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About Rick:
Rick is the co-director of PE4Life Academy in Grundy Center, Iowa and has been teaching for 27 years. Rick has been teaching with Polar technology since 1992. In 1993 Rick was honored as the Iowa Elementary PE teacher of the year. Rick's featured presentations are highlighted by his lesson at the 2003 National PE Day in Washington D.C., his testimony on Prevention and Wellness Initiatives before the Senate Committee on Appropriations in 2004, and his presentations at the National PE conference in 2005 and 2007. Rick completed his Masters Degree in 2007 from the University of Northern Iowa in Physical Education. In 2008 Rick was honored as an inductee in the University of Northern Iowa “Hall of Excellence” only the second Physical Education instructor to be honored. Most recently, in 2009 Rick had the distinct honor of hosting the Secretary of Education, Arnie Duncan, who visited the Grundy Center Elementary Physical Education program, the first Physical Education program he visited in his tenure as Secretary of Education.
About Grundy Center:
Grundy Center was identified in May 2003 as the first elementary PE4Life Academy in the nation. Grundy Center is located in Grundy Center, Iowa. In this rural school the typical P.E. class size is 20 -24 students. For the last 18 years at Grundy Center, teachers have been using Polar heart rate monitors (HRMs) in class, and have also been using the TriFIT Assessment system, PE Manager software, Companion PocketPC and Cardio Timer since 2000. In 2010 Grundy Center began using the Activity Monitors with their students as well.
Core Activities:
The Physical Education staff has a mission to "Energize and Educate for Healthy, Active Lifestyles" and focuses on teaching students the knowledge and skills to invest in their own health.
Using Polar:
A Grundy Center Local Foundation Grant provided the start-up funding for Grundy Center to use Polar technology in 1992. The Grundy Center PE staff incorporates Polar products daily for grades K-12. Bev Ahern, the 6-12 lead PE teacher and the 2002 Iowa State Secondary PE of the year joined the Grundy Center teaching staff in 2009. Rick and her work with the University of Northern Iowa in leading a first of its kind Masters Program, called "Teaching with Technology" that brings graduate students from all over the country to become "Polar Scholars" for one year teaching in Grundy Center using Polar and other technologies. Bev and Rick both believe "Data Drives Decisions" and this data provides student and teacher accountability and is important information for administrators to validate why we need PE.
The Buzz:
Rick likes using Polar for many reasons, the paramount reasons being for individual student accountability, leveling the playing field for all students, to give students permission to adjust intensity and the immediate feedback for students and teachers. It is important students have the ability to see the immediate feedback of how they invested in their own health; after class at the elementary students retrieve the data from the watches manually while at the high school level students download their own heart rate monitors after each class.
Mr. Stevens, Grundy Center School Superintendent says,
"The Polar technology has effected us on two levels. First, teachers need to make instructional decisions based on formative feedback. Monitoring the students in a formative matter, day-by-day, moment-by-moment in physical education is revolutionary. Teachers can make instructional decisions off of the data and that was not possible without technology. The use of technology in PE is not an incremental change but a fundamental major shift in how we teach and how kids learn. The second part of the equation is student learning. As educators we want the students to eventually be self-appraising and self-directed no matter what content we're teaching. We want students to learn something of value. How do you become a person who can take better care of oneself without immediate objective feedback? Without data how do students gain that knowledge? They don't, they simply guess? Through technology students will become more self-appraising and more self-directed. The data provided is not someone's opinion but science. It is the truth."
Personal Highlight:
Rick says, hosting the Global Forum for Physical Education Pedagogy In May of 2010 was the highlight of his career. http://www.globalpeforumgc.org/grundy-center To be able to showcase our community and the Grundy Center Community Schools was a life changing experience for me professionally. Being able to host the top professionals from 30 countries from around the world to show them how we were integrating technology in our physical education delivery was most rewarding. I hope we can become the change agents for futuristic cutting edge teaching practices using technology for our profession."
Grundy Center was featured in the 2003 Strategies newsletter! Read more here!
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