Blog Posts

Flow in Learning Begins With Carefully Structured Planning

10/6/2018

Flow is defined as the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.

If you were to walk into a learning space and observe students in action, how would flow be manifested? What would you see and hear? What role would the teacher be playing within this setting? How would you know that the students were in flow with their learning?

One of the distinct privileges of my job is to be able to deeply observe teaching in action on a daily basis. As a pedagogical coordinator, one of my main roles is to coach teachers, working closely with them to plan their units and lessons, as well as assessments. I must admit that nothing charges me up more than going into a teacher’s space and seeing students in flow with their learning, especially when I know, going into the class, what the learning intentions are and what the main focus of each lesson is. As I have planned with the teachers, I am aways aware of what is happening in regards to important learning outcomes in the units that are taught which helps to provide important context to all teaching and learning that I observe.

So, does flow just magically happen when all the stars align and the teacher seems to be on their game on a particular day OR is there much more to it than this? It is my firm belief that we greatly increase the chances of success when we plan in very specific and explicit ways in order to provide every opportunity possible for deeper learning with our students.

Photo Credit: https://douglascayers.com/2017/09/12/keep-flows-and-data-in-sync-on-lightning-record-pages-winter-18/

tEverything we do must begin with purposeful planning that is well-thought out and infused with flexibility in order to create an agile teaching and learning space. Over the next few weeks, my goal is to write a blog post series that shares some of the strategies and specific approaches to planning that we have been putting into practice at the Gardens Elementary School here at KAUST in Saudi Arabia. In designing specific ways in which collaboration takes place, I believe that we are planting the seeds for long term success in regards to teaching and learning at our school. Although many of the ideas that I will share in this blog post series are relatively new, the feedback has been very positive in regards to this planning structure. In no way am I implying this is the best and only way planning should take place, but instead to simply share ideas you may consider using or tweaking to fit the needs of your program.

As I write this blog post today, I am going to share with you the concept of creating specific planning timelines that require teachers to look deeply at their units in order to decide when important concepts and skills will be unpacked with their students. Many teachers look at their unit planners and see that they have a number of concepts and skills that will be the focus of the units they teach, but to me, so much more groundwork is needed in order to create the best learning experiences possible that go much beyond the unit planner itself.

Often times when going through the timelining process you will read about below, it becomes glaringly obvious that there are way too many concepts and skills that are being focused on in a 6-7 week unit. It also becomes obvious that some of these concepts and skills are getting only surface level attention during the unit, so why even include them? This process helps to refine the number of concepts and skills being focused on which has an immediate impact on teaching and learning, as teachers can go so much deeper with a more refined focus in their units.

So, what does a planning timeline look like and how is it used?

A planning timeline is done on a large poster-sized piece of paper that is divided up into a number of different columns depending on how long the unit is. For example, if the unit is 6 weeks long, the paper will be divided into 6 columns.

Once the important concepts and skills have been decided on, we use different colored strips of paper to write down these skills and concepts. As we are a PYP school, when planning our units, we have a focus on key concepts, related concepts, and approaches to learning skills.
So, we use different colors to represent each of these focus areas in our planning to make it distinctly clear on the timeline itself.

We also have a conceptual lens focus which is the overarching big idea that all teaching and learning is delivered through. As well, we have a Learner Profile attribute focus which are specific dispositions that we are trying to develop within our students (for example: Communicators, Risk-Takers, Inquirers, Thinkers, etc). We tend to focus on just one of these dispositions in order to allow us to really delve deeply into it with our students.

The conceptual lens and learner profile attribute are anchored into the timeline at the top.

When teachers actually begin to map out how the units will be unpacked, it always leads to deeper and more meaningful discussions as the conversations go much beyond a surface level chat. Teachers need to talk their way through the unit in a way that helps them articulate why they have laid out the unit, as they have, on the planning timeline and to make the necessary commitments to bring these concepts and skills alive in rich and meaningful ways.

Creating our planning timelines really helps to frame up the units in a way that provides much more clarity and structure to teaching and learning. As well, it allows us to have ongoing reflection and use these reflections to adjust our teaching and learning accordingly. Teachers use sticky notes to write these reflections down and stick them up on the timeline each week. Again, these reflections are timely and help to provide more clarity and to determine next steps needed in the unit.

Please see some of the example timelines below.

You can see the sticky note teacher reflections that are put up on timeline each week.

I'll dive more into this type of planning in upcoming blog posts, but the main focus for this particular post is to just introduce you to the concept of timelining and what it looks like. The most important consideration here is that the strips of colored paper that are up on the timeline are moveable. This is a critical piece in the process of timelining. When reflecting, teachers sometimes realize that they haven't had time to unpack certain concepts. If they have not had time to unpack something, they simply move the strip of paper with the concept or skill on it to the following week.

Remember my reference to the timelines being flexible in order to create an agile teaching and learning space. Having moveable strips of paper allows for the shuffling around of concepts and skills when necessary.

So, returning back to the definition of flow:

Flow is defined as the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.

In order to create more enriched learning experiences that allow both teachers and students to be in flow more often, purposeful and carefully thought out planning is a prerequisite to great learning and to great teaching.

Using a planning timeline that is highly visible and large enough to include written reflections on it is a very important first step in the teaching and planning process. Hope you found some value in the ideas shared in this post today and that you keep coming back to read upcoming posts .

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Build a Better You

9/15/2018

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It’s been ages since I’ve blogged and I’m making a strong intention to get back into it as it is so rewarding to think my way through thoughts and ideas that I have related to teaching and learning.

The thought that I would like to share today is one that I have been reflecting on a lot lately, especially in regards to my professional role at The KAUST School in Saudi Arabia. As a pedagogical coach, my job is to help teachers along their journeys of self-improvement in order to have a positive impact on the learning of their students. I love my job and am constantly inspired to make a difference to the teachers that I work with, as well as my peer coaches and other leaders in our school.

However, in being in this role, it is important for me to critically reflect on my own performance and what it takes to be able to make a genuine difference in the work that I do. It is easy to get so focused on my own work that I can sometimes lose sight of the importance of self-improvement.

Showing up, day in and day out, and trying to be our best self is no easy task and there are days, without question, that we will fall flat. But, when we experience days such as this, it is important to reflect on what went wrong and why it went wrong in order to better understand ourselves.

I recently came across these words in a poem that was shared in a talk that I had seen on You Tube. I was inspired to write the words up on our chalkboard wall at home as a strong reminder to myself, my wife Neila, and our two boys, Eli and Tai that building a better version of ourselves each and every day is how we can help to build a better world. Our growth is squarely on our own shoulders and we have a responsibility to focus on self-improvement on a daily basis.

For any educators reading this post, I thought I’d share these words with you as a reminder that our profession demands a lot from us, but with each passing day, we need to continue to grow and learn in order to keep making a difference to those around us. Thanks for reading folks.

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Thoughts, Words, and Actions

6/17/2018

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How aligned are your thoughts, words, and actions?

I feel very fortunate to have recently taken part in a peak performance pilot training program created by renowned American sports psychologist Michael Gervais and Seattle Seahawks NFL head coach, Pete Carroll. Michael has worked very closely with Pete Carroll and the Seattle Seahawks coaches and players over the past few years, helping each stakeholder in the organization to find their best selves in order to perform at the level that each person is fully capable of performing at.

This training course, Compete to Create, is all about developing the necessary skills and mindset to bring on peak performance under any conditions. The Compete to Create team has some wonderful coaches in place to help and to challenge each participant to learn more about themselves in order to identify what is working and what is not in their lives. Whether it be a personal or professional pursuit, the learning in this course is aimed at better understanding ourselves and the mindset that we bring into difficult and challenging situations. When under pressure, we can often fail to perform to the best of our ability, often leaving us expecting more of ourselves and confused as to why we aren’t delivering in the way that we know that we are capable of.

By applying specific strategies that are entirely within our control (and can be trained), this course guides participants through a series of exercises and activities that help to reframe what is possible in our personal and professional lives. It’s not about hacking our way to a better self that performs amazingly in every situation thrown before us, but instead to put in the necessary time and energy cultivating the conditions that bring about better performance in any endeavor we set out to accomplish in our lives.

Let me make it clear.......

In this blog post, I'm sharing my own thoughts related to my own learning over the past five weeks, not the thoughts or teachings of the Compete to Create crew. Every person's learning journey is an individually unique experience, so this blog post is aimed at sharing my own learning, not the thoughts and teaching of the coaches (Adam, Nicole, and Courtney) or Michael Gervais and /or Pete Carroll. However, it is very important for me to recognize the impact that the entire Compete to Create team has had on my learning. Thank you!

Photo credit: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Beyond-Critical-Thinking/63288

The Value of Critical Self-Reflection

During the five weeks of study in this pilot course, I constantly returned back to and reflected on the work that I have done, as an educator, over the past 20 years. I have always genuinely believed that teaching is the noblest of professions, as every single day there is a blank slate that we have before us. Every single day, we can create a new picture of what we hope to achieve in order to leave a lasting impact on students that we teach and the colleagues that we collaborate with. Our world has never needed our profession more than now.

In my opinion, one of the most prominent themes that came out in this training was the importance of knowing who we are, what we believe in, and aligning everything we do to this specific purpose. Seems so easy to do, right?

However, when we genuinely dissect and examine our own personal and professional lives and are genuinely honest with ourselves, we can often find an incongruence and disconnect between what we believe is important and how we think in regards to our beliefs. And when we dig into these themes even further, we can often see that our actions do not align with our thoughts and beliefs as often as we would hope.

I’ve taken a very hard look at the thoughts, words, and actions that are prevalent in my own personal and professional life through a process of critical self-reflection over the last five weeks while taking this course in order to to identify the gaps and the disconnect between them. Our my thoughts, words, and actions aligned with consistently in my personal and professional life? Am I living my thoughts, my words, and my actions on a daily basis? The honest answer is NO.

As a result of taking this 5-week pilot training program, I’ve given myself a meaningful homework assignment during the summer vacation. This will help me to dive more deeply into what it is I believe in and how I can learn more about myself to better align my thoughts, words, and actions in moving forward in my personal and professional life. So, in sharing this blog post with you, I want also to share a short list of reflective questions that I will ponder and dive into over the next few weeks. I hope that you take 15-20 minutes to jot down these questions and to honestly reflect on them and write your thoughts. At minimum, I hope you just think about them, even if for a few minutes and to ruminate on what answers come to mind. In being the best educator you can be and the best person, I believe that critical self-reflection plays a pivotal role in helping each of us to better understand ourselves and the next steps needed to deepen the personal and professional impact we have on others.

Tough questions to explore, but so important in moving toward the father, husband, educator, and friend I want to be for those around me.

Thanks for reading folks!

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Health Related Fitness Unit

3/16/2018

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Teacher Reflection on the Unit

This was an interesting unit to teach for me as I was definitely trying out a new approach to teaching health related fitness to grade 5 students at the KAUST School. In an earlier blog post that I wrote about this unit, I shared how pre-unit interviews with students helped to provide me with some very relevant information in regards to how they felt about their experiences related to past Health-Related Fitness units.

I felt that doing these interviews would provide me with valuable insight that I could then use to structure and design my delivery in this unit. My simple goal in this unit was to better engage students in Health Related Fitness and to make the unit as relevant as I could for them. Using the information gathered I began to make some choices in regards to how I would deliver this unit. The photos below show students' thoughts and feelings regarding their previous experience with the Health-Related Fitness unit.

As you can see from the photos above, a number of students ranked their experience in the previous Health-Related Fitness unit on the lower end of the scale. The person who had taught this unit before is not only a good person, but an excellent teacher. He had delivered the unit in the way that used fitness testing to set goals and also provided choice to the students in regards to how they worked to achieve their goals.

My point here is that regardless of how good a teacher might be, it is imperative to constantly re-think our deliver of units in order to create the conditions for students to be more engaged in their physical education experiences. It also brings to the table the importance of having important discussions with them before the unit begins. I've heard all too often from teachers that students must learn certain things whether they like it or not.

As teachers, it is easy to fall back on 'well that's the curriculum, too bad if you don't like it", but my firm belief is that there is a lot of room for flexibility in planning and the designing of units. When we genuinely strive to bring student voice into the process of designing units, they feel valued and listened to.

Bearing this in mind, my intention was to listen to them and structure the unit in a way that not only addresses important learning outcomes in Health-Related Fitness, but allows students more autonomy in deciding which particular areas of fitness that they wanted to focus on. In order to do this, we explored 4 different areas of fitness (Burst & Recover Through Active Games, Burst & Recover Through Training, Longer Time at a Steady Pace, and Flexibility & Strength). and had them sign off on each area after they had done it.

This was done through mini 8-10 minute challenges. I wanted to have the students experience what it feels like to be active in a variety of ways. After they had experienced each area of fitness, they simply signed off on it. See photo below

After exploring these areas and experiencing some specific activities directly related to each area, I asked the students to select a minimum of two different areas to further explore for the rest of the unit. They used yellow sticky notes to write their names to indicate which areas they wanted to focus on.

Differentiated Entry Points
This allowed me to find each student's entry point to activity. As you can see for example, some students wanted to do more high intensity type interval training. Some wanted to do activities that allowed them to stay moving for a longer period of time at a steady pace. This provided me with an opportunity to specifically teach them this type of training.

Once the students had selected their areas of interest (minimum 2), each class after this was devoted to them being as active as possible during the remaining lessons in this unit. My goal was to observe and offer direct support whenever needed. I allowed them to build in necessary breaks as well.

Although most students took well to this type of delivery, there were still a few students who did not put as much time into being active through 'burst and recover' type activities or 'burst and recover through training' or 'longer periods of time at a steady pace'. I found myself stepping in and reminding them about that this unit was about being as active as possible in their chosen areas of fitness. For example, if they had chosen 'burst and recover' through games, the goal was to be as active as possible AND committed to putting in effort. The games that a few of these students played were definitely not very active. However, I was trying to avoid stepping in and forcing them to play more active games just to meet an outcome in this unit.

Instead, I chose to have conversations with these students and try to encourage them to be more active by designing fun games that they could do to stay moving.

Final Assessment
Over the last two classes, the students did 20-minute challenges. Their goal was to stay as active as possible in at least 2 different areas of fitness. For some, it was playing small-sided soccer games at a higher intensity of play. For others, it was doing yoga for 20 straight minutes and then riding a bike for 20 minutes afterwards. Some students decided to jog around the field for 20 minutes. Whatever they decided to do, the goal was for them to experience longer periods of time doing their chosen activity.

Final Reflections
The students completed simple reflection sheets at the end of the last class of this unit. It took about 10 minutes for this activity. It provided good insight into what they feel they learned and what they liked. As well, I asked them to identify just one thing that I can do better next time I teach this unit.

Concluding Thoughts
In looking back at this unit, I did not reach each student as I had hoped to. The reality is that some students will respond and some students won't. Could I have forced students to do fitness testing and other forms of rigorous physical activity because that's what they are suppose to do in a unit such as this? For sure, I could have done this. Control and compliance does force kids to participate in the things we feel are best for them. However, in playing the long game of getting students to take action on being more physically active when not in PE, a control and compliance type approach does not work.

This was far from a perfect or ideal unit, but I'm trying to refine my understanding of how to better engage students in their physical education experiences. Sometimes I feel I don't know where I'm going with this, but I need to remind myself that this is a journey of the unknown at times and I need to be comfortable with that. I need to tinker and refine this approach and seek advice from others (thanks Dr. Justin O' Conner & Dr. Aaron Beighle for your valuable insight!!).

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Establishing a Personalized Learning Focus

2/10/2018

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Health-Related Fitness avenues of exploration

For those of you who read my last blog post, you will recall that I did pre-unit interviews with my students to determine where they are at with their understanding of the big ideas in regards to Health-Related Fitness and their thoughts about potential directions we might explore in this unit.

To take the teaching and learning process a step farther in this unit, I'd like to share with you the concepts that I intend on unpacking over the next couple of lessons and how I am hoping to achieve this aim. It is critically important to me that I get the students to understand that we all have choices in regards to how we choose to improve our level of personal fitness.

To do this, I could blindly throw fitness testing at them and run them through a barrage of different fitness testing type activities, but as you can see in the pre-unit interviews that I did with my students, most of them had ranked fitness testing very low and did not want to do it. In honoring their perspectives, I must deliver the unit in a way that helps them to understand that improving personal fitness can be done and measured in other ways.

Bearing this in mind, I have focused them in on 4 different areas that we will explore and given them choice over which of these areas that they would like to focus on. It is important to me that they understand the concept of 'burst and recover' which is the way most kids engage in physical activity which is moving their bodies in bursts of energy then tiring and slowing their pace down before picking it up once again. When they are active at recess, we can see 'burst and recover' in action all of the time. Kids will spring around playing tag then slow down only to start racing around again a few moments later. The concept of 'burst and recover' through active games will be explored in our Health-Related Fitness unit.

It is also important for students to understand that some people can create 'burst and recover' type activities by careful design through interval training. Usually this type of training is done by athletes, but still important for the students to know and understand. The concept of 'burst and recover' through interval training is another area that I want my students to develop an awareness of in this unit and will provide them with the option to do interval type training if they choose to.

The third area I'm getting them to focus on is the concept of moving their bodies for extended periods of time at a steady pace of medium intensity. The types of activities that we will explore to provide them with the experience will be through longer bike rides, jogging, skateboarding, scootering, power walking, etc. These are all relevant life options that work on developing cardiovascular endurance that many people take advantage of.

The last area that I'm going to have my students explore is the idea that we can move our bodies in ways that help us develop muscular flexibility and strength. This can be achieved through yoga and other types of core workouts.

To begin to unpack these different areas, I booked some time with the students in their classroom and showed them the following 4 visuals that I had created using poster sized paper and markers. I then had the students choose a minimum of 2 different areas that they would like to explore in this unit. A number of students chose more than 2 areas which was great to see.

Setting the Stage
Despite the students choosing a minimum of 2 areas to explore, I will require them to take part in activities that have them experience all 4 areas in the next couple of classes in order to give them a fair glimpse into the different ways that people can work on improving their own levels of personal fitness.

Afterwards, I will get the students to revisit their initial choices and allow them a second chance to choose. Perhaps some might change their original choices or add another choice into their exploration.

The 20-Minute Challenge
Another task that I will get them to try out is the 20-minute challenge that I posed to them last week. The 20-minute challenge is getting them to choose one activity falling under any of the 4 themes; Burst and Recover through active games, Burst and Recover through interval training, Moving their bodies for a longer period of time at a steady pace, or Moving their bodies in ways that works on flexibility and strength.

For example, I had 4 students choose to ride their bicycles for 20 straight minutes without taking a break. I had another group play 4 v 4 soccer on a small pitch for 20 straight minutes, and another group use scooters for 20 straight minutes. There were allowed to take breaks if they truly needed to but I asked them to self-assess their level of effort and whether or not they could last the entire 20 minutes doing the activity that they had chosen. In measuring how long they could take part in the 20-minute challenge, they know where they are at and the time that they will try to surpass when we do the challenge again.

Fitness Testing!!!
Although most students do not want to do fitness testing this unit, there are 4 students that want to do some of the tests. I will support them with this and set up the tests that they would like to do.

I'll write more blogs as we progress through this unit to share my own reflections, what's not working well and what areas are working well. It is my intention to share as much as I can on my blog to seek critical feedback. How would you run a unit such as this? What am I missing? What might I consider doing? Your thoughts are appreciated. Thanks for reading!

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Grade 5 Health Related Fitness Unit

2/8/2018

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Reframing the way that Health-Related Fitness is delivered to students

I've thought long and hard about the purpose of health-related fitness as part of a physical education program. In reflecting on this purpose, I have struggled to make sense of what is most important for young people to understand, to know, and to be able to demonstrate in relation to the unit itself. There are many conflicting views about the purpose of health-related fitness thrown around daily by teachers and researchers alike. The reality is that there are many different perspectives, but at the end of the day, the biggest consideration that is often overlooked is what do the students actually think about health-related fitness and how it applies to their daily lives.

Teachers and researchers can stick to their guns in regards to what they feel is best for kids to know, understand, and demonstrate, but to what extent do we balance the actual needs and wants of the students, especially in regards to the context of their lives and their realities?

Bearing this in mind, I am bringing their voice much more into the process of designing the units that I teach in PE. This is not simply about offering free willing voice and choice, but hopefully has much more meaning and relevance to the way that I teach and the way in which students will learn.

Pre-Unit Interviews
I'm convinced that pre-unit interviews with students is the way to go. In my opinion, it is an imperative part of the teaching and learning process to help dig into their thoughts and beliefs in order to reveal where they are at in regards to their understanding of what physical activity, sport, and personal fitness/health truly means to them in relation to the unit that they are about to embark on in their PE classes.

I have found that conducting these pre-unit interviews to be an extremely valuable investment of time and energy as it reveals so much. It also allows me to share with them important learning intentions and outcomes for the unit so that they understand that there are constraints that we must work within. Blanket free choice won't work. The non-negotiables of the unit are established right away in order to begin the unpacking process of learning about each of the important outcomes being focused on.

Pre-Unit Health Related Fitness Interviews
I took the time last week to interview the class about their experiences with their last Health-Related Fitness unit. As I am teaching them for the first time, it is particularly important to have these conversations with them. Therefore, I structured the interview around 5 essential questions that I felt were critical to gain insight into:
1. On a scale from 1-10, how much did you enjoy fitness testing last unit?
2. On a scale from 1-10, how much do you want to do fitness testing again?
3. What are the 3 biggest things you learned in the Health-Related Fitness unit?
4. If you were the PE teacher, what are 2 things that you would do to make this unit more fun?
5. What is most important to you about this unit?

The students were then able to share their thoughts using small sticky notes. This entire process took between 10-15 minutes. A great investment of time as many things I didn't expect were revealed. Although fitness testing was mandatory last unit, I am not making them do fitness testing. However, for the ones who enjoyed it, I will set these tests up for them.

The 4th question had many responses. I actually removed them to create a second visual

From the photo above, it looks as though the students didn't share any responses to question 4. I actually removed all of their responses to question#4 in order to create a second visual. I was quite surprised at all of their responses to question#4 and had to address their thoughts. See poster below which shares their ideas. I introduced the visual below to them to let them know I had listened to them and fully intend to take these suggestions into account when designing the unit.

The pre-unit interview phase then allowed me to introduce the important learning outcomes to the students which I was able to do in the first class of the Health-Related Fitness unit. In making these outcomes clear and explicit from the start of the unit, the students are very aware of important expectations which will guide their learning and be unpacked over the next several weeks. The learning outcomes can be seen in the visual below.

So, this is the start of our unit and how we began the entire process with pre-unit interviews in order to help me better design relevant and meaningful teaching and learning. In the next blog post, I'll share the next steps that I have carefully thought through and planned to take this unit one step further. Thanks for reading.

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Celebrating Success

1/23/2018

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Empowerment and Action Through Physical Activity

Our 'Connections to Community' unit in grade 5 physical education has been rooted in the big idea of inspiring and empowering young people to be physically active through meaningful and relevant activities that are possible for students to follow up on in our community after school and on weekends.

We have designed this unit in a way that focuses on the concepts of 'taking action' and 'social connection'. In my last blog post, I shared the assessment booklets created for the students to record their learning over the last few classes of this unit and to do final reflections. As you can see in the photo below (which is from their assessment booklet), the specific things that they are encouraged to work on developing are outcomes directly stated in our physical education and health scope and sequence.

As we are in the final stretch of this unit, the students have focused on one physical activity that they would like to devote themselves to the rest of the unit and work with their peer group to create different types of games/activities that help them to develop their skills in this particular area. In the last few classes, my goal is to interview each student in order to give them an opportunity to discuss their learning and what they are most proud of.

I'd like to share one student's video below. She has worked really hard in this unit to develop her skills in both basketball and in bicycling. She has focused on better developing her bicycling skills for the remainder of the unit and has been super engaged in helping her peer group to design challenging bike courses and different types of activities during PE time to help develop their specific skills related to cycling.

As a physical educator, nothing is more satisfying than a young person finding true value and meaning through physical activity that can result in a more enriched life experience. The amazing thing about the girl in the video is that she just learned to ride a bike for the first time at the beginning of this school year. The first unit of the year was individual pursuits and bicycling was one of the important areas focused on. She's only been riding a bike for the past several months but has really embraced this form of physical activity and has found a lot of joy in it. It's been amazing to see her progress.

She is planning to team up with the other 3 students who have also focused on bicycling in our 'Connections to Community' unit in PE and go out into the community on the weekends to create a challenging cycling course that they can share with other students wanting to tackle a new challenge by bike. They have already spoken about using google maps to and other tech to help map out their course.

Hope you enjoy the video below. Thanks for reading.

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Connections to Community: Blog Post #5

1/20/2018

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Narrowing the Focus: Social Connection & Action

If you have had a chance to read the first 4 blog posts in this series, you will see that my number one goal in our 'Connections to Community' unit is to inspire students to take action on being physically active after school and on weekends.

The unit was set up in a way that got the students thinking about their community and ways that they can be physically active after school and on weekends. The students were able to identify a number of different options available to them, then zero in on the specific areas that are of most interest to them. We are lucky and fortunate to have amazing facilities in our community here at KAUST.

There are two big conceptual themes that have been driving all of the learning in this unit:

Although there are strong elements of voice and choice in our 'Connections to Community' unit, important outcomes from our physical education and health scope and sequence are being focused on. The students have been a part of the process of co-constructing success criteria related to their chosen areas of physical activity. The reality is that the students have been given a lot of freedom to explore their areas of interest in regards to being physically active, but to do so with a purpose to ensure that they are working toward developing the skills and mindset identified in the important learning outcomes in this unit.

Throughout the unit, the students wanted to explore the following areas of physical activity:

Basketball, Soccer, Skateboarding, Frisbee, Golf, Biking, Parkour, Scooter ball, American Football, Tennis

Two big questions discussed in this unit to help guide them toward developing a deeper conceptual understanding of the big ideas were:

In what ways can you take action to improve upon your skills?
How can you work together with others to help each other get better?

As we are closing in on the end of the unit, the focus is now on getting the students to find others to connect with after school and on weekends to meet up in the community and create games and activities related to their chosen area of interest. All of the students have zeroed in on one area of physical activity. In the last 4-5 PE classes, they will work together with their peers creating games and activities during the lesson that focus on developing the specific skills and attitudes identified as being most important in our scope and sequence. It's not just random play, but instead, play with a specific purpose.

The class is now broken into 3 distinct groups in moving forward for the remainder of the unit:

Biking, Soccer, and Scooter ball

I created assessment booklets for them last week that will be a tool for them to record their learning, to self-assess themselves in regards to the specific skills they are meant to develop, to reflect on their performance, and to give me feedback in regards to what I can do better as their teacher. As well, there is an area of the booklet that they can write down contact information of their peers so that they can get in touch with them after school and on weekends to organize meeting up in the community.

THE PE LIBRARY
One of my favorite initiatives by our PE department is the PE Library. Just as a librarian allows students to check out books to bring home to read, our PE department came up with a clever idea of creating a PE library which serves a similar purpose. Students can sign out equipment to bring home after school and on weekends to continue to work on their skills and to have fun.

I've created a specific PE library for my own class with all of the equipment that they might need to use after school and on weekends. Seeing as their choices are biking, soccer, and scooter ball, I will ensure that I have the necessary equipment ready for sign out starting this week. If they do sign out any equipment, they are meant to document this in their assessment booklets.

Teacher Reflection
This unit has gone very well so far. My sincerest hope is that the students do take action to be physically active and to connect with their peers after school and on weekends. As it is the first time that a unit has been run like this, I'm not expecting a huge success. What I am really hoping to do is to continue to plant seeds of inspiration and to create a culture where students choose to be physically active after school and on weekends. In order to make this happen, every single thing we do in PE must be relevant so that if a student decides that they want to try it out after school and on weekends, it is available to them in the community.

Assessment Booklets
The photos below show each page of the assessment booklets and what is expected of the students. The example below is from the 'Biking' assessment booklet. There are specific booklets made for scooter ball and soccer as well. Thanks for reading.

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Were You Your Best in 2017?

12/30/2017

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10 Questions to Critically Reflect On

As 2017 draws to a close, we sense the beginning of new opportunities for growth and improvement on the horizon. In looking back on the past year, we have a choice to reflect on what has worked and what hasn't. Although reflection is a practice that we all need to pay more attention to, the act of reflecting itself is not enough as learning and growth through reflection requires taking action.

As George Couros says in his latest book, An Innovator's Mindset, "Teaching is one of the most human professions that there is."

Better understanding and deepening the relationships that we have in our lives is at the heart and core of what Couros is referring to in the above statement. Teaching is deeply personal and developing our relationships with colleagues is just as important as the need to get to know our students better. Our actions, day in and day out, have a strong impact on the relationships we have with our colleagues. I'm not implying that we need to be best friends with every single colleague, but our profession does require us lift and empower those around us on a daily basis. In getting teachers to be their best, they MUST feel valued and supported.

However, in order for us to be our best, critical self-reflection provides us with opportunities to become more self-aware of our own actions and assess to what degree these actions are empowering not only to ourselves but to others in our life as well.

I took some time to create a list of questions that I wanted to personally reflect on as 2017 draws to a close. In being the leader that I want to be, I have to be able to answer these questions honestly. I need to zero in on areas I need to do a better job at and not only just reflect, but take action on improving these areas.

I hope that you find value in these questions and that they spark thought within yourself in regards to whether or not you were your best in 2017 and what areas you need to focus on to be a better version of yourself in 2018. You can print off a copy of these questions by accessing the PDF link below.

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The Power of Provocation

12/17/2017

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Nothing can replace the power and impact that a carefully designed provocation has on student learning. I've devoted the last several years to better understanding how provocations can be improved on and designed in ways that help students make stronger connections to the big ideas in a unit. A rich and meaningful provocation can:

create a sense of awe and wonder
have a strong emotional impact on our learners
provide opportunities for deep discussion and debate
inspire and motivate students to take action and want to know more
draw out the big ideas/themes in a unit
help teachers and students to co-construct learning from the start of a unit

Although I understand what a good provocation is, I recently challenged myself to better articulate what I truly believe makes up a rich and meaningful provocation. I spent a few hours really thinking my way through different considerations I have when designing provocations. In order to do this more effectively, I decided to create a 'provocations design' rubric that zeroes in on important criteria related to designing effective provocations.

I rarely like to take a stance on things as I like to remain open to new ideas. However, I found that taking a stance on what I believe to be the key building blocks to designing a rich and meaningful provocation helped me to clarify my own thinking. As I was giving a presentation to teachers on the power of provocations, I thought that including this rubric in the workshop would be a good way to stimulate discussion related to what they think makes up a good provocation.

I'd like to share this rubric with you. I hope that, at minimum, it challenges you to think about the provocations that you use and how these provocations can be refined in order to deepen student learning in your classes. Feel free to share any thoughts below in the comment box. You can agree, disagree or think it is complete nonsense. All that I ask is that you share your honest thoughts and feedback. I've included a PDF link for you to download this rubric if you'd like. Thanks!