By giving students a first-hand look at their favorite fitness activities, PE teachers help students understand the types of health-enhancing workouts they can utilize away from class.
Across the United States, teachers saw student engagement increase when they created heart rate-focused lessons based on their favorite exercises. In addition to traditional PE lessons, students learned the heart rate-raising benefits of exercises including:
Companies that collect personal information of online consumers must remain vigilant and responsible in safeguarding that data.
Through its partnerships with schools across the world that use the Spirit System, Interactive Health Technologies collects personal information on students. Understanding the importance of securely storing the data, IHT takes several key steps to safeguard the data including but not limited to:
For schools who use the Spirit System, which includes the adidas Zone for IHT Spirit wrist heart rate monitors, IHT collects heart rate data, analyzes it and delivers immediate feedback to students about their just-completed P.E. workout. The data personalizes the workout for each student and delivers a report specific to each student’s performance via email immediately following the session. The system sends the report only to the student, the parents (if they opt to receive the report) and the teacher.Read More
Peers Honor Hamburg Area High School’s Donine Kelly as a ‘Visionary Leader’ Among PE Teachers For Focus on Both Physical, Emotional Wellness
Two years ago, Hamburg Area (Penn.) High School’s Donine Kelly changed the emphasis of her physical education curriculum from sports to fitness and wellness. Instead of teaching students how to play specific games, her curriculum, honored recently with regional awards, focuses on the tools students need to properly manage their overall wellness, placing the same importance on the social wellness as physical.
“Our goal is to not only improve their fitness levels, but also improve their overall wellness,” Kelly said. “We have moved away from the traditional, old school, team-based sports model and moved towards a more lifetime, fitness-based model that really addresses all of the spheres of wellness — mental, emotional, social, physical and spiritual.”Read More
From frisbee to circuit-based fitness, physical educators are using PE technology to teach students the long-term value of heart rate training in a variety of ways.
“Part of our goal is to expose students to as many different activities and fitness exercises with the hope that it will transfer outside of the classroom and promote lifelong fitness,” said Kelly Spreen, a P.E. teacher at Shelburne Community School (Vermont) and the co-creator of one of the winning IHT Spirit Video Challenge lessons, “Fun, F.I.T.T.ness and Forever Strong.”Read More
“This is what we need to do to help students be healthy and fit for life. If we don’t provide the necessary tools, we are doing the students a disservice.”
Aug. 3, 2017 – Two years ago, Brian Rhoads implemented a pilot program to study heart rate in his physical education classes at Valley Southwoods Freshman High School (West Des Moines, Iowa). The program continues this school year district-wide in all 13 of West Des Moines’ campuses but with IHT Spirit System equipment.
“We piloted a program using [a heart rate technology company’s] chest strap monitors in our 9th grade building,” Rhoads said. “The next year we tried out [the same company’s] wrist monitors, but they weren’t multi-user friendly in a school of 700 students.”
To meet the needs of their innovative program, Rhoads used research and analysis to convince West Des Moines’ leadership to switch to the IHT Spirit System, complete with assessment software, to be used throughout the district. As the new K-12 PE Curriculum Leader for the district, Rhoads saw a better fit for the district’s needs: the adidas ZONE for IHT Spirit wrist heart rate monitors and the IHT Spirit Assessment Measures software. He estimates that 7,500 students will use the heart rate monitors this year.
