maury - yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 - Maury River MS adds IHT Spirit System to individualize PE for students
/ By IHT Spirit / adidas Zone for IHT Spirit • Case Studies • IHT Spirit System/ • • • • • / 0 Comments

Maury River MS adds IHT Spirit System to individualize PE for students

June 2, 2017 – Maury River Middle School (Lexington, Va.) aims to change the way Virginia schools engage students through physical education.

Beginning this summer and into the new school year, Maury River students will be the first in Virginia to utilize technology that puts them directly in touch with their heart rate data. The school has purchased several sets of adidas ZONE for IHT Spirit wrist heart rate monitors along with IHT’s Assessment Measures software to be used during a summer program and then during PE classes when the year begins.

Maury maury - yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 - Maury River MS adds IHT Spirit System to individualize PE for students“With childhood obesity becoming a major epidemic in our country, we saw the need to adapt our curriculum to what our children need most…individualized instruction that meets every student at their own fitness level,” said Maury River Middle School PE Teacher Vicki Black. “IHT adidas Zone heart rate monitors will allow us to connect our PE classrooms and students with the modern world of fitness technology.” Read More

ESSA essa - yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 - How Irving ISD’s Health and PE Coordinator Secured Technology Funding Through ESSA Title IV
/ By IHT Spirit / adidas Zone for IHT Spirit • Case Studies • IHT Spirit System/ • / 0 Comments

How Irving ISD’s Health and PE Coordinator Secured Technology Funding Through ESSA Title IV

With guidance from her department head, Irving Independent School District (Texas) Health and Physical Education Coordinator Sandi Cravens applied for and received $35,000 from her district’s Every Student Succeeds Act allocation.

After working with her supervisor and the district’s director of federal funding, Cravens researched the program she wanted to develop and gathered supporting material to create a proposal to purchase a set of IHT’s adidas Zone for IHT Spirit heart rate monitors and physical education assessment software in each of her district’s middle schools. Irving ISD funded Cravens request through the district’s ESSA’s Title IV allocation, which designates that funding be used for Student Support and Academic Enrichment.

Though the Department of Education is still approving ESSA implementation plans from several states, funding for the current school year has already been distributed. Physical educators are still adjusting to the new reality that they can — and must — seek out the funding that can only be used for specific programs.

“I was familiar already with Title IV but I didn’t pay too much attention to it because I assumed the money would go to another group of people in our district because that’s usually how it works,” Cravens said. “They discussed that a certain percentage of Title IV money had to be spent on the health and safety of kids. My boss, thankfully, said he knew exactly who to talk to about it.” Read More

motivated muscular fitness - yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 - Study links muscular fitness along with aerobic fitness to academic, cognitive improvement
/ By IHT Spirit / Academic Readiness • Case Studies • IHT Blog/ • • • • / 0 Comments

Study links muscular fitness along with aerobic fitness to academic, cognitive improvement

May 10, 2017 – A recent study published in Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise shows that muscular fitness, in addition to aerobic fitness, positively impacts academic performance in adolescents.

Muscular fitness muscular fitness - yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 - Study links muscular fitness along with aerobic fitness to academic, cognitive improvement
Shih-Chun Kao

The study, titled “Muscular and Aerobic Fitness, Working Memory, and Academic Achievement in Children,” details how fitness impacted the accuracy with which a group of 9 to 11-year-old students responded on academic and cognitive function tests. The study, led by Shih-Chun Kao, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, found more evidence that “aerobic fitness was associated with greater response accuracy and … increased mathematical performance in algebraic functions” while also linking muscular fitness to academic performance.

“Less is known regarding whether muscular fitness also relates to cognition, particularly in children,” he said in April, 2017. “Therefore, we conducted this study as a preliminary one to explore whether there is an association among aerobic fitness, muscular fitness, cognitive function, and academic achievement in children.” Read More

Portage-Central-Middle-School spirit system - yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 - The Spirit System in Action: A Note From a Valued Customer
/ By Interactive Health Technologies / Case Studies • IHT Spirit System/ 2 Comments

The Spirit System in Action: A Note From a Valued Customer

Nothing makes us happier than happy customers (and happy students). We recently linked arms with John Dunlop at Portage Central Middle School to implement the IHT Spirit System schoolwide for every one of his 420+ students. John has been working as a Physical Educator for over 23 years and has helped thousands of students across various age levels build lifelong health and well-being principals during his tenure. As a recent Spirit System customer, John sent us a small note outlining his experience using the system, leveraging its reporting capabilities, and connecting to parents by demonstrating exactly how their kids are performing in his PE classes. Read John’s letter below and feel free to share your thoughts on his experience in the comment section.

Thank you, John.

Read More