Ozga's Blog

Artifact 1: Learning Space Design One activity I enjoyed doping was the learning space design. This was kind of uncharted territory because I teach in a gym and this assignment was for a classroom. The design took into account how kids can move in the classroom. I want this space to be a space that is inviting yet is practical. As you can see the space mirrors itself and has a workable area 9in the back for the teacher. I chose the back for the teachers desk so they would be able to see everyone while working at a private space. The circle rug is the main focal point because its a meeting area for students to divide into their groups or individually. Rugs are used to breakup the room and storage is abundant. The shelves are sued to give smaller working spaces for students as well. Artifact 2:  Organizational Readiness Results The organizational readiness tool was eye opening for me! I would have never thought by filling this out that digital citizenship would be so highly ...

Late Start Professional Development In my over ten years in the district the biggest frustration I have had is the lack of professional development. This is because unfortunately Physical Education gets thrown on the back burner in admins list of to-do's. So...most institute days and staff meetings are unplanned for PE teachers and open ended. As great as this might sound to some, it's a curse to others. Most of the time we end up debating on assessments, teaching new lessons to each other, revisit fitness standards, and so on. This project was really useful to me because in the near future I would like to start planning and developing more useful professional development for our department.  Not only will this be useful it can be three solid days of persuading others to start using more technology in PE. Walk-Through Putting on administrator's hat in education is hard to do but when your neck isn't on the line can be fun! This activity allowed me to see education...

Assessment! Assessment! Assessment! This is sometimes what I think and feel when the word assessment is said. I find this topic such an interesting one because so much of our profession relies on assessment, yet most teachers find its an area they need the most professional development in. The assignment that required us to create a student assessment plan was a fun one for me. I enjoyed this assignment because it is an area I struggle with as an educator. Why is that? I personal philosophy sometimes gets the better of me and hinders giving assessments more in my content area. Physical Education assessment a lot of times is more of a visual interpretation of a skill that is assessed. This course has allowed my to make more specific rubrics that give students a clear and concise reason they earn the grade on an assessment. Now the fun part of this student assessment plan is that I will 100% use it this year! Even though we always have a to-do list for our school work, sometimes the m...

The theme of the two artifacts I am going to reflect on is useful material outside of University of St. Francis. When I can learn something to better myself outside of the course it automatically has an impact on me. My PE department will have a guide to how to improve our professional development meetings thanks to my first artifact . Having to be openly honest about the struggles that are involved with department production was difficult. On the other hand, maybe this is an exercise that my department needs to do together to start becoming more productive. I also think the format that I created for this half day meeting could be another positive thing to get the department moving in the right direction. That is the definition of taking an assignment from a USF class and applying it at another level. I'll keep my devoted blog followers updated on the dept meetings moving forward! Disclaimer: these are not really passwords I use in real life! The ten passwords I made up were t...

My growth as a digital citizen has been huge because of the class EEND678Y. I have continually challenged myself in becoming a better educator and what a better way to do this then using my resources online. I have joined Twitter and have learned what people to follow because they have great tweets. The tweets most of the time are of students during lessons of new games or skill concepts. I have used some of them in my classes and this is a great way to network with other educators. Not only has this helped me on Twitter, but I was able to communicate with a teacher from DeKalb, IL to present at our district PE teachers. This was well received because sometimes administration forgets about PE people and what we want for professional development. Another way this class grew me was my personal hack on my passwords. The applied digital skills module had me do a Google tutorial on passwords. There I created 10 passwords that I normally use for everyday accounts online. After importing co...

The History of Grades The article that really talked to me was the one provided  here . The reason this was such a remarkable article was because I felt like I was taking a step back in time to my schooling. In this article the most important concept I took away from it was that grades take away "real" learning in the educational system. Grades were developed in the industrial era and were compared to grading shoes in the assembly line. I too felt that grades were not the biggest predictor of my learning in school. I had a great realationship with all my teachers but one thing that seemed to contradict this was my grades. I was a B student who had trouble taking tests because my memory was not great. In this article it talks about rote memorization as not predicting success after school. I was worried because when I read things in high school I had a hard time remember them for the test. Even the ACT was not something I performed well on. Enough talking about me and my sc...

The article I will be summarizing was the one  about news and entertainment media in the classroom: Using media as a means to interest students is essentially what the article is about. Using context to me is like a "hook" of a story. Media can be used as a means to get your students excited to learn and also visualize what component you are trying to broadcast to the class. Using current problems or issues in the media are ways to get students to learn historical events that mirror what is current. This is important to me because how many historical events do students say, "it's already happened so it doesn't affect me." When in reality a lot of events in our history are very common with current events in the media. Comparative media studies are assignments that have students study how media can influence their lives. The addiction of scrolling through news feeds and social media is studied and then used to help students gain an advantage in the co...

Course Reflection When thinking about this course I reflected on how I grew as an educator putting myself on screen. I am a very outgoing person in-person but when it came to putting myself online it was a little awkward. I found this weird because I couldn't pinpoint why it felt so uncomfortable.  I also enjoyed a few assignments that were included in this course. The assignment that had us create an image on Google was very helpful and productive for me as a PE teacher. I created more school spirit by drawing up plans to change the walls in my gym. Now the hard part...will I be able to find someone in our district to actually make it happen.  Gym Wall Blueprint The other assignment I enjoyed was the screencast. This assignment was beneficial because I will have a new co-worker next year and this screencast will provide them information for entering data in our heart rate monitor program.  Overall, I feel this class helped me learn about more tools t...

Why should a PE teacher incorporate graphic design in physical education? This is actually a good question that got me thinking about visual learners in my gym. I notice other gyms I have been into have a lot more graphics on their gym walls. One thing I like is the use of motivating quotes on the gym walls. This small idea can really get students thinking about their health and wellness. I also see a lot of gyms with a lot of school spirit that is included on their gym walls. This can be logos of the mascot or even something as simple as the school name. I like this because the gym a lot of time is the central meeting point for ALL students and with quotes and mascots it gives students a sense of belonging. Supporting our learners by using graphics, videos and pictures help the visual learner. I know one simple way I do this is by diagraming how a game can be played or showing a short video clip of the game. Once the students see the game/fitness component they are more likely to un...

The first artifact was the one I had the best time creating! I can honestly say that I have never had so much fun working in a small group. At first, I thought this would be a difficult assignment because we were required to collaborate by using the Google suite. I like to think that I am a pro at this but after seeing what others are capable of doing I felt a little overwhelmed. Our group decided to meet electronically one night at the same time on a Google doc. Here is where we divided up the work and begin our collaborating process. Once that was done the rest is history! We worked though the whole assignment in over about an hour. One of the challenges that I felt happened is sometimes during the planning a team member seemed to get left out. Maybe it was because they were not as fluent on Google docs/slides but they seemed to not do the same amount of work as others. They were not as vocal on making things in the slide which then meant they watched others create. This is some...