FITstep Stream Pedometer Elementary Fitness Lesson

My name is Wesley Woodworth, and I am a K-5 physical education teacher at Terry Taylor Elementary School in Spencerport, NY. The purpose of this proposal is to seek $1578 to purchase a class set of FITstep Stream Pedometers. These will be used to keep track of steps and MVPA in elementary physical education classes and to educate students on the value of reaching 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day. SHAPE Standard 3, ISTE 1.6.a

At Terry Taylor I see multiple sections of each grade, kindergarten through 5th grade, every day. My goal is to introduce technology into the physical education setting in order to enhance our program and track the effectiveness of my program so I can reflect and improve. The FITstep Stream pedometer is a device used to track student activity. It tracks the students’ steps, MVPA (moderate to vigorous physical activity), and activity time. The Stream model uses ANT+ wireless technology to transfer all data directly, instantly and wirelessly to the teacher. The screen on the device has a large, child friendly graph on display at all times so kids can see their own progress during an activity. My goal for the FITstep Stream pedometers is to work them into everyday life in the gym. They would become a normal procedure for the students, as they enter the gym each day, they walk to the rack and take their assigned number pedometer and turn it on before sitting on their squad spot. I would do this by teaching the students how to use the pedometers during the first class and then continuously practicing the routine until it is second nature to the students. After each lesson the students would transfer their data to me with the click of a button, reset the pedometers and drop them back in their assigned slot in the storage rack before lining up to head back to class.

The FITstep Stream has many strengths that stand out. The most apparent strength is the Bluetooth function that allows you to download all the data wirelessly. This eliminates the hassle of individually transferring data from each pedometer and makes the concept of using these for multiple classes in a single day much more feasible. Another strength is that unlike a traditional pedometer, the FITstep Stream records more than just steps. This device offers a more complex MVPA mode that can be applied into a Physical education setting and can help track the intensity of the student's exercise. This feature could be very beneficial to our physical education program because it can both help students better understand the difference between activity and vigorous activity, and it can also allow us as educators to collect data on the intensity, and difficulty of our lessons. The goal is to get 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day and with these devices we would be able to measure and track our progress towards that goal. Another great strength is they can be manually reset. An article on PE4EveryKid mentioned that they were able to use these for multiple different classes back-to-back because they could be easily reset on their own by the students. The last major strength is how easy it is to track, sort, and share the data. According to a review on Gopher PE blog, the software used with the FITstep Stream gives daily, weekly, and monthly reports on each student and makes the data easy to share with parents and administrators.

The FITstep Stream would instantly enhance our physical education program. Allowing students to monitor and track their own activity gives them a sense of responsibility and will help to motivate students to participate in class. These pedometers can be used in essentially every unit and can be used to assess the effectiveness of certain units. Overall, at the elementary level, the main goal in physical education is to have all students engaged and actively participating as much as possible. These devices would give us the opportunity to measure exactly that and then tailor our curriculum to give us the best outcome. For example, if most students struggle during the football unit and activity is extremely low, we could use the data received by these pedometers to change the units and find what gets students the most engagement. One sample learning activity would be during a throwing lesson, students record their activity and attempt to get over ten minutes of MVPA by the end of class. After the lesson, data is recorded into a spreadsheet and analyzed at the end of each unit. After a unit is complete, a reward would be given out to each student that reached the desired outcome after each class, this reward could range anywhere from a few minutes of free time, or a game of the student's choice.

The total cost for the class set of the FITstep Stream is $1499. This set includes 30 devices. The software used with the FITstep Stream is free, So the only other purchase would be for the Quick ID storage system shown above which amounts to $79. This storage system is critical to keep the pedometers in good working condition, they would be stored on the door of the equipment room and students would be assigned a pedometer and slot to go to at the beginning of each class. Overall, the complete and final amount requested would be $1578.

Example Lesson: Students will enter the gym and immediately attach their assigned pedometer. After each student is seated on their squad spot the first activity will be explained. Our initial activity will be fitness tag. In fitness tag, there will be 2 assigned taggers. They each will have a tagging block. The assigned taggers will chase other students and attempt to safely tag them. If a student gets tagged they will do an exercise of the teachers choice (teacher chooses random exercise. Ex. 5 pushups.) Class will play 3-5 two-minute rounds. Changing taggers and exercise each round. Before beginning, teacher will remind students to ensure MVPA setting is turned on for pedometer. Target time for the lesson is 15 minutes of MVPA. Following initial warm-up, fitness stations will be demonstrated for the students. These stations include fitness bingo, balancing station, bucket stack relay station, jump rope station, and build your own obstacle course. Following the stations, students will click the side button on pedometers to upload data and will reset and return pedometers.