I was recently a guest on Ryan Ellis‘ podcast: The PE Umbrella. One of the questions Ryan asks his guests is “what would a typical class look like in your physical education program?” Here’s (part of) my answer to that question: Blog post on this is ready to go. #SHAPEBoston.https://t.co/By0j9nI1eF pic.twitter.com/NOyvRPc6b2 — ThePhysicalEducator (@phys_educator) March 12, 2017 Reflection is a huge part of the way I teach physical education. I’m constantly trying to help my students to think about their learning and progress in class. Now, I know some people might think “but aren’t you taking away from activity time when you stop class to get the students to reflect?” The answer is: yes. Yes, I’ll sacrifice some activity time within a lesson in order to give my students an opportunity to discuss the challenges they are facing, any success they’ve experienced, or any new ideas/strategies they are trying out. I’ve never once regretted having done so. We’re physical educators. Our goal isn’t just to have our students be active within the lessons with teach them or the years we spend with them. Our goal is to provide our students with the knowledge, understanding and skills they need to continue to develop their physical literacy throughout their lifetime and enjoy a lifetime of physical activity. Only focusing on maximizing physical activity time within single lessons is short term thinking. We need to be thinking in the much longer term. So how do we do that? Well, the simple answer is: by making sure our students are learning in physical education. Why focus on learning rather than just plain, ol’ games? Because without learning, our students won’t develop the competence and confidence they need in order to be motivated to participate in physical activity throughout their lifetime (special thanks to Dean Kriellars for... Continue Reading