Exercise To Increase Knowledge

Ben Paquette - Final Part 1

PART B - Brain Gains

i. The website is from Toronto, ON Canada. The school is located in South Saskatoon, Canada. Saskatchewan .Also Naperville Ohio

ii. This news piece was very interesting, and eye opening. I knew physical activity was good for the brain, but never saw definite evidence of it used in a school setting. The piece has set in my mind what I would like to see as a physical educator, which statistics like this, why do more schools not offer this type of opportunity? Although schools may not be able to afford the equipment, why not get kids active in other forms of cardio that don’t require much. Students spend the majority of their day sitting in class attempting to learn the material, but if we got them active with their heart rates up to 65-75% for 20 minutes every morning, not only would student’s grades improve, but we would not have to cover the same material over again. It would allow us new time to teach other lessons, that we typically wouldn’t have time for.

iii. They didn’t mention the PE Teacher being involved with the City Park Collegiate experiment at all. Based off the description of the class where students stood around the majority of the time waiting their turn, I get the feeling the PE teacher is that “old school” style of P.E. The teacher doesn’t take into effect how much they should be offering students with physical activity, and how much the students would benefit. I would ensure that my PE program would benefit my students as well as my faculty by getting students as active as possible for the entire class. For example, if the class was testing, students would not be standing around waiting for their turn, but in fact out working on perfecting their skills, or working on a fitness skill. If it was picture day, where in most case’s the gymnasium is used, I would not have my students sitting around, instead we would use whatever facility is open to us, or go outside if the weather permitted. Along with that, I would try to offer more than just physical activity, students could work on their math skills, science and history knowledge as well through tasks that a tweaked for the grade level’s curriculum.

iv. The main outcomes and benefits to this program is that students are becoming healthier, but more importantly their ability to learn is increasing. Students after their 20 minutes of vigorous activity are concentrated, with no one being defiant, or running around the classroom. Student’s attention spans improved from 10- 15 minutes to roughly 3 hours. Students began coming to school every day, and because they were now coming and exercising, most of grade 8 had improved by a full grade level. These outcomes are similar to our New York State PE Standards. Students are meeting standard 1a. By their teacher challenging them to try new movements on the treadmills. Students are meeting Standard 1b because they now know how to use a treadmill or stationary bike to meet the 65-75% heart range for themselves. Students meet standard 2 because they are responsible for their own fitness, and understand the how physical activity provided them with an opportunity for enjoyment. Students would be able to meet standard 3 if their teacher explained to them the opportunities they had to access equipment outside of the school.

v. BDNF is brain derived neurotrophic factor. BDNF is developed in the hippocampus of the brain, and acts as a brain fertilizer. It helps to develop new brain cells which are vital to learning. The creation of BDNF should be a goal of physical education class, because it would help students learn skills, and cognitive aspects of our units. It would also help students in classes following P.E. to learn their material better. BDNF is created when aerobic activity is presented and the heart is working at 65% - 75 %. The two “key” books that currently outline the benefits of exercise and learning/academics are, Spark written by John J. Ratey, and The Kinesthetic Classroom by Traci Lengel and Mike Kuczala.

PART C 1 - Regents Levels

vi. As future physical educators we need to know how to make our profession credible before it becomes on the chopping block from schools. One way is to implement a Regents level for LS #1a. I believe 95% of the senior class should be recreationally competent in 6 activities and proficient in 3 different activity categories. This will make students responsible for the curriculum covered in our P.E. class, just like any other class. This also put pressure on all physical educators to give students as many options as possible in their program. If 95% of the senior class is able to pass this, then we know the P.E. program is credible.

vii. For LS #1b, I think 95% of the senior class should reach competency in their personal fitness plan. Students need to have every tool possible in order to fight obesity, which is an increasing battle every day. Students should be competent in their fitness plan, so that they have the knowledge to continue their physical fitness plan after they graduate. These students should also have the knowledge to alter their plan as they grow older.

PART C 2 Daily Burn

i. I think Daily Burn is a awesome tool for anyone to use. It’s very simple to use and they give you workouts for what you want to work on. For anyone who isn’t sure how to work out those tools could definitely help. I don’t use an online exercise and nutrition tracker, Daily Burn is the first one I have looked at and used. I haven’t used one before because it’s hard for me to remember to get online and post the things I ate, what I did for the day etc. I definitely will consider staying about of the group because I have a month of vacation now where I can use the tracker, and become more familiar with it.

ii. Daily Burn would be a great tool for accomplishing the recommended regent’s level for LS #1B. Daily Burn would allow students to take some responsibility in their eating habits, and their fitness levels outside of the school system. Students could use Daily burn to help develop their own personal fitness plans and goals. By inputting what they would like to work on, how much time they have, what foods they should try and stay away from, our students could become much healthier, and active. A modification I would use is, for class has a goal for the week for my students as a whole. The goal would be for a week that students would have to work on inside and outside of class. Students would then report to me on Friday using daily burn how they met this goal.

iii.An electronic tool that could be useful for capturing data and reporting for the recommended Regent’s Level for LS #1A, would be Dartfish. Dartfish is a great tool that uses video analysis to break down basic motor and manipulative skills. Dartfish in a high school setting could be used as the end of a unit assessment. Students would be videotaped as they performed the skill in a game like situation. The teacher would make their way around the gymnasium taping students as they performed. For analysis, students could then be given their videos to break down and send back to the teacher using Dartfish. This would allow students to see what they need to improve on and learn the skill better by visually seeing themselves perform the skill. Teachers would then assess them based on their video. This would allow us as teachers to see if a student really did perform a cue, instead of just assuming they did because they performed too fast for us to see.