Author: azehr

Hello again friends!

Welcome to week 6!

This weeks theme is online learning.

I really didn’t enjoy online learning, I felt completely disengaged and disconnected from the class.

I do recognize that online learning can be very beneficial for students with anxieties, cognitive or learning differences; it allows them to watch videos at their own speed, watch videos with subtitles, and even pause and rewind. And while I can acknowledge that this has benefited many students, I also would be put in that category as students who would “require the accommodations”, but in my case, I would not want them. For me, my learning differences are exasperated at home and through a computer screen; for me, my accommodations are extra support in person and the overall accountability of being apart of a class. I think that really emphasizes how different everyone is, and even though we, as students, might have similar learning backgrounds or abilities, something that works for one might not work for the other.

Benefits for me	Disadvantages for me
-Replacing standardized tests with practical projects -Was able to live where I wanted -More freetime -Less restrictions; more opportunities for exploration and experimentations	-Impersonal; loss of social connections -Loss of motivation -Distractions and difficult to stay engaged -No accountability -Disconnection

Being in person for me, is accountability. I need to be in the classroom to feel as though people are “watching me” to make sure I’m staying on task, and knowing there would be consequences in person.

On the Jamboard, one of my colleagues wrote ‘online learning cannot replace in person learning’ and I also believe that. I believe that when COVID pushed learning to be online, students could do the bare minimum and pass.; students could look through their notes and were allowed to hand things in late, which don’t get me wrong, obviously we want to allow students to be able to re-do assignments and not be pressured by a date. But students have lost the ability to take accountability for their learning, and have learned that they can do the bare minimum and they’ll still graduate.

The one thing I really liked about online learning was that all my professors decided to eliminate exams and implement more projects and experience hours. I really like this, because obviously a test is going to measure how good you are at memorizing things but projects are where you can really see if a student understands and is motivated by their topic.

Until next time,

xoxo

Hello again friendly followers!!

For my header image I wanted a picture that relates to physical activity but I didn’t want it to be associated with weights or working out in the gym.

I love images of skeletons and cadavers; I really just love everything about the human body and love to learn why we are the way that what we are. One thing I have always been really passionate about is exercise physiology and our anatomy. I just wanted my page to have images related to the body and strength, and for me, blue is my favorite color and feels really powerful. So here’s my picture of the human body in blue:) from Microsoft Designer.

I also really loved the discussion around the different types of infographics, especially because I think that every infographic is seductive in it’s own way;)

BUT, I wanted to draw my own and do my own little comparison. And because I LOVE the human body, this seemed like a good opportunity to make an infographic for the nervous system.

It’s funny, because when I first saw the infographics I thought they were all great! But that is obviously only accounting for my own abilities; I did not think anything was over the top because of my prior experiences but I can see how too many words can be overwhelming and irrelevant. I think for me when I read extra information I just think ‘wow something new I’ve learned’, but in a classroom you only have so many chances to have your students understand concepts so adding irrelevant information is not helpful.

Hope you loved my drawings!!

until next time,

xoxo

Technologically imperfect.

It’s really a bummer that swearing is inappropriate in the work or school setting, because I have so many things to say but that wouldn’t be allowed.

I really impressed myself up until this point with how open minded I have been and how much I have learned. I really dislike technology, I don’t like being rushed and everything on my phone or my computer moves way to fast for me to catch up. Obviously I think it has it’s benefits and I wouldn’t be able to live without it, but I really don’t like having to figure out something new. It takes me so long to get a grasp of how one computer or website works that it makes give up.

But so far, I have loved everything we have done; I’m pretty excited about twine (https://twinery.org/). I really didn’t think I was going to like it when I first watched the introductory video, but once I got used to the software it was so much fun to think of different possibilities.

what fruit are you???

I wish I could say everything I just said about H5P (or whatever), but I just can’t. This interactive video software thing is so my bully; I feel so lost and confused and then I feel silly for feeling lost and confused because it’s just a computer… but then I get stressed because everyone else has figured it out.

So here’s my video! I’m not even really sure if I know what it looks like yet, but I know that my wiener dog is in it so your welcome:)

this was so difficult

I don’t really know how to reflect on this, because I still don’t know how to work it:(

I will say that in class, when Rich played his soccer video, that was really cool and I think it would be a really good way to teach concepts in PHE:

• maybe just for extra engagement, or to take home
• I also think it could really be helpful in improving the diversity and inclusivity in PHE
• allowing students who might not be able to participate 100% of the time to have an interactive experience in a game or sport where they can still be assessed on their decision making skills

Okay wait, that last point I made was so good and I really think someone should do that! Maybe I will one day, we will have to see.

until next time,

virtual xoxo’s

Hello friends,

Lets just get right to it.

To start off, I would like to acknowledge that while I was provided with a lot of opportunities that benefited my development in my sport, the highschool that I attended was not very inclusive at all:

• 85% of the students were high performance athletes, who all knew each other prior to even coming to the school
• Did not have any special education classes or accommodations for students with different physical and intellectual needs.
• Class/school outings and events were almost always physical activity based and did not incorporate any modifications or adaptations (the expectations was that you would participate)
• You were praised for your athletic accomplishments, but I didn’t even know that we had an honor roll until I found out I had been on it (on my graduation day actually)

Before recently, I had never even considered the fact that teachers have the ability to accommodate for students with different abilities; I had never experienced that.

It’s kind of ironic because I do have a learning disability, and I always just thought learning was harder for some people and you just had to figure out how to get through it. Everyday in class I am proven so wrong and I don’t know how it makes me feel; I feel sad for my younger self, I wish I was nicer to her and I feel embarrassed that, if that was my teaching philosophy, I am already setting my students up for failure.

Multimedia principle of learning tells us that combining photos with the words can make learning better, and while yes I agree that pictures and words help when learning, I think that this can come close to providing too much information and actually just confusing students.

After hearing every ones thoughts from the video we watched today, which everyone has agreed filled our cups to the brim and spilled them**, showed me that learning is so subjective and we have the power to influence our students learning. I always just thought there was 1 way to teaching and it involved a lot of words and reading exactly what the slides said, that I didn’t even believe that you could learn any other way. One thing that I felt stuck with me while watching this video and listening to the different theories, is that even if you implement different multimedia strategies, you still might not reach your students if you are lacking in other areas; when you are using so many different modes in the classroom at one time, you can overload the student and it can become complicated and might make the lesson more complicated.

Even just in the 3 weeks I have been here, I have learned more ways to teach than I have fingers on my hands.

Knowing that we can actually make student learning easier makes the weight of the responsibilities of teaching feel even heavier. If my teachers had implemented just one of them, I would have had such a different experience in school and to know that we can have that negative or positive impact on our students just by modifying an assignment to fit their needs.

During Link2Practice some student feedback was that there were too many words on the slides, but some said that there weren’t enough words and they didn’t like staring at the blank page. Hearing all the diverse responses to different multimedia’s in class makes teaching seem 10x scarier because it really isn’t a one size fits all profession.

My dad gave me this book when I got into the program

and I think it really speaks to how important all aspects of teaching are (and the idea is just so cute):

• I now know that doesn’t just mean a textbook, it means:
• being competent enough with technology to create more diverse and fun learning environments (while also being able to assist your students)
• collaborating with other areas of expertise (or researching outside of your area and possibly using videos for extra support with your lessons)
• understanding who your students are before you can even think of telling them how to learn.

Thankful for gadgets and gizmos! until next time,

xoxo

^09/22/23

Me again.

I would like this week’s reflection to be on my two favorite PHE Open Educational Resources that I can’t stop talking about.

If you have had to sit by me this week, you have probably already heard this and I’m sorry

https://www.iphys-ed.com/blog/teaching-net-wall-games/

https://www.thephysicaleducator.com/game-categories/net-wall

I love both of these websites because they include resources that utilize Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) in PHE. I also really like them because they provide worksheets and images that can be used with the games and I love when teachers share

what is TGfU?

• I think that everyone can agree that PE has always been known for strictly measuring psychomotor domains, which automatically places students who have other interests or physical/cognitive limitations at a disadvantage.
• implementing this ‘games based’ approach can level the playing field between all students:
  • before, there was sports and drills (booooo)
  • TGfU strays away from drill like activities and towards breaking down sports into categories and concepts, creating games that teach concepts that can later build up to a greater understanding of how all sports can connect
    • realizing that tennis/badminton/volleyball/pickleball are all in the same category of net/wall sports and have the same concepts but are completely different sports
• TGfU includes all domains of learning:
  • Cognitive: we can assess students on if they actually understand the concepts or put in the effort to try and understand concepts
  • Psychomotor: actual mechanics of their movements and measures physical literacy of the student
  • Social/Affective: takes into account a student’s effort, motivation, attitude, preparedness to class and overall treatment and respect of their peers

why I think TGfU is beneficial

• TGfU allows us to teach sports in game concepts, for example: Instead of teaching a volleyball unit, I would teach a “net/wall” unit that would focus on different concepts with multiple types of equipment
• within the net/wall unit, you can teach concepts like “defending space” or “setting up an attack” through any type of net/wall sport you would like (volleyball, tennis, badminton…) as they all have similar concepts but you can choose a sport that maybe no one in your class has tried before to make sure that everyone is going to be at the same starting point (I think of using spikeball, it’s a fairly new sport so you won’t find as many “advanced” players)
  • allows an even playing field between all students; students who may not be as athletically gifted will now be assessed on their level of cognitive engagement as well as social attitudes and effort
• moves away from the “old school” PE styles of drills and sports and moves towards a more games approach to PHE

I hope that was as exciting for you as it was for me!

_{^{(also, Bitmoji has a website???? https://www.bitmoji.com/stickers/ )}}

until next time,

xoxo

fyi https://spikeball.com/