Periodic Table of Elements for PhysEd?

Have we over complicated Physical Education with social media? Each morning I get up and check social media for current trends in politics, education, and recreation, but lately I feel like the #Physed community is being pulled in too many directions. We have too many teaching theories being implemented, too many hashtags, a new #pechat each week and videos of so called best practices.  How can we be posting so many videos when you are instructing students? We want people to get on social media and share but why? To be the next #PhysEd star? or help an organization or business grow their philosophy?  or to make a difference?

My goal: To Make A Difference.

Lately, I have been trying to find a way to simplify physical education concepts and skills. I looked to our scientific background for some answers to my questions. We needed a simple tool to organize our elements of physical movement. We have used the movement analysis framework (wheel) for many years but the wheel was only two dimensional in a poly dimensional world. We needed to find an update to the wheel. I was sitting in a fellow educators room when the idea of a Physical Education Periodic Table was imagined.

Science has been organizing the basic elements of periodic table since 1869 when Dimitri Mendeleev started the development of the table. Since then 118 elements have found a home on the periodic table with Ununoctium being #118. Why don't we have our own periodic table of movement? Could we take the wheel and break apart the original concept and redesign the tool to better meet our needs?

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Using the wheel, I broke down each section of the wheel and classified the elements into families. I started with the inner wheel and then broke down the outer wheel into families too. When I was finished I had six families/groups for the table. I did modify some of the manipulative elements to align better with SHAPE America Standards. 

My original notes when breaking down the elements of the wheel.

My First Draft using Rocketbook App.

I then took my time and began the process of giving each element a symbol.  As I created a symbol for the element, I also wanted to create a definition for most elements. This would be the helpful for instruction and the concept of building bonds (future post). 

I grouped the elements by color and then worked my way through the creation of the table. I wanted the concept to be a growing idea of the community.

Could we add teaching styles? Maybe? or Could we have a technology family? Maybe? We need to build a blueprint for the physical education community's future and not that of companies and organization that want to direct our future. This is a simple concept that could impact our community. How could you use the table for daily instruction? Check out my notes below and see if you can take the project to the next set of evolution. 

Can You Build A Bond With Students? Just a concept I need to explore more this month?

Look out for my monthly blog series this year. Please check out the PhysEdResource.com for all materials found in this blog. 

Sincerely,
​
Rich ​​