My career into physical education started as a Montessori assistant teacher. I was not expecting to make teaching my full time profession; I took the job because I was still figuring what to do with my exercise physiology degree. However, during my first year of being an assistant, the head classroom teacher gave me lots of freedom to create lessons based on my expertise and interest. Most assistants are relegated to cutting and copying materials, which would have definitely soured my experience. Instead, I was allowed to create lessons and projects with the mindset of, “What are the things I wish I got to do in school when I was younger?”
One of the most fulfilling types of lessons I began creating were simulations. The very first classroom simulation/game I put together was called the Atom Workshop. It was an assembly line simulation where the youngest students collected subatomic particles for the older students to arrange correctly, and then for our oldest students to demonstrate how they these atoms would bond together to make various molecules. This lesson became a trademark of our classroom, and later part of the upper elementary chemistry curriculum on the whole. Creating simulations would be the genesis of how I would create physical education games that integrate with the classroom.
I believe that with integrated PE lessons, students get all the benefits of traditional PE, such as gross and fine motor movement development, decision making and critical thinking skill practice, and when it is combined with themes from the (Montessori) classroom, they get a whole host of new benefits. Students get more exposure to themes and vocabulary, the games provide a more experiential style of learning, which further promotes critical thinking, decision making, and team building skills, and it fulfills the students need for movement and provides a “safe” space for less athletic students to participate because they are interacting with classroom content. My belief is the PE classroom becomes an extension of the main classroom, and is thought less of as a co-curricular or special class. I have previous blog posts which detail my thoughts on the importance of learning through play. You can part one, two, and three by clicking on the links.
Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment.
Maria Montessori
When I was a classroom teacher, why did I naturally gravitate towards simulations and games? A simulation promotes experiential learning through students having to make decisions in open-ended instructional environments. Simulations develop critical thinking, decision-making, and enthusiasm from the participants through hands-on experiences. The use of simulations to bridge the gap between theory and reality makes them a no-brainer for industry, education, athletics, etc. A few examples simulation uses include:
· Lawyers debating
· Pilots training with video games
· Military exercises
· Sports teams practicing specific game scenarios
· Acquisition of various licenses through a demonstration of required skills
· Police officers training
· Firefighter training
· Medical students practice
· Computer predictive modeling
Before I knew all the benefits of simulations, subconsciously I knew this was one of my most preferred ways of learning. When I thought back on my own education, it was those simulation lessons that were the ones I could still remember decades later. There is a wonderful paper written by J Caniglia from Kent State on Simulations as a Teaching Strategy, which highlights many of the benefits of this type of learning. Upon reflection, it was probably inevitable that my interest in simulations would lead me to a path where I would create experiential learning environments utilizing all the strengths of the PE classroom.
For our classroom teachers who are also interested in simulations for teaching big concepts, I am going to begin making these simulations I have used as a classroom teacher into lesson plans for you, which will be included in the upcoming Montessori Physical Education Volume IV, and will also be found as individual lessons at my TpT store. If you have not used simulations before, I hope to make you a fan of them, and If you have been using simulations in the classroom, I give you a virtual thumbs up. :)