Terminology Impacts Engagement & Learning

I'm nearing the end of almost two terms of teaching at Horowhenua College, back in NZ. I have a long commute and still have boxes to unpack at home, because we arrived into our new town in August and then started working the next day! As a result, my blog has been neglected! I have a few posts I've half written though (in my mind) and would like to finish my year completing some of these. I'm reaaaaally looking forward to creating a routine next year, and I might dedicate 1 hour or so fortnightly to blogging, as I do enjoy the research and reflection. 

I have taught in four different schools across the last three years. That's a lot of systems, procedures, values, names to learn. But one thing has stood out across them all, which has frustrated me (yes, I have expressed this frustration). Health lessons being referred to as theory lessons and PE lessons referred to as practical lessons. And actually, any lessons that are in a stereotypical classroom referred to as theory. WHY?! I actually blogged about this briefly when leaving Australia, but this has been a frustration back in NZ too.

I have observed the terminology and names used to refer to learning activities and spaces directly impact on engagement and attitudes towards learning. I've just spent about 30 minutes trolling through academia to see if there is any research to support this observation but haven't located anything yet (please comment or send through to me if there is some research!). However, I have noticed this issue across several schools. The connotations associated with the word 'theory' for so many students appear to include difficult, work, disengaging, and not hands-on. Students have misinterpreted that 'theory' is the 'Education' of PE and 'practical' is the 'Physical'. Of course, this is inaccurate (not to mention implies that Health and lessons in classroom spaces are the only places learning occurs). 

Therefore, hearing colleagues use the word 'theory' especially, really annoys me. I do not want our curriculum areas to be misinterpreted by students, other staff or the community. This is something we've been battling for years already! I really hope no one makes kids run laps or gives them push-ups as a 'punishment'! So why is there still the misconception that theory = learning and practical = fun? I genuinely think some of the effects misconceptions can have on students include:

- A reduction of interest in the subject
- Less engagement/participation in tasks
- Barriers for learning progression
- Negative attitudes towards courses/classes and
- Impacts classroom dynamics

There are already several misconceptions about Health and PE (some here to name a few). I think our terminology can help to reduce these misconceptions and not create more. My suggestions: refer to the physical space you will be in for your learning experiences and frequently remind students they are learning in, through and about movement. Yes, we are learning theoretical ideas, concepts and frameworks, but learning is not just about 'theory'.

I'm Crossing The Ditch - Again!

Last week was the end of Term 2 and my second to last week being a relief teacher before moving back to New Zealand. I have liked having a more flexible working schedule and a greater work life balance - not having to attend meetings has definitely been the highlight! Once I've gotten past the frustrations of no relief being written for me or literally only "kids are working on their assignment", it's been good meeting a lot of new students and learning bits and pieces from different curriculums. Having more time for myself and exploring more of Australia with my fiancé before moving has also been great! 

When I have had relief classes when I've felt void and the kids are working well (basically glorified babysitting), I've taken the time to smash out a heap of blogposts in hindsight from the last 18 months. I'm stoked I've managed to write 21 (now 22) blogposts over the last 10 weeks while relieving. I hated that my blogging went by the wayside last year when I went back to full time after being part time in 2021. There were likely other experiences that I could have blogged about and have forgotten, but I'm happy and proud with what I have posted and hope that I can get a good rhythm of blogging when I get back to NZ.

Teaching in Australia has been challenging. I've felt that the South Australian curriculum is behind the NZ curriculum (a bit of a step back in time). Of most frustration was how normalised and embedded into everyday language was teachers and students calling Health 'theory' and PE 'practical'. This reallllllllly ground my gears. Across all three schools I attempted to shift this language and the way the teachers and students viewed the subjects. It really related back to and reinforced the old school view of HPE. I really hope I never have to have this conversation again, because I honestly and disappointingly just started to give up the longer I've been here!

My next step is going to be a whole new learning journey. We are moving to the central North Island next month and I will be teaching at Horowhenua College. I'm looking forward to a smaller school and being immersed in a school with a lot of culture - watch this space!

Mighty Microblog May

Throughout the month of May Andy Milne seeks bitesize blog posts from contributors around the world. These posts cover a whole manner of things depending on what the contributor would like to reflect on or share! This was the fourth year of microblog May and the third year I contributed. To learn more about the month (especially if you are keen to contribute next year!) check out this post.

The microblog posts I have written: - Classrooms should be safe places, right?: A prompt for teachers to consider what their physical classrooms look like and the impact this has on the general vibe of the room as well as the success of the students - Outside of Your Comfort Zone: I discussed my experiences leaping into the unknown to move to Australia and why it's important to be comfortable with the uncomfortable - From Unprecedented to Familiar: I described some of the positive impacts on my teaching that came from the last few years

In addition to the 3 microblogs for Microblog May, I have also been a guest blogger for Andy twice on his #slowchathealth website.

- Te Whare Tapa Whā: A brief description of the Māori wellbeing model based on the concept of a house with four walls

- Mental Health ≠ Mental Illness: Hopefully a helpful explanation of the difference between mental health and mental illness and strategies to support with mental health

I enjoy reading the short posts while I have 5-10 mins to kill or during break times. Much more interesting and beneficial than some of the mindless scrolling I can find myself doing! Here are my favourite posts from this year with a quote from each of them. 

- Finding Their Swish (Judy LoBianco): "We want students to internalise the joy of physical activity and to do that they must feel a level of personal success".
- Informed Decisions (Sarah Hawkins): "The STI National Strategic Plan from the U.S. Department of Human Services shares that 15-24 year-olds account for around 50% of the 20 million new STI cases in the United States each year".
- A More Engaging Pre-Test (Shelby Hosmer): "A written pretest is not my jam".
- Know Your Why (Cara Grant): "Sometimes by changing schools or positions our Why can look different, and still maintain fidelity and feed our intrinsic values as we persevere through difficult times".
- Walking Away From The Stigma (Donn Tobin): "If we are to truly change the notoriety of physical education, we need to continuously address what is considered best practice. Demonstrate what exceptional teaching looks like, how it can be highlighted, celebrated, and keep those to a higher expectation teaching it".
- The Joy of Eating (Nadia Moya): "Food is one of the great joys in life that we can all share. I want students to walk away from health class with excitement and curiosity about eating, and the skills to build a healthy relationship with food".
- Embrace the Goblin (Michelle Rawcliffe): "Goblin mode is when we transition from treading water to floating. In other words, our body and brain pin us down and force our head back on the pillow".

I would encourage you to get amongst Microblog month next year, even if you don't contribute there are heaps of great posts to peruse!

Apparently I Have Learnt A Thing Or Two!

One of my ex students from Orewa is currently studying to become a HPE teacher. One of her papers required her to think about HPE as a subject, teaching HPE and behaviour management strategies. She created a survey to gather information and thoughts from practicing teachers to inform her assignment (and develop her teaching). This naturally made me reflect on my practice and made me realise how far I have actually come! 

Below are my answers to her questions. Although not an exhaustive list, I thought these may help others too (and I wrote my answers while travelling to go on holiday so it was very impromptu!). 

Strategies for creating lessons that are inclusive and socially just:
- Student Choice
- Don't base everything around ''physical ability"
- Don't split by sex EVER
- Include a variety of resources/games/terms from around the world
- Encourage challenge by choice
- Peer teaching

What methods do you use to reflect on teaching?
- Discussions with colleagues
- Blogging
- Student feedback
- Reflecting on my drive home

How do you ensure your teaching is culturally responsive?
- Include opportunities for students to share
- Create a classroom culture that encourages students to step out of their comfort zone
- Include language/customs/traditions from various cultures
- Challenge stereotypes and assumptions
- Have high expectations for all students

What are some of your key behaviour management strategies?
- Play music and if this stops I need the kids' attention
- "If you have a ball, hold it still"
- "Stand still, pause where you are" (When I want to give a short instruction or piece of info but not get them to come in close)
- Getting everyone into a circle when I want to give instructions or explain a concept or have a discussion (circles are also great so everyone can see each other)
- 3 strikes for forgetting gear and then students choose their consequence
- Tone of voice: I try to remain quiet and naturally the kids become quiet (or I literally say, I feel like I'm getting louder because you are getting louder)
- "The sooner we are in, the sooner we play!"

How do you create classroom environments that are safe and meet the needs of all students?
- Set clear and consistent expectations with regard to inclusion, respect, diversity and the importance of "failing"
- Encouraging students to struggle / find learning challenging (so they step out of their comfort zone)

Do you believe it's important to educate the "whole child'? If so, what strategies do you use to ensure their wellbeing and educational needs are met?
Yes!!! I feel by creating that environment aforementioned, students are more likely to be honest about how they are feeling, what is happening in their lives and when they need help/are struggling (personally and/or academically). Establishing that environment and relationships will directly impact on their day-to-day interactions. My students (hopefully) know that if they are having a bad day/week/month then to let me know and things will be adjusted to suit them and their needs (because I say this frequently!).

How do you understand your role as a teacher and implement this into practice? What pedagogies guide your methods - if any?
My role as a teacher is to facilitate learning. To guide students to discover, practice, challenge things in the world around them! Differentiation, guided discovery, scaffolding, flow between lessons, opportunities to review learning, scenario based tasks, student choice in tasks/activities, mixture of audio/video/hands on activities, open ended questions, reflective tasks/activities

Is there a "gap" in contemporary HPE? What is the subject missing?
Only thing that comes to mind is greater aquatics education. Basic swimming yes, but more so water safety and awareness of water risks (especially at secondary school).

What does contemporary HPE need in order to add value to the subject?
- Outdoor Education is a large part of our curriculum area, but is not even in the name!
- There also needs to be more education for all teachers around the importance of the subjects (to reduce misconceptions about them).
- Greater integration of the subjects, rather than generally being segregated.
- Health should be compulsory until the end of high school - as it's a subject about life and being a positive contributing citizen to society

What's important in HPE? What values/subject matter are most of value?
Everything is important!! But everything should be tailored to the students that are in front of you - their interests, their challenges, and what is topical/relevant in that community. 

What resources/knowledge (that you don't have at the moment) would aid in expanding your teaching/the subject area?
- Greater understanding of the other curriculum areas and how we can blend/integrate more
- More time with the students!
- Greater access to facilities (and more facilities)
- Greater funding for EOTC

HPE is often regulated in school subject hierarchies far beneath the likes of English/Mathematics etc. How do you suggest we work to remove the negative stigma around the subject?
- Make HPE compulsory for all year levels
- Needs to have equitable time on the timetable
- Could include a course during university for all students (across all sectors) educating around the importance of the curriculum area
- Create more inter-curriculum courses to show the learning can be applied across many areas
- DON'T MAKE KIDS RUN AS A 'WARMUP' OR PUNISHMENT
- Don't test kids on their physical ability (unless of course it is part of a specific course analysing performance improvement or similar)

If you are specifically looking for blogposts about behaviour management, I have written a few over the years! Overall though, being asked to complete this survey for Hannah was a great little reminder of the things that I do know and have learnt/adapted/added to my toolkit throughout my teaching journey. Sometimes when the days are tough or I feel like lessons haven't gone well, I forget how much I have achieved.

Navigating An Unexpected Numeracy Challenge

As I anticipated at the start of this 7 week contract, teaching Maths was challenging. I always felt like I was half a step ahead of some students, on par with other students and even behind some! I hadn't learnt about or practiced multiplying fractions and exponents for probably 13 years, so felt incredibly rusty. I was lucky to have a PE teacher in my office that also taught 8Maths to help me out though. I would've really struggled without him!

I was asked to complete a mini inquiry/professional development plan for the time I was at Plympton. My HOD and her PLG had developed a vocab 'test' for students as part of their PDPs. The purpose of this was for students to demonstrate the key terms/language they understood at the beginning of a unit, identify areas of development (between the teacher and the student) and then complete a post test at the end (to hopefully see progression!). I thought that this could be a great little tool for me and my Maths students. I liked that this would help students to self-identify their next steps and help me to plan for differentiation. See below the table that I gave students 6 weeks ago and again this week.

After the students did all they could on the pretest of the vocab, we went through some of the possible answers for each box as a class. Anything they'd left blank or were incorrect I asked them to add a correct answer in a different colour. This then became their study guide for the next 6 weeks (during class time and at home). The kids could refer to this when they were studying at home or when they were learning/completing practice questions at school. In hindsight I should have come up with a way to make this digital or actually given them glue to stick their now study guides into their books because unfortunately throughout the unit a lot of kids lost them! Nevertheless, there were still many who referred to the guide throughout the term.

Majority of students struggled to make real life connections during the pretest. They struggled to see the connection between the terms and how they can apply them into the world around them. As a result, I made sure throughout my lessons to include a variety of scenarios that applied the terms. We had vineyards, stores, school systems, stationary, orchards, birthday parties and whatever else popped into my head while I overheard the kids chatting and while I was planning. I actually really enjoyed coming up with these scenarios because they helped me to recognise and explain how and why the terms are relevant day to day. I certainly empathise with the question "when am I going to use this in the real world?" So, I tried really hard to answer this question before the kids asked!

Earlier this week the students completed their 'posttest'. I was so proud how many of them took this seriously to see their own progress since I started with them 6+ weeks ago. Conversely, some unfortunately did not take this opportunity with open arms (many of who were also the students who'd lost their pretest). To be honest this process also demonstrated clearly to me the pressure the kids feel when they hear the word 'test'. I noticed several students this week decided that they would rather not try than get things 'wrong', even when this was just an indicator for their learning and the fear of grades was removed! There seriously needs to be a shift away from kids thinking grades make or break them. It was sad how many of them thought it was better to not try, than it was to find out where the gaps were in their learning. I hope in my next gig I can help to change this.

When they'd completed their posttest, I asked the students to complete this mini reflection (they also had completed a similar one at the beginning of the unit for me to compare to). It was interesting for me to see their progression (which I could also send to the teacher who I have replaced over the last 7 weeks), but of most interest was the comments they made. Check out alongside some of the responses the students gave to the question 'What has this process shown you and why?'

One skill I developed throughout this contract was my attempt to differentiate learning. I very quickly realised there was a major difference between the levels of understanding in my Maths class. I was genuinely surprised how far apart the top end were from the bottom end. Although it became time consuming, for most of my lessons I actually had 3 levels of tasks/activities. They all helped students to meet/work towards the learning intention of the lesson but were different levels of difficulty. I organised the physical class into 3 spaces; need 1:1 help with the teacher, feeling ok but need more practice and feeling confident and ready to be challenged. The kids were able to choose where they wanted to go and could move between the groups/spaces each lesson. I've had great feedback from the kids about this flexibility and choice between their activities, and I feel it helped many students to self-regulate, so it's definitely something I will keep in my teaching toolbox!

Overall, this gig has pushed me out of my comfort zone, but this opportunity to teach Maths has increased my confidence to try new things and attempt to include different levels of learning. Here's to the close of another chapter. I can't wait to be a reliever next term as a bit of a change of scene!

Be Comfortable With The Uncomfortable

My fiancé and I will be moving back to NZ mid year, so we decided that I wasn't going to take a full time gig this year. We knew this would give us greater flexibility to travel and I would have less stress and pressure being a reliever. The last few weeks we have been skiing in Japan to start these travel adventures. As we were heading to our last chairlift of the trip last Thursday my phone started ringing from a random Adelaide number. It was Plympton International College and they wanted me for a 7 week contract starting today!! This was super unexpected and I was actually looking forward to being a relief teacher for this term, but I decided to jump into the deep end and take the gig. I am very out of my comfort zone because I have been given a Y8 Maths class (certainly NOT my strength!). I'm nervous about this new curriculum area but I am hoping it'll give me new knowledge to have greater numeracy connections in HPE in the future, and develop new skills/teaching strategies. 

Today was my first day and it was awful. I really didn't feel supported and I was expected to be teaching 10 minutes after I had arrived even though I had just been given my classes and I hadn't stepped foot in the school before! I was assuming I would have a couple of hours to have a tour, check out the notes from the teacher I was covering and some prep time for my lessons. Thankfully I was able to wing my way through the day but requested to have the day tomorrow, which was thankfully granted. I left today feeling very rattled, frustrated and like a lone wolf. I left feeling like I made a mistake taking this short contract, so I really hope that changes over the next week or so! This really highlighted to me the importance of support - I would love to become a HOD one day and support will be a major priority!!

Even though I've come home today feeling flat and uncertain about this change, I have reminded myself about the importance of stepping out of my comfort zone and that this is another opportunity to develop my resilience. Yubing Zhang's below Ted Talk is great food for thought with regard to getting to the edge of our comfort zones. A question she posed that you could ask yourself is: "What is it that you are not doing because of a fear of failure?"