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- Connecting prior knowledge of gymnastics to other topics that students are familiar with such as talking about how Spiderman technically tumbles and does stunts.

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Stunts From Spiderman In Real Life (Parkour)

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Showing students the rubric that they're being assessed on

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Showing students the rubric that they're being assessed on

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- On day 1 of introducing the gymnastics routines, I went through slides 62-67 to explain the rubric to them and briefly showed them the self assessment that they would fill out after and we went over any questions they had. This way, the expectations were right there for them to see as we discussed them.

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Giving plenty of modifications for students with high, medium, and low  ability levels

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Giving plenty of modifications for students with high, medium, and low  ability levels

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- Giving extra modifications for specific students that may have trouble with certain tasks, including walking over to them specifically and helping them during each class.
- An example of this include telling students that they can do pushups on their knees if they need to and also adding harder modifications such as when students were practicing throwing skills and I walked around to the groups that were catching every ball to tell them to take a step back every 5 catches.
- Another example would be during basketball, I suggested a couple students to switch their ball out for a smaller one to help them get the ball up to the rim.

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- Following each unit, I type down any improvements or changes I've made and/or should make for the next time teaching that, taking a look at my notes from the unit and assessments. An example of this would be following the gymnastics unit and looking at students' self reflections, I might want to revise the reflection questions and spend more time talking about what to do in possible situations with group members.

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Connecting content with things outside of school

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Connecting content with things outside of school

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- Within each unit and most lessons, I explain how what is learned connects to the rest of their lives. An example of this would be during the lesson on health-related components of fitness, I explained in depth how practicing those different types of exercises helps them when they go to play Basketball or Hockey, etc. and also relating it to people they look up to such as professional athletes.

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Alec Regula Training Behind-The-Scenes | Chicago Blackhawks

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- This helps students to visualize the vocabulary words they learn and see how it correlates to everything they've learned thus far. We will be continuing to add to it throughout the year.

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Pulls from a multitude of diversified resources

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Pulls from a multitude of diversified resources

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During the lesson planning process, I pull ideas from many resources including Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Spark, Quaver, other PE teachers I know or may have worked with, and other online PE resources.

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Students frequently informally assess themselves by rating their knowledge on different subjects

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Students frequently informally assess themselves by rating their knowledge on different subjects

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- We typically use the "thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs sideways" for this rating.
- I also use this to ensure students are listening "thumbs up if you understand" or "thumbs up if you heard all of that"

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This is an example of the self assessment every student got following their gymnastics routine performance. I decided to leave this assessment open ended to see what the students would say. By leaving it more open ended, it allowed me to see which students would put the extra effort in and answer the questions thoughtfully and fully.

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Fitnessgram scores give insight to students and help further guide instruction

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Fitnessgram scores give insight to students and help further guide instruction

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While the Fitnessgram tests do not always perfectly show all students' accurate level of fitness, it for the most part can show some of the extreme outliers on both ends. For example, a student who scored very high on the Fitnessgram this fall might have been a little bit predictable based on what we've seen up to this point and seeing the students on the lower end helps us see who needs extra help to get their fitness levels higher in various areas (strength, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, etc.). To the same regard, this helps us narrow down who could use the extra challenges as well.

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- I always have the objectives for each unit lesson posted either on the white board or on the screen for the students to see and reference. (slide #4)

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- In our gymnastics unit, I certainly was requiring higher level thinking when they had to create an entire routine together with their group. This was evident while I was going around to help each group and I could tell by their discussions and questions that this was an activity that was pushing them and making them grow by having to deal with problems such as "I told my group that I wanted to pick ____ to put into the routine but my group says no" or conflicting viewpoints. I was able to help with a lot of issues but ultimately this type of unit assessment was meant to have them develop their social and emotional skills as well and they did an overall great job at figuring things out for themselves.

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- In  weeks leading up to the winter break, students were naturally getting a little bit more rowdy, so we have had to cut back on allowing the older grades to pick their own groups, therefore we have been picking groups for them for a few days now, which includes us maybe putting each student with someone that they're comfortable with but also not going to be distracted and off task with. This has definitely gotten better over the past few months, but it will only get better and better with more time to observe which students can work well together and who cannot.
- I also switch up how to group them so that they can work with friends sometimes, but also giving them opportunities to work with new people as well.

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- This is the rubric that I used to evaluate all 3rd-5th grade gymnastics routines. My mentor helped me out a bit by sharing some of her gymnastics rubrics to see an example of them and from there created my own.

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- In our gymnastics unit, I was requiring higher level thinking when they had to create an entire routine together with their group. This was evident while I was going around to help each group and I could tell by their discussions and questions that this was an activity that was pushing them and making them grow by having to deal with problems such as "I told my group that I wanted to pick ____ to put into the routine but my group says no" or conflicting viewpoints. I was able to help with a lot of issues but ultimately this type of unit assessment was meant to have them develop their social and emotional skills as well and they did an overall great job at figuring things out for themselves.

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Encouraging physical activity outside of school

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Encouraging physical activity outside of school

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- Putting together bulletin boards that promote physical activity outside of school
- While helping out with Running Club, I also stapled up the girls and boys paper rings that showed how many laps they all completed together - SO MANY!!
- Always encouraging students to participate in activities outside of school such as YMCA intramural sports, community sports teams, and also leisurely physical activities such as playing bags/corn hole at a family gathering.
- Using students' physical activities outside of school as a resource for promotion such as the bulletin board I'm putting together in the gym.

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Creating slideshows for units helps organize all the information students are getting so that I make sure I don't miss any important information and students have a point of reference during the duration of the class.

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A great example of this would be in our hockey unit with 3rd-5th grade, a lot of them play hockey either on a team, at recess, outside of school with friends, or also in PE already when in stations. Also knowing the general student populations' athletic abilities, you might think that they would already know how to stick handle and dribble with correct form, but some of them still were only using one of their hands and/or only one side of their blade. This is why I still had them do a couple drills practicing their form with dribbling, passing, and shooting before moving onto gameplay.

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- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kKRwrxTqi66L0jAhwOykV1sA1TsGlS1E2KBrdewAD4w/edit?usp=sharing
- The units I'm planning this year are well structured, level appropriate lessons in order and paced as best as possible with only seeing students the three days a week split with my partner. Linked here is an example of my hockey unit Google doc where I can sort all of my ideas and resources for the unit as I plan it in conjunction with the district curriculum ideas for each unit.

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- In the basketball unit with K-2nd grades, we ended up talking a lot about having a growth mindset and how it's especially important when learning how to shoot since it takes time to build up the strength to get the balls all the way up to where the rim is. I showed some of the younger classes this Elmo video and also told a few other classes about how when I was in Basketball 5th-8th grade it took me an entire year when practicing my free throw shots to even get the ball to touch the rim. Giving students these opportunities for having a positive mindset when it comes to challenges is immensely important in PE.

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- Our new curriculum including Spark and Quaver are awesome online resources that we have been using. I pull from many different sources but with every single unit, I go through all of these online resources.

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- Using the new curriculum, it's wonderful that we (elem PE) have a shared Google Doc between us which allows me to see if anyone else in our district has tried the those same activities yet and whether they liked or didn't like it and what modifications they made.

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During my lessons, I use various questioning techniques to foster deeper learning. An example of this would be while teaching the hockey unit to 3rd-5th grade classes, I was going over how to pass the ball back and forth with the sticks. At first, most students were passing the ball and their partner immediately smacking it back without 'giving' with the ball. I then stopped them and showed them the type of passes that they were all (mostly) doing. I then asked "What's not correct about this pass?" "What should we be doing instead?" "What does that help with?" "Why is it important to do that when passing?" and "What could happen if you don't do it that way?". These types of questions foster deeper learning by having students think critically about broken down skills.

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Students demonstrate mastery of content through assessments

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Students demonstrate mastery of content through assessments

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During our striking/volleyball unit, students completed this self check in which they rated themselves on their knowledge, physical ability to strike, and ability to listen/work with others.

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Students in my class are actively challenged cognitively, physically, emotionally, and socially by answering questions, participating in games/activities, individual work, partner/group work, and taking assessments. This ensures that students are developing as a whole individual and becoming well rounded adults.

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Compared to last year, this year I have been refining my grade level changes within each unit as I teach them. I'm getting a lot better at making sure each activity is specifically grade level appropriate and for each individual class. An example of this would be during our volleyball unit, students in first grade work with a lot of balloons and big bouncey balls, whereas for my third graders, they were able to practice some bumping with the real volleyballs, but still did the same game as my 5th graders - just with a different type of ball. These outcomes end up being different for each and every grade.

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During our jump rope unit, students in 4th and 5th grade brought their Ipads to PE in order to work with their groups and come up with a routine together. The Ipads allowed them to pull up the slideshow for reference, see the rubric that we created together that they'd be assessed on, and video record/research if they wanted to. This supports personalized instruction, engagement, and exploration. I've attached here one of the 4th grade groups' jump rope routines who got very creative by adding in some footballs to their routine.

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When creating groups, I'm very aware of how students interact with each other, and therefore carefully organize them into groups in which they'll be successful in working with. This includes putting them with people that they get along with and like, but not someone that will distract them or goof off with.