics, and mental health as a subject with adds to their learning in language arts in cross-curricular way.

My last question to you is if you have any advice for an upcoming health, french and physical education teacher?

My advice would depend on your position you get, but the most important thing I think is the relationships you develop with the students. Especially in the case that you’re a physical education teacher or french teacher who may hop from class to class. Knowing them will be the greatest advantage in your corner while teacher. That means you’ll need to be engaged during supervision and interacting with all the students often. That doesn’t mean you’re always there to bust them when something is going wrong, but just chatting with them during free time and getting to know them on a more personal level. Whenever I’ve entered a classroom where I don’t know the kids, first off it makes me uncomfortable and most of them will be thrown off thinking about who I am and what I want from them. Being at ease in a classroom can make or break a lesson, so know your kids!

Questions with Lindsay Polowich (Grade 7)

Can you describe a similarity or difference that stands out between the ways you teach and the way your teacher(s) taught you as a child?

It’s interesting that you ask that because, when I first became a teacher and I had to teach english, I contacted on of my old teachers and asked them for advice and resources. He told me that he just takes the textbook, and teaches out of that. I think thought back to his lessons and I remember that being exactly what he did. He had an anthology with different scripts and short stories, he would ask the questions that were in there and every year it would be the same. I think the expectations for the teachers back the were very different from what they are now. Nothing was differentiated or adapted, there was one reading level and textbook for all students. Now that isn’t the case because there is such a focus on reading and writing.

At the start of the year I will always start with a review of the subjects. Especially in topics like math, because if their behind in something like numeracy skills there’s no point in moving forward until that foundation is built. I might come up with a quiz or assignment they have to complete that encompasses skills they need to have. When you look at what they’ve returned it helps me figure out what they do and don’t understand. You always need to refresh skills or else you’ll be teaching to a bunch of blank faces. Activating prior knowledge is one of the most important things I think when approaching a new outcome.

There are always certain things that will stay the same but adjustments always need to be made in year to year because students have differing levels of ability. One thing I do is provide examples for students to follow, in the case that students are behind grade level, they have a template to follow. For those who are ahead, they then have the opportunity to add onto what made a previous student successful and make their project or work even better.

I mean the same thing could be said about the arts, I think that if we as professionals are pushing a subject aside, it sends a clear message to the kids about its value. Sometimes taking away from subjects is necessary during a stressful period of the semester but I think the key is to always make sure you give it back later. When students aren’t motivated, I think the most important thing is to have an engaging teaching method to use. What’s considered engaging might change a bit depending on the class, but I like to make games surrounding my subjects. So you might see a snakes and ladders game that uses math to calculate how many spaces they get to move. Or sometimes it’s as easy as using things like class discussion to keep them engaged at all times. I hate to say it but the one students find the most blah is french. Which is unfortunate because I enjoy it but enthusiasm is key in these situations because if they can tell you don’t enjoy a subject, they won’t be motivated to learn it. When something is boring, I like to use group activities or sometimes skits to keep them creating and engaged. I also think it’s important to fluctuate your strategies because if you’re always teaching the same way students will lose their connection with the lesson quicker.

When looking at health class in specific, do you feel you have a specific instructional strategy that you lean on the most? Why do(es) it/they work for you?

What I do most often is modeling, because it is flexible in terms of the subjects it can be applied to. Providing them with examples will help them be successful and it helps them understand what my expectations are for them. This might be done through providing an example or even showing them a project from previous years that models how to do something well. I think this is a useful strategy because it makes it clear what the students need to do and for those who may be struggling it gives them guidelines to follow so that they can do better.

What kind of assessment methods do you like to use in your health class to go along with it and how would they work?

In health class, I often use formative assessment, especially since I like to incorporate lots of discussion from the class. I’ve also done things like role-playing to get students to demonstrate to me what things like bullying and peer-pressure might look like. My most used method would be rubrics because with it fits the changes to the grading system we’ve just moved to. Rubrics have been one of my favorites for a long time because they clarify criteria and can be made with the students. I’ve also used some health modules online because of some of my students’ literacy levels, using a module has made things easier to adjust for students who have difficulties reading. It is like an online program that can be read to them in certain cases that also incorporates educational activities that are like computer games that keep track of their progress. More recently I have been doing some summative testing, and I find I’ve been broadening my assessment strategies from year to year because it helps students with different strengths to be more successful in the long run.

Do you often attempt to incorporate health class cross-curricularly? Or even outside of the classroom?

Some health subjects are things that we’re teaching subtly all the time I think without even thinking about it. Things like walking through the halls and remind kinds some food may not be healthy for them, or dealing with issues of respect, peer-pressure and bullying as the come up is also something that we often do. I suppose in terms of cross-curricular I tend to find I cross other subjects into health than vice versa. For example, last year when the new food guide was released, I had students plan a healthy meal connecting to the food guide, make it at home with their parents and they then had to write about the experience in a journal and create a presentation of the end results to their peers. I think the project was successful because it showcased multiple ways of knowing which I think is key when planning cross-curricularly. One thing I like to include outside of the class is participation on days like anti-bullying days or mental health days. On days like these I’ll task my students with visiting others around the school during free time and paying them a compliment.

Is there anything on the health curriculum that you think is missing? And if there is, do you go out of your way to teach it even when it’s not an outcome?

I think the mental health piece is missing from the health curriculum. It is there in subtle ways I think when you talk about healthy relationships and creation of personal standards, but I feel there could be more focus on it because taking care of yourself is important. The increase of anxiety for kids at this age, it’s a stressful time of their lives, so I teach some calming strategies like meditation or deep breathing to keep to help the kids develop strategies when they start to feel that way.

I’d also like health to focus more on puberty, I talk to my students a bit about the changes that they are or are about to experience in their bodies but I’m not an expert and the health curriculum doesn’t offer as much as it could on the subject. You would think something like this would be prioritized figuring that they are currently living in this transitional period but I think the most recently they’ve talked about it is grade five which is really too long ago.

My last question to you is if you have any advice for an upcoming health, french and physical education teacher?

If you’re looking to have those three subjects as you’re priority, try and share that with other people. I think that is the struggles that teachers have when they need to tackle subjects that they aren’t familiar with. Sharing resources and consulting other teachers do every topic justice in the classroom so that students don’t miss out on what could be great learning.

Analysis of Learning

During his interview Mr. Kirby mentioned these teaching strategies:

Learning Centers: Learning centers is an interactive learning strategy where the teacher creating stations around the classroom that provide information about a topic. Students then take turns rotating around the stations and learning what each station is about. Mr. Kirby mentioned using this in his health class when he was talking about drugs and diseases with kids because they are topics that interest the students and tend to be things they are curious enough about to acutally interact with each of the stations.

Inquiry Based learning: The idea around inquiry is that teachers will present a broad topic to students, show them the means of gathering information effectively and then let them choose something to research that is related to the main topic. It is then up to the students, to find a question they want to answer, investigate the information surrounding their questions, create something that demonstrates their learning about the topic, discuss with others what they have learned and reflect on the entire learning process.

Anecdotal Records: Mr. Kirby explained he enjoys using Anecdotal records every year to improve upon with lessons. This is done simply by reflecting upon the lesson you taught and writing notes about what went wrong or it can be used by keeping records or a student’s understanding, participation or behaviour throughout a lesson.

Project Based Learning: This method explains that students attain deeper understanding if they get to explore real-world challenges and problems. An example of this would be experimentation in science class that students come up with and figure out a way to test it themselves.

Group Work: This is simply giving students something to work on in a group which helps learn about the topic but also develop social skills.

Flexible Grouping: This is a groups work strategy that incorporates arranging students in a specific way that spreads out students strategically based on their strengths and weaknesses. It can go as far as assigning each student roles within the group to help facilitate meaningful work and understanding.

Cross-curricular Learning: Using another subjects content to reinforce the learning in the subject at hand. An example may be using physics equations in physical education to calculate the force produced behind a jump that was taken on video.

Relationship Building: The relationship building strategy is as its name suggests, to get familiar with your students by interacting with them in ways that aren’t just in a classroom setting. An example of this may be getting students to create a short presentation about themselves near the start of the year and asking them follow-up questions in the hallways or before class. This makes the student-teacher relationship a more comfortable one and helps mitigate classroom discipline issues.

Random Questioning: This strategy involves asking students questions at random by using a draw pile with students names or random selection. This method gets students to be more engaged because if they aren’t alert at all times, they could be called on to answer something.

Reward Based Learning: Mr. Kirby mentioned this one while talking about his french class.

After every section or vocabulary and writing skills, students were tasked with writing a short story that used the vocabulary their learned, but the story could be about anything they wanted. This was an activity many of the students enjoyed and served as a reward for getting through material they considered to be less interesting.

Class Discussion: Class discussion is a means of getting all students to participate by talking about a topic. The teacher will ask the class a question and simply have them give their input about what they know surrounding the topic. This works well with open-ended questions because it gives students a chance to express themselves without fearing being wrong and it shows them that their thoughts are valued within the classroom.

During her interview Ms. Polowich discussed these teaching strategies (not including those that have already been mentioned above):

Teaching Games for Understanding: This method teaches students skills while participating in a game situation. For example Ms. Polowich suggested playing snakes and ladders to teach math skills. This creates a fun environment for students to learn in which in turn will get them more engaged in the subject.

Differentiated learning: This method suggests that not all students are at the same level of understanding in all subject areas depending on age, gender, ability/disability, culture, socioeconomic status, language, motivation. On this basis it is then important to modify the learning content to better suit each students needs so that they can build on what they have instead of teaching something they aren’t advanced enough to understand or have already grasped previously.

Review Strategies: This strategy is used to re-engage students in previous learning to help them recall what they’ve learned so they are more prepared to move forward. This also gives the teacher an overview of what level understanding each student has reached in a certain topic. Ms. Polowich uses this every year to gauge where her students are in subjects like math.

Modeling: In this strategy the teacher will model a behaviour or skill they want students to be able to do. For example Ms. Polowich uses modeling to teach research projects in her health class. She shows the students the step-by-step process of research creation and then she provides examples of a previous student’s work and explain what they did right.

Role-play: Role-play can be used to engage students in learning through the creation of scenarios that relate to a topic. For example Ms. Polowich uses Role-Play get the students to demonstrate their understanding of peer-pressure. If the students can create and re-enact an appropriate peer-pressure situation, they have understood the topic.

Technology-Based Learning: Technology in the classroom is very beneficial for learning and can be used in many ways. Technology based learning means that a teacher will use technology in some way during the lesson to enhance the students’ understanding of the topic at hand. Teachers now have access to smart-boards that they can write on and present with. Ms. Polowich uses a program that has students engage in computer games that are educational.

My Perspective

I like a lot of these strategies and looking at the entire list there is certainly a lot to cover. Just through talking with two teachers I can really see what kind of strategies they use that work and why they use them. A few that stand out to me are flexible grouping, reward based learning, differentiated learning and modeling. Flexible grouping stands out the me because of its relation to physical education, since that is my main interest, Mr. Kirby brought up some points during our interview that really sparked my interest. I think flexible grouping is a great tool to use to engage students in active participation. This is key in physical education because if you can place the right students in the correct groups, they can act as a motivator for the rest of their team. I think the same goes for every other subject even in health. Health can sometimes be a bit of a dry subject for students, I’ll admit that even myself who has taken a plethora of health classes and is minoring in health, I don’t always find health topics to always be enthralling. But that’s why knowing your students is an important piece of being a good teacher, through developing relationships with your students, you learn who makes a good leader, motivator, organizer, who likes which topics, etc. Spreading those students around helps facilitate learning for all students and can be invaluable in a health classroom setting.

When Mr. Kirby mentioned that this worked well for his students during his french class which most students didn’t enjoy, it made me more intrigued to try it myself. Reward based learning is another interesting method to me because it isn’t something that I experience much of while I was in school myself. I think rewards for hard work can be deserved, but obviously you need to be careful about what the reward is and what students have to do to earn that reward. I’ve seen my co-op teacher do something similar where she has a program to keep track of students points that they earn from participating in class, improving on math or spelling scores, etc. Even small things like a simple point tally under their name has managed to keep many of them motivated to keep working hard. In my opinion I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing a fun activity at the end of a long stretch of working hard is a good way to keep students motivated to behave well and to work well throughout a unit.

Role-Play is an interesting method to implement, and I think it has a lot of value within the classroom. Ms. Polowich used it for teaching peer-pressure in her classroom which is something I’ve previously done before in a classroom. I think this strategy is beneficial because it motivates students to think critically about a topic and get creative at the same time. An interesting use that I’d like to try is to have students read a book and then ask them to role-play as a character while everyone else asks them questions related to their situation in the book. I think this would be an interesting way to develop and demonstrate understanding.

Modeling is a strategy I wish my high school teachers had used more often, we were usually met by a rubric or guidelines for projects but no example to work off of. Sometimes this led me to be a little confused about how to go about producing a section of a project or had me disappointed when I received a less than decent grade on my projects. When Ms. Polowich described modeling as a strategy she likes to use, I really appreciated it because I would have performed better with my projects had my teachers done the same. I think this kind of strategy fits in well with health classes because it lends itself well to research projects that can be modeled to better help students create something that is of good quality.

The Important Aspects of Assessment

What I’ve learned from speaking with these teachers is that balance is key to appropriate assessment. Assessment should happen often and in a variety of ways. Ms. polowich helped me understand that before assessment can even begin we need to review what students already know so that the teacher has a baseline of where to start. Mr. Kirby explained that not all students are necessarily on the same level of ability, which has made me understand that assessment needs to be varied and unique to each student’s capacities. This can be done in a number of ways, such as: using observation to formatively assess the students’ understanding during class, using quizzes or test summatively at the end of a unit to demonstrate what they have learned or remember, use inquiry based projects to facilitate self-driven learning, using role-play to have students create unique scenarios. Since not every student is going to be good a test-taking and others not so good at speaking in front of the class, all of these methods of assessments can be balanced to help students demonstrate understanding in a way that suits their strengths. This is something we’ve discussed now in class called validity and reliability. An assessment will be valid if it truly has students reflecting on what they’ve learned, whereas you will know your teaching strategy is reliable if you give them several assessments that are about the same topic but their understanding around that topic across time remains constant. I now know that to be a successful teacher I’ll need to spend as much time on my developing my assessment as I will with creating the lesson itself.