Flipped Classroom in Action: Part 1

I have run a weightroom fitness program since the beginning of this course so I decided to adapt and apply an innovative framework to the program, Flipped Classroom. On average I have 15-20 participants every afternoon after school. Participation for some vary depending on their extracurricular involvements and home life, since this is only an extra-curricular itself I feel the responsibility to motivate students to continue participating. I see a variety of students: male/female, athletes and some who are just trying to lose weight or get into better shape. I have been coaching and running this weightroom program for the last five years at this school, since before I completed teacher’s college. In this time, students have always come to me with questions about how to improve their fitness levels, strength, and body composition.

This program simulates a health and physical education course already taught at the secondary level, Health for Life and Units from Healthy Active Living. I have found that not all students have time in their schedules to take extra HPE courses but still want to maintain a healthy active lifestyle. A weakness of mine was that I failed to see how I could use the curriculum documents as a resource for this program, as well as not having much of a learning framework for the program. I found it a sensitive topic to ask students, under no obligation to do homework or think critically for the program, to put in some extra work to work towards their goals.

Up until this point students learning had been loosely inquiry based, where they would ask questions and receive an answer on the spot but not do any sort of research for themselves. A strength for this program is that I have a lot of personal experience and knowledge in the subject that goes far beyond the curriculum and I try to relate it to each student in a way that they will best understand. My next steps were to adopt the flipped classroom framework and establish a link between the curriculum and my personal knowledge while motivating students to continue participation in this extracurricular program. Engage students in the material so they are self-motivated to learn and improve on the curriculum expectations I’ve adopted from the Health for Life and Healthy Active Living classes.