MAHPERD "Voices From The field"

"Moved To Move"

• MAHPERD • Season 1 • Episode 27

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What if PE class felt like a place where every student belongs—and every choice builds confidence? We sit down with veteran elementary PE teacher Will Westphal to unpack a practical, research-driven approach that turns movement into meaning. Will’s core promise is simple and bold: movement can make your life better. From there, he shows how autonomy, challenge, and connection create the conditions for real learning and lasting joy.

Will brings human motor learning out of the lab and into the gym with the OPTIMAL theory: enhance expectancies so students believe they have a chance, give authentic choices that act as differentiation, and promote an external focus so kids feel their impact on the environment. Instead of body-part cues, he uses vivid prompts like “make thunder on the wall,” helping learners self-organize and find success. He also reshapes units around structures of play—turn-based, synchronized, side-by-side, oppositional—so students can choose contexts that match their temperament while practicing the same strategic ideas found in invasion and net/wall games.

Data fuels the culture. With quick daily reflections on fun, success, challenge, and classmates, Will surfaces patterns that typical checklists miss. AI-assisted analysis revealed high achievers, socially sensitive students, and a “silent middle,” leading to new routines: student “anchors” who lift the room, prompts that vary from mild to spicy to deepen thinking, and a practice of naming the peer who made a difference. 

Families hear about the play structures their children prefer and why it matters, turning PE into a powerful space for identity and agency. Along the way we talk Standard Four, meaningful PE, precise field days, and advocacy that earns trust without chasing edutainment. If you want a PE program where students move to move—not feel made to move—this conversation is a roadmap. 

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Jake:

Hello and welcome to Voices from the Field, a MAHPERD podcast where we talk with educators in the field to hear about their perspectives and experiences. My name is Jake Bersin, advocacy chair for MAHPERD, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Will Westfall. Will is a 14-year veteran of elementary physical education in Wisconsin. He has a passion for helping people to see how human motor learning in a meaningful PE framework can be practical for everyday teachers. This passion and experience as teacher, coach, and researcher has led to Will presenting across the country and recent recognition as a teacher of the year by the Wisconsin Health and Physical Education and Shape America Midwest. Welcome to the show, Will.

Will:

Jake, it's great to be here. I'm excited for the chat.

Jake:

Awesome. So, Will, before we get started, what's making you smile these days?

Will:

I feel like that can be tricky, right? Because we can smile on our face. Um, but right now something that genuinely just like makes me laugh. There's a there's an Instagram clip out there of an old British sketch comedy show, and it's four people going to a therapy session, and one guy is afraid of the of the phrase, and then the next person who comes in is has a fear of things being repeated. The third person who comes in has a fear of apologies, and then the fourth person who comes in has um, when he's scared, makes animal noises, and it's this this domino effect of somebody apologizing, which leads the guy to scream ah, which then the guy who is afraid of ah screams, and then the person who doesn't like things being repeated screams, and then because they're all scared, the fourth person makes an animal noise. So it's just it's goofy, it's goofy, dumb, but thought-out sketch comedy that I I will laugh at every time.

Jake:

I like that. Well, thanks again for joining us. Let's get started about your journey. What inspired you to become a PE teacher

Will:

For me, I am from a family of teachers, and so when I started college, that was really the last thing I wanted to be. Um, wanted to be a little different than the rest of my family. But as I moved along in college, and that was mixed with a little bit of coaching, I very much enjoyed the feeling of the people I'm working with figuring something out, the them getting, them getting what I'm trying to help them solve. And as I was moving through college, I was taking a human motor behavior class at the time, part of my coaching concentration, and was really drawn to everything about it. When I really kind of had to narrow things down about what I wanted to leave college with, it was that flip of, hey, fitness or physical education. And I felt like fitness, you learned a little about a lot of things. Whereas in physical education, I felt you really learned a lot about one thing. And I really liked what that was about and what it could be. Um, and then the second step there, because I did have a lot of those diverse interests, I went straight to grad school um down to southern Illinois to learn with a guy I really appreciated, his research. His name's Jared Porter. He's at the University of Tennessee now. And I I was when I was there, it was something I wanted to pursue, but I also knew it would help me narrow things down. Am I gonna go be a strength coach? Am I gonna go get my doctorate or am I gonna be a physical education teacher? And by the time that was all done, it was like, you know what? I feel like PE is where I can make the biggest impact on people and that feeling that I knew when I was much younger of helping people get it and helping just helping people get where they want to go.

Jake:

Absolutely. So it sounds like Jared Porter had a big influence on your choices to become a teacher. Are there any, is there anybody else that had an influence in your teaching?

Will:

Um, you know, that whole Southern Illinois grad school staff, that kinesiology department was so cool. Um, you're a little bit older, so the relationship's different. The conversations and just like the collegiality of that years was awesome. I wouldn't trade that for the world. Um, but yeah, those people had a big influence on me. And then the more I look back on it, just the expectations and the way I was taught at Wisconsin Lacrosse. Um, Dr. Christy Malley was my advisor on some things in Massachusetts the past couple of years that some of your members might know her name. Um, Lori Peterson, um, Jeff Stefan and the things he taught us about adventure education, Garth Timeson and the way he ran our adaptive physical education program. As I get older and have more conversations with some of my colleagues, I realize I left that school learning things that they never discussed as they went through their programs or the experiences we had with our adapted FIED program and the um experiences we gave adapted PE families throughout the lacrosse area, a lot of what I am today is because of those people and what they put in my head and what keeps me learning and moving forward.

Jake:

So it sounds like you had a broad and diverse amount of experiences. Adapted PE, PE adventure education. That's really great. And that's kind of led you to where you are right now, right? So, what core values guide your PE program today?

Will:

For me, when you look at just how to me, how our world continues to evolve, I feel like the movie WALL-E is always should be a really good reminder for physical education teachers when you see all these people on a giant spaceship who have a screen in front of their face all the time and is always dropped off at their feet, and they and it's like, well, okay, we're not that far removed from that. And that whole ship is a world where movement doesn't really exist. And I know we have this world of fitness and MVPA and all that jazz, but for me, I want my kids to see that movement can make your life better. Um, that's my big core thing, that's my enduring understanding for students. Whether you think you're a jock, whether you think you are anywhere in between or any or farthest removed from that, there's a place for movement in your life, whether it's the interaction you get to have with others, how it relaxes you, how it makes you feel happier, or maybe it does improve your skill, maybe it does improve your fitness, but just the idea that movement can make your life better. So enduring understanding is a phrase that was presented to me in my old school district. It's a little town called Brilliant, about a half away from where the Green Bay Packers play. We started using really a curriculum sorting database called Atlas Rubicon. And when we had to put our curriculum and all the mapping in there, the big thing was one of the big things was an enduring understanding. And for me, I just love that phrase. It's like, okay, when your students are done with you, what should endure? Sure, they're all gonna remember how fun the parachute was. Every kid's gonna leave elementary physical education, probably thinking a scooter is pretty cool, no matter how much you did or didn't use it. But just them understanding that movement, whatever type of person you choose to be, movement has a place in your life. So, how does movement I get that?

Jake:

So it's like backwards, backwards planning, backwards design, right? What's the enduring understanding? What do you want them to get out of the overarching, the big picture? That makes sense. I'm familiar with Rubicon Atlas, our district that used to use that as well. So um very familiar with that. So what are some ways you help your students who may not naturally enjoy physical activity or find success or enjoyment and be? What are some ways that you can help motivate them or engage them?

Will:

Sure. Um, for me, you know, whether I perceive them to be motivated or not, I've I come from an idea that I learned from my research study and still try to read. It's a paper that's about a decade old. It's something called the optimal theory. And it was put out there by two researchers, Gabby Wolf and Rebecca Luthwaite. Um, Gabby Wolf has been an amazing researcher for almost 40 years now in human motor learning. And the for me, the nuts and bolts of it to try to shorten it up for people as much as I can, is she breaks, she breaks kind of movement practice down into two things, a vicious cycle and a virtuous cycle. And in that virtuous cycle, a mover should have enhanced inspect enhanced expectancies. So they believe they have a chance. A mover should have some autonomy. And a mover should be given a task where they can have an external focus of attention. So what that means is my I can focus on the impact my movement has on the environment around me. So if you can imagine if I'm having kids doing some throwing, and maybe I've got a ball that's got a little bounce and can make some noise. And rather than cueing their body parts to death, I might just ask some kids say, Hey, when you throw that ball, can you make some thunder on the wall? Something like that. If we can create environments where those things are happening, what the research suggests is we get better practice and we get better learning. So for me, everything starts right there. Am I giving you chance? Am I setting up tasks so you got a chance, or at least you think you do? Am I giving you some choice? And am I creating environments or really that's a big part of my planning? Am I creating phrases that help you observe that can bring that environment to life? Whether it is when you throw that ball, let's make some thunder on the wall. Hey, when you let go, can you scrape the floor? Rather than cueing their body parts to death, can we use metaphors and analogies?

Jake:

Interesting.

Will:

Those types of things. Um, and for me, that really sets the stage for really intentional differentiation. Because if a student is gonna believe they have a chance, kids very quickly figure out if they can or they can't. Right? So that's where that, okay, they need to believe they have a chance and give them some control. All right, if we're working on striking, as long as they're safe with equipment, it's not unreasonable to have three different choices on what type of paddle they could use. It's not unreasonable to have four or five different types of things they could be trying to hit with that paddle. And all of those choices to the kid, it seems like cool, I have control over this. But to me, all of those choices are helping them control how predictable or unpredictable something is, or how much stability they do or don't have. If I'm holding a long handled racket, that's gonna be less stability. If I'm holding a frisbee as a racket, I'm gonna have way more stability. Right? If that frisbee happens to have a trampoline center, my toy is gonna bounce way higher. I have more time to react, so now I have a long now I have more predictability, right? Or if all of a sudden I'm trying to hit a beanbag turtle with my paddle, after it after I hit it, I'm not quite sure where in the world that's gonna go. You know, so when we play with predictability and stability just by giving the kids choice, they're empowered by the choice, but they're probably gonna choose things they believe they have a reasonable chance with. Right? So right there, we got our differentiation. Um, when they get older and we start learning game strategies, I'm probably not breaking my units down by sport, right? Because when they get older, if they hear the basketball units coming up, they probably have a pretty good idea if they're enchanted with basketball or not. And my students do get a little bit of say in what we learn about each year. But even if it is something related that is sort of sporty, I am gonna give options on structures of play. Do you like being competitive or being oppositional? Would you prefer to be cooperative in those cooperative settings? Are you playing with a teammate? Or is it almost like you at a bowling alley where you and another person are side by side where you're accomplishing, you're accomplishing something, but or it's not even so much cooperative. It's it's just more social, right? We're using movement to be social, like that bowling alley scenario where we're learning the skills, we're using the skills. Movement, we're having those movement opportunities, but just in a different environment than maybe your people who prefer oppositional play, right? We can take that learning center of a basketball, of invasion games, of net wall games. We can work on those skills, but in different structures of play that you might feel more comfortable with.

Jake:

Um I have a follow-up question about the structures of play. So, how would a teacher, how would you determine which structure would you give them a choice about the structure, or how would you determine what might be good a good fit for the class or for the unit?

Will:

Incredibly fair question. Um, with my elementary students, I actually am about a year or so into, and um, this is really inspired by um Justin O'Connor and his people down in Australia, Monash University. I think they do some cool research. They used to share a lot on social media prior to, I don't know, some of social media's weaponization. Now you can't find as much from research from overseas, but they really just talk about structures of play, classification of play, all these things we've been teaching for years, invasion, net wall. Do kids still even do that anymore when they're not at school? And so with my young kids, we have units that are based on structures of play. We started the year with turn-based games. And the beauty for me with that is we're learning valuable social skills on how to take turns, how to play together. But every day we can be working on a different movement skill, right? Maybe one turn-based game or activity is striking. The next one, we might be doing our throwing. The next time we're playing a turn-based game, it might be a little bit of an obstacle course. So we're we get to continually come back to skills. Then we went from that to synchronized activities where we did some parachute routines together. We did a little, I wouldn't call it interpretive dance, but we had a little creative dance together. Then we took all of my equipment and I borrowed from Christy Malley just these basic fruit beat cards, you know, pear, pear, pear, blueberry, blueberry, blueberry. And we took, we took we will rock you to start. So we had a really consistent beat. And I'm like, okay, guys, with our pear, pear, pear, pear, pear, pear, what beat patterns with your toys can you make up? And you know, so kids would have pillow hockey sticks and they would go jump, jump, smash, jump, jump, smash. So we're learning how to do synchronized things together, but we're not really dancing. We're taking that stigma away for the jocks who or whoever thinks, oh, I'm not a dancer, right? We were just playing with toys to a beat. And then once we had the hang of we will rock you, then I said, okay, guys, now we're not we will rock you anymore. We're gonna get fancier. You guys are making the moves with your beats, but now you're also picking the beats. So now instead of pear, pear, pear, now maybe some kids are going pear, apple, pear, pear, apple pear. Right. And we are taking a little break from structures of play now to focus on um how move how we connect with rating of perceived exertion. Like how what how do we like our body to feel when we move? But we'll come back to side by side um structures of play. And throughout all that, I mix in occasional oppositional play kind of within each structure. So the kids who like oppositional still get their fix, but it's not overwhelming for those students who aren't. And then parallel play. So we think about parallel play, right? We think about the kids in the sandbox who are right by each other but never actually interact. Right? Some kids prefer parallel play. And that's usually how I start each class when we do what I call challenge time, where we work on an object control skill and they have different challenges, but they're all working in their own space using their own combination of tools and doing the same challenges, but really interaction is kind of up to them. They could just be hanging out in that space or they could interact. But that's how that's how I use structures of play. Um, with my older kids, because they vote on what we're gonna do, whether it's invasion or um netwall or tricks and challenges for variety, as the unit progresses, each lesson is kind of, hey, what fits you? Today we're figuring out are you a person who likes to strike with your hands or you don't want to strike with a paddle? Now, day two is when we play a netwall game, do you want to play with a kitchen or not? Okay. Day three might be, do I want to be in a cooperative setting or a competitive setting? And each day we keep adding layers while also learning your netwall strategies. So now when we're in day four or five and beyond in that unit, students are playing with peers who want to play the same type of structure they do. And then I also have rule scaffolds for their games. How many bounces do we get before we have to return it? Do I have to pass it? Do I not have to pass it? Is there a kitchen? Is there not a kitchen? Do I get to redo a serve? Is our serve line flexible? Am I not even playing? Am I not really even, are we even volleying at all? Or are we really just using striking skills to try to win a game like Battleship or Tic Tac-Toe? I just said a whole bunch of things in a lot of different orders, but that's how I try to get a lot of kids where they're at rather than forcing them into the hole I want them to be in, I guess.

Jake:

You explained it really well, and it you gave specific examples, which I think will help our listeners out. You mentioned earlier chance, choice, giving them autonomy, the different structures of play. This is all great. You're definitely expanding my mind with these structures. Awesome stuff. Um let's talk a little bit about change. What's one change you love to see in how schools approach physical education?

Will:

I think it's something I'm maybe biased about or passionate about. I would really love to see more people getting on board with standard four in the shape standards. And standard four, when you read it, is really kind of heavily tied into the meaningful physical education framework. It's not just the happy feel goods or are kids busy and having fun that sometimes people associate with standard four. But why does movement matter to you? Why does movement matter to you? I remember sitting in a meeting when I started at a new school district and we were re-wording some of our curriculum, figuring out where certain courses fit, because with re I guess with consolidation, some grade levels were making the jump from elementary to the middle school. And I was kind of the new guy, and I threw out the idea of in our wording. I said, guys, there's nothing about students enjoying it. Shouldn't that Be somewhere in there, and I kind of got looked at like I was crazy, even us, right? We're more likely to do it if our emotions drive it. Right? There's a good quote from the book. It's either no sweat or the joy of movement that logic doesn't motivate us, emotions do. And I think physical education, I think we could really grow if we really start sharing how we are helping students discuss the emotion that comes with movement and the meaning they feel in movement, the moments they feel proud, the moments they feel challenged, the moment they feel the support of a classmate, you know what made something fun. I think when I'm finding my students love to chat about it, I am finding parents love to hear about it. When they hear about what structures of play their kid enjoys, when they hear about how, okay, my kid really prefers to play in settings where they get to just do their own thing compared to, or not compared to, but also then there's the student who really thrives on being with others, right? When we start tapping into those things, I coming back to my enduring understanding, I think that's where you get kids who really find room in their life for the fact that, hey, movement can help my life, right? A catchphrase that I use in my presentations is when we get back going, that's where we get students move to move rather than students feeling like they're being made to move. Say that one more time. Getting students move to move rather than making them feel like they are made.

Jake:

Move to move instead of made to move. I like that. And I imagine it can be an eye-opening experience not only for the teacher and the students themselves, but also the caregivers when you're you're communicating with them about how their child, what their child is doing, and they're building that relationship and hearing all the feedback. That's advocacy right there.

Will:

For me, the bluntest way I can put it is I've probably been diving into this approach with standard form meaningful PE for about four or five years. Ten years before that, I never had a parent crying in a parent teacher conference. It's not a brag, but just the emotion they feel when they hear about what their child's connecting with. Like I have a student who physically incapable of sweating. They have to turn their head like an owl because their eyes can't track. Um, they have several other things going on. And prior to being my student, that student physical education was traumatizing. So when all of a sudden that student came home and told mom, I want to be, I want to be a PE teacher. Mom had to come sit down and chat and figure out what our room was about. And it yeah, those emotions, that connection, that wasn't happening before I started doing what I'm doing with why does movement fit you and how does it make you feel?

Jake:

Move to move. What a great story. Yep. Thank you for sharing that. So Will, what's the most rewarding part of your job? What would you say?

Will:

You get to impact people, right? We're in the game of service. If we're truly doing education right, you are you are a servant, one way, shape, or form. And ideally, you're making an impact. So the people you get to impact. And I guess I at this point, I am blessed enough that people want to hear me talk. So I don't just get to impact my students, I get to impact my coworkers, my colleagues, future professionals. That is a humbling, important responsibility, but it's awesome at the same time.

Jake:

Absolutely. So you go around to different conferences, you talk with your colleagues, you lead some PDs. Tell us a little bit more about that and how and uh how that works.

Will:

Yeah, so I guess the past few years for me, what when things kind of really took off is Christy Malley, myself, uh Jordan Manley out of Kentucky, a few other people, we gave a two-part presentation at Shape Cleveland where I just I basically gave a mini lesson for 30, 40 minutes of what I do and how it looks. And people were very intrigued, and also being a contributing author to a book that's soon coming about meaning physical education with about a dozen or so teachers across the country and how they're using it, and particularly with Christy Malley and the Wisconsin and the UW system schools, getting the chance to have virtual chats with their students, um, send videos of how I teach or just things I think about when I teach, things like that. It's just um, it's like I said, it's another piece of getting to impact people, which is really enjoyable, just like it is when you get to impact your students.

Jake:

Yes, absolutely. You talked about Jordan Manley, and he's the founder of the HBE Collective, which is where I actually met you. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about the HB Collective and what it's about and kind of what the goal is? I think it's a great website, it's a great community, but if you could just collaborate.

Will:

Yeah, so the HBE Collective, Jordan Manley and a few other health and physical education colleagues, a little over a year now, they started it up and they really wanted to establish a place that is strictly for us. You know, health and physical education, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, those are places that are filled with so many other things. And the HPE collective can be a place where we share all those things, but that's that's all that's all it's about, right? It's just us and health and physical education and just really trying to, you know, good, better, best. And it's gaining traction day by day, month by month. I think the more people that are willing to join and participate and share, I think that can be a really solid place for HPE people, and we can continue to grow each other.

Jake:

If I believe they have webinars and some PD opportunities on there, it's not a place where they're gonna say, What's my lesson plan for tomorrow? Right, it's a little bit more in depth, it's more comprehensive, and it's really to help help and and kind of be a community for the health and physed world.

Will:

Exactly. The webinars and everything there, and just with the passion kind of their board of directors is bringing, I can see it as something that's continuing to evolve. And so that hopefully you don't have to feel like, man, I need to be an expert to go on the collective, but really wherever you are in your career, you can jump on there and feel like, hey, I I have a place right now where this is this can benefit me here, this can benefit me five years from now, just so we can keep each other growing.

Jake:

Absolutely. The way you learn from your colleagues. What's one or two ways that you advocate for your program specifically? I know you we talked about all the things you've done, but what's what are some highlights for you as far as advocacy?

Will:

Advocacy for me, it's evolved so much over time. When I was in a rural school district in one school, I was able to run a lot more school-wide programs, whether it was fundraising, whether it was walk-to-school Wednesdays, um, being involved as a coach, just like my presence, my consistent presence in the community was a tool in and of itself. Top of the newsletters, on top of the video recordings, those types of things. Whereas now, when I'm trying to support my children and their endeavors, and I'm in two different schools, which makes the after school and around care programming harder, I think I am most impactful with community and family by share, starting by just sharing with my coworkers. Here's what's happening in physical education here. Or and the things that we've been talking about, they see, hey, this is a classroom for everybody. When I'm able to converse with them about a student's needs and how we see the same thing and all of those things, for me, it starts there. Since I'm in a place where I can't run as many around school programs, the field days and things that I run, I make sure that those are tight. You know, that A, B, C, you know, T's are crossed, I's are dotted. That when family show up, it's like, okay, this person knows what's up.

Jake:

They know what to do.

Will:

They know when their child is with me every day, that this is a person who's got their stuff together and is going to do good things for my child. And then right along with that, um, being fortunate enough and I guess willing enough to have helped write our state standards, go present, you know, be being fortunate enough to receive awards that gets put in the school newsletters, that gets put in the paper, that gets put on social media, it gets people talking about you, it gets people thinking about you, it gets people more willing to help you, um, right along with you know, getting grants from places, those little things that kind of keep you not intentionally, it's not like you're looking for attention, but that keep people that keep you on everybody's radar. So that's like good things are happening there. That's a good person with our children, trying to do good things not just for those kids, but things that then are impacting our whole community because of how those kids are benefiting.

Jake:

Absolutely. Thank you. Let's talk a little bit about students that might be reticent, and that could be happened for a variety of reasons. How would you, or how do you go about encouraging them in your class?

Will:

You know, for me, I'm really kind of diving into the deep end of that right now with particularly my older students, my fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. They fill out a Google Forum reflection every day where they have your Likert scale one to five means weak connections, five means strong, um, with fun, success, challenge, and classmates. And then we also have a question that I call our daily stamp, where I ask, what had the biggest impact on your life today? Was it personal relevance? Was it classmates? Was it challenge or fun? And they need to explain why. And before Christmas or the holiday, that led to 885 data points, right? Wow. So I started talking with eight uh with AI about those 885 reflection entries. And after I asked questions I thought were important, I said, Hey, what other trends do you see? And it saw a lot of things. Things, things that would have taken me days. And one thing that really resonated from the reflections is there were three big categories of kids. We had our people who more or less call themselves high achievement who fit with being a high achiever based on we had kids who AI described as socially sensitive, and like the dynamics of that are really important. And then the third one was a type of student it called the silent middle. The kid who's there doing their job, but they're not super engaged.

Jake:

Interesting.

Will:

Yeah, and then there was a secondary category based on their responses of students that interpret it as anchors who are giving good reflections and mentioning other and being mentioned by other people. There was participants, so they are giving good reflections, but not really being mentioned. There was I might have that one wrong. They're getting mentioned but not giving good reflections. There it is. Then there was the observer, the person who gives reflections. Yeah, they so yeah, participant gets mentioned, gets mentioned, but is giving bad reflections. The observer gives good reflections, but isn't really getting mentioned. And then there was the ghost. They're not getting mentioned and they're not writing good reflections. So for me, like those silent middles, those ghosts, you know, that was sticking out. I'm like, I don't want silent middles, I don't want ghosts. So coming back from Christmas now, I kind of I shared out all that data with the students, and there and it even broke it down between one of my classes and how one class AI essentially described as the class of conflict based on their reflections and their data. And then it was this first like week or two back, it was making them aware of that. And now this last week was me having one-on-ones with each kid because they reflected on it, they thought they got to pick what they thought they were, and we talked about well, one, how are you gonna keep it that way? Or two, how can we fix it? I had one student who s saw themselves as a silent middle, and they said, if people said hi to me, so that's a student who's been going through every day, or not every day, but a lot of days, feeling like they're not even being seen. And so it's like, okay, this is something we need to start unpacking as a whole, like fourth, fifth, sixth grade level. That's something I need to communicate with that classroom teacher about. Um, you know, situations like that. It's also a little bit on me when kids are stuck and not sure how to reflect. I use AI to help me figure out some back pocket questions that they can go to when they aren't quite sure what to say. Right. So now our reflections can deepen. I also added a question to our reflection just to put how much our interconnectivity and the way we treat each other matters, where every student every day needs to pick someone who tell me somebody who impacted class for you today and tell me why they did. Right. It's also something for me now where I am assigning two or three kids every day to be class anchors. And if you're a classroom anchor, sure, you're doing all the things we usually try to do, but I am also giving you the extra responsibility of you need to put a little extra effort into making sure things can go well for the people around you today. Right? Because if I feel safe, if I feel connected, if I feel seen, even something's a struggle, even if I'm realizing, hey, this type of movement isn't meaningful for me, I'm still on some level gonna be a productive contributor to our class environment. And so that's kind of a long-winded answer of I I really am guided by the data my students' reflections give me. And if the people listening are saying, Will, how long do your reflections take? Not long. Um, I have 45-minute classes. And for those fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, most of them, even the ones who reflect well, they are done with that in about two or three minutes. The ones who really like to shine in the reflections, they may take longer. That's okay. But most of them are fairly efficient and effective with it. And I mean, you can see from the description I just rattled off for you, their reflections tell me a ton. And they're being honest, it seems like. Oh, for sure. For sure. And the ones that aren't, it's stuck out in the data analysis. And you heard there that I'm trying to take steps, and I'm also trying to help them see, hey, you can take steps here too. And here's the tools I'm giving you to take those steps.

Jake:

How this is all very interesting. How long have you done this process of this self-reflection with the students? Is this something that been more recent, or have you been doing this for a number of years, or has it kind of evolved over time? Have you always done this and it's been different?

Will:

I, we, the students are part of it. I I'm five years into this.

Jake:

Five years, wow.

Will:

And it's gotten a lot bigger, if you will. It started with me getting a grant from the Phys Ed Phys Ed Connections conference that used to happen in Stillwater, Minnesota. It was an awesome conference that they no longer run for a variety of reasons. And I was getting into the meaningful physical education framework, and I bought with that money laundromat racks that were collapsible. And I had pocket charts for every single one of my classes. And kids would put rubber bands in their number, and those rubber bands were color-coded for their connections for the day, whether it was classmates, fun, um, challenge. So we could, when I would look in there translucent or see-through pocket charts, I could start seeing what colors are you putting in there? What connections are you having? Um, move school districts because of my son's medical conditions, wanted to get closer to where we actually lived. And you know, having laundromat equipment doesn't work everywhere. So then I had to get a little more nuanced. So now what I've settled in on with my younger students, I have closure corners. We have eight big vocabulary words: hard, fun, easy, proud, classmates, success, challenge in life. And at the end of every class, I have those broken into two groups of four. So it's a blue signed day or a white signed day. And at the end of every class, students go to the sign that they think fit them best. I have my tally chart of who went where. And then when we come back together, I pick one kid from each category and I cold call them of, hey, why did you go there? Or since some of my students' answers have been lacking depth, I brought up those back pocket questions earlier. I will occasionally mix in. I go, okay, Jake, do you want mild, hot, or spicy? And you pick mild, hot, or spicy, and then I give you that mild, hot, or spicy question about fun or about challenge. So that way the kids who aren't quite sure how to handle that open-ended prompt can handle a much more direct prompt. And that all leads into our end-of-unit oral reflections, which are delightful. Um, just the different ways that kids perceive your class. And then the older kids, we've been doing those Google forms for about three years. And it was always about informing my practice with them and seeing what they connect with best. But it was also seeing, okay, if I'm having kids reflect on challenge every day, the data I should get at the end of a unit should really kind of look like a bell curve. Because if they thought it was really challenging, a lot of them probably aren't going to feel successful because it was probably too hard. If it's too easy, they're probably going to be bored. So they'll say it wasn't very fun. But if we get that bell curve rocking, that means they're probably going way back to that optimal theory. They probably are in that spot where a lot of us are believing we have a chance of success. So now we're probably having some fun. Now, you know, all those just how kind of all those things interweave. So it's me seeing what do my students need, but it's also me seeing is the way I'm structuring my classes with this choice, with these structures of play, with students getting to vote, with students getting to tell me their feelings. Is it actually leading to A class that they are engaged in.

Jake:

As teachers, we have to come up with these goals, right? Yearly goals and get observed. I'd be willing to bet that one of your goals or many of your goals have been around meaningful framework.

Will:

Well, and to be honest with you, yeah, tell me a little bit about that. So in Wisconsin, you've got that student learning objective with evaluations, but then you have your professional practice goal. Um, I usually have been using the meaningful PE and the data and my questioning as my professional practice goal. Got it. And then my SLO is still kind of a stereotypical standard one thing, because then I can come back to my administrators and say, hey, this whole thing of me having kids focused on their connections and emotions, we're still actually getting better at skills while we're doing this because of the way this room is structured with the choice and the appropriate challenge and constantly coming back to skills rather than just having one-off units. So if someone were gonna say, Westfall, you're not teaching skills, I can be like, Yeah, I am. It's just like it's that's not our big fish. Our big fish is movement makes life better. How are you connecting with movement?

Jake:

I love it. Thank you for answering that. Yeah. Let's transition a little bit. You've got a prestigious award, teacher of the year. So what does that mean to you, either uh personally or professionally?

Will:

For me, it's kind of hard to separate one from the other because movement dork as a person. So my profession fits my dorky personality as what I'm motivated by uh or fascinated by on a day-to-day basis. As a person, at least for me, it's humbling. You're thankful, you on some level feel validated, but it doesn't change a single thing about the work you do. You're the exact same person, you're the exact same servant. The same things that motivated you before should be the same, to me, are the same things that motivated you after, right? Kind of like I just heard a soundbite from Tom Brady the other, just before we started talking about how he at the end of his career practice was more fun than games. He's like, okay, because every win that wasn't the Super Bowl, you were still left not feeling completely satisfied. You didn't win the right way, you didn't win by enough. And you know, it's it's a nice, it's a nice feeling, it's a humbling feeling, but it it doesn't change the job you're doing. It does, it doesn't change the joy you get from impacting others. Um, but also professionally, I think right now with social media and the sound bites and the clips of activities and the cool visuals. I think sometimes, whether it's a physical education teacher or a classroom teacher, it is very easy to get lost in the world of edutainment. And like, don't get me wrong, we need to be engaging, and there's lots of different ways to be engaging. But sometimes I feel like in that edutainment, we miss out on what could be really good conversations and thoughts and analysis and sharing and even questioning, not to like say, I think you're doing something wrong, but hey, why do you do it that way? Right. In those little 150 characters or your 30-second video, so much of that gets lost. And so, I mean, as you've listened to me for the past 40 minutes kind of dork out, for me, on some level, it's validating that somebody who's passionate about pedagogy gets recognized. So, like just the fact that that's still valued, I think is cool.

Jake:

Definitely very cool, and I've enjoyed the last 40 minutes. So you have a unique perspective on the field, and it's been great. And I I know our listeners are gonna love this too. So, what advice would you give to new or aspiring P teachers?

Will:

You've gotta be you. Don't try to be what you see somebody being on social media, don't try to be your student teacher or clinical supervisor. Learn from them, but you've you have to be, you have to be you. Um, because you know, it's like I tell my students, it's like, Jake, why are you why are you trying to be why are you trying to be Will when you're Jake? Right? Just be your best Jake. Focus on what Jake thinks, focus on what Jake did. Be you. When you watch other people, it's always super easy to be critical. Um, have be a critical thinker, but try to see why somebody does what they do. I find when you get to that point or even having that conversation with people, a lot of people have pretty sound whys for why they're doing what they're doing. Even if you don't agree with them, you I think you then gain an appreciation for them. Social media is awesome. Just because it's on social media doesn't mean it's best practices. I bring up lacrosse, I brought up lacrosse earlier. I think the best thing that lacrosse ever did for me is sure, we learned about a bunch of different activities, but for me, and maybe I'm biased in the way I see the world from day one as a fiscal education major there with the professors I had, it was about how you taught, not what you taught. And I I'm not, I feel like some of the colleagues I come across didn't quite get that experience as they went through. Um, so that's yeah, that's my challenge to those young or future professionals. When you see something on social media, um, just always make sure it fits with the best practices that you're trying to enable, not just busy, happy fun. Um if you do, if you can try to learn about the meaningful PE framework. It has it has changed my life for the better as a FIA teacher, physical education teacher. Sorry, Wisconsin says FIA. Um, but so yeah, it's changed me for the better. And I think it would help a lot of other people too. The people that I present to, there's almost always one person after I'm done that says that says more people need to hear that message. So people who are willing to look into the lit review from 2017, it's super readable. The book from Tim Fletcher and others is short and gives solid examples. And hopefully the book that I'm helping with in a few years will also be super helpful for people.

Jake:

Um we'll link those in the show notes so people can have access to those resources because you can buy them online, right? Amazon.

Will:

Yeah, the um the Tim Fletcher, the Tim Fletcher, Steph Benny book that is readily accessible um online. The I'm not sure exactly when the book we're working on will ever be out there. And then the lit review, I'm pretty sure you can find a free just with a Google search, can find that PDF pretty easily. And you said that was 2017, right around there, 2006, 2017. Steph Benny, Steph Benny, E and I. Um, or even the um meaningful physical education podcast by Doug Gletti and Ty Riddick up in Canada. They're great guys. Otherwise, my challenge for really any teacher, future professional, find connections to our work from other areas. I personally love reading behavioral economic books. I like I think the insights they have about human behavior and how that can improve the culture or the way you structure a classroom, I see it in like everything they do. That's just me and how my brain operates. I see it in like good stand-up comedians and how they pursue their passion when I listen to them on podcasts. Where can you look in other areas in life and see, ooh, that can make me better? What they do there, I think I can do this here. Because sometimes when we get lost on our own Ferris wheel of physical education teachers or hamster wheel, I don't think we challenge ourselves enough.

Jake:

Getting a unique perspective by looking into other areas too, other content areas, other occupations. Interesting. So, Will, as you come to a close, how can our listeners connect with you if they have any questions or they want to reach out to you?

Will:

I guess the easiest way, just with our notification world, is probably social media, whether that is Instagram or I still call it Twitter. I don't think I'll ever call it X. So those those will be the places that they could probably most readily get my attention and get back to them. And then from there, if we you know wanted to talk more, we could exchange emails or something like that. I'm an open book.

Jake:

That's fantastic. Will thank you so much for saying yes to the podcast again. It's been great chatting with you. Listeners, if you have any questions, you can always email us. We'll have this episode uploaded soon. Also, please rate, like, and review the show as it does help other folks find us. Thank you all for listening. Have a great week, and we'll be back soon. Thanks, Will.

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