BLOG 6

1. WOAH President Obama called me! (I wish…) Here’s what I told him should be done with education…

-High stakes testing needs to be eliminated. I know their needs to be some accountability for the teachers, the school, and the students but I do not think the testing we are provided is doing any good. High stakes testing has left students, teachers and administration in fear, and who can succeed when they are so afraid of failing? I know it is hard for me to. We need to find a better, more positive way to check for understanding and performance.

      
            - No Child Left Behind need to be “left behind”. Again this is placing fear on everyone involved in education. Schools should not be afraid of closing due to low performance. Students should not be shuffled from school to school and feeling as if they are the reason their schools are failing. It takes time for students and teachers to get used to programs and for programs to work well. We try certain strategies from certain programs to help schools and students from being left behind and if we do not see results right away we move on to another strategy and program. This is confusing for student and takes teachers out of the classrooms for meetings to learn these new program strategies. Students need their teachers to succeed a substitute cannot do that for them. We need to be patient and should not be place on dead lines to succeed.

   
      -Business and education are not related; stop trying to make them be. Education should be lead by people who are aware and familiar with the education system, not by big business executives. The business model does not work well for education. Businesses turn out products and if products do not succeed they abandon them, the school products are the “students” we cannot abandon them and they are not all the same.
   
      -Teachers put in a lot of work. I always hear “oh you have such an easy job”, “ The hours are great” and “ you have the summers off.” Society views teachers as below them. They view teaching as an easy job and they feel the right to boss us around and tell us how to do our job. This needs to stop. As president you could help change this. Show society that teachers are important and we deserve to be treated with respect. We jump through so many hoops to even become educators and put in several extra hours helping our students, going to meetings, collaborating and grading papers to help improve ourselves as educators. Our job does not end at three o’clock when the bell rings.

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           - Along with getting society to respect our profession, it would also be nice to be paid a little bit more. I know that we are not making terrible money but it is very little compared to other government jobs and jobs in the private sector. I think that it is sad that I do not make enough money to be able to afford rent on an apartment on my own. I am not even taking about buying a house; I am talking about renting a studio apartment. I also know I have not being teaching for that long and eventually my pay will increase but I feel like my expenses will be more as time goes on as well. I find it sad that I need a roommate so that I am not spending my whole paycheck on rent. I get that we need to be held accountable for teaching students and doing a good job and for the most part teachers do that. Teachers put their heart and soul into their jobs, and get little respect and make little money. My thought is when you start paying us more then and only then should we take input from you. Because I know I am and my colleagues are doing way more work than we get paid for.

2. Ravitch has been meaning to me in several ways. I appreciate her honesty. I felt as if I was able to learn and become more aware of educational policies because I was able to trust what she was saying. Every time I read Ravitch I would get fired up and so angry! I had quit a reaction to what she was saying and that was very meaningful to me. What she stood for I related to, I understood her frustration and her point of view. I felt as if Ravitch helped me open up my eyes on what was really going on in the education world because of No Child Left Behind. I knew it was bad, but I only saw how it effected my own school and the district that I worked in. Education is not doing well and educators need to take back education and help our students learn once again.

3. As a teacher I can stand up for our rights as teachers. We need to protect ourselves against big businesses. We need to become political activist, so we have some control and knowledge about what takes place in our schools and districts. As a Physical Education teacher I can get involved in as many associations as possible and have a voice and get respect though a more powerful whole association voice. As a teacher I can do my best to educate students on what I feel is important to help them succeed in life. I want to make sure they are able to accomplish what ever goals they have set for them selves and I can make that my priority. Teachers are there for the students, to help them succeed and learn and I will continue to do that. As a citizen I can create awareness of the state of education and how No Child Left Behind is failing our students and their children. I can recommend Ravitch's book, that would be eye opening for society! I just need to do what ever I can as a teach or as a citizen to make sure we are doing what is best for student to be able to learn and succeed.

4.

  

      National Association for Sport and Physical Education provides information and resources for students, teachers and coaches. It shows PE standards, professional development opportunities as well as grant information and publications.

      California Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance provides conferences and events to attend for professional development, legislation information, awards and grants for students and teachers, as well as links to other helpful and useful resources.

5.                                                                                                                                                                                          

      

                        a)    BAY AREA EXPERIENTIAL RESOURCES:

1)   BAY AREA SPORTS MUSEUM, SAN FRANSISCO, CA

2)   BAY AREA RADIO MUSEUM-THE SPORTS PAGE

3)   SAN DIEGO HALL OF CHAMPIONS SPORTS MUSUEM, SAN DIEGO, CA

4)   WOMEN’S PROFESSIONAL SOCCER GAME/INTERVIEWS

5)   INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S FOOTBALL LEAGUE (SACRAMENTO SIRENS)

b)   BOOK RESOURCES

1)   DYNAMIC PHYSICAL EDUCATION FOR ELEMENTARY CHILDREN BY ROBERT PANGRAZI AND AARON BEIGHLE

2)   PHYSIOLOGY EXERCISE PHYSICAL EDUCATION ATHLETES BY AILEEN LOCKHEART

3)   THE BENEFITS OF EXERCISE ON THE HUMAN BODY BY CLITON J. CHALK

4)   MOVE YOURSELF:THE COOPER CLINIC MEDICAL DIRECTORS GUIDE TO ALL THE HEALING BENEFITS OF EXERCISE BY TEDD MITCHELL,TIM CHURCH AND MARTIN ZUCKER

5)   THE REVOLUTIONARY NEW SCIENCE OF EXCERISE AND THE BRAIN BY JOHN R. RATEY

c)    JOURNAL RESOURCES

       1) SPORTS SCIENCE JOURNAL,http://sportsci.org/

       2) AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPORTS MEDICINE, http://journal.ajsm.org/

                    d) CONFERENCE RESOURCES

                               1) PEACH- PHYSICAL EDUCATION, ATHLETIC COACHING AND 

                                 HEALTH CONFERENCE AT CAL POLY, SAN LUIS OBISPO CA

                               2) BAY PE-HP AT SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY, SAN JOSE CA

                    e) WORLD PE RESOURCES

                               1)OLYMPIC GAMES

                               2) ATHENS GREECE, WHERE THE OLYMPIC GAMES STARTED

                               3) TOUR DE FRANCE

                               4)LET’S MOVE MUSUEM AND GARDEN (HOSTED AT YOUR SCHOOL  

                                SITE)

                               5) PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SPORT MUSUEM, HUNGARY-   

                                 BUDAPEST

BLOG 5

1. Dr. Robert's presentation was very interesting. It was interesting to see the use of daily media our students use. I thought to my self that I use just as much or more as what he found in his study. I am often working on my lap top with the TV on in the background while checking my Facebook. What I got from Dr. Robert's presentation was the fact that we are leaving in a technical world and in order to keep our students engaged we need to find ways to incorporate technology in our classes. This is great. I truly believe what ever it take to get students to learn and like learning could only be beneficial to them. I however, as a Physical Education teacher left Dr. Robert's presentation thinking I need to do something about my students sitting in front of a TV or on a computer for hours on end. It is my job to motivate them to exercise. I have my students once a day. Students motivation to participate in PE range from super engaged and will do anything to me "pulling teeth" to get students to even walk around. It is those students who will not even try to participate that I worry about the most. I think if every student could at least get one hour of exercise a day that is pretty good, but if there not even getting that in PE I can assume they are not going to be exercising at home. This means that they have no physical activity in any part of their day and that scares me. I feel as if with the increase of media this issue can only get worse. After Dr. Robert's presentation I thought to myself I need to find a way to get these kids up and moving around and show them the benefits of exercise on their overall health. Maybe I can incorporate technology into that?

2& 3. After reading " More Pupils Are Learning Online, Fueling Debate on Quality" from the New York Times I had mixed emotions. I can see the benefits of online courses, such as preparing students for college and allowing students to take classes at a pace that allows students to be successful, I can also see the downside or negative aspects of online courses, such as lack of face-to-face interaction, plagiarizing and cheating students out of the school experience just to save money. Online education may or may not be effective where I work. I work in a low income district with at risk youth. I have assigned students work and asked that the work be typed on the computer and most of my students will come to me and say either they do not have a computer, or they do not have a printer or that there is only one computer in the house and someone else was using it so they could not complete their assignment. These could all just be excuses, or they could be telling the truth and I am not sure I can make that judgement call. If only half a class can find a way to type up an assignment, I am not seeing the online education would work. I am not saying that it might not be beneficial to some of my students though. I can very well see some of my students doing very well and taking ownership in their own education through online course. It might also benefit those student who are constantly getting into fights to avoid their peers at school and focus on their education. On the other hand though, they might have more time during the day to being getting into trouble. Over all, I think that most students need that face-to-face interaction to learn. I think going to school is part of growing up and every one should experience that. I think that as teachers we should incorporate online assignment because it will help when they get to college but a full online education is cheating the students.

4. ·      http://www.slideshare.net/ "Allows you to host PowerPoint presentations on the web."


This resource would be useful in my classroom because it allows you to post powerpoint presentations to the web. As a PE teacher it can sometime be difficult to show power points to students due to no classroom or our my class sizes being to large to fit everyone in a class room to watch a presentation comfortably. With this resource I can assign students to go over a power point presentation online at home for homework and check for understanding the next day.

·      "http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ is a free tool that helps teachers design rubrics."

Again as a PE teacher I often find it hard to evaluate students in a traditional way. Written test are not the most practical in the outdoors and the are not really examining on what I have taught the students to do. Rubistar is a great resource because I can create rubrics to assess my students learning. For example, I can make a rubric for throwing skills and mechanics and as I watch a student complete a throw step by step I can evaluate them on the rubric. It is also nice to allow students to take a rubric home and practice before they are assessed that way they now exactly what is expected from them.

·      "http://teachertube.com is a site where teachers share instructional video content, and is usually accessible from school sites."

I    This would be a useful resource for demonstrations. I would be nice to take a class into the library and show students on teachertube "how to throw a frisbee" have students watch and learn from a video instead of having to listen to me all the time. 

http://www.donorschoose.org:

       Through this website, I can ask for awesome resources to help my students learn. I am excited about what this resource has to offer. I am going to ask for heart rate monitors for each of my students so they can track how well they are exerting their most important muscle their heart. I have been wanting to have heart rate monitors for years but knew they were way out of allowed budget. This is a great way to try and get school supplies that you can not quite afford.

 

INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHING AND LEARNING

A topic I commonly teach is Frisbee. I love the this sport! It allows me to be creative and come up with all sorts of different ways to teach the fundamentals of Frisbee. I am excited to add to this topic by incorporating other resources from other subjects to help further student’s knowledge of this sport.

	The two subjects I would like to incorporate into FRISBEE are SCIENCE and HISTORY!!!

Science: I would like to look at such aspects of aerodynamics and trajectory that goes into throwing a Frisbee.

A resource that I found to help incorporate these science factors into the game of Frisbee is this wonderful website called Science Buddies.

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/sciencefairprojects/project_ideas/Aero_p010.shtml

Here is an example of the diagrams that this website provides. It think this is a great way for students to understands the science aspect behind throwing a Frisbee.

This diagram shows the forces on a frisbee in flight.The arrow v shows the direction of flight. The downward arrow is the weight of the frisbee (mass times gravity). The backward arrow, d is the force of drag. The upward arrow, L, is the force of lift. It acts perpendicular to the direction of flight. Both lift and drag change as a function of the tilt angle, α, of the disk. (Hubbard and Hummel, 2000)

 The website also provides diagrams that will allow students to see a launch angle and place a scientific equation to the tilt and destination of the frisbee based on how it is thrown or launched.

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I would implement this in class by having students look at the equations on force and explain how it directs how the frisbee will travel. I could make a chart for students to figure out an equation that they will think will provide the most accurate results and then they can test it out for themselves by throwing the frisbee at a specific target I will set up for them. They can make a hypothesis, complete the experiment and come up with a conclusion on what works best when throwing the frisbee. This would also incorporate the scientific process.

         

 History: I would like to look at the history of the sport.

The resource I found useful and easy to read was the Frisbee Timeline. This website presents a time line of events that occurred in the foundation of Frisbee.

http://www.discsandmore.com/frisbee-timeline

I would either implement this as a project. Students would need to complete research on the history of the sport and create their own timeline including visuals. I might also just explain the history of frisbee at the very beginning of the unit. I think it would be valuable for students to know the history of an activity they are completing.

CHALLENGES AND VALUES OF INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHING AND LEARNING:

There are many values of interdisciplinary teaching and learning. As humans it is important to be well rounded individuals. One way to do that is to learn as much as we can, interdisciplinary teaching and learning provides teachers and students with that ability. I think nothing but value can occur when looking at all aspects of different subject matter on something you are learning. For example, as you can see above I chose to combined history, PE, and science this will provide my students with background knowledge through history which will help them understand the rules and foundation of the sport and in looking at the science of throwing the frisbee my students will conduct a scientific experiment to see what the best way to throw a frisbee accurately. Both of these subjects providing knowledge to help students in being more successful in playing the game of frisbee. This will also provide the student with knowledge that will allow them to explore different aspects of the subject frisbee. Interdisciplinary teaching and learning could provide students with more connections to what they are learning and keep them interested in what they are supposed to be learning. This would be true of any time you incorporate interdisciplinary learning. Over all, it would keep students interested and create more well rounded knowledgable people. Although there are challenges to interdisciplinary teaching as well. It might be hard to try and connect every learning objective to another subject. Funding would also arise as a challenge, incorporating all subjects in learning could become very costly and not to mention time consuming. I know that there is little time to complete interdisciplinary teaching in our already packed curriculum but if we have an opportunity to incorporate interdisciplinary learning and teaching it would be so beneficial to the learning process.

PE Blog I responded to:
Jenn Arnold

MIND THE GAP

 1. "Testing, I realized with dismay, had become a central preoccupation in the schools and was not just a measure but an end in itself (Ravitch 12)." 


       With No Child Left Behind education of children has been shattered. I hate the fact that we are educating students to pass standardized test. At the school I work at it is the main goal to have students perform well on these tests that often time we get so consumed with the test that we forget what is so important;  are we teaching the students to be learners at all?  Is it possible that No Child Left Behind and these high stakes test have allowed students not to be able to think but just memorize what they need to pass? What good is that doing any student or society?  In this quote I think Ravitch sums it up perfectly, this was supposed to measure what students we learning now it has become such an issue that we must teach to it. 


"I was attracted to the idea that the market would unleash innovation and bring greater efficiencies to education (Ravitch 10)." 


        I think Ravitch is being personal in this quote simply stating that she thought No Child Left Behind would make education better and solve the achievement gap. Lets be honest who would not want to support something that is name 'No Child Left Behind"! Instead NCLB has shown no huge innovation or efficiency to education. I think Ravitch is saying what she thought was wrong and confesses to that fact in this provocative quote. 


2.      I agree with Ravitch's definition of what a well educated person should be. As I wrote my definition I notice it was not that different from Ravitch's idea of a well educated person. I defined a well education person as a person who has extensive knowledge in all subjects as well as an independent thinker who is able to form logical explanations and be able to articulate those explanations. I also think that it is important to always be evolving your knowledge. It is important to keep up with an ever changing world and in order to stay well educated you need to know how to use all modern technologies and understand all current events.


3.      Thinking about the class discussion on Ch. 1 and 2 in The Death and Life of the Great American School System  I left thinking that our class has a really great, somewhat heated discussion on what we had read. We appreciated Ravitch's honesty in saying that she was at first pro No Child Left Behind but  states as she looks back now that she was wrong in her thinking. This seemed really brave to me. It is not often people admit that they are wrong and she did. I think this allowed us as readers to trust her. As we discussed No Child Left Behind and the negative effects it has on both students and teachers, I just kept thinking of an experience that I had last school year. I was teaching a Life Science class and was at first really excited. I thought great I can have students do all these cool hands on labs and get them really interested in the subject, and then I was handed my pacing guide. This was a very strict pacing guide provided to me by the state due to us being a school that is on program improvement. The was no flexibility in this pacing guide and no time for fun lab experiments. This frustrated me to no end. It was my job to make students enjoy learning and have them excited about coming to school each day. I was bored with the material I had to present and I could only imagine my students we just as bored. I tried to make it as exciting as possible but I had not much time to do anything creative before we had to move on to the next topic. I worried about my students. The drop out rate where I work is pretty high once students reach high school. I wonder if the state putting these schools on pacing guides was really driving children to be disinterested in school. No Child Left Behind might be helping the test scores rise but has any one looked at the correlation between that and drop out rates in these high risk schools? It just makes me wonder...


4. GAP IN CONTENT KNOWLEDGE FOUND IN CA STATE PE STANDARD BELOW!!!


GRADE 6 

9. 1.11  Design and perform smooth, flowing sequences of stunts, tumbling, and rhythmic patterns that combine traveling, rolling, balancing, and transferring weight. 

RESOURCES TO HELP FILL GAP IN MY CONTENT KNOWLEDGE


BOOK RESOURCE
I found this great book titled, Teaching Tumbling by Phillip Ward.  This book has 42 lesson plans on tumbling for physical education classes and is a great resource!

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I learned serval things from this informative book by Phillip Ward. I learned how to teach safety procedures for tumbling and how to control the class in an effective way in order to maintain everyone's  safety. This book walked through step by step movements and describe each movement in an enough detail to teach it. It also provided pictures which is great and will make it very easy to have students look at these pictures as they are trying these movements. The diagrams will also allow me to demonstrate each sequential step to a tumbling skill set. 

WEBSITE 

I also felt this website provided created greater clarity for teaching Tumbling. There were different lesson posted by various teachers and some posted instructional videos which is extremely helpful.

http://www.physicaleducationupdate.com/

ARTICLE 

The article below by Patti Komara, " What, When, and How to Teach" is about her 10 Commandments of Teaching Tumbling, she walks through step by step motions and talks about safety when teaching these skills and safety has been my biggest fear when it comes to teaching this standard.

What, When, and How to Teach

By Patti Komara

         

5. Annotations of Resources for my line of inquiry...

Abney, Robertha; Richey, Dorothy L. (1992). Opportunities for Minority Women in Sport- The Impact of Title IX.Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 63, 56-58.


       This article offers insight to the benefits of minority women in sport since Title IX has passed. This article talks about the role of minority women in sport. Minority women participating in sport have increased since Title IX, however the numbers of minority women coaches and trainers is at an all time low. This article is helpful to me to see the effects of women in sport and how Title IX has changed women in sport.


McArthur, Laura H; Raedeke, Thomas D. (2009) Race and Sex Differences in College Student Physical Activity Correlates. American Journal of Health Behavior,33.1. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 June 2012.


       This study shows the correlation between Race or Sex and Physical Activity in College. The study looks at college students through research studies. The study was completed to see what physical activity patterns college students have and what psychosocial variables related to motivation and behavior change. The data collected in this will be beneficial to me because it shows the benefits for female college students doing physical activity.








Blogs I have responded to:

http://smc-mat-temple.blogspot.com

missasch.blogspot.com

http://jennsmc14.blogspot.com

 

"The Subject Matter Preparation of Teachers" Response

1.           My outside-school experiences have expanded my subject area content knowledge, physical education, a great deal. I have always participated in sports both recreationally and competitively. Participating in sports has enhanced my understanding of physical education in many ways. While participating in sports I learned the basics of those sports, how to throw a softball, how to trap, dribble and kick a soccer ball, how to complete all four different swim strokes, how to cradle a lacrosse ball, and how to complete fundamental dance moves. I participated in all that I could as a child and always needed to be active. Taking part in these activities allows me to give first hand knowledge to my students. Although, the biomechanics and skills sets to all these sports are important and part of what I teach, I think I have also learned the benefits of exercise through these outside of school experiences. The friendships I had formed, the higher self-esteem I had gained and obvious health benefits that went along with exercising are all a part of my experience and my goal while teaching is for my students to find those activities that make them feel that way.

2.           I thought that our class discussion of Ball’s “The Subject Matter Preparation of Teachers” was really interesting. I have to admit I was one of those people after reading this article to view it as a negative message. I just thought Ball spent a lot of effort stating that even with content knowledge and pedagogy it will never be good enough to educate your students. After our class discussion on Tuesday I realize that I may have been making out this reading out to be harsher than it really was. Listening to my classmates discuss what they thought Ball was trying to covey in this reading really helped me understand what I was supposed to take from Ball’s work. I learned that all Ball was trying to say was that we as teachers need to be ever evolving, life long learners and I complete agree. I would not do our students any good to repeat the same curriculum year after year. We must always work on staying current with our subject content as well as always trying to better our teaching practices. The main idea was to always try to improve and I think it such an important message to teachers.

3.        For my capstone project I am looking at the positive effects of exercise for females. I would like to see what Title IX has contributed to these positive effects. So as of know my question is… How does exercise and fitness affect females in a positive way? And how has Title IX helped contribute? At this point I am satisfied with my question. I think I will be able to find plenty of research to help my understanding of these questions. I have seen several articles on specific struggles females have and how exercise has helped prevent these struggles, so I am very much looking forward to finding out more benefits of exercise for females through research articles. For experiential learning source I have thought about visiting an all girls school and seeing what they feel the benefits of exercising are and I also thought it would be fun to find some history of women and sport through out the years and was hoping to visit Art Exhibit to Explore Women and Sports in Arlington, Virginia. 

                                                        Blogs I Have Responded to:
h                                                     mat-smc-mignano.blogspot.com
                                                             krishasty.blogspot.com

jocelynrohan.blogspot.com

Possible Guiding Questions

Possible Guiding Questions:


1. What are the effects of Title IX on participation in female athletes?


2. Is there a correlation between increased numbers of students with ADHD and PE cuts in elementary school?


3. What are the best ways to motivate students to increase their level of physical activity? Does this differ for boys and girls?


4. What are the best ways to promote life long fitness and health importance?


5. What are the most effective ways to present awareness of the rise obesity and how to prevent obesity?