MAHPERD "Voices From The field"
In this podcast, you will hear from educators and professionals in the field sharing their insights and experiences in the HPE (Health Physical Education) and allied fields. I hope you find this podcast informative, and inspiring. Learn about best practices and tools that you can implement in your teaching practice. We want to know not only what you do, but also the action steps you took to get you where you are. The Status Quo is not in our vocabulary folks, my guests are leaders in the field who are taking action to make an impact in their respective fields. If you have any questions or would like to be a guest on the show email mahperdpodcast@gmail.com
"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got" Henry Ford
MAHPERD "Voices From The field"
Coaching PE Teachers: Insights from an Instructional Expert
Gary Zaharatos is a Physical Education Peer Observer and Instructional Coach in Denver Public Schools. He spends his days coaching and evaluating physical education teachers throughout the city. He has dedicated his career to supporting teachers as they strive to implement high quality instruction in physical education. Gary holds a Bachelors of Science in Physical Education and a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
Having twenty years of experience in public education, Gary has taught, observed and provided feedback on thousands of PE lessons and was named Administrator of the Year by SHAPE Colorado in 2023. He has also recently published his first book, titled Becoming a Distinguished Physical Education Teacher: Establishing a Safe and Welcome Learning Environment For All Students, which offers insightful perspectives and practical guidance to K-12 PE teachers on how to implement equitable practices, clearly communicate high expectations for student behavior and incorporate high leverage instructional methods in the gym.
Some topics we discuss are...
• Creating safe, welcoming environments where students take both physical and academic risks
• Moving away from outdated PE practices like captains picking teams and grading based on gym clothes
• Implementing content and language objectives so students can articulate what they're learning
• Using coaching cycles with goal-setting, observations, and learning labs where teachers visit other schools
• Building professional capital with administrators through relationship building and solution-oriented approaches
• Backwards planning with standards rather than simply listing standards at the top of lesson plans
• Prioritizing standards-based social skills that transfer beyond the gymnasium
Connect with Gary on social media:
- X: GaryZDPE
- Ig: garyzdistinguishedpe
- Facebook group; Distinguished Physical Education
- Email: gary@distinguishedpe.com
Gary offers his book "Becoming a Distinguished Physical Education Teacher" available on Amazon, or reach out directly to him for a digital copy!
Hello and welcome to Voices from the Field, a MAHPERD podcast where we talk with educators in the field and hear about their perspectives and experiences. My name is Jake Bersin, advocacy Chair for MAHPERD, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Gary Zaharatos. Gary Zaharatos is a physical education peer observer and instructional coach in Denver Public Schools. He spends his days coaching and evaluating physical education teachers throughout the city. He has dedicated his career to supporting teachers as they strive to implement high quality instruction in physical education.
Jake:Gary holds a bachelor's of science in physical education and a master's in curriculum and instruction. Having 20 years of experience in public education, gary has taught, observed and provided feedback on thousands of PE lessons and was named Administrator of the Year by Shape Colorado in 2023. He has also recently published his first book titled Becoming a Distinguished Physical Education Teacher establishing a safe and welcome Learning Environment for All Students, which offers insightful perspectives and practical guidance to K-12 PE teachers on how to implement equitable practices, clearly communicate high expectations for student behavior and incorporate high leverage instructional methods in the gym. Welcome, gary, pleasure to have you.
Gary:Hey, Jake, it's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate you thinking about me and having me in the gym. Welcome.
Gary:Gary, pleasure to have you. Hey, jake, it's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate you thinking about me and having me on the show, of course of course.
Gary:So, gary, before we get started, what's making you smile these days? That's a good question, jake. So PE has been on my mind a lot lately because I have a lot of projects going on, so I'll go outside of the PE world and share that. I love to see Bob Dylan perform. So whenever he's playing somewhere and at 83 years old, luckily, he still plays like a hundred something shows a year I go travel and see him play. So my spring break is next week and I'm going to get to see him play. Twice they're not in places that I necessarily had on my bucket list Springfield, missouri and Wichita, kansas. No offense to the folks that live there, but I hadn't thought about visiting prior to this, but I'm looking forward to checking out those towns and seeing my guy Bob play a couple more shows.
Jake:That's awesome. Do you have any favorite songs? You have.
Gary:We don't have enough time for that today. All right, we'll do another episode on favorite Bob Dylan songs.
Jake:That sounds good. All right, so, gary, tell me more about how you started your education journey.
Gary:Yeah. So at this point I kind of think about my career in two different halves. The first half of my career, about 10 years, I spent teaching physical education. The first two years were K-8 and then the remaining years were middle school, pe, and then the last 10, I guess maybe going on 11 now years have been here in Denver Public Schools as what we call a peer observer, but I think the better way to phrase it is just an instructional coach where I get to support PE teachers and some general ed teachers as well, all throughout the city of Denver in improving their practice. So I'm really lucky that I have so many teachers who are reflective on their practice and they want to work with me and I get to travel to usually three or four schools a day, work with different teachers and help them as they try to implement new practices into their physical education programs.
Jake:Just for our listeners. That sounds really cool. How many people are in the district? How many teachers do you support?
Gary:Good question. So we have almost 5,000 teachers in Denver. My team it's a small team of instructional coaches. There's seven of us. We have world language instructional coach, art, music, myself of course, and PE. We have a pre-K person or early childhood education and special education as well who opt into our support. So our caseloads look something like 70, 80 teachers per uh per peer observer. So I mean it really is awesome. I mean to think that there's, uh, you know, 80 people out there who want my support and they're not being told that they need to work with me, unless it's a very rare instance. You know where a teacher might be on a some sort of support plan or something like that, but the majority of these teachers are just saying hey, look, I want to get better at my practice. Can you come help me plan some lessons? Can you observe me teach? Can you provide me with some feedback?
Jake:Okay, so it sounds like there is a lot of two way communication. They want to get better at teaching. You're there to help them and they set goals. Are these smart goals? Short-term goals, long-term goals?
Gary:Yeah, you're, you're absolutely right. So I'll go into a little bit of what like a coaching cycle looks like with the work that I do with teachers, so not to bore people too much. But we have what we call the LEAP framework, which is stands for leading effective academic Practice, and essentially that's how we define effective teaching in Denver public schools. So we have 12 things that we look for and we break that up into three coaching cycles. So we look for four different indicators during each one of the coaching cycles. So, just like you said, the first meeting that I have with a teacher, I'll sit down with them, we'll look at the four indicators that we're going to be, you know, engaging in in this coaching cycle and we'll set some goals on what those things look like. So, for example, a teacher might say you know, one of the things that I want to work on is my expectations. How do I communicate expectations for student behavior? And then we'll talk about what it looks like to have students enter the gym in an orderly way. How do you greet students at the door, communicate your expectations and have students follow them, and you know, there's obviously dozens of examples that I can give, but we start off with that goal setting.
Gary:Then we engage in some sort of learning, so that could be lesson planning. Like I mentioned, observations, just informal observations that don't have any evaluation or score attached to them. One of the one of my favorite things to do with teachers when we engage in this learning process is what we call learning labs, where I get to take PE teachers to see other PE teachers in other schools. Yeah, we did one last week and I'm actually doing one tomorrow afternoon because, as you know, most PE teachers are in their building and they kind of feel a little bit siloed so they don't get to see effective teaching from other PE teachers. So I'm bringing a group of six teachers tomorrow to go observe two other PE teachers and I'm really looking forward to it.
Jake:Well, that's awesome. What a great way to have the teachers collaborate with each other. And are these high school teachers going to elementary Elementary, going to high? Does it vary?
Gary:So it's mostly elementary teachers. I get some middle school teachers who are interested as well and I try to pair them up and go, you know, bring them to other middle schools. I don't have all that much interest from high school teachers and I haven't really put my thumb on exactly why. It makes me want to say that elementary and some middle school teachers are more reflective in their practice. But I know that's probably not true. Maybe they're just busy with coaching or doing other things. But yeah, the majority of the teachers that I work with are elementary and then mostly, and then middle school.
Jake:That's great. So, gary, a follow up question how do you collaborate with building leaders or with other stakeholders in the school as far as supporting the teachers as well? What does that look like?
Gary:Yeah, so I mean, you know not to talk smack about building leaders, but I think that most of us would agree that the majority of building leaders don't really understand what high quality PE looks like. I'm going to bring you into this with me.
Jake:Jake has that been your experience as well. Ask me any questions too. It's the back and forth.
Gary:So no I would.
Jake:I would agree with you. I'm it's, it's. They haven't had the training. They don't know what it looks like. You know they, I think they wanted, they want to do good by the PE teacher, but they just need some education for lack of a better word on what quality, standard-based physical education looks like at all levels. So you know, sometimes, you know, just make them sweat, make sure they're not getting hurt, make sure they're quiet in the hallways what I hear sometimes, but there's, as you know, there's a lot more to it.
Gary:Yeah, if students aren't being sent to the nurse's office, well, that must be what high quality PE looks like, right? Nobody's getting hurt? And we know you and I and your listeners know that that's not quite the case. So another part of my job I have the half of it that's working with teachers. The other part is to work with building leaders to make sure that they have a common understanding of what high quality PE looks like. It's like you said, it's not just about breathing heavy, it's not just about sweating, it's not just about making sure that kids are engaged in activity and playing safely. We want all of those things, of course, but there are other components to what a high quality PE program is.
Jake:Absolutely, and so you know we've talked a little bit about going into schools individually and having the teachers visit their colleagues. What about PD facilitation? What does that look like in your district?
Gary:We have several professional learning days where content areas get separated, which is really great. So all the music teachers get to have their own content, all the art teachers, all the PE teachers. I think that's really valuable. We all know what it feels like to be a PE teacher stuck in a professional development that has nothing to do with us, so I'm really lucky that we get to break up like that.
Gary:What my role in that looks like is I will either facilitate a session on my own, and I can either come up with the topics, or my colleague, jen, who is our instructional curriculum specialist, she might tell me hey, look, here's what I'm noticing out in schools.
Gary:Can you develop a professional learning session that's based on this? Or I will work with the teachers who are presenting and I'll help them think through their sessions and help them with some of their facilitation. So a recent one that we did we had a PL day about a month ago. A colleague, Jessica, and I we presented on the impact that social media has on physical education and it was a really great session because people got to watch a couple of clips from some of our favorite social media influencers and decide, like if I were to implement what I'm seeing from this person tomorrow. Would that really be high quality physical education, or do I need to tweak some dials and add some layers to it and not just take what I see on Instagram at face value? So it was a really fun session and teachers got to dig into it.
Jake:I really like that, gary, because sometimes you know we fall into the trap or teachers fall into the trap of oh this looks like a cool idea and just because it works in one environment doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work in another environment. Also, you know, you mentioned, you know, tweaking it and making it their own and a lot of these things I've seen on social media. They look cool and whatnot, but are they standard based? Are the kids even throwing correctly? You know there's a lot of elements that need to be taken into consideration when implementing a new activity or a new lesson. So that's really cool that you're actually giving PD on this.
Gary:Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I actually wrote a new chapter for the book on the impact of social media and PE. I snuck it into the book like about a month ago, so anyone who purchased the book, let's say in like mid-February, was able to get that chapter. I'm more than happy to share that chapter with folks too, if they want to reach out and email me. I'm always happy to share my work, so it's something that's been really, you know, fresh on my mind. What I what I see teachers do somewhat often is they'll find something on social media you know a bunch of jump rope tricks, for example and then they'll just go teach that the next day. And my questions are number one you didn't know what you were teaching the next day. Like that's the state that we're at as you were combing through social media trying to find an activity for tomorrow, so like how?
Gary:we're not planning, like our units and our scope and sequence, et cetera. And then, like you mentioned, what standards based learning? What objectives are we connecting to the activity? That you see, because we don't just want students to do 12 jump rope challenges in PE, put their jump ropes away, call it a day and go to their class. We want them to actually learn something based on a standard and I know that you and I are going to talk plenty about that.
Jake:Absolutely yeah, learning is definitely key. So I know you've obviously written this awesome book, which I actually have, and I want to get the update with the social media chapter in there. So I'll be reaching out at some point. But how would you describe quality physical education in your eyes?
Gary:So I think there's a couple of components that come to mind. Number one is that PE teachers have to create an environment that is safe and welcoming for all students. Right, we need all students to feel like they're in a position where they can take not just risks physically right to try a new skill that they might not be good at or that they need to make some improvement at, but also to take academic risks as well. A lot of the things that I talk about in the book are not just physical learning, but also students being able to articulate their learning, mostly verbally, and to be able to use language to show that they're making progress towards learning a certain standard. So that'll be the first thing that I think of a safe and a welcoming environment for students. The second thing would be a PE program that has cast aside outdated practices.
Gary:I write a little bit in the first chapter of my book, which is on like what equity looks like in physical education, about some outdated practices versus contemporary ones that we should be replacing those practices with. So just a couple of examples. One would be that we have small group activities. Right, students are in groups of three or four, as opposed to 11 on 11 flag football. We know that when students are in large groups they don't get to touch the ball. They're not as engaged as they would be if we had like three on three and the rules were modified, etc. Another one would be getting away from captains picking teams. Right, this isn't 1970s physical education anymore. This isn't 1970s physical education anymore. This isn't recess, where something like that might be more appropriate.
Gary:We should have teachers purposefully grouping students based on whatever criteria it is that they want to base them on. And then the last one I can think of now is how students or, sorry, how PE teachers assess their students. So we should be assessing students on contemporary practices like standards based learning, and not on just arbitrary things like whether they're wearing gym shorts or the right sneakers or something like that. I always say that, like if a science teacher failed a student because they forgot to bring safety goggles to lab class, we would think that's the silliest thing ever, right? So we shouldn't be knocking students down for not bringing their sneakers to PE class. We should find other ways to get them sneakers, but we shouldn't be giving them a lower grade because of it. What are your thoughts on that, jake?
Jake:Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think these three things you mentioned are definitely important. As far as the grouping goes, there's so much, there's so many ways to group students with cards. There's an app called Team Shake, there's just a variety of creative ways. And, as you mentioned, some of the students need to be grouped based on where their skills are at. But it's also good to have students interact with students that are either maybe higher skilled or lower skilled.
Jake:So in my philosophy regarding this is everyone's included, obviously, but they got to be willing to work with anybody in the class. I mean there's. No, that's how it is in life, right, I mean there's, and I teach them that there is a disagreement, there's ways to handle that. I teach them about the problem solving corner. I can go into that later, but there's always ways to have students collaborate and communicate respectfully and responsibly. And as far as the shorts and sneakers, I think I've seen that a little bit more at the secondary level than at the elementary level. But you know, so be it. We need to be grading on standards and what they're learning, not what they're wearing. So I mean, that's just, that's just the bottom line. Yeah.
Jake:Gary Guest I couldn't agree more, I'll add oh sorry, go ahead.
Gary:Oh, I'll just add one other thing so that people don't think that I'm too boring, right, I think that also, if you want to have a high quality PE program, it needs to be fun and it needs to be engaging for students. There needs to be lots of equipment out there, right? I can't tell you. Well, I guess I'll make a connection between some off-task student behaviors or students who don't want to engage in physical education, with a lack of equipment and a lack of exciting things going on in the gym.
Gary:When students show up at the door, if they're excited about what they're about to engage in and what they're about to learn, the battle is half won by the teacher, right, and that's one of the reasons that I love elementary so much is because elementary PE teacher, you are a rock star. You don't need to earn anything from your students. They already love coming to your, to your gym. You just got to harness that, right? Uh, in middle school and high school you got to do a little bit more work. You got to convince students and motivate them. But in elementary especially, you got to have lots of equipment out there. You have to have a fun environment. You have to have lots of scaffolds and different activities for students to engage in. You want students to be excited about showing up to PE class so that then they engage in activities and their behavior stays where it should be.
Jake:Yeah, I agree, you know. I mean, like you said, if there's limited equipment out, if the activities or they think in their mind the activity is not fun, it just leads to behavior issues. But the teacher also is a big component in that as well, and how they set up the environment and where they put the equipment. I mean, as you know, the equipment should be in different areas of the gym. They're not all you know, scrambling to get to one area for safety, you know things of that nature. But yeah, it's so important, like you said, you walk through the cafeteria as an elementary PE teacher and you are the rock star, so, without a doubt, that's awesome. So in your work, gary, with stakeholders and other professionals, what are some common questions you get in regards to physical education?
Gary:So one thing I think we kind of touched on it a little bit is that people who are outside of the PE world will often wonder what high quality PE looks like. So again, they'll just they'll think that if students are breathing heavy and sweating and not going to the nurse, that that's what high quality PE looks like. So I always take those opportunities to share with them that there should be a physical level of rigor, an appropriate physical level of rigor, and then also a level of cognitive rigor that goes along with it. And that's where some of the things in my book are just a little different from what I think some students are taught when they're in, you know, their PE teacher prep programs.
Jake:I know that we had a question too about talking a little bit more about the book, so maybe that could be an opportunity for me to like maybe just share what some of the things are in it that are, you know, a little bit different, or like my angle is on physical education, it sounds like you might be going down the path of language objectives, and yeah, so you've heard a little bit about these.
Gary:I can't wait to ask you some questions and hear about your experiences with them.
Jake:Yeah, absolutely.
Gary:So yeah, go ahead.
Jake:I was gonna say. So what advice would you give to someone new entering the field?
Gary:Yeah, so there's two pieces of advice that I generally give to all teachers, and this isn't PE related, but the first thing would be that you have to be a reflective teacher. You should always be thinking about your practice, what you can improve. You should maybe even be seeking out feedback from your building leaders or instructional coaches that you have access to, and then, of course, just doing your best to implement it. Nobody expects teachers to do things perfectly all the time. We just want you to be open to feedback and then try your best to consistently implement the things that you talk about.
Gary:The second thing would be you have to develop a good relationship with your principal and with your building leaders, and I know that that sounds simple and I know that I'm going to sound like an old man, jake, but what I see happen sometimes from the young kids who come in and it's their first year of teaching they'll come in and they'll say, oh, my schedule stinks. I'm going to storm up to my principal's office and tell them that I don't want to have, you know, this many classes before lunch, or I don't think I should have to do recess duty because, blah, blah, blah, or I'm not going to go to this after school thing because that's outside of my contract, etc. I get you Right.
Gary:Yeah, when nobody knows who you are and you haven't built relationships with people, I like to call it professional capital.
Gary:Right, you haven't put any money in the bank that you could then go spend later on some of those things, it falls flat. It's not a good look. So you got to build relationships with the people who make important decisions and then next year, when you're a second year teacher and your colleagues like you and your principal likes you because you implement feedback all the time and you time and you're not a pain in the butt you can go into their office in August and say hey boss, I noticed that you have fifth graders coming in first period first thing in the morning and then kindergartners coming in right after that. That makes it really tough for me to set up equipment for those two different lessons. Is there anything we could do to mix the schedule up a little bit? The person already likes you, as opposed to who is this brand new person who comes in here telling me, you know, I never even met them before and they're telling me how to schedule my school?
Jake:Yeah, gary, I really like how you said that. There's two things I want to touch upon and maybe ask another follow up question. One is you talk about building the capital and that's you know, if the principal or administrator who's ever you know in charge of the building leader is asking you to do something, you know we just go ahead and do it, especially as first and second year teachers. I mean, we don't know enough. We should be asking questions and, like you said, reflecting and be in an open mindset about learning Right, and even now, as veteran teachers, we should. I think we should still be like that.
Jake:But also, what you said was that was interesting is the way you mentioned to the principal or building leader. You said I notice, or I wonder, instead of coming at them like this is the problem, what are you going to do to fix it? Maybe I noticed this is happening. How can we solve this together? What are some thoughts on this? And I think that goes a long way in the approach, in the way, in the mannerism that the teacher reaches out to the building leader. Administrator.
Gary:I'll just add on because you made me think of another piece of advice. Somebody, a colleague of mine, told me years ago if you come to a problem, solutions oriented, and if you already have a solution to that problem to offer as a suggestion, whoever it is that you're talking to is much more likely to implement that. What they don't want is for you to just complain about it and then for them to have to go figure out what it is that you're looking to change. So you go to them. You say, hey, I think what we actually could do is move fifth grade to this slot, because blah, blah, blah. Right, come to them with a solution and you're much more likely, you know to get the results that you want.
Jake:Absolutely, I agree with you a hundred percent. Before I ask the next question Gary, do you have any questions for me? I know I've been asking you a lot, but feel free to ask me anything. Any questions as well?
Gary:I do. I do have lots of questions for you, jake, because you know I consider you an expert in this field also, so you know I'm thinking back. You mentioned content and language objectives earlier. I think that that's a term that many people are not going to be familiar with. Were you familiar with the concept of that type of daily objective before you read chapter four? I think it is in my book?
Jake:I was, but not to the extent that you outlined it in. You really did a nice job. I knew about language objectives and I knew about making word walls and trying to make things more accessible to students, especially for our ELL students or anybody. It's good. What's good for some is good for all. So but you really, you know, have a deep dive into writing the language objectives and you talk about the verbs and you talk about how it aligned with the PE standard, and so I definitely learned a lot from your book. But I'm always you know, I consider myself new at this the content language, the PE standards I got down, but the language objectives, I mean we're always learning. So can you talk a little bit about how that, how that would fit in the content language objectives for the?
Gary:future, absolutely, I think, and and we're, jake and I, are totally going off script here I think what we could do is maybe you and I could like create one together. Would you be open to trying that with?
Jake:Absolutely. That's fine. Let's provide an example for our listeners.
Gary:Heck, yeah, let's do it. So I'll start by just saying that what makes it a content and a language objective is not just that you have a PE standard and a grade span learning indicator from the standard aligned with it. That's your content, right, that comes right from the standard and that's what we consider your content. So if I were going to take a standard, I'll take one of my favorite ones. I love our standards-based social skills, so whenever I get the opportunity to give an example, I run right for those. I think this one is in the three through five band in the national standards. It says demonstrates respectful behaviors that contribute to positive social interactions in group activities. Okay, so that is your content. We want students, while they're playing, to be able to demonstrate respectful behaviors. Simple, right, and I think that that's where most PE teachers are have been trained to stop, you just have to have students demonstrate something.
Gary:What I like to argue for in the book is that we want to add one more layer to that and we want to provide students with opportunities to articulate that learning as well, and the way that they articulate that is just like you said, by picking a verb. Just got to pick one of them and I'll rattle off a couple of examples in a moment. But pick a verb that you are going to align questions to and provide students with some really efficient, because we don't want to spend a lot of time talking in PE, we want kids moving, some really efficient, accountable talk structures. We could talk about those too, if you want, in order to get students to articulate that learning. So two last things.
Gary:One would be the end goal of this is that when a principal or a classroom teacher or a parent asks their student what they learned in PE today, they don't just say the activity. They're not just going to say we played spike ball today or we played soccer today. They're going to say something like well, we played this really fun game today. It's called spike ball, but what we actually learned is what respectful behaviors look like, and we also learned why it's important to demonstrate respectful behaviors when we play physical activities. And then I'll just rattle off a couple of potential language functions that you could use so you could have students describing things, you could have students putting things in sequence in order. So first I did this, second I did that. That's great when you're doing a physical skill.
Jake:Kind of like the list right.
Gary:First, second, third, first, second yep. So that's sequencing. You could have students comparing and contrasting. So if they learned the overhand throw yesterday and today, you're teaching them the underhand throw. Maybe you want students to use words like this is similar to that and this is different to that. You could also have students justify why things are important, like a particular strategy. Okay, great, you described what that strategy is to me. Now tell me why you think that strategy is going to work. And then one of my favorite ones, the last one, is prediction. I think it's really cool when you give students the opportunities to make predictions about things and then revisit them later and use language like well, I predict that this is going to happen. Or if we do X, y and Z, I imagine that, blah, blah, blah. So I'll stop there, jake, and get your thoughts and reflections on all that stuff.
Jake:Something that really stands out to me is you talked about the end goal and then the students being able to articulate. So if they're either describing or they're trying to compare and contrast the different skills that they're learning, but also there's different, higher, there's higher order or lower order thinking skills and when you talk about justify, predict, evaluate, you know those are all higher order. So having these language objectives give the students an opportunity to use those higher order thinking skills and, like you said, articulate to who's ever asked them what they learned. So I think that's you know, that's great, that's perfect. I don't think it has to be complicated. I mean, we can start. For a person new to this, they can start with list the steps of the overhand, throw in order, right Something along those, make a T, make an L with your elbow, those type of things.
Gary:Yeah, I love what you said. The only thing that I would tweak a little bit was I would have I would have the teacher use that exact language, like. So, if you want them to list the steps of something in order, tell students that, hey, today we're going to be learning the overhand throw, and what's important to me are two things. One is that you can get better at the overhand throw. You don't have to be perfect at it, but I want you to get a little bit better. The second thing that I'm going to be checking in with you is if you can put the steps to the overhand throw in order. For us to do that, you have to use language, and this is where you might put some vocabulary on the wall or you might have it on your screen. We're going to use language like first, I do blank, second, I do this. Then and finally, because we're going to put things in order, if you think that students aren't familiar with that type of language, you can always just have them do an example that has nothing to do with PE. With that type of language, you can always just have them do an example that has nothing to do with PE In less than a minute or two.
Gary:You could tell students with a partner. I'll give you one minute to sequence how you get ready for school in the morning, right? Tell your partner what you do first. Do you comb your hair first, or do you make your bed first, or is the last thing that you do, you know, put your socks on? Tell your partner four things that you do, and I want to hear you use words like first, second, next and finally. Once students learn that language, you don't have to give those examples anymore. Now you can just say hey, remember two weeks ago when we sequenced the overhand throw and I heard you all say first I do this and next I do that. We're going to use sequencing language again today, but it's not going to be the overhand throw, it's going to be whatever your next skill is.
Jake:That really makes sense to use those words too, because when you're describing something, you initially first start with something. When you're concluding with something, it's finally. It says that there's an end to it. This is the last step. So that really makes sense. First, what is it? First, then second, finally, or first second, then finally.
Gary:Yeah, and it doesn't have to be precise, right, as long as you have students using the language of sequencing First, second, third, next, then finally, whatever. I do want to go back to that standards skill Sorry, the standards grade span learning indicator that I brought up earlier, because I shared what the content objective is that students are going to demonstrate respectful behaviors. What language function, jake, would you align to that? And there's never just one answer, so you and I can just kind of experiment a little bit. Would you want students to be able to describe what respectful behaviors look like? Would you want them to be able to compare and contrast respectful behaviors with disrespectful behaviors? Would you want them to justify why showing respectful behaviors in a physical activity is important and the impact that it would have on a game? What do you think Like what would be most beneficial for your just say, your fifth grade students?
Jake:Yeah, I was going to say I think it would depend on the grade level, but if we're going to fifth grade, I would definitely want them to justify what respectable behaviors are, but also justify why they're important and why we need them in the gymnasium. So maybe at a lower level, I would say list or describe, and then maybe at a higher level, I would say you know, maybe even analyze or evaluate how this is. You know how this comes into play, why you need to demonstrate respectful behavior. What does it look like? What does it sound like? So I think it depends on the grade level. But yeah, I definitely like this line. I like, I definitely like the idea of the language objectives and how it all relates to the PE standards and how important it is too.
Gary:Yeah, I love that how you just you found what would be most appropriate for your students. I'll finish up this example by just sharing like what the objective could sound like if you communicate it to students, and then the last part would be the questions that you ask students in order to get them to demonstrate their learning. So if I were going to communicate the objective that you and I just created to students, I would say something like you know, it's really important to me that when we are participating in physical activity, that we are showing respectful behaviors. If we have disrespectful behaviors, the activity might not be as fun. Right, there's going to be some things that happen during this activity if we're not all being respectful to each other.
Gary:So the first thing I'd like to see us do is let's turn to a partner in the row next to us, and I want you to describe all of the respectful behaviors that you can think of that you might want to demonstrate today. I'll give you an example. When I play hockey with my friends on the weekend, one respectful behavior that I demonstrate is that I always congratulate people when they make a good play. If they're on my team or if they're on the other team, it doesn't matter If the other team scores a crazy goal, I go bump gloves with that person because I just love playing hockey, right. So now with your partner, share what sorry, describe what some respectful behaviors would be that you want to see in yourself and in your peers today.
Gary:Yeah, I love that, that would be that question that gets students to like start thinking about respectful behaviors.
Jake:Right, and you give them an example too, from your own life or your own experience to get them started.
Gary:No, that's great. Yeah, one of the things I write about in the book is how you can communicate objectives by telling stories. So I just I love doing that because you can be creative with it. You can share stories with students. They love hearing about the things that their teacher has going on. So think about that standard and that grade span learning indicator. What do you want to teach your students? What language can you add to it? And then come up with a story to hook students so that they're like, oh wow, a coach plays hockey and he, you know, bumps, gloves with his opponents and with his teammates.
Jake:Cool, I can probably do something similar when I play soccer or when we play badminton today in PE, or you get the point, yeah, no, no. And I think in the book you talk about the baseball example, maybe something in the softball field. Poss that's, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, great, great stuff, gary, this is. This is definitely, you know, um expanding my brain and hopefully expanding our listeners brains too with what, uh, what can be done with our field?
Gary:so I appreciate you, jake. You gave me a long leash there, so I really just went for it no, hey, that, hey, no, it's all good, my friend, so gay on.
Jake:follow next question what projects are you working on lately in regards to physical education?
Gary:All right. So I have a couple of things that are keeping me busy. The first one is the Distinguished PE Book Study, and I would love to just describe it real quick, and I'll share a link with you too, jake, if you want to add it to the description of the show. So if anybody wants to sign up for it, we would love to see who else is interested. We have a bunch of people who already signed up for the next session, which I'm hoping to start, maybe in August something like that.
Gary:So we got some time, but the teachers in Denver Public Schools engaged in it.
Gary:We had about 30 teachers and it's basically was a book study that went through the various chapters of the book. So it was, you know, it was virtual, it was engaging professional development, it wasn't me just talking at people, it was sharing the expertise in the room and then teachers got an opportunity to reflect on how they were incorporating concepts from the different chapters in the book, what they were going to do in between sessions in order to experiment with incorporating those things into their practice. And then when they came back, our you know, do now or instant activity for our sessions was always that teachers got to reflect on the thing that they implemented, that they learned last time. So it was really great to have a group of people who are doing these things all the time and they're hungry for new ideas and they just need a little bit of room to experiment and some colleagues to bounce some ideas back. So we got that course coming up and I'll share the link with folks if they want to sign up and get more information.
Jake:Absolutely. Yeah, please do. And I like what you said about you know, first they talk about it, then they experiment and then they reflect on it. It's kind of like a cycle, right, and they're taking these action steps, they're not just talking about it.... Sometimes, I feel stuff just stops at the talk but then there's no follow-up or there's no action step. But with this experimenting in their own lessons or collaborating with colleagues, and then they have an opportunity to reflect. You know what worked, what didn't, why might it? What made it work well, what could be some of the barriers. I think that's really key in getting better and improving. So yeah, I'm psyched. I'm going to try to get on that book study. You said it's in August.
Gary:Yeah, we don't have a start date yet, but we would love to have you. Jake, you are, of course, more than welcome, because it's not just about you learning, it's about you sharing your experience and your expertise with other people, so it would be a pleasure to have you there.
Jake:Thank you, Gary, and you know, of course you have your own podcast, which I don't know how many episodes you have a lot more than me, but tell us a little bit about your podcast.
Gary:Well, you're going to be jealous of this, jake. So at the current moment, I think I have three episodes completely finished, just waiting to release them, and you know, as a podcast host, how good that feels to have a couple, a couple episodes in the can and you're just waiting to release them and have another conversation.
Gary:So, yeah, I mean you are an incredible host and again I'll thank you for for having me, and the podcast has been fun. You know, you know what it's like. You get to talk to people out there who know their stuff and they're willing to share their experiences with other people. So if people are interested in listening to my podcast after they're done listening to all of your episodes it's the Distinguished Physical Education Podcast and you can find it anywhere Apple, spotify, all the different places. So, yeah, I would love to love to have people listen to it. And, of course, if people want to be a guest, I have a form in the description for each episode. If they want to be a guest on the show which I hope you will be someday too, jake all they have to do is fill out that form and I'll get back to them and we'll start scheduling the topics that they want to talk about.
Jake:That sounds awesome. I'd love to be a guest and we'll definitely put all this information in the show notes. Great Folks, we still have a lot more. It's not over yet. So, gary, what do you hope to see in the future? What goals do you have? This could be either personal or professional. What do you think From a personal standpoint.
Gary:I mean, I really love my job, so I want to continue to do this role as long as I can. I love being able to support teachers who are reflective and want to implement best practice. So, personally, you know, as far as Denver public schools goes, I hope that they'll keep asking me to come back each year. We just went through another reorganization and it's the fourth one, that I've survived in this current role.
Gary:So, uh, you know, maybe I'm just a little bit lucky, but I also think that they value what myself and my team does, so I'm hoping to keep this, this job, for a long time. Um, I know that at some point I'll probably be back in the gym and I'll look forward to that moment as well. Uh, it would be just like you, I think. Elementary PE is where where my heart is, so I'll continue to be this instructional coach for a while longer and then, when the time comes, I'll I'll head back into the gym.
Gary:And then, just as far as physical education in general, uh, I just want it to have a reputation that people see as an asset to the school itself and to communities, and that's why I talk so much about our standards-based social skills, because those are skills that are transferable to other contexts.
Gary:So when I always go back to the same example, when a building leader asks students or a teacher asks, hey, what did you learn in PE today, what they're expecting the students to say is something physical, a name of a game or a physical skill, and that's great. Students should be learning how to dribble a soccer ball or serve a badminton birdie right. What is even more impactful, though, is if we focus on those standards-based social skills and students are able to say you know, I learned what a respectful behavior looks like and I'm going to go do this respectful behavior at recess today. So now the PE teacher is teaching content that's going to make an impact elsewhere in the school. So that would be like. My future goal for PE is that it's seen as an asset and not just a plan period for teachers.
Jake:I agree 100%. You know it's like you said, the day when students are saying what are we learning instead of what are you playing, or the administrators are saying you know what are you learning, and the student can have, you know, this great response where they're talking about how they're going to apply what they learned in other avenues and other aspects of their life. And you know, kudos to you, gary, for doing this work with teachers, with administrators. You know, I know a lot of districts are probably wanting somebody like you to be in their district.
Jake:You know, not just you know, there's a lot of great administrators out there, but they don't know the content. I mean, there's just no other way about it, unless they were a PE teacher themselves. But even even then, you know times have changed, things are changing. So you know, kudos to you for for putting in all the hard work. So I can only imagine Um, and I used to work at the district level myself for a couple of years, so I get how it is working with multiple adult learners. You know dozens of people, dozens of schools, but you know so kudos to you.
Gary:Yeah, I've had building leaders who were former PE teachers before when I was teaching and I always thought that that would be incredible for my own personal development and you know, kind of like you said, you know, times have changed or maybe they were just a little outdated, but I was a little left, a little disappointed that I didn't get the feedback and professional growth that I wanted from building leaders who had experience being PE teachers. The other thing that I'll just say too, because you mentioned, like being a central office or or. I know that I won that award to the, the administrator award. That term just doesn't quite sit well with me. So I just want to set the record straight.
Gary:Jake, my team is very lucky there's only seven of us. We're very lucky to be considered teachers on special assignment. So we are still considered teachers, we are still part of our DCTA, our union bargaining agreement, we are union members and we work a little bit longer than teachers an extra week or so but we don't have a central office. I eat lunch in my car every single day and while I travel from one school to another, so we don't spend time like in a cubicle at our central office. We are out in schools every single day as teachers on special assignments, so well, interesting, I didn't realize you were.
Jake:You know there was, you were that busy, you know you're seeing. If you're seeing that many teachers in a day, then like, yeah, I guess you wouldn't be in a you know a chair, a leather chair, sitting back and you know doing the computer thing. So exactly, yeah, good for you. So, gary, a couple more questions Do you have?
Gary:any advice you can share with our listeners. What's something you would want them to take away? Yeah, I gave some generic advice earlier, but I think this advice would just be more for PE teachers themselves and used to do is write my lesson plan and then just slap a bunch of standards at the top. Oh yeah, this is a standard one, and I'm also going to make sure that I tell students to show good sportsmanship, so that's also going to be standard three. Oh, and I want kids to be safe, so I might as well throw this standard on the top of it.
Jake:And what?
Gary:you're doing is you're not using the standards as a resource. Once you start to like, flip that mindset and backwards plan from the standard. I'm not. I'm no longer saying and I know I keep going back to this example, but I'm no longer saying well, I'm just going to teach sportsmanship today. No, what you're going to teach is respectful behavior, and you want students to describe what those respectful behaviors look like. So it's much more targeted and much more nuanced. So that would be my advice find the standard that you want to teach and then align everything else back to it.
Jake:You're questioning your activities, your objective, but use the standard as a resource so, in essence, you're back, you're backwards, planning with the standards in mind first.
Gary:Yeah, none of this is stuff that I made up right, but I'm just lucky to be in a position where I can elevate it and continue to advocate for teachers.
Jake:So Gary, this question is off the script, but it's something that's come up in my role in the past. With all these standards that we have as physical education teachers, how do we prioritize? Is that something you do at the district level, school level? We can't teach everything all the time, so there's only so many days in the year.. How often do your students have it in Denver? Because we have it once a week for 40 minutes. How about you?
Gary:Oh wow, so you see your kids one time per week, correct Wow?
Jake:So I like to say the classroom teacher sees their students more times in the first two and a half weeks of school than we see them all year. That's unbelievable. I'm hoping you see them more.
Gary:So by October it's still like the first week of school for you, basically.
Gary:Yeah, pretty much, so it's different at every school. Unfortunately, there really isn't consistency among that. We'll have, uh, like middle school teachers will have an AB schedule and they'll see their kids every other day, whereas some other middle school teachers will have the same class every day for the first semester and then a different class for the second semester. Elementary is kind of all over the map. It can be just like yours once a week, uh, or it could be on the complete other end of the spectrum. There's one school that I'm thinking of where they see the same kids for three weeks and then they switch to another group and they see them for three weeks. So by the time they come back to that first group, I think there's three rotations. You know it's two months later and you have to spend a lot of time going through your routines and your rituals and your expectations all over again with students. So, yeah, it's pretty all over the map.
Jake:Interesting and I'm sure that makes your job interesting. You know cause you're dealing with or working with one situation or one set of you know scenario at one level and then another another situation, scenario at another level.
Gary:So wow, I didn't really answer your question, though, about what standards to prioritize.
Jake:Oh, yes, how would you go about that?
Gary:Well, I mean, first of all, just like you said, I think let's get out of our heads that we're going to teach every single grade span learning indicator to every student every single year, right? So we know that that's probably not attainable unless you see your kids every day, or maybe every other day. So what it comes down to, at least in my opinion, is that it shouldn't be coming from someone at central office. It should be coming from the teacher, who knows their students best. So you know that if your students need social skills based on our standard, you can teach them that, and you don't necessarily, in most cases, have to move away from that until you feel like you're ready to, or that your students are ready to. I don't know about you, but we really don't have someone who's saying you know, this is the scope and sequence and this is exactly what you need to be teaching on. You know, march 18th or whatever the date is, do you have a little bit of freedom in what your scope and sequence is?
Jake:We do, I would almost say we have. In the past it's been a little bit toward the other end, you know. You know one school is doing one thing and another school is the other. So there is, I think there is, some validity to having a rough general scope and sequence. But I totally understand what you're saying. If the teacher knows their students best and if the teacher is working on one standard, they want to prioritize that. I think that's totally, you know, acceptable to be doing that.
Gary:So yeah, and before anybody in Denver yells at me, in case they're listening, we do have a scope and sequence and we do recommend it. It's just that there's no one who's going to say hey, jake, how come you're not teaching invasion games this week? Because that's what the scope and sequence says. Jake, you know you have the opportunity to say well, you know, actually I'm holding off on invasion games for a week because I feel like my students needed this set of skills before I teach them that or something.
Jake:Right, no, no, that's, I get it. I get it. Yeah, this whole idea of standards and common assessments and all these things. You know that could be a whole nother podcast, so we'll have to arrange that. But you know, gary, how can our listeners connect with you? What type of social media are you on?
Gary:So on social media, I'm on, I think, all of the things at this point and it's not really my thing, but this is the way of the world and I do feel like a grandpa every time I click on X or Instagram. I just can't quite get the hang of it. So for people who do follow me after they listen to this podcast, don't expect too much. You're just going to learn when new episodes come out and stuff like that. So on X, my name is Gary Z DPE for distinguished PE. On Instagram, it's Gary Z, distinguished PE.
Gary:We have a Facebook group which I'm pretty proud of. It's just called the distinguished physical education group and the reason that I like it is because we talk about all the stuff that you and I talked about, jake, and the things that we're passionate about. You absolutely will not find any posts on our Facebook group about. You know, how long should students be taking to get changed in the locker room? Or do you give eight points if students have a PE t-shirt on, or do you give 10 points? You know we don't talk about this stuff. We talk about instructional methods and like real world problems of practice methods and like real world problems of practice.
Gary:And then, of course, if anybody wants to reach out whether they want to be a guest on the podcast, and I'll make sure that anyone who's a guest on my podcast better be a guest on yours as well, jake, they can always email me at gary at distinguishedpecom. I'm also more than happy to share digital copies of my book with people. So I know that there's a lot of young teachers out there brand new teachers who could benefit from what I wrote. And you know they're just starting off and they're at the lower end of the pay scale. So if you can't afford to throw 20 bucks on Amazon to go buy a book, just reach out to me and I'll share a copy with you via email. So I just want my work to get out there and for people to engage with it. It's not about making money.
Jake:I appreciate that. Gary, you're a very humble individual. I actually have your book, you know, and I reached out in the past too for getting , a couple copies, for our MAHPERD Conference, our state association conference, and you were generous to let us have those. So we will definitely post all of this information in the show notes, so no need to write everything down. Gary, thank you so much for sharing your experience and expertise with us. it's really been a pleasure to connect.
Jake:You're definitely a mover and a shaker in the field. Listeners, if you have any questions, you can always email us at mahperdpodcast@gmail. com We'll have this episode uploaded soon and also we're asking our listeners to leave a review if this podcast has been helpful in supporting you in any way, as it does help other folks find it. Thank you all for listening. Have a great week and we will be back soon.
