Delivering Activity and Methods Courses
Since I hosted the third section, about methods and activity courses, I’ll share a few things that I’ve done differently that I think I will keep using once we go back in person. For example, one of the benefits of teaching on-line is that I realized I can have 30 students conduct their own teaching in one week. This of course was through videos they upload into a discussion board that I grade instead of in-person, but, for a first time PE class it was a good experience learning to teach. They also learned how to make, edit, and upload a video, which seems to me to be a skill that they will use in the future when teaching PE. And if you think the future is digital and want to set your students up for success, Erin Centeio shared a link to getting Google Classroom Trained which she has embedded in her course in Hawaii.
Other faculty have had students select a fitness-oriented task and then record the instructional set through Flipgrid. These videos are 2-3 minutes max. Then peers provide feedback via the Comment on Flipgrid. This way, students get to learn how to give and receive peer feedback. One option Emily Jones brought is to set your students in the class up in Sport Ed style groups online (mostly academic roles) to build community and get a group organized while learning the model.
If you are looking to get some interaction with others outside of your university, you may think to invite educators into your zoom meetings as many have done who shared on the call. This has been amazing for my class. Bob Knipe shared a post where he describes how he uses videos from practitioners to give preservice teachers a sense of what PE is like now.
Justine McAlpine shared how she uses Nearpod and shows her students how to create assessments that allow them to collect meaningful data within NearPod lessons. Then students analyze it as part of their lesson reflections (teachers can sign up for free for NearPod). Other apps/sites that have helped faculty in engaging students are Kahoot (you can use this remotely also), Poll Everywhere, and the polling function on Zoom. There’s also an annotate feature in Zoom.
Another thing I’ve added are low stakes quizzes that students can take as many times as they want. These quizzes are embedded into my learning management system (blackboard) and are auto graded, so it saves me quite a bit of time compared to how I’d grade them before. These quizzes are from a new book I adopted, you can find it here. Fay Nielsen noted that those who use the Dynamic PE text can have the authors join your online class and of course you (even without the book) have access to Dynamic PE videos to use. For me, many of these shifts in my online pedagogy came from a book club I did on Minds Online by Michelle Miller over the summer. I recommend grabbing it for a quick read about online instruction and how students learn. It may not be too late as many universities are preparing for on-line again in the Spring.
Organization has been a key to success for many of the PETE faculty. This organization is now much more important in the Learning Management System (LMS). Emily Jones shared how she has used a “check list” option that is embedded to keep students on track. Others shared about making video overviews of assignments, rubrics, and sharing weekly video messages with students instead of e-mails (or in addition to). These can also span several courses like a video on your lesson plan template or how to write objectives, then this can be used in all your classes (thanks Dr. Sharp-I did this over the weekend!)
I’ve organized all my classes the same each week and break the LMS page down by the following topics: Overview, Reading, Listening, Watching, Producing, Summary and Looking Forward. These are always in the same order so students are not searching around for content. All this to say, consistency is key, faculty shared how they assign work on specific days to be consistent. My class runs Tuesday to Monday, which to me seemed ludicrous when I first learned about it. However, it has given me my weekend back (thanks Luanne!) My assignments are due Thursday, Friday and Monday nights. Students know what is due and when…and they don’t email me in a panic Sunday night/afternoon. My main grading is done Tuesday and Friday. Don’t knock it til’ you’ve tried it!
Kymm Ballard brought up a great point that I will summarize briefly “I think it’s real important not to over use technology. What makes sense is important. What do they need it for is critical…but I do not think they have to use everything out there or they will be overwhelmed.” I think Ash Casey would agree, check out this 2017 article.
Continuous Professional Learning in PETE
In the 4th topic of the day, we discussed continuous professional learning for PETE faculty members. We appreciate the fact that close to 100 PETE faculty join in monthly on these collaborative calls. This is close to 10% of the faculty in our country!! If you don’t get email reminders of these meetings send me an email or DM me @ristomarttinen on Twitter; we will add you to the list.
By going virtual, this could be a time to connect on some new conferences or attend ones that you only attend every few years due to the cost. For instance, AERA is virtual in April, AIESEP just announced their international conference is virtual in June. We still don’t know about SHAPE in Baltimore. That said Helena Baert said she is connecting with the “experiential learning” conferences - They are using a lot of learning opportunities to add team building and virtual hands on activities. These conferences are super expensive typically and since they are virtual they are much less expensive.
Another way to build that community up is to simply make your own group and take it where you want to. Email a few trusted colleagues, and set a monthly time to meet, catch up, vent, and stay accountable to grow! For example, I host a meeting of secondary methods PETE instructors, scholars on racial and social justice have formed small groups that blossomed out of our summer collaborative meetings (maybe this link is of interest), others have started their own small groups or ‘communities of practice’. The SIG for Research on Learning and Instruction in PE (SIG 93) is hosting online collaborative meetings throughout the year leading to the national convention in April. There’s even a Socratic debate on Sept 22nd at noon EST on Models Based Practice (email me for a link). AIESEP has a coffee with colleagues the last Friday of each month. The recording, presentation and chat transcripts can be found here of past meetings. There are ways to stay connected!
If you’re looking to keep up with research, my podcast puts out an episode each week. You can join in on a doctoral seminar on creative pedagogies, join a monthly article club, listen to research being explained by the author and much more. Some of the faculty from the PETE collaborative use these in their courses. I’ve compiled them by category here.
Let’s stay connected! You can use the #AtHomePETE on social media. Our next call will be October 8th at 4pm EST.