Day Two of the SHAPE America Conference was jam-packed with learning and meeting friends from my #healthed and #slowchathealth PLN. I wrote this in a rapid fire way, so please pardon any typos for now!
Members of my PLN I Met: Andy M (@carmelhealth), Matt (@Physed_Pomeroy), David (@WstprtWellness), Collin (@CollinBrooksie), Nick (@NicholasEndlich), Rich (@richwiles), Jo (@LovePhyEd), Allisha (@RunDanceLive)
Sessions Attended…
- “Action Academics” (Kenny Clark). This session focused on incorporating physical activity into the regular classroom. This is a topic I’ve been interested in and been thinking about since our school became a 1:1 school with Chromebooks. Kenny had some ideas that can be implemented by teachers of any subject, and some school-wide ideas, too. I’m thinking about compiling some of the information with other movement resources to present to our entire teaching staff. With a new term starting Monday, and a new group of students, there are one or two changes I think I can make almost immediately to my teaching. I’ll probably blog about them in the future.
- SHAPE General Session. John Jacobs, the Chief Executive Optimist, gave a FANTASTIC presentation to the convention attendees about positivity. It’s hard to put into words if you didn’t experience it.
- “Participatory Activities to Engage Students Within The Health Classroom” (Andy Milne). I was BUMMED that Andy Horne wasn’t able to make the convention, but THRILLED that I was finally able to meet Andy M. and see his presentation. I’ve been following Andy & Andy on Twitter for a while, and have collaborated with them on Voxer and the SHAPE America Podcast as well. Andy’s session was engaging and thrilled with ideas that I think we can add into our health curriculum to fill some gaps.
- “Facilitating Role Plays in The Health Education Classroom (Jessica Lawrence). Jess presented another engaging session that was relevant to our work in the health classroom. We use role plays in two of our three grade levels, and this session helped connect the dots for creating additional steps/protocols for our students. We spend so much time, for example, trying to teach students about interpersonal communication skills, that we forget they need to know how to write an actual role play. I think we’ll now give students a half script to fill in and then will bring in an administrator to demonstrate a role play and the processing that happens afterwards.
- SHAPE Social. I spent the evening networking and connecting with other health and physical educators. A lot of talk centered around advocacy and what we can do as health educators to help schools, families, and communities understand the importance of being healthy. I was able to meet a few more members of my PLN, and even found a way to go 2-0 in a new game.
Resources to Share…
- Tools2Engage: This website by Andy & Andy has a bunch of their health education teaching resources. It’s worth checking out! (That’s an understatement)
One Takeaway to Implement ASAP…
- Action/Participation Cards. Kenny shared a template for action/participation cards. I plan on making copies or developing a similar template on cardstock for all my students. Each direction of the compass is associated with a specific movement activity. Students have a “Movement Activity Partner” and link up with them to perform the movement and answer my prompt.
Final Thought….
The #healthed crew from Twitter and Voxer is like one big family. I have never met any of these individuals until this week, but I have shared resources with them and discussed a lot of health education “stuff” in Voxer or in a podcast. Despite never having met any of them, it felt like we had already met and known each other for a long time. The power of individuals to create change is big, but when it’s added to the power of other individuals, obviously it multiplies. This group of health educators and physical educators are onto something, and big things are on the horizon.
Now, about that grading…
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