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Group Balances

Friday, October 16th, 2009

By Matthew Basset

Fifth Grade California Content Standard 1.1
“Perform simple small-group balance stunts by distributing weight and base of support.”

Developing this standard has been difficult since it can be very dangerous and a difficult concept for students to understand. The premise behind the standard is to have a group of students perform a pyramid by distributing weight and base of support.  At first glance, you can have your students set up a pyramid and check to see if they have good balance and move on from the standard quite quickly. This, however, is not going to help students understand the base of support or distributing weight.

This year I tried to get students more involved.  First, we had to discuss the importance of a base of support.  A wider base typically has better balance. We also talked about distributing weight so that one (or two) people didn’t have to take the brunt of the weight. I used a basic combative game to help make the connection. I had students face a partner and place their hands together out in front. Their feet are next to each other and they challenge each other to push their hands (only) to a point where one person had to take a step (lost the challenge). Then I directed them to place their feet shoulder width apart and take the same challenge. Which was easier to keep your balance? Then I directed them to take one foot and place it a little in front of the other. Which, of the three, was easiest to keep your balance? The goal was to get the students to see that the base of support could affect the balance of the activity.

After students understood the importance of a base of support we talk about the distribution of weight. We discussed how placing the weight on two locations makes it easier to support than just one location. Three locations are better than two locations, etc.

Finally, the class is ready to start their own small group balance stunts. I use groups of 7-8 people.  Each group is handed a worksheet where they place their names (for tracking purposes). The class is directed to come up with five different group balances that share the weight distribution differently each time and also shows different bases of support. My goal is to see different types of pyramids than a typical three level (or four) pyramid. The students are required to make a diagram of the base of support and where each student in the group is going to stand. This process moves into a second class period where students are given extra time to practice balancing skills. After a few scary falls, I’ve decided to tell my students that they cannot go above two levels in a pyramid. This makes them have to work a little harder to come up with different ideas. I also talk about how they can make a pyramid that isn’t in a straight line.

During their assessments, students in each group perform at the same time. This allows me to see how well the groups have prepared but it doesn’t allow a group to get some extra time practicing while another group is performing. The groups who work together are definitely better prepared for this approach at the assessment. I have even had one group who has practiced so much that they were able to get into every one of their group balances in less than four seconds.

Other Connections:
This is a great lesson/unit that will allow connections to over arching standard 5. I constantly have to reinforce the importance of working together (5.5.3) and why it is important to stay safe (5.5.4). I have a few students who are doing all of the planning and not listening to others. I also have to reinforce the importance of allowing everyone to contribute their ideas (5.5.5) and to work with each other to accomplish their goals (5.5.7). The groups who struggle start to work closer together when I discuss the importance of everyone sharing ideas in the group. With a little work next year, my goal is to get students to understand the social concepts while participating in this standard (5.1.1). This way they reinforce the social skills that I’m looking for in class while they are working on a motor skill.

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Tripod Balance

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

By Matthew Basset

Third Grade Standard 1.2
“Perform an inverted balance (tripod) by evenly distributing weight on body parts.”

I was very fortunate to learn some of the basic gymnastics balances and stunts while in college. For most people, we never learn how to perform some of these stunts and we are now expected to teach them because of standards. Here is a way to teach the students about performing a tripod.

  1. Set the stage. Explain the importance of helping other students (spotting) and that a good helper will help prevent an injury to another student. This is possibly the most important step since you want students to work in partners where one is performing the skill and another is spotting the performer.
  2. Technique. The performer’s hands must be placed on the gymnastics mat about shoulder width apart. I usually find that having them rotate their hands inward at about a 45-degree angle will help with the balance later. When the person is upside down their forearm should be perpendicular to the ground or it will require them to use a lot of upper body strength to keep them upright. If the forearm is perpendicular the radius and ulna bones will balance the weight for the tripod.
  3. Head Position. This  is possibly the most important part for the balance. The head must be placed in front of the hands to create a triangle. The triangle has to be an appropriate size, too small or too large will make the balance difficult to accomplish. The head must be placed on the mat at the hairline. If a student places their weight on top of the head they will feel like rolling over. If a student places their weight on their forehead it can cause them to feel neck pain. Both of these are not acceptable. You will need to constantly check to see if the students are placing their hairline on the mat to create the best balance.
  4. Knees. After the hands and the head are in place, the performer should move their knees up toward the hands. This will allow them to lift and not have to stretch too far. Lift one leg up so that the arm (elbow to shoulder) and the thigh cross each other to form an X. This will help the balance of the performer. If the arm and thigh are running parallel, the section that balances will be much smaller and harder to control. After the first leg is up than the second leg should be lifted into place using the same crossing pattern. Some students may find it successful to jump into place but I find that I want better control so I ask them to lift one leg at a time.
  5. Examples. I usually perform the skill for my class to show them what a tripod looks like. This is a great opportunity to explain that if an “old guy” like me can perform a tripod that everyone in class can perform a tripod. Now is the time that I explain the importance of helping (spotting) a performer. I ask a student to come up and demonstrate a tripod. Many of my students have taken gymnastics classes before. This allows me a chance to show the spotting technique to help a student with the balance and to help them avoid rolling over.

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Creating a Google Web-page

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

This is a how to guide for creating a free Google Web-page for you classes or school.

By Matthew Bassett

1) Go to google.com
2) Sign-up for an account if you don’t already have an account (right side at the top)
3) Click on more (right side of the menu bar)

web page 1

4) Click on sites
5) Click Create new sites
6) Type in the name of your site (Subject, your name, combinations of the two)
7) Type in a description of the site as needed
8) Sharing: Either specify everyone or people I share with. The site will only be visible to those you send invitations to if it is the people I share with.
9) Change the Theme: Find a site that shows a theme you enjoy.
10) Type in the code shown on the left side
11) Click Create Site

web page 2

12) Sometimes the web site you created will have already been taken, look over the list that may appear and choose one or type in another idea.
13) The new screen that appears is the first part on your new web site.
14) Click Edit Page (top right side)

web page 3

15) In the top box it says home. If you’d like to rename this just click and delete and then retype what you would like. This might be a place to say “Welcome to______”
16) Move down and type into the lower box what you want people to know when visiting your site. This may be a great place to say a little about you or just give a brief welcome message for visiting the web page.
17) When finished with your editing, click save.
18) To create a new page, click Create Page (top right)

web page 4

19) Select the type of page you would like to add
a. Web Page: General Information that you want to add
b. Dash Board: A place to have four different gadgets to use on your web page
c. Announcements: A place to store announcements for your web page
d. File Cabinet: A place to store files from your computer (excel files, power point files, word files, .pdf documents, pictures).
e. List: Creating a web page that has a list of information
20) Type in the name of the new page
21) Select the level you would like to find the page in the navigation bar (left side of your page)
a. Top Level: Will be seen on the left side
b. Put Page Under: Will be visible under a specific topic (arrow to open the topic)
22) Click Create Page
23) The new page will open and you can start to enter text into the two boxes. The top box is the title. The lower box is the place to type in all of your information.
24) When finished entering text, click save (top right)

web page 5

25) At the bottom of the web page you can find a button that says attachments. Click on attachments if you would like to add an attachment to your web page. A prompt will enter asking you to find the file you would like to add. When you find it click open. This will allow you to add in documents that you’ve created for your classes.
26) Sub pages, when creating pages you can add a sub page. Example, I would create a page for period #1, I might have a sub page on period 1, soccer. Inside of this soccer page I would list information about my soccer unit. I could attach files that I use to help my student’s learn about their soccer skills. To create a sub page you will have to click, “put page under _____.”

web page 6

Think about the structure of your page before starting to develop. You will save a lot of time if you know how you would like it to look instead of working and realizing it is a very confusing web page. I have found that creating a web page based on my grade levels taught works the best. Under each grade level, I have created sub pages for each subject that I teach. My subjects are based on the California Physical Education Standards.

Adding a Calendar
1) Go to Google.com
2) Click more
3) Click Calendar

web page 7

4) Create a new calendar for yourself. This calendar would be a great place for you to put important information for what your class schedule looks like, when items are due, when you are having assessments, etc.
5) You can add an event on your calendar by clicking on the date and the time of the event, and then drag the event time down to when it stops. Then type in the name of the event.
6) Go back to your google web site, start by creating a new web page
7) Click create page
8) Name the page, “Calendar”
9) Choose to place the page at the top level

web page 8

10) Click Create Page
11) The new calendar page will appear
12) Type in any text in the lower area. This might be a place to make a comment about important dates, times, etc. for class will be found here.
13) To insert the calendar directly into the web page, click insert
14) Click calendar
15) Click the calendar you would like to see added (named by your user name for google).
16) Click Select
17) Look through the information on the new screen. Some of the information you might want to leave out. I have checked off the include title section (it has my email address listed). I also remove the show calendar name section.
18) Click save when finished. (The calendar box will disappear and take you back to the page itself)
19) Click save (upper right side)

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Online Physical Education

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

By Matthew Bassett

A new trend has started to creep into education–online classes. Some schools have tried to save some money and increase enrollment by opening online classes. We are in an age where teachers have to compete with the entertainment of the internet. Maybe online classes are a way to reach out to students who rather learn at their own pace and use their computer to learn. But, how does it stack up for online physical education?

One estimate suggests Minnesota is one of just 12 states of offer online gym, but many in the physical education world expect that number will keep increase, and probably has already. –Minnesota Public Radio, August 26, 2009 Read the rest of the article here.

I think that students who do not like traditional physical activities would benefit from being able to work out on their own. The future of physical education really needs to be in helping students to develop their own fitness skills. This is one way that our country can handle the obesity epidemic. Students who take online courses are required to purchase expensive equipment like heart rate monitors. The expense on this type of equipment makes it difficult to purchase enough equipment for an entire class or even a small portion of a class.

I’m not sure an online physical education program would be all that beneficial. Looking at the state content standards for physical education shows a list of motor skills that every student would have to learn. Online classes focus on individual activities and thus cannot help a student master a skill that is team based. This online learning program would cut a large percentage for the grade specific standards from the learning environment. Social skills are another area in the content standards for California physical education. It is the only subject that teaches social skills in K-12 education. Online courses will not help a student learn how to take turns, share, cooperate or learn to work with another person.

I don’t think online physical education classes are the answer. Schools are always looking for ways to save money. Physical education seems to be one of those subjects that is not valued. Part of this issue comes from hiring teachers who are not qualified or do not care about teaching. The key is to hire physical education teachers who are qualified to teach and who are motivated to work hard and actually teach physical education. We can learn some helpful ways to motivate our students from the online courses but it is our responsibility to teach.

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Using Microsoft Word to Make Handouts

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

By Matthew Bassett

Developing Microsoft Word Handouts

Handouts are things that have become very important in my class. My goal is to eventually have at least one handout for every standard that I teach. This is a very slow process but the quality of my teaching increases with each standard that I focus on. Here are some tips for making those handouts a little more stylish.

#1: Make a Title
There are two ways to make a title for your handout. First, change the font size and the font style. Word comes with a variety of choices but you can also purchase font programs that give you extra fonts. The second way to make a title is through word art. From the insert menu, click on picture, and then click on word art. Here a box will open that shows the word art gallery. Find one of the word art styles that you like.  Just click on it and then click OK. Type in the text for the title. At this location, you can change the font style and also the font size. When you’re done you click OK.  This is when the word art box opens in the word document. You can click on the corner of the box and drag to resize the box.

Wordartgallery

#2: Insert a picture
Placing a picture into your handout makes it more visually appealing. What better way to talk about a motor skill than to have a picture of those motor skills? You can get a picture into the text from a digital picture you’ve taken on your camera, a scanned picture, or from the internet (by downloading the picture). All of these can be created by going to the insert menu and clicking on picture. If you have a picture on your computer already (digital picture of internet download) you can click on find file.  Then you will be asked to locate the file you are looking for. If you want to look for a piece of clip art you would simply click on clip art from the picture menu.

insertingpictures

After you insert the picture you can make lots of changes to the pictures. First, double click on the picture to highlight the picture. I find that the layout is one of the most important menu items. This is where I can tell the document how I want the picture to be used. Do I want the picture in front of the text? Do I want it in line with the text? Personally, I usually pick the tight function and it allows me to move the picture wherever I want. The picture menu allows me to change the color content of the picture. Since I typically print my handouts in black and white I change the color of the picture to either black and white or grayscale. I always check to see which way looks a little nicer.

After moving the picture to its intended location I can resize the picture. By clicking on the picture one time I will see little circles around the picture. I can click on any circle and resize the picture. The circles in the corner allow me to resize both height and width in proportion to each other. This is usually my top option. The green circle at the top allows me to rotate the picture on the page so that it isn’t vertical or horizontal but diagonal.

resizepictureIf you right click on the picture and click on the show picture toolbar you will find a lot of new tools to work on your pictures. Here you will find buttons to change the colors, change the contrast, change the brightness of the picturepicturetoolbar, crop the picture, rotate the picture and place lines around the picture. The key is to keep making changes until the picture looks like you want it to.

#3: Create a table
inserttablemenuCreating a table can be a great way to organize a lot of information for your students. Instead of writing in a paragraph format, you can divide the information into cells. From the table menu, click insert, and then click table. The table menu pops up for you to develop the table. Change the number of columns that you need by typing in the new number of columns. Remember, columns are the part of the table that goes up and down. Then change the number or rows, the part of the table that goes side to side. Click OK when you have finished inserting the correct number of rows and columns. The new table should appear in your word document.

To change the column (up and down) width, click on one of the vertical lines in the document. When your cursor changes from the arrow to a line with two different arrows (pointing away from each other), then you can click and drag the line to the desired location. You can make the table bigger or smaller or make one column bigger or smaller. If you have two columns that you want to make the same size, just highlight the columns by clicking your mouse and dragging the mouse across the affected columns. Then right click on the highlighted area before clicking on distribute columns evenly. If you find that you’ve forgotten a column or need to add a row, you can highlight either a row or column and right click. You will find the add column or add row button in the menu.

With a little work and practice you can be making some wonderful handouts for your students. I’ve used handouts for general information about motor skills, fitness skills, fitness concepts and peer evaluation forms. Adding in some style can help take a boring handout into a visually appealing handout. Be creative while working with your handouts. You can always sketch one out on a blank piece of paper before starting your word version. Remember, when you get into trouble and you’re not sure what you just did, control-V (undelete) is your friend! Until next time!

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Part Two: Teaching Class Expectations

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

By Matthew Bassett

Part 2 of a 2 part series.

scavenger hunt mapm Option #2 (Movement Oriented Activity)
A second way to cover your expectations has a movement focus.  Students are given the expectations handout at the start of class (with lots of blank lines on the handout) and told that they will be completing a scavenger hunt for class. I divide the students into groups of two or three students.  Each group is given a scavenger hunt map before starting.  My biggest rule for the scavenger hunt is to stay together.  Students can run, walk or jog but they have to stay with their partner/group. I also have listed a well defined boundary for the activity since I cannot allow the students to wander across the whole campus.  I typically keep them on our athletic field for this activity. I make sure to tell the students where I am going to stand (in the middle of the activity area) so they can come to ask questions if they need help.  It is important to also make sure you cover how you are going to stop the class at the end of the period before you dismiss the students since they have not learned dismissal procedures this early in the year.

This method of presenting the expectations has been enjoyable to watch. Students would rather learn the information while moving.  The students also enjoy the social aspect of the activity.  The competitive students run the whole time and the non-competitive students walk.  My students do not have to change for PE so this works well even if your kids are not required to dress out already.

Closure
Both of these methods have proven effective for teaching my students about my expectations.  The greatest part of getting students moving is that after a long summer my voice doesn’t take a beating the first week of school. Students are able to learn the materials just as effectively as through lecture and they enjoy the method of learning way more than if I was lecturing. Maybe it’s time I try and develop more lessons from information I thought could only be learned by lecturing.

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A New Approach to Teaching Class Expectations

Monday, August 24th, 2009

By Matthew Bassett

Part 1 of a 2 part series.

The start of the year is right around the corner or has already started for some of us.  Its the yearly trek down expectation lane for every teacher.  In the first week of class we always cover our rules/expectations, grading, absence procedures, dress code, non-participation rules and a host of other important things.  This information takes time to get across and the most common way to present this information is by lecture.Expectation #1 poster

I’ve always felt that specific types of content are more effectively taught through lecture, while the students are sitting at a desk.  The first week of school is a very boring week for students.  Every teacher tells their students all about their expectations.  I have some students who have fallen asleep during the first week because everyone is lecturing about expectations.  A few years ago I decided to try a change based on a professional challenge to find ways to get kids moving.  This was a very difficult proposition for me because I was worried that students wouldn’t understand the information as well if I didn’t give them a lecture.  As a result, I created two different types of activities for my students to cover expectations.

Option #1: (Team Building Focus)
I take my expectations and create small (paper sized) posters.  Each poster lists one of the expectations for class and I also create one poster for each of my grading criteria.  Lastly, I count the number of students in my class and cut all of the posters up to match the class size.  For myself, I have 34 students in my fifth and sixth grade classes.  I take my 8 posters and divide up the posters to have 34 pieces.  I make sure that I place the poster pieces in a plastic bag to keep them all in the same location.

Upon entering class and introducing myself on the first day, I give a little story for my students.  I tell them that I have made these great looking posters about my expectations, but during the weekend someone came into school and decided to cut the posters up into little pieces.  I need help from my students to put them back together.  I promptly hand out the puzzle pieces–one for each student.  Students then use a classroom to walk around and find where their puzzle piece belong. When all of the puzzles are assembled we stop the activity.

Expectation #4 posterThere is another way to use the posters, as well.  Students can use them to write down the expectations on a worksheet.  They can continue to walk around the room and find the information needed on each puzzle.  This option makes the activity an individual activity for each student.  To continue to work on the team building/group focus, you can also have students become experts in their “field” (or experts on their poster). You can perform a jigsaw teaching program by having one person at each poster match up with someone from all the other posters.  The students use their expertise to teach their new teams their piece of the information.  Students learn from each other.  The key is that students are learning the materials, but you don’t have to lecture them about the process.

I’ve done this activity with first graders through seventh graders.  I’ve modified the activity for the younger students by printing each poster on a different color of paper.  This allows them to find their poster quickly and not walk around aimlessly for the whole period.  For the older students, I have printed the posters on the same color paper.  This makes the activity a lot harder and more complicated.  They really have to focus on the poster and match up words and pictures.  I typically try to use a different cutting pattern for each poster.  One poster I will make round cuts while another poster will be straight.  I might also use more square pieces in one poster and diamonds in another, the difference being the direction of the text and pictures compared to the cuts.  I usually spend a little time before letting students start by asking the students how they could tell the differences in the posters. This gives some clues on how to find your poster among the numerous pieces.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of the series.

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Six Things to Consider Before Purchasing Pedometers for Your Classroom

Monday, July 27th, 2009

By Matthew Bassett

Part 4 of a 4 part series.

While teachers may find pedometers to be a valuable way to incorporate technology and to provide motivation, there are a few drawbacks. All of these should be considered before purchasing a class set and when developing lessons.

  1. Accuracy. Pedometers are not always 100% accurate. A pedometer can be fooled into thinking its moving when it is not. Pedometers are not always accurate with counting steps from obese children. This is due to the fact that pedometers need to be perpendicular to the ground for the sensor to work and obese children might not be able to get that position on their waist band.
  2. Cheating. A student can easily cheat using a pedometer. Students will quickly learn that shaking the pedometer can add steps, even while sitting. Also, a student can tap the top of the pedometer to add steps.
  3. Expense. Pedometers are cheaper than heart rate monitors but they can still be in the $10-$20 for each pedometer. When this happens it becomes very expensive for a teacher to have a class set of pedometers. This will cause a teacher to need to share the pedometers with groups of students and rotate the groups every class period.
  4. Missing in Action. Pedometers can be easily lost or stolen. Since they are so small a pedometer that is dropped can be difficult to find. A student can easily walk away with one of your pedometers during class and forget that they had one on.
  5. Instructional Time. Tracking data can be slow. Even if you get your students to fill out their tracking forms in five minutes, it has still caused them to lose valuable movement time. The first few times they use a pedometer you will be spending time helping to get them attached to waist bands and reminding them how to reset the pedometer.
  6. Break downs. A pedometer will break or need repairs. Since pedometers are small they will break from time to time with repeated use. They will need to be replaced. Also, pedometers are run on batteries. These batteries lose power and need to be replaced.

Despite these problems, I’ve found pedometers to be useful in my classes. You want to be able to keep your investment for a long time and having thought through these issues will help.

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Integrating Pedometers

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

By Matthew Bassett

Part 3 of a 4 part series.

After students have learned to use pedometers there are a number of ways that you can integrate them into different subjects or concepts.

Perceived exertion. A pedometer can be used to work on perceived exertion, another physical education standard.  A student can make comparisons to the number of steps taken to a perceived exertion chart.  This chart was originally designed to work off of a person’s heart rate but a teacher can guide students to a moderate activity (through steps) and can help the student make a judgment on their location of the perceived exertion chart.

Multiplication. A teacher can use a simple math integration for every lesson while using the pedometers.  A student who has learned their stride length can estimate how far they have traveled by multiplying the number of steps by their stride length.  The result will be the approximate distance traveled.  Having students figure out this simple multiplication problem can be a simple cross-curricular lesson.

Estimation. I have students run across the field and ask them to estimate how many steps they would take in order to travel that distance.  They can also use some of their own knowledge of their stride length and field length to determine an answer.  This involves using division to find their answer.

Graphing. Having students graph the information that you have written down through the the tracking of data is also a useful math lesson.  After a few weeks of using pedometers, a class period can be devoted to graphing the data.

Compare and contrast. A Language arts integration can be to use the data to compare and/or contrast different types of activities.  Any time that you can ask a student to write about what they have been doing helps to deepen their content knowledge in physical education and helps to integrate language arts as well.

These are just a few of the ideas I have used to integrate pedometers into physical education and other subjects as well.  The sky is the limit and I encourage the reader to be as creative as possible in attempting to integrate pedometers into their lessons.

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Eight Helpful Hints for using Pedometers

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

By Matthew Basset

Part 2 of a 4 part series.

After purchasing pedometers you should spend a lot of time learning how to use them yourself.  After you’ve become familiar with this new piece of technology, you should think about teaching cues that will be necessary.

Here are some helpful hints to think about:

  1. Storage. Make sure that you use a storage system for your pedometers.  You can use a pedometer storage chart that can be purchased from a physical education catalog or you can use a tackle box from a local fishing supply store.  The key is to have the storage organized (and even numbered) so that the students know exactly where their pedometer belongs.
  2. Markings. Make sure you have the pedometers marked. This will not only allow for the storage to be organized but it will also allow you to find out who hasn’t turned in their pedometer.  No one will admit to having lost a pedometer or that they forgot to put the pedometer in the storage box.  Knowing that the pedometers have marked numbers on them will allow you to find the missing pedometer and, more importantly, know who was responsible.
  3. Distribution. A teacher must have a way to pass out and collect the pedometers.  This still goes with the storage system but if you have one long line of students waiting for the pedometers you might be wasting valuable time.
  4. Tracking of data. You need to know how you are going to track the data. Will you have a master sheet for yourself?  Will the students write down their scores on their own tracking sheets?  You can save yourself some trouble by not having the data recorded the first few times.
  5. Placement. A teacher must teach the pedometer placement.  A student should wear the pedometer on the waistband or belt above their right knee. Having pedometers secured on their right sides will allow you to see if a pedometer has dropped accidentally.  Some students will need to move their pedometers around the waist to the side to pick up more movement.  These are all things that a few class periods of practice can help students work out.
  6. Responsibility. A student must be taught to be responsible for the pedometer.  This not only includes putting the pedometer away at the end of class but also includes how to use a safety strap with an alligator clip.  These straps are designed to help avoid a pedometer being lost from dropping of the waist.
  7. No touching. Students need to avoid touching the pedometer while in the middle of class.  Most of the students will want to look at their scores.  The pedometers will not gather data while it is open, at least not effectively.  Also, students can use their hands to hit the pedometer and cause the pedometer to count steps when the student is not moving.  Not only should we be teaching about personal responsibility and integrity but a teacher needs to have a rule to not touch or the student will lose the pedometer.  A student should NEVER take the pedometer off of their waist band until the end of class when it is time to return the pedometer to the storage system.
  8. Instructional time. Using the pedometer data can be a very helpful tool for the teacher.  In a typical class period how much do you talk?  This time talking is time that a student isn’t moving.  If you are able to use a pedometer that tracks activity time it can help a teacher determine if they are getting the most out of their students.  After realizing that a majority of my students were not moving for 20 minutes of my class period it was time for me to reflect on how to change my teaching practices.

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