#PersonalPEStory My Personal PE Story by Lisa Frangipane, a 2014 North Carolina Center for Health and Wellness Fellow. Lisa believes that a quality physical education program is essential. She is passionate about teaching children the importance of being physically active in and out of the classroom with effective instruction and as a role model for students. She currently teaches at Morris Grove Elementary School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Lisa writes: It is with great interest and enthusiasm that I apply for a fellowship with the North Carolina Center for Health and Wellness for the 2014 National Physical Education Institute. I would be privileged to carry out the duties that would be expected of me during the fellowship. I am a dedicated physical educator, motivated to share and to collaborate with my colleagues in my Professional Learning Community (locally and globally), classroom teachers and with administration. Twitter is a simple and effective way to stay connected with physical education trends from a vast array of amazing individuals and organizations. I joined Twitter during the 2013-2014 school year. I have used Twitter to gain insight regarding my instructional practice. Many posts from Twitter users in the field of health, wellness and education have encouraged me to think and reflect on my craft. I have been able to connect with people who share the same professional passion as I do regarding instruction, collaboration, innovation and creativity. Using Twitter, I have been challenged by fellow physical education colleagues to try new instructional practices and methodology and be an advocate for quality physical education. Although Twitter has been my main avenue of social media because of its succinct method of delivery and ease of use, I have used both Facebook and Google+ as supplemental resources to access current events, blogs, Google technology, and business contacts. I believe national and state standards should be aligned with a well-written and researched curriculum to ensure effective instruction. National and state standards, along with grade level outcomes should dictate the yearly curriculum. Learning how to successfully “unpack” the aligned standards along with curriculum will allow for: 1.) Thoughtful and meaningful assessment, 2.) An emotionally and physically safe learning environment, 3.) Developmentally appropriate and effective grade level instruction, and 4.) Differentiating instruction for students of all abilities. A quality physical education curriculum should be aligned with National and State standards to drive effective instruction impacting standards based student learning. Most importantly, the alignment of standards and curriculum allows for reaching the goal of a physical education program – to develop physically literate students who will be encouraged to be physically active and well for a lifetime. To support demonstration of instructional technology at the elementary school level, my 5th grade class participated in an “Analysis of a Push-Up” project. Students used iPads to video one another performing 3-5 push-ups. The videos were then uploaded to VoiceThread. After the upload was complete, students were asked to critique their individual and their classmate’s push-ups with VoiceThread. Using VoiceThread they could digitally record verbal critiques and use drawing tools simultaneously. A second demonstration of utilizing instructional technology was the usage of Google Forms to poll students to identify the tasks they were interested in to carry out for Gecko Game Day. Additionally, 1st graders analyzed their partner balance routines with the immediate feedback from pictures and videos taken with an iPad. YouTube and Just Dance videos supplement my instruction throughout the year as well. These projects have been well received by students who were fully engaged. There are so many ways to integrate instructional technology into the physical education classroom and I am excited about trying new projects with my students in the years to come. I am a seasoned physical education teacher with 15 years of experience. I have poised myself for a leadership position in this point of my career to advocate, collaborate, and learn about quality physical education instruction. I am an educator with the willingness and motivation to collaborate with colleagues. I believe that creating a collaborative culture is a “Best Practice” model that leads to effective student learning. I have benefited with both online collaboration and team collaboration and understand the benefits that working together with a common goal in mind can result in positive outcomes for education. I would be excited to have the opportunity to facilitate collaboration as well as collaborate with others to further the communication of “Best Practices” in physical education. Thank you for your consideration of my application to attend the 2014 National PE Institute as a Fellow. I believe that I meet the criteria you are seeking to fulfill the expectations, as well as have the enthusiasm to carry out the expected duties. Every school year, I set a goal to fine tune my instructional practice with new projects and strategies. Attending the National Physical Education Institute will be a wonderful professional opportunity for me to continue to advocate and to fine tune my teaching practice with the main goal in mind; impacting the learning of students.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 21:05:52 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015