Redesign Courses

The following are two courses that our school could benefit from redesigning them to online courses. The CATCH program and our Character Trait of the Month are the ones I chose. In kindergarten, a blended approach is still best because they are still learning foundational skills. I have included activities that could be used in the courses.

CATCH Program in PE

CATCH is a program that is promoted at my campus, it stands for Coordinated Approach to Child Health. We teach some lessons in class, some are taught in our gym class, and we have family nights during the school year that reinforce making good and healthy choices. Some of the topics include sun safety, exercise, and healthy foods. I think it is lacking an online component. For the kindergarteners, I think it would be amazing if we could incorporate CATCH lessons into our LMS of choice such as Seesaw and Google Classroom. It would be great if students could participate in lessons at school, the go home and continue to learn about making healthy choices. It would be a great opportunity for students to internalize material introduced in school because they can go home and teach parents and siblings. Activities could be like watch and dance to this exercise video or sort the food that is healthy versus the food this unhealthy.

Character Trait of the Month

Our district has a character trait of the month, such as kindness, respect, perseverance, and others. Each month we focus on one trait and nominate a student that best represented that trait. At my campus, it does not seem to be a big deal and a lot of the times when a student is picked, they are kind of confused as to why they are getting an award. I feel like the lessons we teach are not enough for them to comprehend the character traits. I feel like if we added an online component, they might be able to understand a bit more. Say they hear the word “respect” on the morning announcements, then we do a lesson on the trait in class about it. I still feel like if we added activities on Seesaw, students would learn more about the trait. They can then talk about it at home with parents and share anything they added to their Seesaw page that day. Students could benefit from the online component and can be less confused when they pass out the character trait of the month. In kindergarten, doing the character traits in a blended learning environment would be beneficial. In upper grades, I think having an online course that explores the traits can be very useful and can lead to better class discussions when needed.