Remember “building a quality PE program” lecture and NAPSE
“appropriate practices” documents
Related file
During middle school, there is a dramatic drop-off in students daily level of physical activity and a higher proportion of students will begin to resist physical education.
Elementary school focuses on movement skills, then fundamental sport skills, and finally specialized sport skills
Be able to give an example of each
Middle school put those tools together into whole sports and activities
Middle school PE focuses more on traditional team sports:
Football, basketball, softball, etc
Exceptions:
That is not to say you can’t teach badminton, golf, or yoga for example, but coordinate with the high school for correct alignment
Some activities such as tennis may be too complex to teach in only one grade level
Project adventure and affective/personal growth are also emphasized
Experience in physical education may also lead students to join interscholastic teams.
Suggested middle school and high school activities file
Refer to for possible exam questions
Depth and breadth
The level of competence students acquire in an activity depends on if it was taught in elementary school and whether it will be taught in high school.
If an activity will be taught in high school, build basic skills in fun ways to a level of competence, then high school teachers will add complexity (more specialized skills, increasingly difficult game-like situations, etc)
– Fade shot in golf, slow roller down 3 rd baseline for baseball, volleyball 5-1 serve receive pattern
Remember, ONE MAJOR COMPLAINT among high school PE students is they do the same thing at the same difficulty year after year. You would be bored so don’t do perpetrate this same mistake on students.
Physical educators must work together in a district to decide on specific activities to teach and when to teach those activities
This is part of building a sequential K-12 curriculum. You must work with other teachers or the curriculum suffers
In addition, other teachers know when and in what students should be competent
Standard 10 (2)
Wonderful text is
Concepts and Principles of Physical Education:
What Every Student Needs to Know (Mohsen,
2003)
Standard 11 (3)
Remember, it is our goal to help students transition from what we do in class to what they do outside of class
“In one sense standard 3 is the goal of all the standards”
During middle school, there is a dramatic drop-off in students daily level of physical activity and a higher proportion of students will begin to resist physical education.
Ensure that students know where and when they can participate in a community activity taught in class
Post info on camps, intramurals, rec leagues, pick up games
Have reps from local organizations talk to classes (golf course manager, fitness center owner, hiking trail custodian)
– Videotape the 1 st presentation so if the speaker can’t stay all day, you can replay it to later classes or subsequent years
Get students started early on this concept
Standard 12 (4)
Many middle school students are generally not fit.
Developing in class fitness is usually not the best choice for in-class program time. Instead:
Focus on building personal fitness programs
Monitor student performance periodically throughout the year
Hold students accountable for achieving healthenhancing fitness levels
Standard 13 (5)
Adventure and cooperative programming plays a large role in middle school PE. By focusing on communication, resource usage, team building, responsibility, and other outcomes, individual and group growth can be achieved.
Students don’t always make good decisions, time of independence and exploration
Wondering “who am I?”
Standard 14 (6)
Encourage students to be physically active for the fun of it and make lessons aligned with that end.
Students may/may not be physically active for the health benefits.
Title IX
Must be coed except contact activities
Separation may only be within one class
Equal funding and treatment of males and females
Standards for skill measurement may be different, thus without gender bias (Fitnessgram).
“When a single standard for skill measurement is used and this results in an adverse impact on one sex, different standards, without gender bias must be used.”
See CT Curriculum Planning Manual – Title IX section
Competition v. Cooperation
There are competing schools of thought with some advocating the elimination of competition. The answer is to mirror the real world for which we are preparing students where there exists both competition and cooperation. However, do not let one aspect become predominant. A common error in PE is overly-competitive activities where less skilled participants are dissuaded from participating.
Many activities involve self-competition where students are attempting to better themselves such as fitness or gymnastics.
Benefits of a mixed approach:
– Develop healthy positive self-competitive behaviors
– Learn self-discipline and value of working hard
– Learn to win/lose & accept outcome w/o blaming themselves/others
– Enjoy competition without loss of self or “face”
The manner of competitive activities determines the outcome
Don’t have the same students “losing” all the time
Scheduling
May need to adjust for the number of teachers. For example the available equipment or facilities may not permit every 7 th grader from participating in the same activity at the same time.
Fall/spring alternative
Student Choice
OK if students participate in a balanced program and gain competence. The choices are generally more limited.
I have mixed feelings about middle school choice b/c it becomes difficult to align the middle school and high school curriculum. For example, what happens if some students took tennis but others do not?
HS PE leaves lasting impressions of physical education. Students are more apt to recall this grade level than any other. When adults, these perceptions directly impact the future of physical education!
Although some middle school activities may be continued, the focus of high school PE is on lifetime-oriented activities in an elective model.
Why not continue continue teaching basketball, baseball, and other mainstream sports?
The reason is that students have been participating in traditional activities or related skills since the 2 nd or 3 rd grade. Students are generally competent or not (wide variety of skill levels) and will participate in the activity as adults or not (our goal).
There are so many lifetime activities, why waste time repeating?
Suggested high school activities
Offer a diversity of content such as aquatics, dance, self-defense and many others
MOVE AWAY from traditional team sports which tend to require complex motor skills.
This alienates the lesser skilled, those students we need most to help
Schools may use a traditional approach
(9 th grade PE) or combine PE and
Health
Farmington example
Grade level groupings
More homogenous groupings allow for more focused instruction. Do not allow guidance to assign students in grades 9-12 into one PE class
(generally not a problem K-8).
Could you imagine a math class containing students whose skills range from algebra, to geometry, to trigonometry, to calculus. Trying to teach one class would be impossible.
Request that classes be grouped by individual grades and at worst, two grades (9-10, 11-12)
Block Scheduling
Increases instructional time so students spend less time in the locker room and more in the classroom.
One negative aspect is that students may only have PE for half the year.
Cognitive Concepts
Physical educators can begin to offer specialized “seat-oriented” classes in anatomy, care/prevention of injuries, first aid/CPR/AED, but such credit should not substitute for physical activity.
Physical Activity Director
Provides opportunities with the school for faculty and students to be activity during the day but outside of PE.
More than just intramurals