Ed Kupiec

I hope you are reading this newsletter while you are relaxing and enjoying your well-deserved vacation. This month’s article on preparing for the new school year is divided into two sections. First, I invited Chrissy DeHay to share her tips for new teachers preparing for the school year. Chrissy is beginning her second year as a physical education teacher at Fayetteville-Manlius High School after switching from another school district. Her tips will be most useful to teachers who are changing districts, as well as those teachers who are starting their first job this fall. The second part of the article is a follow-up to an article I wrote for pelinks4u last year about preparing for a new school year (http://pelinks4u.jasonbuckboyer.com/articles/Kupiec0808.htm). I outline some additions and changes that I will make to the areas that I addressed last year. Best wishes for a successful start to your school year!

Maximizing Success in a New Position by Chrissy DeHay

Chrissy DeHay completed her first year at Fayetteville-Manlius High School in 2009 after previously working for another district. She shares her tips to make a successful switch to a new district. She also offers a reflection on items she wishes were provided to her before she began teaching that would have made the transition to a new district easier. For more information, please contact Chrissy at cdehay@fmschools.org.

1. What was most helpful in preparing for a new position?

• The advice of my mentor, colleagues, and other teachers in the building.
• Getting to know the secretaries. “They know everything, and if they don’t, they know how to find the answer.”
• Staff development days at the start of the year
• Learning the layout of the school by walking the building and grounds.

2. What do you wish you had before starting your new position?

• Fayetteville-Manlius is transitioning to the Mygradebook.com program for managing student grades and information. This would have been very helpful in learning student names if it had been available when I started.
• A set curriculum. Fayetteville-Manlius was in the midst of a curriculum update and mapping process. Now that we have one in place, I think it would be very helpful for new employees to see what students are expected to learn.
• A list of all the equipment available for instruction.

2. What advice would you give to beginning teachers before starting their new year?

• Learn co-workers' names and students' names as soon as possible.
• Start out strict, you can always pull back and loosen up.
• Don't be afraid to ask questions.
• Communicate with parents on the smallest issues.
• Volunteer for things so that people will get to know you.

My Changes for the 2009-2010 School Year

The modifications to my program that I made this year and wrote about last August were successful, but there are also some changes that need to be made based on experience. I would like to highlight the successes I found and present the adjustments that I will make for next year to enhance student instruction and learning.

1. Fitness Testing and Motivation

Specifically devoting 5 minutes of every class to fitness topics and having more frequent fitness assessments was very beneficial. Several of my classes experienced statistically significant improvements in all areas of fitness assessments from fall to spring. That was very encouraging. To further help motivate my students next year, I am incorporating the PE Central Challenge to our fitness assessments. Students will be able to achieve a Bronze, Silver, or Gold standard based on their achievement on the 4 fitness assessments. Students who meet or exceed their Healthy Fitness Zone on 2 assessments will receive a “Bronze,” while students who meet or exceed their Healthy Fitness Zone on 3 assessments will receive a “Silver.” Students who are able to meet or exceed their Healthy Fitness Zone on all 4 assessments will receive a “Gold.”

2. Skill Development

Students also enjoyed attempting the 100 challenges, and I did see an increase in the skill levels of my students as well as their motivation. I will continue this program in September, but I need to make some adjustments in the benchmarks. Some of them were achieved by too few students regardless of the number of tries, and others were easily achieved on the first attempt by all of my students.

Additionally, I need to devise a better system to track student completion of the challenges, while at the same time allow students to be able to follow their progress. This year, I tracked the challenges on my handheld that I use for assessments, but this made it difficult for students to see what challenges they have completed. To remedy this, I plan to use an online chart through Google Docs that I will create by uploading the data from my handheld.

3. Bulletin Boards

The crossword bulletin board was very popular with students. I would read clues over the morning announcements and students would submit their answers to me. I saved the crossword as an image and a SMARTBoard file so that teachers could fill in the crossword as I gave clues over the year. Any student with a correct answer would have his or her name read over the announcements. I will continue this next year with a new puzzle, and clues that are more fitness related and include more fitness topics, as well as muscles and bones.

If you have questions or comments, please let me know. Enjoy the rest of the summer!

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