Inclusion Coaching: How to Run a Cross Country Team Without Making Cuts

The fall sports season has quickly arrived and with it come the hopes and dreams of kids across the country who want to become part of a team. In sport, cuts are necessary for all kinds of reasons that range from transportation limits, to manageable team sizes, and play time practicalities. Some sports are fortunate that they have the ability to accept more students than others and one of those activities is cross country.

I am taking over my middle schools cross country team for the first time. The won the regular season and post-season titles last year and the expectations for runners in my area are high. Although I run independently in various distances outside of school for fun, I have no experience coaching running. I’ve always been a soccer player (and coach). You’re also probably wondering why I run for fun and if I’m honest, I’m just as baffled by it as you are. Yet somehow here we are with a fresh cross country season and I have 101 athletes on my roster with two coaches and an assistant. Is your mind as blown as mine is? If so, don’t fret because we have a plan and I’d like to share it in case there are any other overwhelmed cross country coaches out there.

Before I dive too deep into the world of no cuts and increased participation I feel the need to clarify a few things. First, I’m coaching middle school {AKA} the formative years. I certainly won’t deny that I’m far from the varsity level and fully admit that because of that, I choose to coach a little differently. I also don’t necessarily carry this no cuts philosophy into other sports. I coached girls middle school soccer last season and kept 20 players out of a potential 75 that attended tryouts. Enough with the background, let’s get to it!

In case you forgot or thought I made a typo, I currently have 101 athletes on my cross country roster. ONE HUNDERED AND ONE! I knew we had a lot of interest in cross country, but I truly had no idea we were going to have over 100 athletes. My mind immediately raced to think of how to properly supervise all of these runners, let alone condition them!  Here is what I’ve found:

1. Divide the team into three smaller teams based on a time trial. We have worked it out into an A, B, and C team. The A team consists of the top seven runners for boys and girls for a total of 14 athletes. The B team consists of the runners who finish in slots eight through 25 for boys and for girls, which brings the A and B teams to a total of 50 runners (25 boys and 25 girls). Runners who finish in the 26^th slot or higher make the C team.
   
   
   How does the time trial work?
   
   I’m so glad you asked! We walked our athletes through the home meet course the day before we planned to time them so they knew exactly where to go. This took the majority of practice, but trust me, if you want an accurate placement from your time trial, you will take the time to do it. The following day students are divided into male and female heats. They run the course while a running timer is kept. As athletes finish, they’re given a card or popsicle stick with their finishing place on it. We then keep a spreadsheet with their times that are printed through our machine. We use a basic handheld timer from Seiko to manage this. They aren’t cheap, but are worth the investment! You can see the timer we use for sale on Amazon here.
   
   
2. Set Away Meet Rules & Guidelines. Obviously some issues prevent a team of 101 athletes from traveling to away meets. We notify athletes and parents at the beginning of each season that only A and B team members will travel to away meets. Our buses have a capacity of 52, therefore 50 athletes and two coaches fit perfectly on said bus.
   
3. All home meets act as a new time trial. It’s important to give athletes a goal, as well as the opportunity to improve! You’ll already be tracking who finishes where anyway, so count these scores as a new time trial so athletes can move up or down. This helps keep your A team honest and gives top B and C team members a chance to improve and move up!
   
4. Make accountability a priority in practice. We specifically design our practices so that students can measure how far they’ve been. We can accomplish this in a few ways through circuits and guided runs.
   
   
   Circuits: These allow us to keep all of our athletes moving at once while keeping track of how many circuits they complete. One of my favorite workouts involves cones spaced 5 yards apart down the length of a football field. Athletes run to the first cone (5 yards away), complete a set of the exercise posted, and run back to the start line. They repeat this, adding 5 yards between each station until they’ve reached the end. Afterwards they complete two laps around the track, get 3-5 minutes for water, and complete the circuit again, keeping track of how many total circuits they complete.
   
   Guided Runs: These runs allow us to map a course of a specific distance and document each time an athlete passes by. We can then record their total distance and hold athletes accountable, especially once you’ve completed the workout a few times (i.e. last time you completed 10 laps as opposed to five, what’s going on today?)
   
5. Enforce team rules and policies. My personal philosophy about sports teams is that they are a privilege to be a part of and we want as many kids active as possible. Due to this, my athletes are held to higher standards for academics and behavior.
   
   Academics: Students on my teams must maintain B averages or higher in all coursework. If a grade falls below the B level at any point during the season, they have two weeks to pull the grade up (or show improvement) by attending tutoring or receiving help from the respective teacher. If the grade does not improve, they are removed from the team.
   
   Behavior: Poor classroom behavior is not tolerated on my teams. Detentions will be issues and receiving two causes for dismissal from the team. There are no exceptions
   
   Parent Pick-Up: Our parents are expected to be prompt when picking up their children from practice. If we end at 4:30pm, all athletes should be picked up no later than 4:45pm. Parents are allowed two late pick-ups before their child is removed from the team.
   
   Some believe these policies are harsh, but we have the opportunity to show so many athletes would good discipline can do for them in sports and in the classroom. We hold them to a higher standard because we know they can achieve it!

I hope this information is helpful to anyone who may currently be coaching cross country or who may be thinking about coaching cross country. It's important for all coaches to develop their own philosophies and styles! What works for my program may not work for yours and vice versa. Regardless of how you decide to form your teams, GOOD LUCK.

I'll end with one of my favorite quotes from a man who inspires me daily:

"Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must;  just never give up" - Dean Karnazes

Back to School Newsletters

It sure has been a while since my last post. I will briefly fill you in. Since school let out, I have been swarmed in camp. I am the program director for a local YMCA camp and that means I'm responsible for writing ten curriculum's for three age groups. Yes, that is a lot of additional work and it has really taken me away from my store and my blog, but I'm back!

Today, I want to focus on a topic that I'm noticing is somewhat controversial and that is Back to School Newsletters (or Meet the Teacher forms). My thought process began when the TpT Facebook page posted an ADORABLE newsletter format on their page. I loved the concept, went immediately to the sellers site, and purchased the resource. It was so fun and colorful and also completely editable!

Now, I decided to not only leave feedback, but to comment on the facebook post to share my excitement! I was shocked to see so many negative comments on the feed about the concept of Meet the Teacher newsletters. Advocates against expressed that it was too personal and parents didn't need to know all of this information about them. Proponents for the newsletters felt it was an excellent way to let parents know who they're giving their children too for the next nine months.

This brief synopsis leaves the question: To Meet the Teach newsletter or to not?

My simple and profound answer is that we need to do what works for us in our classrooms and respect others for their decisions as well, whether they agree with us or not. I was really taken aback by the negativity on the original FB post. We are a community of educators who all share a common goal. The teacher responsible for the newsletter they shared replied to my comment simply for being supportive. Isn't that how each of us should be?

Now for the good part {in my humble opinion anyway}... The contact box is covered for obvious reasons. Y'all don't need to know EVERYthing.

It dawned on me after I finished my version that this newsletter concept is generally geared toward elementary teachers... yet here I am in middle school loving the idea. Now that I'm in a school and a department that values work and collaborates together (as well as being in my fourth year of teaching), I have a lot more time to focus on the "add-ons" to my classroom.

The idea of a Meet the Teacher newsletter is amazing, but I also like the idea of sending home a monthly newsletter as well to keep parents up-to-date on what we've been working on. Who says this method has to be limited to elementary teachers? I'm ready to set higher expectations for my students, my parents, and for myself. I'm excited and ready for the upcoming school year.

Plickers in PE: Using QR Codes For Quick Assessment

If you have not be exposed to the glory that is Plickers, then you are missing out on a PHENOMENAL resource for your classroom. I just learned about them in a professional development seminar prior to this school year, so I haven't implemented them in my PE classroom yet, but I use them daily in my health room!

Plickers are a QR code system that allows each student to answer questions placed on your projector/smart board. The question can be generated online or through your mobile device! Another benefit of Plickers is that it is free to use! Visit Plickers here to sign-up and download your free printable cards.

You can also purchase a set of laminated cards for $20. If you want to download and print the free cards to laminate yourself, you can, but it's important to note you can only use matte finish laminating paper. The traditional laminating sheets will cause the Plickers to malfunction due to the glare off the gloss finish.

Recommendations for creating your Plickers set:

1. Buying the matte laminated cards is a worthwhile investment. They are sold through Amazon. The only downside to purchasing them through Amazon (recommended from the Plickers site) is that they only sell the standard pack of 40. If you need more than 40 unique cards, buying two sets will not fix this issue.
   
2. If you decide to print the cards yourself, I recommend printing on card stock as opposed to traditional computer paper. This will help maintain the integrity of the cards for a longer period of time, especially if you decided not to laminate them yourself.

Getting Setup & Organized:

1. Build in an organizational tool in your gym. I am a huge fan of pocket charts for this purpose. They're easy to hang and make taking Plickers out and putting them back in a breeze. S&S has a great packet chart here. It's 20"x 24" and features 30 clear and 30 yellow pockets.
   
2. At the beginning of the school year, assign each student a number (per class period). When students enter the gym, they grab their card (huge help for attendance to avoid squad lines and down time). Take your phone, scan any leftover cards and instantly know who is not in class today.
   
   

   
   

   This will also keep students accountable for managing their attendance. If a student forgets to claim their card and is accidentally marked absent, it opens the door for the conversation about accountability and personal responsibility.
   
3. Teach students how to use the Plickers. (A) Each Plicker has a number on every corner of the QR code. This is the number I assign to students. (B) Each Plicker then has a unique letter on each side of the QR code (A, B, C, D) (C) You can ask true/false questions with A = true and B= false.
   
   
   
   TO ASSIST MY STUDENTS, I WRITE THE LETTERS ON THE BACK OF THE CARD. This prevents them from flipping back and forth for every question. You can see a sample of this below. Now, students can simply look at the back side of the card to know which answer they should be holding up.
   
4. Now, you can easily scan the QR codes with your phone to gather formative feedback while teaching in your classroom.

How to Implement in PE

Now comes the tricky part.. How do you keep track of all these cards while in physical education class!? So many of us in phys. ed are hesitant to use Plickers in the gym because it seems like too much of a headache, but in reality Plickers are easy to implement!

You can enter questions ahead of time or enter them real time as you see needs developing in class. You can do this online or on your phone. You'll then need to click on the application on your phone, select the appropriate question, and scan to collect your data.

1. Teaching a new skill? Great, Plickers can allow you to see who is grasping essential concepts and who still needs more practice.
   
   For example, let's say you're teaching how to plant your non-dominant foot beside the ball in a soccer unit. You want to see if all of your students understand why that's important instead of calling on a few kids who raise their hands. Propose the following question: True or False - placing your non-dominant foot next to the ball in a soccer kick allows you to direct the ball properly. Students would hold up their Plickers with A for True or B for False and you now know exactly who gets it and who doesn't. Now open up the discussion to help those students who don't understand why!
   
2. Formal Formatives? Don't have time for a sit down quiz, but want to see where your students are with rules or concepts of a sport? Read (or display) the question, give the answers and record student responses in no time.
   
3. Class Exit Tickets? Great, save paper, incorporate technology, and avoid grading by having exit slip questions plugged into your Plickers account.
   
4. Polls and classroom surveys are also possible with Plickers. This is perfect for testing a new game or drill to see how your students respond to it. For these types of questions, it's simple to mark every answer for a question correct or leave one as incorrect (personal preference of the teacher) to see if it's a hit or a flop.
   

This is just the tip of the iceberg for possibilities with Plickers! There are so many additional resources that you can find through Gopher and SHAPE America. These were just a few tips to help you get started and I would LOVE to hear how you incorporate Plickers into your own classroom!

Specific Feedback: Why It Matters & How You Can Implement It

Teachers across the board hear these expressions often... "Great job! Good work! Nicely done! It looks great!" Some of us might even say them to our students often. Even though we're trying to reinforce students and their learning, we're actually doing them a disservice by not being more specific!

Specific feedback was discussed in every undergraduate and graduate teaching class I ever took. We practiced how to give specific feedback, how to recognize examples of unspecific feedback, and how to rework unspecific feedback into specific feedback. All of this practice, all of this repetition, and yet, from time to time, I find myself still providing unspecific feedback to my students. I typically catch myself and rework the feedback each time, but it still happens even though I know all of this! Why?

Unspecific feedback stems from rushing to get to as many students as possible without providing enough individual attention to give them a specific critic or emphasis. It's the easy way out for feedback and every educator has fallen into the trap at some point, but we need to be diligent about providing specific feedback. Our students engagement is depending on it!

According to an exert of an article by Bryan Goodwin and Kirsten Miller in September 2012, researchers have discovered that video games are widely successful because they provide large amounts of specific feedback:

"Many parents have observed the irony that a child who shows little perseverance when practicing piano or doing homework will joyfully commit countless hours to mastering Guitar Hero or other video games. In fact, by the time the average U.S. adolescent turns 21, he or she will have spent 10,000 hours playing video games (Prensky, 2001)—which is, as it turns out, about the same amount of time necessary to fully master a sport, musical instrument, or area of professional expertise (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Romer, 1993).

According to Prensky (2007), the addictiveness of video games can be partly attributed to the constant stream of feedback they provide. At each level of the game, players learn what works and what doesn't, and they can immediately use that knowledge to advance to more challenging levels. And researchers have found that the same dynamic applies in education: One of the most powerful keys to unlocking student motivation and perseverance is feedback."

I recommend reading the entire article here. I wish I could quote the entire thing within this post, but I will let the eloquence of the original authors shine through. There is a lot more evidence cited as to why specific feedback is so important!

So this begs the question, how can we incorporate SPECIFIC feedback into our classrooms? 
(Note: I am approaching this from a physical education perspective, but all classrooms benefit from specific feedback).

In my classroom, my class size ranges from 19 students up to 31 students. Many teachers, especially in physical education, have class sizes double or even triple that! Getting to every student can be an enormous task, but there are a few tricks to help us out, regardless of how large (or small) our classroom may be.

1. Pick one item to critique each class period. Learning is a step-by-step process and our physical education classrooms are no different. When we're teaching students the steps in how to swing a baseball bat, they aren't going to get every step right the first time! In teaching the baseball swing, start in steps and critique/provide feedback as you move through. For example, day one of teaching the swing, focus on providing feedback for their hand position. This will allow you to be specific while still reaching each child. If you try to focus on all seven to eight components (depending on your style) you'll never reach every child and you'll be forced to provide unspecific feedback.

Specific feedback sounds like:

• "You're doing an excellent job of keeping your dominant hand on the top of your grip while swinging the bat."
• "I can see you're working very hard on your swing, but remember to place your dominant hand on top of your non-dominant hand while holding the bat during your swing."

2. Avoid standardized feedback cards. I'm noticing a trend on TpT of seller's offering feedback cards with cute phrases like "Great job in class today!" or "You rocked PE today!" and while I'm sure those are nice, they don't tell your students WHAT they did a good job with. If you want to provide feedback cards to your students (which I think is awesome) you need to provide them with specifically created cards for them and your activity. Does this take a lot more time? Yes, but aren't our students worth the investment? We're teaching to make a difference! Making specific feedback cards takes longer and therefore I provide them once per unit. This is a picture of a feedback card I typically give to my students. They are not available for sale on my TpT store, but I would anticipate them becoming available over the summer. 

3. Complement long-term feedback with short-term feedback. The research is showing that students respond best to immediate feedback. Provide informal, specific feedback daily to every child and then compliment that feedback once a skill has been mastered (or improved) in the long-term. In my classroom, I provide daily feedback on the skill focus of the day and I provide long-term feedback with my cards at the end of the unit. 

4. Assess students clearly and provide specific feedback. When my students participate in an assessment, they are told exactly what I am looking for. In our bowling unit, I assessed four key areas of importance to me (hand position, three-step approach, stepping in opposition, and follow-through). When I assess, I utilize a trials method of two trials per skill. If the skill is present students receive a 1, if the skill is questionable or absent the student receives a 0. The best trial is scored for their overall grade. These skills are the focus of the unit and each receives specific feedback in the four days leading up to our overall assessment. My students know what is being assessed, what is being looked at, and how to perform each skill. I do not provide feedback during assessment, but instead utilize the specific feedback sheets after assessments have been given to share what students did well and where they can improve.

Although this post was specific to physical education, specific feedback should be given in every subject area across the spectrum. In ELA classrooms, teachers should be writing constructive and specific feedback when editing writing assignment. As the article I linked eludes to, simply writing awkward next to a sentence doesn't give the student much to work with. What about the sentences was awkward? How can they fix it? Is it the whole sentence or a small part? Is the verbiage awkward or is the sentence structure awkward? I know grading essays can take a very large chunk of time, but are we really help students writing improve by providing such vague direction? 

I personally suffered through this during my IRB process in graduate school. One professor edited my drafts and provided unspecific feedback and when it came time to turn in the final, the second professor gave me an incomplete and required me to rewrite the enter paper. Her logic was "he should have known better." So why was I, as the student, being punished for something she blatantly admitted wasn't my fault? 

Specific feedback is what helps guide students in the learning process. It allows them to process information, correct their wrongs, and move forward to more challenging topics. It is our responsibility as educators to ensure our students are able to "level up" and progress in our classrooms.

Classroom Favorite's: Treasure Island

I don't know about the rest of you, but it just won't stop raining here in Virginia! Thankfully, my class was in health last week so the rain didn't have a huge impact, but now we're back in PE and the rain is really messing with our spring sports rotation. What can we do that is still educational, fun. and engaging for students while accommodating three classes in the gym? TREASURE ISLAND.

This game focuses on cooperative skills such as communication, teamwork, non-verbal communication and cues, as well as critical thinking. Students ask to play all the time as it is a class wide favorite and all ages (elementary, middle, and high school) can benefit from this activity.

Equipment is minimal and can be easily manipulated depending on your class size and equipment availability.

Equipment Needed:

• Cones (Optional)
• Hula Hoops or Mats
• Pool Noodles
• Jump Ropes
• Poly Spots
• Scooters

You can easily substitute any of these items for other equipment you have in your school. If you want the game to last longer, you can also add more types of equipment to this list.

Activity Directions:

     Students will attempt to get their entire team from one side of the gym to the other. That must use all of the equipment to get across and no part of their body is allowed to touch the floor. If they touch the floor, that individual must go back to the starting point. The mat (or hula hoop) in the middle acts as an island. They are allowed to stand in the island to assist teammates in crossing, but the island cannot move. Once the group has made it across once, they must select one of their items to give up. This should be a team decision, not just one or two people. They will then attempt to make it back across. Once completed, they will repeat the process of giving up an item and returning across until they have only one item left!

There are a few rules to remember as we move through this activity:

• Students should not be allowed to stand on top of scooters! Bottoms, knees, and bellies only.
• Honesty is key when acknowledging that a body part has touched the ground.
• Students are allowed to pick which piece they would like to forfeit.
• Encourage students to be creative while adhering to the game rules.

     Below you will find some of my favorites from my own classroom. I love how creative the kids can get with trying to make it across. We've seen "rockets" and jump rope balance beams, pull systems and rope lassos. There is never a dull moment in treasure island!

     I hope you are able to utilize Treasure Island in your own classroom with as much success as I have in mine! It's a fun game that works on so many different social and cooperative skills... The kids won't even realize they're learning.

How to Create Review Game Slideshows

Do you ever wonder how all of these review games are made? How do they link all the slides together? Where do you even start!? Well folks, you're in luck because today that's exactly what I plan on showing you.

1. Start by opening PowerPoint. I will be using PowerPoint 2010 for Windows, but the commands are virtually the same if you're using 2007.

2. Select your design.  I always do this first so I know how everything I set up will work. Click on the design tab and then pick your favorite. If you want to design a custom slideshow you can select your fonts under the design tab and your background by right clicking on the slide itself and selecting the file from your own computer.

3. Input your introductory information. This is pretty simple and no different from any other PowerPoint creation. 

4. Create your table. Now you can create your review game menu! Create a new slide and in the center area, click on the table icon. 

 This will bring up a dialogue box where you will select how many rows and columns you'd like. I'm selected four columns and five rows. This will create a four category, four question review game. If you'd like more categories, select more columns, if you'd like more questions, select more rows.

Your finalized table will look like this:

5. Input your categories and point values. This is simple insertion and is completely up to you and what you want your game to be about! I prefer my tables to be centered. Go to layout and then select the two centering tools.

Once I have my table set, I input the data I am going to hyperlink!

6. Add the number of slides you will need for your game. You will need two slides per question, one for the actual question and the other for the answer. I recommend labeling each slide as you go because it will make hyperlinking in the next step that much easier.

Once you have your slides set up, you're ready to hyperlink! Go back to your main menu slide and highlight the "100" for your first category. Once highlighted, go to the insert tab at the top of the program and hit "Hyperlink."

Once you've selected hyperlink a dialogue box will appear. You will need to select "Place in this document" and select the slide matching the game menu. For example, if you highlighted Weather 100 (like I did), you will want to make sure you select the Weather - 100 slide (this is why titling your slides in the previous step was so important).

After you've successfully hyperlinked your slide to the game menu, you will need to create a "back to menu" link as well. Go to the answer slide for the 100 question you just hyperlinked. Go back to insert and select text box. Draw your box in the bottom right corner of the slide and type in "Back to Menu." 

Repeat the hyperlinking process by highlighting the "Back to Menu" and select hyperlink, place in this document, and select the game menu slide.

7. Repeat for each slide. Repeat the hyperlinking process until you've reached the whole slideshow! A shortcut you can utilize is copying the text box "Back to Menu" and pasting it on the return slides. The hyperlink will stay in tact and it will save you a lot of time.

     See! It's that easy! If you're looking at these steps and thinking, "this is too much for me... I don't have enough time to do this" don't worry. I have review game templates in my store for four and six categories (with four questions per category).

Good luck with your creation!

Tips to Celebrate National Physical Fitness & Sport Month

There seem to be months for just about every cause nowadays and May is no different! Something near and dear to my heart is Physical Fitness and Sport Month, which is going on right now!

It's not too late to talk to your students, colleagues, and community about the importance of physical fitness. In fact, with state testing approaching for many of us, especially those in Virginia, educating on the importance of physical fitness can help students reduce stress and anxiety during test season! Keep reading to learn about the purpose of Physical Fitness and Sports Month, as well as how you can get your students, faculty, and community involved.

Why is Physical Fitness and Sports Month Important?

     According to the Center for Disease Control {CDC} 34.9 percent of adults in the United States are classified as obese. When we look at adults who are also classified as overweight that percentage double to 68.6 percent. The CDC also reports that 60 percent of adults do not participate in enough physical activity.  The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System found that 13.7 percent of high school students were obese, while 16.6 were classified as overweight. The estimated annual health care costs of obesity-related illness are $190.2 billion, which is 21 percent of the annual medical spending in the United States. Childhood obesity alone is responsible for $14 billion in direct medical costs annually. By promoting healthy habits to our students, faculty, and community, we can help build the foundation for a healthier population!

What are some benefits of regular physical activity?

• Improve muscular fitness, bone health, and heart health
• Lowers the risk of heart disease, type two diabetes, and some cancers
• Lowers the risk of falls and improves cognitive functioning
• Improved mood, happiness, and quality of life

What are some social benefits of participating in sports?

• Sportsmanship
• Enhanced cooperative skills
• Improved communication
• Improved discipline
• Responsibility
• Respect
• Honesty

What are some simple changes students, faculty, and the community can make?

• Take a walk after dinner as a family.
• If you're a pet owner, walk the dog an extra block or take a longer route.
• Perform simple body weight exercises during television commercials.
• Join a gym.
• Visit a local park and walk along the nature trails.

How can you promote Physical Fitness and Sports Month in school?

• Emphasize the importance of physical fitness with your students. This can be done through a simple comprehensive goal setting lesson.
• Work with core content teachers to promote physical activity in their classroom through brain and activity breaks.
• Create and place posters throughout the school building and provide copies for each teacher to place in their classrooms.
• Host a school-wide/community event: This could include a 5k, run/walk event, host a field day or healthy youth day, schedule a class field trip to a local facility to take an exercise class, or encourage students/staff to join sports leagues in the community.

What are some resources for brain break activities in the classroom?

GoNoodle is an online site that allows teacher and student login for physical activities. You can also add your own videos straight from YouTube! They have guided dancing, exercise videos, free dance, yoga/stretching, songs, KidzBop, and so much more!

Just Dance has an awesome YouTube channel full of guided dance videos to current songs kids love! Most of the videos are edited for language, but some of the dance moves in certain songs may not be age appropriate (depending on your classroom). I recommend previewing any video prior to playing it in class.

     If you are looking for more resources on how to promote Physical Fitness and Sports Month in your school, check out the US Department of Health and Human Resources here.