The Power of Visual Feedback and Student Agency

Although this blog post's purpose is to highlight how visual feedback and student agency help learners grow in their learning, I would like to add that this is something that can be done in any grade.

At the beginning of the Rhythmic Gymnastics unit of inquiry, I shared with G5 students what was the success criteria and what was going to be their summative assessment.

Learners used their previous knowledge and newly learned gymnastics skills to inquire into what they needed to do to create a floor routine.

They taught themselves basic ways of using rhythmic gymnastics equipment, such as a ball, a ribbon, or a hoop, watched different rhythmic gymnastics videos to get inspired and inquired onto the best ways to combine a specific gymnastic skill such a roll, balance, leap or jump, with the equipment they chose to use.

Throughout the unit, gymnasts reflected on their own practice by completing exit tickets and forms and thinking of the use of their time while working independently and with others. They also reflected on how engaged they were in the unit.

During the whole unit, I gave constant feedback to learners. Sometimes I would just give them quick tips, or ideas on how to make a sequence of movements or how to transition from one movement to the next one. Others I filmed them while performing and shared my thoughts with them.

My TA filmed each group of gymnasts as the rest of the class kept on practicing. I used those clips on the following lesson to confer group by group.

Visual feedback is powerful. Students watched themselves performing, we looked at the quality of the skills and talked about how to improve those. Using the success criteria we thought together about their routines. Some of the learners realized then that they forgot to add a leap, or that their use of the space was very limited, and so on.

I spent the whole lesson watching those clips with learners, group by group and felt that they got very meaningful feedback that they would apply right away.

What pleased me most, is that when I was working with a single group, the rest of the students were very engaged in their task, practicing over and over and trying to get better at their skills and their overall routine.

Today, students reflected on their work and added their thoughts in this grid:

Ms. Michelle Class1 and 2
Mr. Garrett's Class
Ms. Lou's Class1 and 2

Wednesday and Thursday are their final performances.
Can't wait to see them!
We will film every group and share it so parents and the community can also see students in action.

Gymnastic Portfolios in Grade 4 PE

Grade 4 students have been tasked with creating an electronic portfolio to demonstrate their Gymnastic skills. Students have chosen the method that they feel works best for them to present their performances.

Below are samples of some of the work completed so far.

G3 Gymnastics

During this UOI, G3 learners have been inquiring into the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs, and values.

In physical education, G3 learners have been exploring different gymnastics skills and choosing the ones they preferred to create their performance.

Our central idea was: "Performance is influenced by purpose and audience"

Having that in mind, learners thought of who would be their audience while performing, and why they chose to do that specific performance.

During the UOI, students worked on single point balances, headstands and handstands with or without support, different rolls, jumps, and vaults. They got constant feedback as they practiced their skills. Peer and teacher feedback.
I also found that visual feedback really helped them while performing different gymnastics skills and they were able to improve the skills as they understood better what to do or how to do it.

Below you can see some pictures of G3 gymnasts in action.

Next week, students would be performing in the gymnastics room. Some of them choose to do their floor performance individually, while others preferred to do it with a partner or in a small group of three or four gymnasts.

We will be filming their performances and will upload them to their drive after.

YAPP Floor Hockey

 Yesterday a group of Grade 4 and 5 students travelled to the Canadian International School for an afternoon of fun playing floor hockey. Hopefully this will become a regular fixture on the YAPP calander.

G1 Gymnastics Unit

G1's gymnastics unit is now in full swing.

Our central idea for this unit of inquiry is: Gymnastics involves making patterns in our movements.

Learners are practicing several floor skills, such as rolls, balances and different weight transfers.
You might have seen your kids in action already as I started to add some short clips of their forward and backward rolls on Seesaw.

Last week they worked on many different balances with a partner. Students understood how important is to control their bodies and have a good form while doing gymnastics. They collaborated to create their own balances with their partner and made sure they held them for, at least, 3 seconds.