#AISB17PE 1 Month Later...

​Is it really a month since #AISB17PE? Conferences that I have been too in the past have been a great motivator and provided me with many practical activities which I have been able to apply within my lessons, straight away in many instances. In my previous blog post on #AISB17PE I set myself some targets, with the aim of developing my practise as a PE teacher  these were:

*Recording with a stopwatch my teacher talk time daily on specific lessons and reflect on ways to keep this to a minimum (using some of the strategies used at the conference, listed below) 
* Being an active member of #physed and using my blog more to reflect on my teaching practice. 
* To spend more time on creating my provocations, to get students hooked right away in the unit, using @NoTosh brainstorming tool.

 A big take away from the conference was the organisation of time & equipment and the environment that this creates for learning. I was particularly keen to record my teacher talk time, whilst believing that my classroom environment is a place that students are actively involved in the process of learning and that students are   teachers in their own right. Does my practise reflect this? 

During #AISB17PE Andy talked about teacher talk time and I set myself a new target of 20-30% , with this I took my stopwatch to my lessons. Teaching across various age ranges (KG, Grades 1, 3 & 4) I recognise that my teacher talk time already is somewhat dependent upon the age group I'm teaching, talk for over a minute to my KG group and a glazed over look or fidgeting tells me they are not engaged. 

Recording my teacher talk time over the last month has been an interesting experience, dependent upon the lesson and the stage of the unit students are in my talk time has been from 17% up to 42%.
 

Recording my teacher talk time over the last month has been an interesting experience, dependent upon the lesson and the stage of the unit students are in my talk time has been from 17% up to 42%. Walk and Talks; a strategy modeled by Andy where students partner up walk and share ideas and reflections on a set topic and then share with the wider group has been the biggest change in our classroom environment. This has enabled students to understand, construct or develop new learnings for one another. As students have gone through the units, walk and talks have enabled students to explore and pose more wonderings; helping us to go deeper conceptually.

I have also used 'Compass Points' to get Grade 4 students to give feedback on their fitness circuits that they have designed to try and improve 3 different components of fitness, this enabled students to receive feedback from their classmates in a quick way. I also found that students were more honest and open to constructive feedback that they received when doing this, in comparison to giving feedback face to face.

Andy also showed us quick ways to get the class divided into teams, these generally got students up and running as soon as they came in and when a signal was given students had to go toe to toe or back to back etc, anyone who didn't get a partner or part of a group could meet up in a already assigned friendship area. This has helped a lot in reducing inactivity, and also has led to a decrease in behavioural issues as upon reflection these issues occur during 'down time' and by reducing this transitions between activities have been a lot smoother. 

One month on from #AISB17PE and there have been many takeaways from the conference that have had an instant impact on my role in student learning. Teacher talk time was the big focus as I started on this blog post, but as I have gone through the last month thinking about this I have decided that going forward I will need to consider a more effective way of measuring teacher talk time than just minutes and seconds. There are times when it is needed to front load a lesson, maybe at the start of a unit or during a provocation. Is there a way that I can measure the value of what I am saying? ​