SHAPE America TOY Website Questionnaire
Name: Lynn Burrows
School Name: Fraser Valley Elementary
School Address: P.O. Box 125 Fraser, CO 80442
School phone (only if you want me to post online with your profile): 970-726-8033
Your email address (only if you want me to post online with your profile):
Your website (if applicable, and only if you want me to post online with your profile): lovepe.me
Questions
Describe one or two of the newest and/or most innovative activities that you do with your students in physical education? (i.e. instructional units, assessment strategies/techniques, development of personal/social skills, parent/family involvement, special events, etc)
A fun innovative activity I do with my students is our Bike Rodeo. During this in-school event students in kindergarten through second grade engage in bike safety stations. Each student either brings a bike or is given a bike to ride and rotates through instructional safety stations led by community members. Our third through fifth graders join in small group rides with community members on bike paths or mountain bike trails, depending on each student’s desires and interests. Riders learn about bike safety and skills. This school event promotes a lifetime physical activity all while ensuring each of our students are taught safety measures and bicycling skills.
Another innovative learning experience occurs when our gym is set up as a giant circulatory system. Students participate in a self-paced obstacle course imagining themselves as blood cells carrying oxygen to the cells and carbon dioxide back to the lungs. Students learn how personal health choices affect their circulatory system by following a variety of challenges within the course. Students draw choice cards throughout the course. For example, in the lungs a student might draw a card that reads “you get plenty of exercise and live smoke-free, your lungs are healthy do 20 jumps” or “you haven’t had enough water today, your blood is thickening, do 50 jumps” In addition students answer inquiry cards based on grade level outcomes including cardiorespiratory endurance, target heart rate, and benefits of exercise.
What is your particular expertise in regard to teaching physical education – what is the focus of your teaching?
The focus of my teaching is developing young knowledgeable and competent movers who experience the joy of physical activity. My lessons are developed using the grade level evidence outcomes to set learning targets. Through a wide variety of fun engaging lessons and activities my students develop the skills and knowledge required to reach our learning targets. Their positive experiences in physical education combined with their developed love of movement and perceived competency prepares them to lead healthy active lives.
What is your philosophy for physical education – what do you believe in? I believe in the power of purposeful teaching. In a typical lesson, I begin with an instant activity. This instant activity teaches knowledge content, introduces a skill, pre-assesses a skill or acts as a lead-up into the day’s lesson. Ideally the instant activity does each of these. Then the learning target is addressed using a learning progression where students are engaged in moderate to vigorous physical activity while learning and/or practicing specific critical elements of a targeted skill. I use formative assessment throughout the lesson to guide the pacing and my next instructional steps. The lesson usually concludes with a fun activity practicing and applying the learned skill. Throughout the lesson I authentically integrate common core and physical education knowledge content. My belief is that this model of purposeful teaching leads to a more physically active population.
What does being a physical education Teacher of the Year mean to you?
I have strived to be an excellent physical educator since I first began teaching. Being named Teacher of the Year recognizes my dream of being a leader within the field of physical education. It has given me an opportunity to share my passion for physical education with others in my community, and with many other physical educators throughout the world. As a representative of our profession, it is a privilege to share my enthusiasm for quality physical education. I’m thrilled to be a team member of past and future Teachers of the Year who have set out to make a difference in the quality of children’s lives.
What do you do to help other physical education teachers plan and implement exemplary programs?
I present multiple times throughout the year, locally and nationally. I blog at lovepe.me. I am part of a very active physical education social network on Twitter @lovepeme and on Voxer at lburro461.
Any quotes from students about you as a physical education teacher, or the classes taught by you? “I come to school because I love P.E.” “I wait all day for the best part of my day, P.E.”
“Mrs. Burrows, you’re the best P.E. teacher ever!” Said my third grade student I have taught since the first day of kindergarten.
List three of your “favorite” conference session titles that you have presented, with a brief description of each.
Tying it all Together: This session gives easy to implement examples to authentically integrate common core, develop a standards based assessment system, teach the grade level evidence outcomes, all while maintaining moderate to vigorous physical activity.
Technology in Physical Education: This full day seminar walks participants through the many ways to use technology in physical education. Assessment, planning, instructional strategies, advocacy and developing professional learning networks for the physical education teacher are all covered in this activity-based seminar.
Instant Activities: This session teaches a variety of instant activities that increase the rigor in physical education. The multipurpose activities taught in this session serve to warm students up, teach knowledge content, practice skills, provide formative assessment, incorporate differentiated instruction, integrate common core, all while keeping students active and having fun.
Any additional major teaching awards you have received:
7 Questions for a TOY
The questions below are meant to be light-hearted and fun; this is a chance to show a bit of your personality. Although there are 13 questions, we will choose seven to highlight on social media and other AAHPERD/SHAPE America periodicals.
Lynn Burrows
1. If you could have a teaching super power what would it be and why?
If I had a teaching super power, it would be to pause time. This would allow me to individually address each student’s needs without feeling rushed and without slowing down the pace of our class.
2. Share a funny or shocking story from your years of teaching.
Matthew, then a kindergartener said “Mrs. Burrows I am a great athlete and I’m going to grow up to be a great athlete.”
“Well of course you are Matthew” was my reply. Now he did have great movement skills, and his older siblings were all athletically gifted. But being curious, I asked, “What makes you a great athlete Matthew?” I thought he would tell me about his family’s active lifestyle.
“Mrs. Burrows, I have Athlete’s Foot!”
3. With teaching there can be good and bad days. What’s a moment in your career that’s made it all seem worthwhile?
“The day to day moments with children makes it worth it. When my students come dressed in outfits that “look” like mine and tell me they want to be P.E. teachers when they grow up, when students tell me they play P.E. at home with their dolls, when parents tell me their children teach them healthy life habits they’ve learned in P.E., or that their child loves to come to school because of P.E., or even when students hug me as they walk in the door, all those moments add up and overwhelm me with “good days.”
4. If you could go back in time to when you first started teaching what advice would you give yourself? I would tell my beginner teacher self the real job isn’t just in teaching content, but I would advise my beginner teacher self to take greater emotional risk and build relationships with students because when I learned that, I really began to make a greater difference in children’s lives.
5. My students would think I’m (adjective) if they knew I (fun or interesting fact).
(Ex. My students would think I’m crazy if they knew I base jump off buildings on the weekends.) My students would think I’m silly if they knew I am too afraid to climb to the top of the climbing wall!
6. One of my unhealthy guilty pleasures is _Cheetos______.
7. If I wasn’t a PE teacher I would be a P.E. Teacher. It is my dream job. If I wasn’t a P.E. teacher I would find a way to be a P.E. teacher, it is everything in my soul and being. I live it, breath it, study it, love it, and can’t imagine doing anything else.
8. What’s the biggest challenge PE teachers face and how would you change it? The biggest challenge facing PE teachers is the general population’s poor perception of physical education. To change the perception we knock down doors advocating for our profession. We educate, teaching our students and their families about quality physical education. We lobby to our school boards, We push for more instructional time and increased accountability. We reflect on poor practices of the past and strive to do our personal best to teach each child the joy and benefits of living a healthy active lifestyle.
9. Describe your teaching style in one word. Passionate
10. Compare your teaching to that of your own PE experience. I don’t remember a whole lot about physical education as a child. We spent lots of time waiting in line for our one turn to kick the ball, run in a relay, or jump in the one long rope. The way I teach all of my students are busy and engaged with their own piece of equipment.
11. How or what made you become a PE teacher? I took a P.E. course in college and knew I had found my niche.
12. Ask your students to describe you in one word. Share a few responses. Kind, smiley, fun.