Educating and Tryptophan

As the wonderful holiday of Thanksgiving has come and gone, I could not help but think about how some of the "traditions" of this holiday related to my teaching world.

Thanksgiving is a holiday where families and friends get together, share laughs, and eat way to much food! I feel as if my classroom shares some similarities with this scenario, especially when I am using lecture format. My students get together in my classroom, share ideas, and often listen to me use lecture format to overfill them with information (food) they will need. I believe that lecturing is still an awesome way to teach students, but I also think that mixing it up once in a while is an even better way to reach them. Some of the methods I am going to utilize this year, along with lecture are as follows: Photostory 3, Digital Storytelling, Skyping in other educators (like Ryan Lollgen and Steven Schels just did this past week), blogging, and using a wiki page. I am hoping using some of these tools will add more to a students "learning plate". It gives them many different ways to learn the curricula I am trying to relay, and it can really help multi-intelligence learners. It also keeps me on my toes, which makes my material more interesting.

After eating all day on Thanksgiving, I laid on my couch in a "tryptophan food coma". It made me think that if I were to lecture in class the majority of time it would create the same "coma affect" for my students. That head-bobbing, drowsy, day-dreaming look that I feel after eating to much turkey is the same look I see on many of my students faces as I teach them via lecture. This year my goal as an educator is to bring in some alternative teaching options, and try to get my students more involved in the learning process.

Sink, swim, or tread?

Does the word "technology", create anxiety or fear for you? Do you feel as if you can't compete in this world, so why bother? Is this ever changing world too overwhelming for you?

I was in a Professional Development Class this week, and one of my co-workers reminded me of how challenging it can be to try to implement all this technology. She also helped me remember that being willing to take the risk is half the battle.

I remember feeling this way when I first started. In fact, I still feel this way many days because there is so much to learn, and relearn. I realized that if I wanted to learn about The Web 2.0, that I just needed to jump into it! I mean, how much could it really hurt? So, I decided to just jump in, and I have not looked back ever since.

Patrick Higgins has helped me feel confident in entering this world. He has helped me extend my walls, and it has become a powerful tool for me. I am a teacher that wants to learn more and do more for my students and colleagues. I truly feel that understanding the tools that are available to us can be a great ally to our teaching strategies. I work in a field where activity prevails and writing and reading are not the main focus, but that does not mean I can't embrace the tools out there to try to make my field more educational and inviting.

So, some days I swim, some days sink, and some days I tread in the water waiting for something or someone to help me swim again.

Matters of the Heart

So, in my field one of the best and really cool technical assessment tools is a heart rate monitor. This tool is used to let you know if you are working within your training heart rate zone when during exercise. When you train in this zone you are working your heart at the optimal level to burn calories, and train at the proper beats per minute. We have a few of these monitors in our department, that are implemented during our classes.

The heart is obviously the most important muscle in the body. It is always operating, and in so many different ways. Everything we do affects this organ, especially stress. So I thought it would be interesting to utilize the heart rate monitors during classes other than Physical Education. I am interested in using the HR monitors during academic classes where students are taking a test, or when a student has to do a presentation in front of the class. I think it would be really interesting to see how the beats of the heart rise and fall during stressful times of a students' day. I would like to gather statistical information on this topic. So, if anyone is interested in trying this experiment out with me and your class please let me know.

Team Building

Two of my classes have just finished up our Team Building and Adventure Games unit. It has been really fun to watch them progress through this unit. The units' purpose is to help students build relationships with their classmates on a "team" level, but it does not involve sports.

This form of PE is "non-traditional" to say the least, and is one that mature students enjoy the most. I always get extremely positive feedback from this unit. This type of PE does not involve athleticism. It involves problem-solving, trust building, and reaching a team-oriented goal. It helps define leaders and teaches students how to hear other people's thoughts on meeting problem-solving challenges that are presented.

This unit is taken and modified from Karl Rohnke, who is one of the creators of Project Adventure. It is one of the lifestyle units that we have incorporated into our curriculum, and it is one of the most applicable to life. Students move from Adventure Games to a Low Ropes unit, and then proceed to the High Elements Course. All of these units help develop the mind, body, and socialization process of our students, which is an extremely important part of development for students. Especially because much of our focus is on technology, which can tend to leave these important developmental stages behind.

PE Today?

What kind of technology do you think of when you think of Physical Education? Do you picture wiki's and blogs being a part of it? Do you still imagine PE being about a lifetime of bad memories and demeaning experiences?

Physical Education, today, incorporates different types of technology than most academic classroom settings. I am not saying we can't incorporate blogs, wiki's, and internet searches in PE, but it demands a different type of technology at this point. PE is a performance class. In a PE class students have to physically perform skills, exert physical effort, sweat, and be an active participant during the class period, everyday. Students can not sit and hide behind a desk. Assessment involves movement and if they are not moving, it is very easy for their grade to drop, and drop quickly. We as PE educators need to make classes motivating and challenging in a different way than classroom teachers. If we could bring in some of the latest PE technology, it would help motivate students to incorporate movement and wellness into their daily lives.

So, what kind of technology are we talking about? Well, if you have been to a "gym", YMCA, or fitness center recently you have probably seen or utilized this technology. Items such as treadmills, ellipticals, heart-rate monitors and fitness-testing systems, which measure flexibility, blood pressure, body composition, upper-body strength, and cardiovascular health, to name a few. These items and many others are in the facilities mentioned above. They are also in many of our spare rooms and basements collecting dust or being used as clothing trees. The point I am trying to make is if we can start to build our PE repertoire of technology "toys", teach our students how to utilize these pieces of technology and make them a part of their daily lives, it will enhance their quality of life.

PE classes, today, need to be about developing a healthy lifestyle, and not focus on how to throw a baseball or make a jump shot. By teaching our students how to improve cardiovascular health through the use of the available technology we can help them develop healthy lifestyle habits.