David Szczesny and Alli Wierda

PTH 655 Teaching and Learning

31 July 2019

Teaching Experience

Section 1: Needs Assessment

Our learners for our teaching experience were 2nd to 4th graders with ages ranging from

7-9 years old. These children have communication disorders that are mainly expressive and

receptive in nature. They do not necessarily have any cognitive deficits, but there may be some

developmental delay as a result of the communication disorders. One child is deaf with a

cochlear implant and does not have much speech output and another child with autism is very

sensitive to loud noises. The rest of the children do not have anything specific to note, but they

all need to be consistently engaged in order to keep them participating. The children are less

anxious when presented with a schedule so they know what they are going to be doing. They also

do well with visuals, repetition of directions, and emphasis on key words to help focus them on

the task at hand. 

The level of expertise of our audience is minimal. The children have experience with

general, everyday exercise including but not limited to playing on the playground, physical

education class (sports, running), playing at recess, etc. They likely have some knowledge of

exercises such as squats, jumping, push-ups, sit-ups, and more but do not have experience or

knowledge regarding organized exercise (i.e. going to a gym, running on a treadmill, etc.). 

Our audience expects to have fun and play while learning about exercise/physical

activity. They will not do well with sitting and having to listen about exercise/physical activity

for long periods of time, so we will cater to that by being more interactive with them. The
expectations are not high with this audience as they are young, at camp, and listening/following

directions can be challenging.

For the needs of our audience, we gathered information from the two student speech

language pathologists (SLP’s) that we partnered with on this project. They informed us that the

children do best with verbal and visual cues, repetition, and rephrasing of statements if there is

confusion. They also said that it is helpful to create a “story line” which is an agenda of what we

will be doing during our presentation. This helps make the students less anxious when switching

between activities and aids in keeping them more focused. The SLP’s also said quick transitions

between activities is key because otherwise the children begin to lose attention and interest as

well as get distracted.

Section 2: Learner Centered Objectives

1. Psychomotor: At the end of the presentation, 75% of the students will be able to

demonstrate an exercise that was taught.

2. Cognitive: At the end of the presentation, all students will be able to choose between

pictures and discern which is considered physical activity and which not 100% of the

time.

3. Affective: At the end of the presentation, all students will point at a visual analog scale

(VAS) with smiley faces (0-10) with 0 being very happy and 10 being very sad. 100% of

the students will select a 2 or lower.

Section 3: Content

During our time teaching the students we used frequent opportunities and different delivery

methods in order for the children to process the information. Delivery methods included visual,

auditory, and kinesthetic. We chunked the information into four main groups: learn about

physical activity, exercise demonstrations, relay activity, and show me an exercise learned. We

used various active learning strategies for reinforcement of the information taught such as

lecture, practice by doing, demonstration, discussion group, and immediate use of learning.

1. Learn about physical activity: This was more lecture based and involved discussion with

the students. The students were asked how much physical activity they should be getting

a day. Based off their age we assumed they have been taught this in school either in

physical education class or another part of their curriculum. We assumed right as one

child answered correctly saying 60 minutes. We then proceeded to have a discussion as to

what they thought was considered physical activity. Together we came up with playing

tag, running outside during recess, and riding a bike. In order to confirm that the students

knew the difference between exercises and non-exercises, they were shown pictures of

both and had to state if the picture was exercise or not. They were able to distinguish

between the two 100% of the time.

2. Exercise Demonstrations: Using the exercise pictures they were just quizzed on, they

were taught how to complete the eight different exercises. The exercises were very basic

such as jumping jacks, squats, 2 foot jumping, etc. Due to the simplicity of the exercises,

we assumed the children had done or seen all of the exercises previously. We used the

active learning strategy “practice by doing” in order to reinforce these exercises. The
 students completed 10 repetitions of each exercise in hopes to increase their retention

rates of the exercises.

3. Relay Activity: During the relay the children ran down to the cone, were shown two

pictures (one exercise and one non-exercise picture previously tested on), they were

required to point to the exercise picture, complete five repetitions of the exercise, and run

back. This was a great way of incorporating all of what they had learned thus far and

executing the exercises as well.

4. Show me an exercise learned: To tie up our activity day with the children we sat in a

circle and asked them to demonstrate their favorite exercise. This incorporated the active

learning strategy “immediate use of learning”. More than 75% of the students were able

to show us their favorite exercise learned.

Sources

1. US Department of Health and Human Services. Physical Activity Guidelines for

Americans, 2nd edition. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human
Services; 2018.
2. Wegman T. Three Types of Learning Styles: Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic.
Bright Hub Education. https://www.brighthubeducation.com/teaching-methods-
tips/128391-different-types-of-learning-styles/. Published January 26, 2014. Accessed
July 28, 2019.
3. Learning: primary and secondary school years. Raising Children Network.
https://raisingchildren.net.au/school-age/school-learning/learning-ideas/learning-
school-years. Published June 24, 2019. Accessed July 28, 2019.
4. By. Repetition and Child Development in Montessori Education. Montessori
Academy. https://montessoriacademy.com.au/repetition-child-development-
montessori/. Published May 4, 2017. Accessed July 28, 2019.
5. Promoting Active Learning. Undergrad Main Site.
https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/resources/learning-resources/promoting-active-
learning. Accessed July 28, 2019.
Outline of information:

Warm Up 
 Parachute with balls 
 Stretch
 
Learn about physical activity 
 How do you feel after the warm up? 
 Do you know how much PA you should get a day? 60 mins 
o Playing outside, biking, playground, etc. 
 Show exercise/non-exercise pictures to kids
 
Exercises 
 Demonstration and teaching of exercises, 10 reps each 
o Jumping jacks 
o Squats 
o Jumping 2 feet 
o Jumping 1 foot 
o Frog hops 
o Push-ups 
o Lunges 
o Sit ups
 
Relay Activity 
 Run down, pick an exercise from a non-exercise, do 5 repetitions of the exercise, run
back
 
Show me your favorite exercise from today! 
 How many kids can show us? 

Assess how the kids are feeling 

 Point on the VAS scale from 0-10, with zero being very happy and 10 being very sad 

Simon Says with exercises mixed in 

Musical Carpet Squares

Section 4: Motivational Hook

There are many motivational hooks that could be employed for our audience. One of our

ideas that we utilized was a parachute as a really fun activity to start to get the students engaged

and warmed up. We had them shake the parachute up and down and launch foam balls off of it.
We also had them put it up over their heads, then go underneath and sit on the edge to create a

tent. The children loved it and it was a great start to the teaching activity day. Some other ideas

we had, but did not apply, included jokes and stickers. In order for the jokes to work they would

have had to capture the whole audience and be relevant to exercise. The stickers would have

been a great addition to encourage the children to pay attention and participate, but the

motivation would have been extrinsic. The use of the parachute helped create an intrinsic

motivation within most of the students because it was observable that they were having fun and

they wanted to keep playing with it.

Section 5: Content Boosters

The content boosters and active learning strategies being used for our particular

population of children needed to be fun and simple so they were engaged and participating. One

idea that we used during our teaching experience was a relay race. We thought this would keep

the students actively engaged as well as encourage them to think about what constitutes exercise.

The relay required the children to also perform the exercise, therefore both cognitive and

psychomotor aspects of learning were employed. The SLP’s frequently use songs to help focus

or refocus the children. Therefore we decided that playing music during the relay would be a

great way to aid in the delivery of the material by boosting the mood and helping the students

focus. Another idea we had, that we did not use, included drawing their favorite exercise. This

would have required them to think about an exercise, conceptualize it in their head, and then

draw it on a piece of paper. We also considered a think-pair-share strategy where the students

could share their favorite exercise with a neighbor and then demonstrate it to the rest of the class.

This may have been a little challenging for the child with the cochlear implant, but would have
been a great active learning strategy. The last idea we had was to have the children rotate to

stations laid out with different exercises at each one. This would have worked well as they would

have had to go to each station, figure out what the exercise was, and then subsequently perform

it. 

Section 6: Formative

One of the formative assessments we used was a cognitive assessment stating that at the

end of the presentation, students would be able to choose between pictures and discern which

picture was considered physical activity and which was not 100% of the time. We used this type

of assessment because it was tailored to our audiences’ level of expertise. We believed the

students would be able to accomplish this after education about exercise/physical activity. Due to

the fact that a written test is not ideal for our population, we decided to assess this during the

relay race when the students had to choose the exercise picture form the non-exercise picture.

This was also following demonstration of the exercises and discussion about what was not

considered exercise: watching television, playing video games, playing on a tablet, etc. So, to

assess the learning of our audience during the relay race, we simply noted whether or not they

were able to choose the exercise picture without prompting. 

The other two formative assessments we incorporated included having students

demonstrate an exercise that was taught and having them point to a number on the VAS

indicating how happy they were following the relay. The demonstration aspect was also assessed

during the relay race. If they could perform the exercise without prompting they were considered

to have met that objective. They were also asked at the end of the activity day to show us their

favorite exercise they learned. After the relay was completed we showed them a VAS to see if

they had fun while doing the relay.

Section 7: Summary

This teaching activity was very educational for not only our learners but for us as future

physical therapists. In the assessment of our learners, we met 2/3 objectives. Over 75% of the

students were able to demonstrate an exercise they learned and 100% of them were able to

differentiate between pictures of exercise and non-exercise. These assessments were tailored to

the students age group and level of expertise. The children now have a better understanding of

what constitutes physical activity/exercise, how much they are supposed to get each day, and

how it will help them now and in the future. We did not reach the objective for the VAS, but it

was a zealous objective hoping that everyone would be a 2 or less. We did have six children that

were a 0, but we also had two 4’s and two 6’s. However, this was not a very accurate depiction

of how they felt because the children who selected 6 were laughing as they selected the higher

score. 

The information we received beforehand from our SLP’s was extremely helpful in the

preparation for our activity day. When we met with them the first time, they only had minimal

information about their two students and had not met them yet. By the second time we met, they

had worked with all of the students in our group and were able to give us more in depth

information. They told us some of the children’s tendencies and gave us very useful information

such as creating/sharing with them the agenda for the day, limiting the amount of time between

transitions to keep them engaged, and that the children love listening to music. We took all of

these into account and it helped our teaching experience go much smoother. One major aspect of

the presentation we were worried about was the students not understanding what we were trying

to teach. We openly asked the SLP’s about this and they said that the children would all be able
to understand. They also reassured us that if there were any students that did not, that they would

assist in the delivery of the information. There is no information that we did not gather that

would have assisted us to create or execute a better learning experience.

As stated earlier, 2/3 objectives were obtained by our learners. The affective VAS

objective was a bit optimistic in stating all of the students would be at a 2 or below. However, we

were still close to reaching this objective with six of them rating themselves at a 0. All of these

objectives were attainable by our learners. Writing these objectives was difficult because of the

expertise level of our audience. It was hard to come up with goals that were objective in nature,

as well making them specific enough to be measurable.

In terms of ‘chunking’ information, we wish we would have made directions within our

chunks more concise so the children could comprehend better. Sometimes our instructions were

long and wordy making it difficult for the children to know exactly what we wanted them to do.

For instance our relay game had multiple steps and it was pretty complex for our age group. It

was difficult to explain everything the children had to do in a concise manner. We believe if we

would have demonstrated how to complete the relay the students would have had a better

understanding.

As for motivational hooks, we believe our parachute warm up activity was a great way to

grab their attention and also incorporate exercise while having fun. The students loved this and

were laughing and smiling. We thought about incorporating stickers, but we ended up deciding

not to. However, this would have worked really well. The students receive tickets for good

behavior and other factors. The student SLPs also offered a piece of bubble gum as a prize for

the winner of musical carpet squares. This encouraged more students to participate and it
worked. Although stickers would have been an extrinsic motivator, we believe that they would

have been a great addition to our parachute game.

Our content boosters were very successful. We targeted both cognitive and psychomotor

aspects of learning during the relay game. We also utilized active learning strategies such as

practice by doing during the exercise demonstrations and during the relay. We played music

during our relay game and musical carpet squares to help keep our learners engaged and enhance

their experience. At the end of our activity day over 75% of the students were able to show us an

exercise they learned. This demonstrated that our active learning strategies were great at

targeting our audience.

100% of the time the children were able to tell us if the picture displayed to them was an

exercise or not. Over 75% of the students were also able to show us an exercise at the end of the

presentation. The one objective we did not meet was that not every child was a 2 or below on the

VAS. We believe we were very successful in teaching the content to our group. Although we did

not meet all three objectives, when showing the children the VAS scale they were laughing as

they said they were a 6. Therefore, this might not have been the best representation of the

affective centered learner objective.

It was a great experience interacting with the children that was a mix of emotions: fun,

happy, difficult, etc. One difficulty we encountered was the one student with the cochlear

implant that had little to no speech output. Luckily we had the SLP’s to help sign for us because

otherwise this would have made for a very challenging situation. We learned that it is important

to use a variety of ways to deliver the information to target all learners. Some do better with

visuals, while others may do better with auditory. This experience has made us more aware that

we need to ask patients how they learn best and try to cater to their learning style. For instance
utilizing pictures, words, videos, etc. when developing their home exercise program. We believe

this was a great interprofessional collaboration that helped us grow and become more well-

rounded physical therapists.