As a newly qualified teacher based in the Midlands of England, I have had the pleasure of teaching PE across every key stage of education. The mental gymnastics of going from planning a lesson on the musculoskeletal system, grounded in retrieval practice, cognitive load theory, and strands of Rosenshine’s Principles, to explicitly teaching the importance …
What if the thing holding back your strongest student work isn't rigor — it's the fact that you've assigned one product to thirty different people? We spend a lot of time designing what students will learn. We spend a lot less time thinking about who gets left out when we also dictate exactly how they …
Continue reading Choice Isn’t Lowering the Bar — It’s Raising the Ceiling
The pursuit of excellence in Health and Physical Education is an ongoing act of finding balance (or “Tau” in the Aotearoa-New Zealand context I come from). As educators, our primary mission is to create a learning environment where every student, regardless of their capabilities or background, can find a meaningful connection to movement and Hauora …
Teaching is often treated as a problem to be solved. Pick the activity. Link it to a standard(s). Sequence the lesson. Measure performance. In physical education, this can show up as perfectly timed lessons, detailed progressions, and tightly structured plans … everything mapped out in advance: the day, the week, the month, the year … …
As I’m wrapping up my fourth year after I stepped away from my own classroom and having become a super sub (just a fancy way of saying I sub every day at one school…and I get paid a little more for it), I have gained a unique perspective that I’ll take along with me when …
Every few years, a new activity captures the interests of our students. Pickleball was hot for a minute, Spikeball was visible in every park and beach. Cup Stacking blew up for a while, and for a short period, each of these activities had their moment. If your community is anything like mine, it would appear …
Launched in 2020, over 240 educators and authors have joined in with the last six #microblog events here on slowchathealth.com. All six have been a huge success, lasting a whole month and featuring voices from across the globe. Sharing bite-sized blog posts of approximately 500 words, there have been submissions from experienced bloggers, first-time writers, …
Ever since I watched Dale Sidebottom keynote at the PE Institute in North Carolina I've wanted to weave in some dice-based activities with my classes. I found this great deal online for 100 dice, but they sat in a drawer unaccompanied by an activity, until now. We return from break on a shortened schedule, and …
Continue reading Dicebreaker. The Connection-First Icebreaker
In a recent #Slowchathealth post, Andy Milne, shared a story about a “classroom moment” where his students took control of the learning environment and taught each other. The topic was menstruation and how to be supportive. A young man asked what more could boys do to be supportive, and this is what happened: “As I …
Continue reading Creating Environments for “Classroom Moments”
Every October, educators, health professionals, and communities mark Health Literacy Month which is a time to shine a light on the importance of understanding and using health information to make informed choices. At its core, health literacy is about more than reading a pamphlet or following doctor’s orders. It’s about giving people, including our students, …
Continue reading 5 Ways You Can Bring Health Literacy Month to Life
When I first wrote about using Hexagonal Thinking to help students explore the 10 Dimensions of Wellness, I shared how powerful it was to see them physically (or digitally) connecting concepts together. The beauty of the hexagon activity lies in the way students can literally move ideas around, discovering new links and debating which connections …
Continue reading Wellness Dominoes: the Ripple Effects of Wellness
Hey there! As a health teacher at Chestnut Hill Middle School, I’ve had the chance to work with some amazing students and watch them grow, learn, and figure out the many things that make up their health—both social, mental and physical. It’s a fun, but sometimes tricky time in their lives, right? With everything going …
Drum roll, please! It’s that time of year again when we reflect on the highlights from the blog. As always, these posts resonated with readers for a variety of reasons—some were the most-read, others sparked thoughtful conversations, and a few are timeless classics that just keep inspiring. Whether you’re revisiting old favorites or discovering them …
Continue reading Top 5 Blog Posts of 2024: A Recap of the Year’s Best Reads
As educators, our journeys are defined by growth, reflection, and transformation, and each stage of our career tells its own story. In my NYSAHPERD keynote speech, I explored six stages of teaching, drawing on my personal experiences and insights from nearly three decades in education. I labeled the first stage, “Aspiration and Entry,” which will …
Continue reading Where It All Began: Navigating the Early Stage of Teaching – A Keynote Excerpt
Have you ever cooked a meal that was fine but lacked that spark? It got the job done but wasn’t exciting or memorable. Teaching can feel the same way. Sure, you can throw together a lesson on the fly, and it might cover the basics. But if you really want to engage your students, you’ve …
Continue reading Spice Up Your Lessons: How Meaningful PE Ingredients Transform Teaching
What if I told you that I taught an entire PE lesson without telling my students what to do? Inspired by a conference session from Lisa Smith and Sarah Gietschier-Hartman entitled Reinventing HPE Teaching, that asked attendees to 'grow with our students' and DiSrUPt our teaching practices, I was determined to try something new with …
Continue reading Empowering Students: How I Led a PE Class Without Giving Instructions
I became a Health and Physical Educator to help make a difference for everyone I come into contact with. There are times when you do not think you are making a positive impact on your students; however that is far from the case. You get to serve so many roles with your students, from teacher, …
According to an article from Edutopia; Brain Breaks are “planned learning activity shifts that mobilize different networks of the brain.” (Willis 2016) A while back I was scrolling through social media posts and saw a response from Andy Milne. He suggested that brain breaks should be called brain boosts. This perspective helped me see a …
Exit tickets have proven to be a vital tool to create meaningful PE. They enable student voice and for students to have a greater connection with PE as they are helping to shape the direction the learning will take. What is an exit ticket? Exit tickets are given to students to give their feedback or …
Mayday! Mayday! My Lesson is Crashing! Whether you are a first year teacher, or an experienced educator, at one point or more than one point a lesson may not go quite as you planned. You may have the most thought out, engaging lesson that you believe will rock the world of your students and when …
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