This is an interview with Billy Noble, the elementary PE director in Lexington, KY. We discuss how he uses dynamicpeasap.com for a common curriculum, language, and practice all while providing an equitable curriculum.
** This podcast is being shared to provide activity ideas for future use. Gopher strongly recommends following your district, state, and CDC guidelines for practicing safe Physical Education during the pandemic.
[0:02] Dynamic PE ASAP can provide your district with the ability to have a common curriculum, common language, common practice, and provide an equitable curriculum for all students.
[0:39] I’m with Billy Noble, and we’re going to talk a little bit about Dynamic PE ASAP, but first I want Billy to introduce himself.
[0:47] My name is Billy Noble and I have been teaching P.E. for 19 years. I’ve taught at a couple of different Title 1 schools. I’m actually at my third school now, and I’ve taught Kindergarten through 8th grade, and I’m also the district content specialist for Elementary PE here in Fayette County.
[1:12] Can you tell us a little bit about how Fayette County is using Dynamic PE ASAP in your district?
[1:23] In our district, all the different content areas have their own curriculum, and we all have our own curriculum [in Physical Education] to try to go basically by a roadmap so we’re all on the same page.
[1:33] The beauty behind DPE ASAP is that it provides us the flexibility that we really need because a lot of our schools are on a different schedule. We’re not all doing the same number of days. Some kids might have four days, four-day rotation, and some days some schools might have a five or six-day rotation, so you can go into DPE ASAP, and you can actually build a lesson so you can stay on point with the rest of us.
[1:57] You have somewhat of a common curriculum from my understanding. So based on that, what doors does that open up for your professional development and partnerships?
[2:06] Well, for the past 15 years, plus, we’ve actually been partnering with the University of Kentucky, which has helped us come in and provide some extra help with our professional developments that we do. We do them quarterly here and the beauty is we’ve got it narrowed down to where all the elementary teachers will come out quarterly and we’ll all try to make sure that we know what’s coming down the pike for like the next nine weeks. Using the website we’re able to all stay on the same page that way.
[2:35] Let me clarify here just a second. So your professional development is done based on where you are in the curriculum. Is that correct?
[2:44] Correct. We just had a professional development last week and we actually went over weeks 20 through 27. Week 20 is cooperative games if you look on the ASAP website and so we actually demoed it, but we also pulled up the website, so that way, everyone could see Here’s the intro. Here’s the fitness. Here’s the focus lesson. Here’s the game. What’s the assessment? And we did it live, but we also were able to see it.
[3:07] In addition to the actual content of the lessons. What else do you cover during these quarterly Professional Developments?
[3:15] We focus on best practices, lesson planning, instructional strategies, assessments and we really hit home the classroom management piece.
[3:25] So really focusing on the efficiency of lessons and those strategies that go along with Dynamic PE ASAP.
[3:31] Yeah because to me that’s the core of Dynamic PE is being able to manage the classes.
[3:38] And can you talk a little bit about what the folks at the district level say about this process?
[3:44] They love it from the equitable side of things. We have a lot of schools that have major transient populations being a lot. A lot of kids are coming and going and all the kids, no matter what school they transfer to, they’re not gonna be overlapping or redoing something. We’re all going to be trying to stay on the same page.
[4:00] So they are getting, in essence, a common curriculum across the district? Yes, and that’s the goal.
[4:07] So if I summarize in essence, you have a common curriculum or a common yearly plan into the district level that allows your professional developments to provide a common language and common practice as well as ensuring that across the district the quality of the physical education program is maintained. Exactly.
[4:27] I hope this sheds a little bit of light on how to not only use DynamicPEASAP.com in your lessons with outcomes and assessments but also use it at a district level to make sure you have a common plan and bring some unity to your program.
THRIVE!