SHAPE America TOY Website Questionnaire s2

SHAPE America TOY Website Questionnaire

Name: Barbara Berry School Name: Eau Gallie High School School Address: 1400 Commodore Blvd, Melbourne FL 32935 School phone (only if you want me to post online with your profile): (321)242-6400 Your email address (only if you want me to post online with your profile): [email protected] Your website (if applicable, and only if you want me to post online with your profile):

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) I have found great success using heart rate monitors in my classes. When they arrived I gave my junior physical education class the manual for the heart rate monitors. I then gave them the task of developing a lesson to teach my other classes how to use the heart rate monitors, the purpose of the monitors and how to read the results. They loved the idea. They quickly organized themselves and within two days they had created an amazing lesson. They went into all of my classes and taught their peers everything about the heart rate monitors. They also taught me a few things along the way as well. My heart rate monitors have the ability to email parents a chart with their student’s workout each day. My juniors created a flyer that was sent home so that the parents could easily understand the email that they were receiving. The parent feedback has been unbelievable. They love to get the emails to see what their child did or didn’t do in physical education each day. I have also started using them with our after school fitness program which consists of volleyball players, girls and boys basketball players, girls and boys soccer players and cheerleaders. The knowledge and understanding that our kids are gaining from these heart rate monitors is irreplaceable for their growth as a healthy person as well as an athlete. They are learning to listen to their body and actually understand how to push themselves harder in a safe and controlled manner. To see the excitement in their face when they tap those heart rate monitors is priceless.

What is your particular expertise in regard to teaching physical education – what is the focus of your teaching? My strength is in building relationships with students. I work really hard creating a safe environment for students and setting high expectations. My goal is for all students to feel comfortable asking questions, trying new things outside of their comfort zone and achieving personal success. I firmly believe in order to get the best out of students I must work to build a relationship of trust and respect. Once that positive relationship exists I can help guide and motivate them to take responsibility for their physical education and achieve their personal goals. By building relationships with students I am able to take students who were embarrassed to participate in class due to their size, ability or lack of interest and work with them to take small steps toward participation and enjoying class. All students have strengths and weaknesses. In my opinion there is nothing better than finding the strength of a student, motivating them to find their niche and leading them to success.

What is your philosophy for physical education – what do you believe in? Physical Education is far more than a profession to me -- it is my PASSION. Growing up and now even into adulthood, I have always been an active individual. I grew up not watching TV or playing video games or tweeting or face booking but instead I was always outside riding my bike, running, playing some sort of outside game with my friends or just exploring. We would play outside as long as our parents would allow. Times have certainly changed over the years! Today the challenges for a physical educator are many. Students today are much more motivated to avoid movement and activity than they are to actually participate. I strive to reach the ultimate goal of directing my students to become able to take care of themselves mentally, physically, and emotionally through participation in activities that they can enjoy and adapt for a lifetime. My ultimate goal is to educate my students that there are options available to meet all of their needs. Physical education is not just sports and games. That will always be a part of it but in today's society and in future years that will become a smaller and smaller part. I want my students to know that their health and well-being are the backbone to their success in every other endeavor in their lives. In order to enjoy the assets that they collect through the years -- they must have optimum health. I want my students to be lifelong wellness learners. In order to stay abreast of the latest information and trends available, they have to be technology savvy. There are a wealth of apps, websites, social media sites, and infomercials available. It is my job to help my students first find these sources of information and then to help them personalize this information to what fits their needs and to help them be able to filter what is factual versus fad or gimmick. I believe physical education is a multi-disciplined cooperative effort to ensure that students receive a wide array of information across numerous disciplines in order to help them over a lifetime. It is science in knowing about such things as calories, metabolism, heart and lung diseases, muscular strength, and etcetera. It is math in knowing how to calculate calories in versus calories out, BMI, repetitions, cadence, etcetera. It is language arts/reading in analyzing books and articles to gain information to help them make wise decisions for their own health and possibly most importantly I want them to be able to understand what health personnel (i.e., doctors, nurses) are telling them about their and their family's health conditions or needs. Finally, physical education is history. By educating students on diseases and health trends I hope they may break a cycle of heart disease, obesity, and overall poor health. I strive to find the strength of each and every individual student so that I can motivate them to lead healthy and productive lives. No matter what size, shape, ability, mental or social group, all students have the ability to find their niche to tailor their individual physical lifestyle. What does being a physical education Teacher of the Year mean to you? First and foremost it is an honor just to be nominated. I am humbled to be recognized for the hard work and commitment that goes into the daily job responsibilities of teaching students. I feel fortunate to be in a profession that allows me to motivate and educate students to better themselves for a lifetime. I am diligent about teaching my students life lessons through physical education and health. Being nominated confirms that my desire to be a positive role model and impactful physical educator is being recognized by my peers.

What do you do to help other physical education teachers plan and implement exemplary programs? As the department chair for my physical education/health department, I lead all curriculum development and alignment to meet district, state and national standards. This ensures that we are maintaining a high level of expectations for ourselves and our students. I lead weekly collaboration meetings that allow our department to share instructional strategies to be sure that our students are experiencing meaningful lessons that will lead to an active healthy lifestyle. I facilitate guest speakers from all areas of instruction so that we can incorporate all subject areas into our daily lessons. I believe that it is very important through physical education we teach to the future and not just the present. I feel very strongly that we show our students that physical education and health is more than just recess. I also provide our department the opportunity to visit other physical educators in the county so that through observation they may garner new ideas and techniques that might touch a body of students they had difficulty with before. Through professional development trainings and collaborations with other educators I make sure that our department is kept up to date on the most current trends and methods in teaching physical education. My department uses common assessments in all classes. I lead discussions that analyzes those assessments and we work to find our strengths and weakness. We were the only high school in our district that agreed to take practice EOC’s in the fall of 2014. I felt that was important for us to do as a department so that we could see where we are in regards to teaching to the standards.

I am the lead curriculum writer for high school physical education teachers in our district. I work closely with Rachel Winsten, our district resource teacher developing curriculum maps for our high school physical education classes. This has been an energizing experience for me. It has allowed me to stay out in front of constant changes and ensure that we are instructing classes that support the stand standards and challenge our students at a high level. Any quotes from students about you as a physical education teacher, or the classes taught by you? “The people who go beyond expectations and the requirements in order to enrich the minds and empower the souls of others are people who can never be forgotten. Coach Berry is one of those people” – N. Spaethe (Class of 2015)

“Coach Berry makes coming to her classroom something to look forward to. You never know what to expect, except fun and challenging. – K. Miyo (Class of 2016)

Coach Berry never allows us to settle for average. She motivates us to push harder in everything we do and good or bad, she always cares about us” – R. Indelicato (Class of 2017)

List three of your “favorite” conference session titles that you have presented, with a brief description of each.

Curriculum Writing – Spoke at our district inservice to high school physical education teachers about how to effectively use standards to guide your daily lessons. I also spoke on the necessities of using item analysis on assessments to ensure that our students are gaining a full understanding of the standards.

Any additional major teaching awards you have received:

Fuel 60 Grant Award Winner Brevard Schools Foundation Health First Grant Winner 2014 SHAPE Florida High School Physical Education Teacher of the Year 2015 SHAPE Southern District High School Physical Education Teacher of the Year 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.

1. If you could have a teaching super power what would it be and why? I think

I would pick time manipulation. Having the ability to speed up or slow down time

would be awesome. So many times kids are having a blast playing a game, or

they are having an awesome class discussion and they want to continue but we

are restricted by the bell schedule. I would like to have the ability to just let

things roll on when they are good. Let them play, discuss and have fun until they

were ready to stop. It would also be nice to speed up the clock when classes or

lessons aren’t going so well.

2. Share a funny or shocking story from your years of teaching. Many years

ago I had been working closely with our special education department to

mainstream a few kids into my volleyball class. After many meetings and

discussions with parents we picked the date that we would start the integration. I

was prepared and excited for this to happen as were my students. The first day

went amazing until one of our new students did not want to hand over the ball

and leave. With the ball under his arm he bolted out the gym door. He ran over

a mile to a convenience store before I could catch him. He sat down in front of

the store and without hesitation he told me that he was so happy to see me, that

he had so much fun playing and could he please come back to play the next day.

I was so out of breathe and relieved that I had caught him that all I could do was

laugh and say absolutely!

3. With teaching there can be good and bad days. What’s a moment in your

career that’s made it all seem worthwhile? I have been fortunate to have many more good days than bad. Over the years I have stayed in touch with

many of my former students and players. Every time I get a return visit, email or

phone call from one of them, it makes my day. To watch them grow into

productive, successful members of the community is what it is all about.

4. If you could go back in time to when you first started teaching what advice

would you give yourself? My first few years of teaching I was all about results.

After 23 years of learning, I would tell myself to slow down, take the time to build

relationships with my students and enjoy the process.

5. My students would think I’m crazy if they knew I thought my dog was human.

6. One of my unhealthy guilty pleasures is sweet tea.

7. If I wasn’t a PE teacher I would be an athletic trainer.

8. What’s the biggest challenge PE teachers face and how would you change

it? One of the biggest challenges for PE teachers today is to stay out in front of

change and to show why physical education needs to be a priority. We have to

do this at the local, district and state levels. Having productive, focused lessons

that teach across all curriculums is a necessity to show that PE is essential for all

students.

9. Describe your teaching style in one word. Student-centered

10. Compare your teaching to that of your own PE experience. I was very

fortunate from elementary school through college to have some very motivated

PE teachers. Many of my best memories throughout school came from PE. I

had teachers who cared about the profession and it showed in their daily

instruction. As a student I remember begging for “free” days. Those were few and far between because my teachers always had a plan in place. In college, I

was lucky enough to have an instructor who showed me what it was to truly be

passionate about physical education. Her ability to motivate students by building

relationships is something that I admired and watching her teach inspired me to

do the same.

11. How or what made you become a PE teacher? I attribute my career decision

to several things. I don’t remember a time that sports or some type or physical

activity were not a part of my daily life. My experiences and life lessons learned

through these activities were a big influence on my decision to be a physical

educator. I wanted to teach kids that physical education/activity can change a

person’s life in so many ways. I was also blessed to have a college coach and

professor who was the ultimate role model for me. Her passion for physical

education and her ability to bring out of the best in people was and still is today

an inspiration to me.

12. Ask your students to describe you in one word. Share a few responses.

Inspirational, Passionate, Compassionate, Goofy, Fantabulous