Teaching Elementary PE During the Pandemic

 Submitted by: Jillian Shaw, HPEC Secretary

This may be a huge challenge for several people as you are working with a population that is still trying to understand the world around them. Constantly repeating yourself saying things like: hands out of your mouth, don’t touch that, hands to yourself, etc. and on top of what we were originally worried about regarding germs were being shared, now we add COVID-19 on top of it. 

I am a K-4 PE teacher in Calgary. My school has roughly 400 students who get PE 4 or 5 times a week. Each class I teach is 30 minutes long and has anywhere between 40-60 students. Since two classes are in the gym at the same time, I teach with the divider down so students stay within their cohort. This has created some challenges but after teaching like this for 2 years, I have developed some strategies to make it more manageable. Here are some tips that I have implemented in my elementary PE program to assist in sanitizing, minimizing contact, and maximizing the fun!

Establish Routine

Since my classes go by quickly I need time to sanitize equipment before the next class uses the equipment. I have set up a routine with my students, so they are engaged in an activity while I finish sanitizing equipment. Each week we have an exercise of the week. This exercise can be anything (lunges, plank, burpees, etc.). At the beginning of the week, I will go over specific things to look for in the exercise (flat back, arm or leg position, etc.). Students partner up and provide feedback to their partner about how to improve their form. Throughout the week the partnership will develop goals for each other and work on their functional fitness. After that warm-up activity, we will move on to the game which is focused on our unit at the time. This is where most of the equipment will be used. To wrap up the class students will place the equipment in the “yucky bucket” to get sanitized and then we will play a tag game. To avoid tagging each other, we play “everyone is it” and kick hula hoops along the floor to tag people. If a hoop hits your foot then you are tagged. While students are playing tag I can begin sanitizing the equipment for the next class.

Don’t cancel just modify

The pandemic has made us rethink how we teach and has potentially led to the cancellation of activities. One thing that I have challenged myself to do is not cancel PE or school activities, just rethink and modify how we go about them. For example, I know my students love tag but we were unable to play it the traditional way. By adding in the hula hoops my students almost prefer it to traditional tag. It allows them to jump, dodge, and add a different type of strategy. For our year-end play day, we did a “choose your challenge”. As a staff, we created a list of challenges for classes to perform on our play day and a folder where teachers dropped photos in. The following day we had a virtual assembly and shared a video that had all the pictures that were taken throughout the day. By doing this students/classes were given choice in what challenges they wanted to dive into and do it at their own pace. It did not look like our traditional play day but the feedback from students and staff was remarkable. 

Go easy on yourself

If you are anything like me, there have been several times where you have gotten frustrated because you think the program you are offering isn’t that great or you know how awesome your program/games were pre-pandemic. The thing that I remind myself of during these times is thinking about what is important. The first thing that is important to me is relationship building. Even though my programming may look different, am I still able to build those meaningful relationships with my students? Second, I look at the programming and think of the big picture. Are my students having a positive experience in PE and feeling safe? If the answer is yes to both of these questions, then we are in great shape! I prioritize these questions and the rest is just me being hard on myself. So take some time to reflect on your students and how they are reacting to your program rather than focusing on yourself and how you feel about the program. 

These 3 tips have helped me navigate teaching PE during the pandemic and I hope they have sparked some ideas for yourself or at the least made you feel like you are not alone in navigating how to teach PE during the pandemic.

Personal Relevance in Elementary Years

Submitted by: Ty Riddick, HPEC Treasurer

The positive impact of personally relevant learning on student motivation is not new. Students desire an emotional connection to their learning and in its absence, are unlikely to remain engaged and put forth their best effort (Bernard, 2010).

A more difficult question is how do we make Physical Education relevant to elementary aged students? Sport philosopher Scott Kretchmar (2008) outlined concerns that learning outcomes in Elementary Physical Education (ESPE) were becoming too utilitarian in purpose. In an effort to do our part in preventing childhood obesity, lessons are focused on having students be as active as possible, get their heart rates high and in some contexts monitor step counts so students may learn about the importance of cardiovascular health and a healthy lifestyle. However, Kretchmar (2008) suggests that while students are likely able to understand that movement is beneficial to health, they are not willing to sacrifice present enjoyment and view the risks of the future as simply too far off to be meaningful.     

When I first began teaching a decade ago, many of my learning goals were focused on the transferability of skills. The majority of each lesson was devoted to skill development as an essential foundation of more formalized sport activities. I wanted students to understand that by first acquiring these foundational and transferable skills, that they will be able to participate in a wider variety of sports in the future. However, while there is little debate on whether fundamental skills are transferable or not, we also know that sport is so much more than just a collection of skills. This decontextualized and skill-focused environment is not seen as meaningful or motivating to students and is unlikely to produce the intended outcomes of participation outside of the classroom (Tinning, 2010).

In my previous teaching as well as the health-oriented environments, movement is seen as useful or as something we should do, but how do these lessons connect to students' lives as they currently are?

Below are three examples of how I’ve attempted to facilitate more personally relevant learning for my students. These snapshots of my teaching shouldn’t imply that these are the best or only ways to help students find relevance in their learning. The decisions within these units and their outcomes were made with respect to the time, facilities, resources etc. we have available and of course with our students in mind.

Unit: Who We Are in the Outdoors (Grade 3-6)

Big Idea: Reflecting on our experiences can affect the relationship we feel to movement in the outdoors.

Description: In this unit we first sampled different ways we could engage with the trails near our campus. We walked, we ran and explored activities such as a scavenger hunt. At the end of these initial lessons, we reflected on what we liked and disliked about each activity as well as what we may find meaningful about them. As we progressed through the unit, students used the whiteboard (shown below) to indicate 1) which trail they were going on 2) whether they were going to walk, run or search and 3) what was their intention; to be social, challenge themselves, for pleasure or to explore.

Unit: Throwing & Catching (Grade 1-2)

Big Idea: Challenging myself is essential to my growth as an individual.

Description: In this unit, students explored the concept of ‘just-right’ challenge and how those can help us grow as individuals. Students began by rotating through various throwing target games. At the end of the lessons students used numbered stickers to indicate which one was the most challenging and least challenging. Later we used the Goldilocks’ analogy to understand what 'just-right' meant. A challenge that wasn’t too hard or too easy but required some persistence to eventually be successful. As we progressed, students learned to modify throwing tasks to find their zone of 'just-right' challenge. At the end of the unit, they created their own ‘just-right’ throwing & catching activity and taught it to another classmate. 

 

Unit: Badminton (Grade 3-6)

Big Idea: By improving our skills we are empowered to engage in activities in ways that are meaningful to us.

Description: After a few initial lessons, students began completing a road map to improvement by first selecting an area of growth (i.e. serving or more consistent contact). It was important that their goal served the purpose for which they wished to engage in badminton. Some students' goals were for the purpose of winning more points so they could be more successful during competition. Other students' goals would help them engage in badminton socially, where the object of the game was to maintain a rally as long as possible or play recreationally where points are won but no score is kept. As students progressed towards their goal, they were grouped with students who found similar things meaningful about badminton. Students who wished to be social were allowed to be and students who wanted to be competitive participated in either doubles or singles tournaments.  

References

Bernard, S. (2010, December 1). Science shows making lessons relevant really matters. Edutopia.                https://www.edutopia.org/neuroscience-brain-based-learning-relevance-improves-engagement

Kretchmar, R. S. (2008). The increasing utility of elementary school physical education:

            A mixed blessing and unique challenge. The Elementary School Journal, 108(3), 161–170.

Tinning, R. (2010). Pedagogy and Human Movement: Theory, Practice, Research. New York,

            NY: Routledge.