"James Hartley (1998) brought about the idea of 'learning by doing', an active learner is better than a passive one. I truley believe in my classroom that this is true. Once a student becomes passive in the gym it is very clear that either the student does not like what we are doing or that he or she does not understand what it is that I am asking of them. I know that inorder to be successful I have to strive to have my students "with me." I actually use that statement instead of asking if they understand.
Effort can be important in the gym and is very easy to see from a third party looking in. Many students do not realize that they are not putting forth enought effort to get the assignment done correctly. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski (2007) suggested that showing the students data of how the student's effort is directly related to performance. I agree this would be powerful however in my situation may be a difficult thing. Students forget how much they put toward something in a few minutes so stopping an activity for them to chart is hard. I do use a tap out system. The students walk by a wall and tap the appropriate level that they worked at for the day. This is not their grade but more of them realizing where they were or where they should have been.
References:
The Behaviourist Orientation to Learning online artictle retrieved on November 11, 2009 from: http://www.infed.org/biblio/learning-behavourist.htm
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Brittany,
ReplyDeleteI cannot agree with you more! I am also a physical education teacher in my first year of P.E. but this is my fourth year in education. I have noticed that the effort put forth in gym concurs with the effort that is put forth in their classrooms. Being an active learner is a great teaching style for us because in order to do the first part of the class "physical" there has to be some type of active learning transpiring. I'm gonna try and say "are you with me" tomorrow and see how that works :-)