Runday - Alternative approach for remote Physical Education

 

Watching the small screen all day makes everyone annoying. It is happening all the time all over the world where is still suffering from the disease and trying to get back to quality education. Teachers and schools have put so much effort into learning new technologies and turn them into lessons. Google Classroom, Edpuzzle, Kahoot, Padlet, Canva, Zoom, Piku, Jamboard... These are programs and applications I have been using for my classes. Even though it helps me construct adroit online classes, it couldn't ensure better classes in the aspect of overall remote education. These circumstances have kept me think of what should be the role of Physical Education in remote education.

 

Where PE should be located in the middle of school curriculums is an old, continuing, and contesting field for many scholars. As a teacher who is teaching PE classes in a middle school, I definitely am focusing on ensuring students' physical activities as possible as I can, even though I know how important teaching intrinsic sport values are and researching about it would be my future role as a PE scholar. I just want to focus on my specific role as a middle school PE teacher during this crisis period.

 

Covid-blue has been sweeping out not only students' but also teachers' passion in every aspect. So did I. As I wrote in the last essay, I confessed that I couldn't have any enthusiasm as a teacher in the first semester. And right now, I am sure that participating in physical activities, though someone says it is nothing but a low level among Phys Ed's important value hierarchy, could ignite something important which has been covered in teachers and students deep inside. That is why I started to let them move no matter what the methods are. In this essay, I introduce a great method, Runday.

 

Runday is an application such as Nike running, which has been developed for novices who haven't tried to run 30 mins before. It has various functions that could help students who have felt fear to some extent with regard to running for a long time. The virtual voice trainer in the app informs you of important tips for running and keeps people motivated. Of course, there are a lot of similar applications in this field. But, the most effective function I want to apprise is the community, which allows to sharing of member's running records and notices members ranking in real-time. Furthermore, it has a board to communicate with each other, including photos and short comments could be added.

 

The first goal of my Phys Ed class in this situation is to let my students move. This simple purpose relieves emotional problems especially with the wonderful weather in the fall season. Running outside in the middle of the remote classes allowed students to breathe fresh air into their lungs and, more importantly, a mind. Once they participate in a short running, they share the pictures they saw and took while running outside at the community board. This process supports my second class goal which is an emotional connection. They have a chance to leave comments on other friends' comments and photos which abet each other's feelings of solidarity.

 

After then, I made a competition which is a week running challenge with Runday. It gives a small amount of stimulus to students and it works because they already know how to participate and have a positive experience with Runday. Here is the important reason that the awards should be divided into two parts. One of which competes with the running distance and the other one should deal with non-physical components, which is helping students participate more even though they already are hard to get the running distance award. Sharing good comments with regard to running feelings and changes could be one award example.

 

I want to reiterate the fact that sitting in front of a small screen won't be easy as remote classes go by. We need to not only let students move but also let them go out. Runday could be a great method to help this process leading to participation, emotional connection, and competition. As a result, remote Phys Ed classes give students the power to break the difficulties through in this day and age.

 

 

 

* Running challenge competition announcement presentation.

docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ELj6WDWMsHonlqaw6rAm1-4grCYKWoxUyOAYXCLI0Mo/edit?usp=sharing

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* Running challenge competition result

docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aDBsfKHkbFhtXLmtA8K8vl72iMsr_lgJ0rQJai1wHBU/edit?usp=sharing

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