|
About Diane:
Diane is the Physical Education Department Chair at Seeger Jr. / Sr. High School. She has been teaching for 26 years total, and has been using Polar technology in her lessons for the last 4 years. Diane implemented Polar technology into her lessons after receiving the advice from other PEP grant recipients. Diane is also a member of IAHPERD, AAHPERD, the Indiana State Teachers Association and the National Education Association. She has presented at the IAHPERD State and Regional Conferences.
About Seeger Jr. / Sr. High School:
Seeger Jr. / Sr. School is part of the Metropolitan School District of Warren County
located in Indiana. The school hosts students in grades 7-12 all in one building. In this rural area, the typical P.E. class size is between 60-70 students in P.E. and 20-30 students in elective health. Students in grade levels 7-9 have been using Polar E600 heart rate monitors, PE Manager Software, TriFIT, and the Companion for four years.
Core Activities:
Diane uses use the 5 components of fitness, fitness activities, state physical education standards, HRMs daily and other activities to teach physical education at Seeger. Polar technology has given us validation and attention from the administration and the staff. In addition to our Polar training, we have attended many clinics and seminars about brain breaks in the classroom and activity based learning. There is evidence that increasing a student’s heart rate for 20 minutes before reading, math and test taking will “wake up the brain” and make learning easier. We have helped teachers incorporate active learning into their classrooms.
Using Polar:
A PEP grant was awarded to Seeger Jr. / Sr. School to fund Polar technology in P.E. classes. According to Diane, she incorporates heart rate monitors every day in class. “Some days, it may be to show our students that a slower heart rate (HR) will help them in an activity like archery. However, our students wear their watches for every activity.”
The Buzz:
Diane likes that “PE Manager and the heart rate monitors make grading a snap. The HRMs take all the guess work out of which students are working hard and who are not.”
Students like that “they have their grade books right on their wrist, so they know exactly what their HR grade is for the day. It motivates them to stay active. The printouts we can give them for any of their testing by using TriFIT gives them a hands-on written document to take home and share. They also enjoy the PE Report Card because it contains all the detail about their grade so there are few questions.”
Administration “is very data driven and the information we can gather using Polar is exactly the data our administration loves.” We were asked by our administration to lead activity time before ISTEP testing to our entire junior high. We were allotted 30 minutes to get our students up and moving and our goal was to make sure they were having fun. Here are some things our students had to say: “ISTEP was so fun this year. I really enjoyed it. Instead of ISTEP being boring you changed it up for us. You gave us activities to do which help me wake up and get moving around.” Another student wrote, “When it comes to the end of course assessments, I think we should go to the PAC (our activity center) so we can concentrate and get more focus.”
Personal Highlight:
“Our students are on the move constantly. We do not have students trying to hide in the background. They are accountable for their own activity level daily. We have also seen several students lose 20-30 pounds within a school year and they tell us they have done nothing different than just participating in their zone during P.E.”
|
