Health and Physical Education (PE) for Elementary Classroom Teachers, referred to as KINS 389, satisfied both my liberal studies major and the Cormier Honors College requirements. This course focuses on health and physical education and how future classroom teachers can integrate movement and physical activity within the classroom for their students.
This course challenges me to reimagine my classroom to engage my prospective students in movement and physical activity. At first, I had some ideas of how I would integrate movement in my classroom. After this course, my repertoire increased, where I am now thinking about how I will teach my lesson and incorporate movement to engage my students in what I’m teaching them in the classroom. I found this course interesting because I got to explore a different field within education and how I can incorporate this field within my teaching practice. As a special education major, this course enables me to consider movements when working with students with or without special needs. Providing short movement breaks allows students to re-energize their brains and lessen the energy level. I hope I can use this information and activities in my classroom soon.
The artifact I selected to showcase the work I have done in Health and Physical Education for Elementary Classroom Teachers is my honors enhancement project, which focuses on the social benefits of recess for students with a sensory processing disorder. Sensory processing disorder affects how the brain processes sensory information and impacts both children and adults. My group members and I define and describe sensory processing disorder and explain the benefits of recess. Using the research we gathered, we provided recommendations on enhancing the recess setting to benefit individuals with sensory processing disorders. I found this research exciting because I learned about individuals with special needs and applied the concepts I learned to this research. In addition, I collaborated with my peers to research and write the final paper to demonstrate the research we conducted. I have included the research paper my group and I worked on below: