As an international teacher, I have found that students benefit from knowing and implementing fitness concepts into their daily lives. Fitness concepts are important to understand, because generally students engage in PE classes every other day. As their educator, it is very personal to me to want every student that leaves my class to understand HOW and WHY being active OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL is beneficial. By having my students choose FITT goals, they are given the opportunity to challenge their physical fitness in ways outside of my direct instruction. 

The are three fitness tests that give students their current level of fitness: push-ups, sit-ups and a 12-minute Cooper run. Push-ups and sit-ups are done until exhaustion with the FitnessGram track. At the end of each test, students know what they have achieved. The 12-minute Cooper run is similar; it's a cardiorespiratory test meant for students to run as far as they can in 12 minutes. Similarly, at the end they have a concrete number so they can see what they have achieved. During our next 8 weeks, students will be working out during AND outside of class to strive for a higher score! 

We just recently had our second test of the semester and I couldn't be more PROUD about the progress my students have made. 80% of them increased their scores by over 15% on EVERY test. 100% of them increased at least one of their scores! As a educator, it shows me their progress from work they are doing outside of class.

Soon, I will be launching my TOP TEN lists of INDIVIDUAL students who have performed the best for each test, as well as next semester's top percentage gained by each TEAM. Check in on my website, and I'll keep you posted!

Stay Active, Be Healthy! 
@PhysEdDude

Carmel McNaught is RED, Retired and Extremely Dangerous, Keynote speaker. As an educator, "playing in the sandpit is no longer enough." To many times teachers get a new app or find something digitally, then use it in the most basic way. In order to get better results we need to think holistically about a systematic implementation, we need to become digitally literate.

Information is NOT knowledge. There is masses of information at the fingertips of our students, but the roll of educators is to facilitate the relationship of "internet resources" and the students. Smart devices does not make a knowledgable student, there needs to be the switch in education from a "what you know" mentality to "show me what you can do."

I have been blessed to have a teacher training program at the University of Minnesota-Duluth that did not just drive home pedagogy, philosophy and other "information" essential for all teachers to know. It gave opportunities to innovate and challenged me to perfect the process of creation. The education for new teachers needs to change, but that's not the end all. We need to have continued development of our current teachers as well. If we want our students to be innovative and creative, our teachers need to lead by example.

In order to change the current school understanding, we need to change the RESULT, that will lead to changing the process. Changing the result specifically highlights the way we assess. Changing the way things are assessed, will allow students to break out of the constraints of this current boring educational system and develop their OWN education.

A worthwhile pedagogy that will lead to student learning needs to look something like the following. 

iPads bring students personalized learning and allow students to practice skills throughout the many educational apps. It caters to specialized subjects especially Chinese. 

If you don't know, the Chinese written language is very specific which makes it difficult to master. Certain strokes need to be done at specific times. After talking to a Chinese IB teacher, we brainstormed a way to use the @Educreation app to not only video record strokes, but also record the student talk through their thought process. A great thought about how we are redefining the assessment process for writing. This could be manipulated for younger ages to copy the alphabet and practice other words. Simply upload a photo of what you want the student to copy and then let them copy and practice whilst recording. 

That is about it for this one. Interesting non the less.

After sitting through a morning session with a couple of Aussies, I was able to walk away with some great video resources that can help integrate video into the classroom. These two come from a school where they have been 1:1 laptops for 20 years. 

Shared from the conference, here is another link to 197 Video Resources. They are listed by subject area to make things a little bit easier. Below were some of my favorites. Video resources are a great way to engage students and give them another voice to learn. 

After a short conversation with Ana Parra who is currently teaching IB Spanish in Thailand, we had some trouble finding videos specifically on the Spanish language. Regardless, we stumbled across something she could use with her higher level learners. If you ever go to a TED Talks video, on the bottom right you can TRANSLATE the video. We talked about having students find a subject they are interested in, watch the video and then translate from English to Spanish. They can check their translation afterwords to see how close they are to a professional translator. Just one way to engage and challenge some students. 

Many people are wondering, "where do I start when flipping my classroom?" "What are some qualities of a video?" "What's going to be engaging for your students?" Have a look at this man, Jon Bergmann, who has some great insight when it comes to answer the previous questions. Here is his website, have a look and begging the flip!

Here is a really cool video that is show science experiments in only 6 seconds. By having the students create a video and display their knowledge in 6 seconds allows educators to get a very thought out response. Gareth from Hong Kong and I talked about how students could make a vine video as an EXIT TICKET and post it to a @Twitter #hashtag. Imagine twenty 6 second responses about your lesson posted to #SubtractionWithMrX.