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
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.
“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
“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.
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
Wearing new wrist-based heart rate monitors that track student progress toward daily class goals, Crestview School of Inquiry (West Des Moines, Iowa) physical education students are proving that a little motivation can last a lifetime.
“It’s a really strong motivator and it’s something that pushes the students,” said Crestview P.E. teacher Chris Amundson. “It becomes an internal motivation, an intrinsic motivation.”
“Students are loving the Zones,” Amundson said on Jan. 17. “They get mad at me if they come in the gym and the Zones aren’t set up and ready for them to use. They are mad that they have to go and do something else first before they can put them on. It’s just kind of normal for them to use the Zones.”Read More
