Discuss your understanding, connections, and ah-ha’s in light of Eddie Obeng’s Smart Failure for a Fast Changing World Ted Talk.
Wow, Brenna was not kidding when she said that he talked fast. He definitely has some amazing energy that at this point, we could all use a little of. He talked so fast that I watched it a second time. I’m still not sure that I completely understood what he was saying, but I’ll take a shot. Like many of the themes that we have seen in this class, he talks about a changing world (a global world) and the importance of creativity in the workforce. After just wrapping up my book for review, “A Whole New Mind,” it seems that the same themes are overlapping. The world is rapidly changing and in order for us to keep up in it, we have to understand it first. Similarly to the book Melissa and I read, there needs to be a shift to the right hemisphere of our brains to keep up with the rapid change of this global world. We refer to an old way of thinking because that is what we know. Now, he doesn’t explicitly say what this “old way” of thinking is. I’m assuming that he is talking about traditional linear thinking, show up, work between the lines and go home. As we shifted into the information age, things sped up and this way of working was no longer productive enough to keep up with the times. I really enjoyed the quote, “We solve last year's problem without thinking about the future.” These quick fixes can’t keep up with the change. “Smart Failure” is about taking chances, thinking critically, and creatively and not always getting it right. It makes me think of an Elon Musk quote I saw somewhere that went something like, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Now try to complete that in a year. You most likely won’t achieve it, but you will be way further ahead than if you tried to do it in 10.” Everyone always wants the right answer, but that doesn’t always stimulate growth. Failure is good and helps us grow and see the big picture. It reminds me a lot of how this course and program is designed. It encourages us to step outside of our comfort zones and try new things. In 702, we discussed “Productive Struggle” that fits perfectly with what I think Obeng is trying to get across. This idea of deeper learning and pushing our brain to be challenged for growth. We have to be comfortable with the idea of failure to achieve our goals. It is an important part of the process. It reminds me of my experience with sports, “If you don’t push yourself to your limits, how will you ever know what your limits are?” Challenge yourself and others!
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From the beginning of 791, I knew that I wanted to focus on Adapted Physical Education(APE) for my research study. I spent the previous two years completing my APE authorization and felt that it would be a perfect fit to continue my research and development as an APE teacher. My hope is that the expertise that I gain as an APE teacher, translates to my Gen Ed PE classes as it forces me to look through a different teaching lense. My topic has remained the same since the start of class, but I have definitely tweaked and manipulated my question up to this point in an attempt to develop one that is concise and measurable. The ARP has been great for getting my thoughts down on paper. Sometimes that’s half the battle. Formulating my thoughts in writing that are clear and concise can be difficult at times. This process definitely helps. I enjoyed the introduction section of the ARP. This is where my passion for this topic comes in and the reason for choosing this research question. As I become more comfortable and familiar with the SITE model, I will continue to develop on my end user profile in my ARP. Question evolution/ Thought evolution: How do I create an impactful learning environment in APE? What are the issues in APE? How does APE help physical development? Cognitive development? Social-emotional development? Currently working around these two:
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I’m feeling comfortable where these questions are right now and the evolution that they have taken with the emphasis being on Heavy work.” The 1:1 with Brenna was very helpful being able to talk out what I have envisioned and her expertise and experience with research design. Both questions are very similar so I might end up doing a slight blend and try to roll with that for now. Measurability has been my main concern, but I think I have come up with a plan that will work which is a relief. At this point, my main obstacle moving forward will be that I have very small numbers 4-6 students and only see them once per week in APE for 30min each. I will have to work diligently to collect data.
Does “Heavy work” improve APE students' ability to achieve their goals and objectives? Or Will an emphasis on “Heavy work/ HIIT training” improve achievement of goals and objectives in APE? I’m still trying to frame my question. The traditional approach in APE is to specifically work on a skill by modifying the movement or object. Example. Student will be able to kick a stationary ball. Traditionally, you would have the student practice this over and over and then test them when their IEP comes up. I was paired with an amazing mentor in APE last year who had me questioning this traditional approach. He suggested taking a much more foundational approach to movement. This idea of helping students feel themselves in their own bodies and improve joint response by doing activities that you would more commonly see in professional athletic training. The academic term is proprioception. Examples: medicine ball work, squats, speed ladders, weighted sprints, battle rope, etc. The idea of Heavy work is seen and discussed in the world of special education and is commonly used with students on the spectrum who need behavioral support in the classroom. Running with this idea, I am making the educated guess that if heavy work works for behaviors in the classroom through a grounding response of weight, then applying it in an APE setting will help students achieve goals and objectives related to specific skills such as running, jumping, kicking, throwing, etc. An interesting thing about APE is that each student's disability can be very different. I am suggesting that the same foundational approach would be beneficial for all of my students. This would also benefit APE teachers as well as Gen Ed Pe teachers by giving them a new approach to aid in skill development. From what I have already researched, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot out there. It will be interesting to network and see if any other teachers have had some of the same ideas that I’ve been thinking about. How do I make this thing measurable? This will be the next step, trying to get my question to a place where it can be measured. Blog: This week you have explored instructional design models, Clark’s principles regarding how to design for technology use, and the SITE model for putting new learning into a bigger context. Take a moment to try and make sense of how you might use what you’ve explored in your next round of designing action research for your driving question. Share your new questions and the methods you might use to research them
My main takeaway from this week and past weeks readings is the importance of creating user/learner centered lessons. This theme resonates in the readings, ISD’s and SITE model which individually give their own perspective and opinion on how to reach our learners effectively. As I move forward with designing action research for my essential question I will start with the student/s. Designing research that is measurable and applicable will be an important task as I refine my research question. It seems logical to start with the end user profile and SITE model as I create/refine my driving question and research. Building and understanding and profile of the population that I will be applying my research to will make sure that appropriate objectives and goals are created that can be assessed. This will help me better understand learner situations or context. “The Visual Connection” has really made me think about how important visuals can be. I believe it said that 85% of individuals are visual learners. She made the point to make sure that you are using the right visual and that it isn’t overwhelming to the user. This is important to remember in lesson design. Visuals can be a very effective tool in physical education while explaining a new skill or sport. She also emphasises the importance of prior knowledge. Build on what our students already know and are able to do. The Clark reading discussed how to teach concepts, facts and processes all of which are important to think about in lesson design. I thought it was a key point that concepts are more efficient than fasts because facts can only be memorized. Facts align more with a traditional style of learning, teach facts, memorize facts, show you memorized facts. This approach has been proven not to be effective. As I lesson design, thinking about incorporating concepts rather than facts can help my students ability to more efficiently group and understand content. One way to teach facts is to have students actively participate in them. So much of what I do in PE is active participation to learn new skills and concepts. The ARCS model of Motivational Instructional Design focuses on how we keep students motivated and engaged to learn. These are such important concepts. Learning takes place when our students are interested. This all starts with curiosity. I have found this to be very true this past year in my Adapted PE class. I introduced new training regimens and focus and the students really responded well. As I have stated previously, I would like to focus my research on Adapted Physical education. Teaching students with special needs has been a passion of mine and I would like to continue to develop new and innovative ideas, building on the foundation that I put in place this past year. I haven’t narrowed down my EQ, but have been brainstorming on the following topics: Possible questions: How do I create an impactful learning environment in APE? How do I effectively shift from traditional approaches in APE? Does “Heavy work” improve APE students' ability to achieve their goals and objectives? Is there a more effective way to teach APE? Link: http://go.bubbl.us/bc1670/4cfa?/Developing-Technical-Training All three of these readings are very relatable to how we teach and how our students receive and use information. Dervin discusses Sense-making and our ability to approach information and communicate. This is important as an educator because it helps us understand how our students are approaching information. Baggio discusses the importance of visuals and the positive impacts that they can have. Our ability to receive and process information is much better with visuals. The Clark article is less about the learner and more about the process that the eduactor must go through. It is about designing lessons that are effective and contain all the components for successful instruction.
Prompt:To prepare for Session 2, please draft a blog to describe your mental processes for figuring out what the Dervin article was about. What was your meta-cognitive process? The article is dense in content - so how did YOU make SENSE of it? What is she trying to teach? Facts? Processes? Concepts? Principles?
In my first attempt at the Derwin article I started reading it in the afternoon after a morning of teaching. About 5-6 pages in I realized that I hadn’t comprehended any of the content outside of the title referring to Qualitative research. I sat it down and left it until the following morning. This time with coffee and highlighter in hand I decided to give it another try. My second attempt was much more successful, but there are still many holes in my understanding of it. New vocabulary posed a challenge and I found myself doing quite a few google searches and rereading. I tried to relate what I was reading to my own experiences to help make sense of it. Some ideas were too abstract for me to do that though. As I pushed forward through the dense wordy beginning, I started to comprehend a bit more what I was reading. Strategies to comprehend
The graphics (fig 6.1, 6.2) definitely help me better visualize what the author was trying to portray. I know personally, I do better when there is a visual. I struggle with reading comprehension so visuals can be a powerful tool for me. Alot of the article was focused around sense-making. It was described as a triangle where you start at a situation, progress to the gap, and finish with the help or use. This process essentially is a sense-making moment. This process does not have to be linear. This is a strategy for us to conduct interviews in research. Formulating questions with the “gap” in mind is important. How did the actor get to that point? What did they do to get across/ solve the problem? What was the end result? A common interview technique is the micro-moment time-line. The respondent reconstructs a situation and is asked to give a detailed description of each step. This is all formulated around the sense-making triangle and how the respondent made sense of those exact moments and where they wanted to land (fig 6.3). Each moment in itself is unique and can be interpreted in many ways. The data that is yielded is in turn qualitative in nature. Gap-defining and gap-bridging are the essential qualitative aspects to be examined according to Dervin. I’m looking forward to discussing this in class. This was a very dense article and I still feel I have very little understanding of what exactly the article is about. Informative video on Sense-making: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tACQQcSuG74 Ever since I can remember, I have been involved in sports. This passion of mine is passed down to me from my father who also loves sports and spent 30+ years of his life teaching (Math and PE) and coaching. I was told early on by many people that I would make a great teacher and coach. At the time, following in my dad's footstep wasn't the COOL thing to do. Anyway, I was wrapping up my undergrad in Anthropology, coaching high school football and baseball and ultimately decided that I was going to pursue teaching and it was the best decision I ever made. I naturally gravitated toward PE. It was always my favorite subject growing up. I struggled with writing, reading and comprehension growing up, but I was always good at sports. I couldn't wait to get outside and play each week. It didn't feel like school. It wasn't static, we were outside, we were moving, we were playing, we were interacting!
Sports have given me so many life lessons that I hope to pass along to my students and players. It has taught me perseverance, teamwork, accountability, comradery, hard work, passion, goal setting and so much more. I think these are all very important elements to be successful in life. These things can be found in multiple modalities, but for me it was sports. I love when students come up to me and say that was really hard. I always respond "good, it was suppose to be!" My struggle in PE will always be how to get my reluctant students who don't enjoy PE to buy in to what we are doing. Simply saying "come on, your getting graded," doesn't work. I've tried and tried again. Do they really hate physical activity? Is the concepts and skill level too hard? Would they rather work individually? These are question I ask a lot. As an educators, we know how important it is to access all students. I've deconstructed lessons or work from a UDL approach to help combat some of these issues that I face. I'm hoping this program will spark some new ideas that I can use to help improve my teaching and reach some reluctant students. Recently, I obtained my APE authorization. It has been a lot of fun diving into the world of special needs students. I've been lucky enough to meet with an APE teacher from Sonoma County Office of Education once a week who has mentored me through this process. He teaches at Sonoma State and passed on a lot of what he teaches to me and it has been eye opening and mind blowing. I find myself so intrigued and thinking about APE a lot. I am really hoping to focus my research in this area because I still have so much to learn. As we move along in this course, I'll have a better idea if I can move forward with that. |
AuthorMy name is Bailey Tucker. I teach Physical Education and Adapted Physical Education (APE) at Calistoga Elementary School. I have a strong passion for sports, athletics and fitness. I've been involved with sports my entire life and that is what ultimately led me to the path of teaching. I have recently obtained my APE Authorization to teach PE to students with special needs. This has been a growing passion of mine and I have immensely enjoyed working in this new field with my students. I'm looking forward to this next chapter and working towards obtaining my masters degree. Archives
February 2022
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