This document outlines activities for a self-improvement challenge unit focused on building character traits like Olympians. Students will identify a trait to improve, create a routine, and track progress. They will research an Olympian and coach, compare themselves, and have a personal medal ceremony to assess their efforts. Expansions discuss sacrifice, non-profits, and communicating as a coach. The goal is for students to focus on self-improvement through challenges and routines like Olympians.

1. Build Your Olympian:
Build Yourself
A Self Improvement Challenge


2. 1. My Race
My Way
 During this unit you will get to focus on a specific personal character
trait that you want to improve
 HANDOUT: KWL chart - Identify your strong and weak character traits
 Create a class list of common traits people can work to improve
 HANDOUT: Use the blank Goal Selection Process Hexagon Sheet
 Consider your physical, emotional and mental traits
 Select one or more to work on improving.
 Keep a training log that documents your work at trying to improve one
thing about yourself.
 Establish a learning and work routine to help you reach your goals.
 Use your activity log to write up your final products and final self-
assessment.

3. My Race
My Way
Strong and  Let’s look at your completed
Weak
character
chart
traits. Physical
My routine Mental
will include:
 What are the elements of your
Emotional
traits. routine: what will you do when?
What will How many times will you repeat
success look
different activities in a day?
What will I like? My Goal is
need to find
out about?
to work on:  What will you do if you do not
What do I succeed in maintaining your
know I need routine? How will you
to work on?
encourage yourself?

4. My Race
My Way
Physical
 Let’s look at your completed
work
chart and how many challenges
You must Improving you want to take on.
care for and Physically
be good to involves
yourself. diet and  Have you been realistic with
Your activity what you feel you can
Challenge!
accomplish?
Emotional Mental
Work work  What are the elements of your
Creating routine: what will you do when?
discipline.
You must be How many times will you repeat
the coach different activities in a day?

5. What if I Fail?
Discussion: Working through
failure
•What will you do if you do
not succeed in maintaining
your routine?
•How will you encourage
yourself ?
•What are ways to stay
positive and not give up when
facing challenges?

6. 2. Training and Activity Logs
 Training Log
 Each morning you will write up a few points about how your
training is going – include your research and actions
 You will close each class with a personal self-assessment on your
training and your learning activities in the unit
 Activity Log
 You will document all assigned exercises, activities and writing
projects in the Activity Log
 A final self-assessment, The Personal Medal Ceremony, will be
completed in the Activity Log.
 Please note: your log books can be two separate sections in your
notes

7. 3. Build Your Olympian:
What will you need to find out?
 During this unit you will get to focus on a specific Olympic athlete of
your choosing and build a character profile of them:
 Identify their physical character traits.
 What is the role of their coach?
 What makes them strong emotionally
and mentally?
 What are their weaknesses?
What was their big story?
 Did they win a medal? What did they place?
 Is there something unique about their history?
 Find out about the most important thing that happened to this athlete.

8. Working on the
Character Profile
Outline:
A strong profile will contain specific details that describe a person.
what a person looks like, physical features
their skills, strengths and weaknesses.
unique challenges they face
Where they comes from
Unique parts of their history
Highlights and lowlights: most important achievements and
downfalls
Their coach and other important figures in their life
What other ways are there to describe a person?
How do I get there: using research and news articles can provide a lot
of factual information and links to other media such as videos, images
etc. Using Google image, video and web searches will also help get
access to good information.

9. Working on the
Character Profile
What does good information look like:
Using reputable sites i.e. known news agencies
Organisations and large community sites like the
London Olympics central site
Avoid personal blogs and pure opinion based
articles that do not contain interviews or clear
facts.
Presenting your Findings Orally:
Digitally: make a video or use software's like
PowerPoint, Prezi, Word etc.
Hardcopy format: paper print outs, construction
paper etc.

10. The Character Profile:
Expanded Activities
Character Comparison Activity:
Compare your athlete to a character from the book you
are currently reading or read recently in class.
Answer the following:
How is this character similar to my athlete?
Which one is stronger emotionally? Mentally?
Explain why you think this.
Who are you most alike – the character or the athlete?
Explain why you believe this.

11. The Character Profile:
Expanded Activities
Developed Character Comparisons:
My Personal Challenge: Consider the one personal
challenge that you are working on and explore how your
athlete would deal with their challenge. What skills would
they bring to the challenge and how would they overcome
it? Is there anything your athlete or your coach would tell
you specifically to help you meet your own challenge?
My Approach: Consider the character from the novel or
book and explain how you might treat a major conflict in
their lives differently than them. Explain why you would
take this different approach and what type of different
results would be created, for better or for worse.

12. 4. Select Your Coach
 During this unit you will get to focus on a specific Olympic coach
and:
 identify their specific job skills
 explore their role as coach
 define the relationship they
build with their athletes
 explain their values & beliefs
Discussion: Describe what type of
coach you would like to have?

13. Working on Your
Coach’s Profile
 How do I get there?
 Find print or video interviews
with coaches and/or the athletes
that they train
 Research and identify their
history with the sport.
 Where did they get their coaching
skills from?
 How do they treat their athletes?
 Do they have a specific set of
values and attitudes that they use
to develop strong relationships
with their athletes?

14. Coaching Expanded:
Communication Activity
1. Look at the list below and explain which of these is most important
to you in terms of what type of coach you would like to have? Explain
what types of communication skills you would use to help coach
someone? What other ways would you use to support an athlete in
training?
2. Is there a time in the book
or novel that you are reading
that the main character
needed to use one or more of
these communication skills
listed below.

15. Coaching Expanded:
Coach your Character
Coach your character:
Consider an important character in your book or story and think about
what areas of their life they could use some coaching for.
What physical, mental, emotional areas of their life need coaching?
Why do you think this?
What type of training program would you put them on?
What good advice would you give them?
Why would you give them this advice?
How would you help them deal with failure?

16. 5. The Olympic Team Story:
Expansion Activity
 During this unit you may also get to focus on a specific
Canadian Olympic team and explore their big story:
 identify their main plot points of their Olympic journey
 Identify the high point of excitement for this team
 Identify which characters
played important roles
for the team
 Describe their story in
your Activity Log
 Share their story with
the class.

17. 5a. The Olympic Team
Competition Activity
Team Competition Presentation Event
1. Divide the class up into two teams for a
competition to see which team has the better
collection of athletes and coaches using one
profile from each student. Team ratio should be 4
athletes to 1 coach.
2. Profiles should include a wide variety of media TEAM
and slide images that present facts about the DEBATE
athletes and coaches as well as their final results.
3. Students and teacher award points for athletes,
coaches and teams for their physical and mental
powers of success.
4. The teacher will finalize the debate based on
the team presentation skills and, ‘award medals in
class accordingly.’

18. 6. Twitter Feed: The Athlete’s
Village
 Which hash tags do you
respond to the most often?
 #my race progress
 #my challenges
 #my athlete
 Is there a topic that is
missing that you think
should be there?
 Have you created any
topics yourself?

19. 7. Personal Medal Ceremony
After you complete your last personal self-assessment you will need to reward
yourself for your efforts. Do you deserve gold, silver or bronze? Did you
place? Were you happy just to get the race completed?
Consider how well you did during your
training:
 How often did you stick to your
routine?
 How well did you complete your
activities?
 How thorough were you in your
journal?
 How well did you meet your
personal challenge?

20. Expansion Discussion:
The Role of Sacrifice
 What is the role of sacrifice when it comes to self-improvement?
 Consider your Olympian’s story and what they struggled through
in order to fulfill their dream.
 What type of sacrifices can we make to help work on personal
improvement in our own lives?
 What have you learned about sacrificing short term gain pieces:
candy, fast food, going out instead of studying etc. in exchange for
long term bliss and big goal fulfillment: developing skills, beating
addictions, getting a great job.

21. SHSM Expansion Activities:
Non-Profit Sector
Explore Non-profit sector connections:
Character profiles must focus on athletes who are volunteers within the
non-profit sector through Right to Play initiatives or other non-profit
work that involves supporting youth academically, socially, physically
and emotionally .
Team presentations should look at a specific athlete based non-profit
organization and provide profiles of these organisations: their goals,
actions, participants, what they do and how they do it?
Have students research interviews with athletes who volunteer for these
organisations and present their summary notes to the class.