Students at Hamilton Bicentennial Elementary School (Port Jervis, N.Y.) gave their teachers new insight into their athletic abilities during last year’s Warrior Kids Heart Challenge. Teachers Jon Foley and Nicole Beam created the challenge – an obstacle course fashioned after popular television competition American Ninja Warrior – as part of the school’s American Heart Association unit. Read More
Teachers find students who complete at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise before school are more ready to meet their toughest academic challenges.
By studying the physiology of brain development during activity and pairing that with academic assessments, teachers have developed a formula for success. From Paul Zientarski and Phil Lawler in the early 2000s to University of Illinois-Urbana researcher Shih-Chun Kao’s 2016 findings, PE teachers are helping students boost their academic achievement. Read More
By focusing on activities that promote lifetime fitness, Scripps Middle School’s Kim McCool created new levels of excitement and achievement among her PE students. Now she hopes to extend that motivation beyond school hours.
McCool’s students wear the IHT ZONE wrist heart rate monitors during class, and the teacher continually sees student engagement soar. But when she asked her students how they remain active away from class, few had answers that made the teacher smile. Read More
Using data collected from the IHT ZONE wrist heart rate monitors his students wear during class, Hudson High School PE (Iowa) teacher Sean Leonard will give students the freedom to personalize his curriculum during the next school year. Rather than participate in Leonard’s preselected daily activity during class, they’ll have the freedom to choose the activity that drives each of them to achieve their daily goals of time spent exercising at an elevated heart rate.
Lessons from an ‘Eye-Opening Experience’
Collect heart rate data regularly: Be consistent with the use of heart rate monitors. As students see the technology as part of their routine, the data will be a true reflection of the effort they give.
Offer a variety of activities to motivate students of all fitness levels: Heart rate data enables teachers to see exactly how each student performs in relation to their goal. Students will respond differently to each activity. Help students find activities that drive them to meet their daily goal.
Challenge students to do their best: The ZONE shows student and teacher in real time how hard the student is working. Each student has their own best, regardless of how fast they run or how high they jump. Reinforce to the class that each student’s best effort is different.
Leonard introduced his students to the IHT ZONE monitors in January to collect daily heart rate session data. The data he’s collected has prompted him to rethink the way he approaches his PE curriculum. From what he has learned so far, he plans to test personalizing his class by letting students choose the fitness activities that motivate them the most. Read More
PE students at Scripps Middle School (Lake Orion, Mich.) know which activities get them working the hardest.
Based on data she gets from the IHT ZONE heart rate monitors her students wear during class, teacher Kim McCool agrees with her students. When her classes include their favorite activities, more than 98 percent of her students meet their session goal for minutes of moderate to vigorous activity. On mandatory fitness assessments, students don’t meet that near-perfect threshold but aren’t far off. Read More