Money, money, money....it makes the world go round and there is just not enough. The constant struggle with education in the U.S. is always going to be money. Unfortunately, education isn't valued as much as it should be and teachers are stuck trying to stretch a nickel into a dollar. On the bright side, there are some people out there who do want to see teachers succeed and are willing to give us their money in the form of a grant. There are numerous opportunities for teachers to write grants for innovated ideas for their classrooms. I my district, we have a foundations called the Indian Prairie Educational Foundation or the IPEF. Each year, the IPEF funds hundreds of grants from across the district to help teachers bring their ideas and innovations to life. My grant proposal was created for my department to receive a classroom set of heart rate monitors. Heart rate monitors are a great way for teachers to see actual results on how their students are performing in their classes. Gone are the days of "guessing" how hard a kid is working in my class. With a heart rate monitor, I will be able to see the results an know if they are exercising in their target heart rate zone. Being able to do this will also help my students learn how to self-assess and monitor their own fitness levels. Because of the cost of a heart rate monitor, I was only able to ask for a classroom set. If approved, the heart rate monitors will be rotated through each teacher on a weekly basis. It is my hope to one day be able to get two more classroom sets so that each teacher can have their own and be able to plan their lessons accordingly.
Assessment was always a scary word for me. I always thought they required pencil, paper, and a time limit. As I have been working though the course work for this endorsement, I have learned that assessments can be anything to help you realize if your students are learning what you have intended. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this particular course. I felt that all of the assignments we were asked to create were things that I could use in my PE classes. Module 3 dove into the development of summative and formative assessments. One of the articles written by the faculty of the NIU Development and Instructional Design Center broke down the components of each type of assessment and explained what each one entails. You can read the full article here . This article can be used as a starting point for many teachers, myself included. However, the more I dove into this article and the others in this module, I realized that I was doing most of the examples in my class...
Hi Valerie! That is so cool. I do hope you get the grant approved. I had never written a grant and for this course when I did so, I was super excited to see that our request for flexible seating was actually approved. Your idea for heart monitors is truly a fun way for students to monitor their own movements and now that students are glued on to devices, maybe this will be a way to get them up and about and bring awareness for a healthy lifestyle. Thanks for sharing. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteI am hoping your grant for heart rate monitors will be funded. It is a wonderful way to use tech to helps kids see the relationship between activity and heart rate and why this matters!
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