The Essentials of Teaching Physical Education Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment (SHAPE America set the Standard) (2)

The Essentials of Teaching Physical

Education

Curriculum, Instruction, and

Assessment

Stephen A. Mitchell, PhD

Jennifer L. Walton-Fisette, EdD

Human Kinetics

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mitchell, Stephen A., 1959- author.

The essentials of teaching physical education : curriculum, instruction, and assessment / Stephen A. Mitchell, PhD, Jennifer L.

Walton-Fisette, EdD.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Physical education and training--Study and teaching--United States. 2. Physical education and training--Curricula--United

States. I. Walton-Fisette, Jennifer L., 1978- author. II. Title.

GV365.M57 2016

613.7'07--dc23

2015023999

ISBN: 978-1-4925-0916-5 (print)

Copyright © 2016 by SHAPE America – Society of Health and Physical Educators

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E6551

To my late parents, Alan and Catherine, for giving me love, direction, and

support throughout my life. To my children, Katie and Matt, with my love,

admiration, respect, and thanks. —Stephen Mitchell

With love and appreciation: To my wife, Theresa, for providing continuous

love and support. To my children, Quinn and Harper, who have given me the

greatest gift in life and have become my most inspiring teachers. —Jennifer

Walton-Fisette

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

How to Access the Web Resource

Part I: Building the Foundation of a Teaching for Learning Approach

Chapter 1: Developing Physically Literate Individuals

Promoting Physical Literacy

Academic Links to Physical Literacy

Summary

Chapter 2: Understanding a Teaching for Learning Approach

Curricular Alignment in Physical Education

Instructional Alignment in Physical Education

Summary

Chapter 3: Examining Student Motivation

Establishing a Motivating Environment

Retaining Students’ Motivation

Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation

Eradicating Amotivation

Summary

Part II: Teaching to the National Standards for K-12 Physical Education

Chapter 4: Standard 1: Developing Motor Skills and Movement

Patterns

Competency Versus Proficiency

Motor Skills and Phases of Performance

Elementary School: K-Grade 5

Middle School: Grades 6-8

High School: Grades 9-12

Summary

Chapter 5: Standard 2: Applying Concepts, Principles, Strategies, and

Tactics




Summary

Chapter 6: Standard 3: Achieving Health-Enhancing Physical Activity

and Fitness




Summary

Chapter 7: Standard 4: Exhibiting Responsible Personal and Social

Behavior




Summary

Chapter 8: Standard 5: Recognizing the Value of Physical Activity




Summary

Part III: Building the Curriculum

Chapter 9: Unit and Lesson Planning

Unit Planning

Lesson Planning

Summary

Chapter 10: Planning Developmentally Appropriate Content

Types of Knowledge

Standards, Outcomes, and Assessments

Learning Domains

Students’ Prior Knowledge and Experiences

Sequencing of Content and Task Progressions

Modifying Content

Summary

Chapter 11: Curriculum Models

Skill Theme Approach

Personal and Social Responsibility

Tactical Games Model

Sport Education Model

Fitness Education

Adventure Education

Outdoor Education

Cultural Studies

Implementing Curriculum Models Within Units of Instruction

Summary

Part IV: Instruction and Assessment

Chapter 12: Establishing and Managing a Safe Learning Environment

Setting Rules for Your Gymnasium

Managing Student Behavior

Maximizing Learning and Activity Time

Managing the Learning Environment During Instruction and Activity

Summary

Chapter 13: Developing Essential Teaching Skills

Exploring Instructional Styles

Employing Effective Teaching Tactics

Summary

Chapter 14: Assessing Student Learning

Purposes of Assessment

Grading Schemes

Selecting Appropriate Assessments

Types of Assessments

Organizing and Interpreting Data

Summary

Part V: Developing as a Professional

Chapter 15: 21st Century Skills in Physical Education

Framework for 21st Century Learning

21st Century Student Outcomes

21st Century Support Systems

Summary

Chapter 16: Advocacy and Professional Development

Advocating for Your Profession

Professional Development Opportunities

Summary

Glossary

References

About the Authors

About SHAPE America

Preface

As a physical educator or future physical educator, you have or will have the

job of ensuring that children acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions

they need to be physically active for a lifetime. Within U.S. school systems,

this process begins at the elementary level and culminates when the high

school student graduates. We have written The Essentials of Teaching

Physical Education to help you successfully embark on your teaching career

regardless of the level at which you are teaching. This book will help you

develop physically literate individuals by providing a comprehensive, yet

concise, guide to what is most important for quality teaching, specifically

focusing on the following components that define teaching for learning:

Understanding students and student motivation

Working knowledge of standards-based outcomes and appropriate

content to achieve those outcomes

Ability to plan for learning in the short and long term

Management and teaching skills to ensure an equitable environment that

fosters student learning in three domains

The commitment and means to assess student learning and provide

evidence of achievement and program effectiveness

Our enthusiasm for this project comes from our combined 40 years of

teaching in K-12 and higher education and in particular from working

together with preservice teachers for the past 8 years. During this time we

have been fortunate to team-teach blocked methods and content courses.

These courses have a field experience component that gives us limited time to

prepare students for what is, for some, their first teaching experience. This

circumstance has often prompted us to ask the question, “What are the

essential teaching skills and knowledge that we need our students to acquire

before they begin their early teaching experiences?” The answer to this

question is what forms the focus of this book.

We define essentials as the knowledge and skills necessary to teach quality

physical education and guide students in developing physical literacy. This

book, in five parts, presents the fundamental elements for teaching physical

education, which make up the solid foundation for a quality program as well

as provide the basic building blocks from which beginning teachers can

further develop their teaching careers.

Part I includes three chapters that focus on teaching for learning in physical

education. Specifically, we introduce and define the key concept of physical

literacy and describe what we mean by teaching for learning. Embedded in

these foundational chapters, and infused where appropriate throughout the

book, are themes of social justice and accountability. We believe that all

students should have opportunities to maximize their potential and that

teachers must seek to facilitate those opportunities. Issues of social justice

such as equal access, language, and sensitivity to the whole child must be

enduring understandings for new teachers, because they will increasingly be

held accountable for the learning of all children. Lastly, in part I we provide

an overview of motivational theory as it relates to developmental student

motivation. One of the biggest concerns for both preservice and beginning

teachers is how to motivate students to engage in physical education activities

voluntarily, actively, and enthusiastically. A sound understanding of some

basic theory can help teachers identify strategies to enhance student

motivation.

Although we do not include content-specific chapters on all possible skills

and strategies that a PE program could cover, we thread plenty of content

ideas throughout the chapters as examples, particularly in part II, which

focuses on teaching to SHAPE America’s National Standards & Grade-Level

Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (2014). In these chapters we address

each standard and suggest content themes that can be threaded across the K-

12 curriculum to achieve a progression of standards-based learning outcomes

for students. Issues of social justice are evident in our suggestions for

standards-based teaching, and the issue of accountability becomes more

prominent as we introduce some effective and authentic ways of assessing

student learning for each standard.

Parts III and IV form the heart of the book. They provide guidance for

preservice and beginning teachers in terms of planning for, instruction for,

and assessment of student learning. Part III focuses on the essential processes

of planning units of instruction and the lessons that flow from those units,

selecting and planning developmentally appropriate content for instruction,

and using curriculum models as organizing frameworks in the planning and

instruction processes. In part IV, we move the focus to the gymnasium floor

and first provide suggestions for establishing, managing, and maintaining a

physically and emotionally safe and equitable learning environment. Then we

describe the teaching skills that are essential for success in teaching for

learning, including skills such as giving effective demonstrations, observing

and monitoring student performance, and providing appropriate and timely

feedback, teaching cues, and prompts. In part IV, we delve more deeply into

issues of accountability and assessment of student learning across the

psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains.

Last, in part V, we discuss the importance of advocacy and professional

development for new teachers as they seek to align their subject with wholeschool

goals. All teachers, new and experienced, can be torn between

conflicting demands that come with teaching physical education. These

demands include contributing to school goals, particularly those related to

success in the classroom in the form of higher test scores, and advocating for

the subject because of its unique learning outcomes in three domains. The

latter is particularly important in the current political and economic climate,

and in part V we suggest strategies by which teachers can engage in advocacy

both at the local level and more broadly.

In addition to the content just outlined, the book includes some special

features to enhance the text:

Advice from educators in the field. Receiving advice from people in

the field can have a profound effect on those working to adopt a

standards-based approach. We recognize that making this transition

presents many challenges, but it offers many rewards as well. By

soliciting input from a variety of in-service educators, we hope to

provide you with personal experiences and reflections as well as advice

on the struggles and successes of teaching physical education.

Online resources with further information. In addition to this book,

you have access to supplemental materials in an online format. These

materials include PowerPoint presentations, test questions, and

supplemental activities for each chapter. Visit

www.HumanKinetics.com/TheEssentialsOfTeachingPhysicalEducation

We hope that this book will be useful as you move into the methods stage of

your teacher education program or into the beginning stages of your teaching

career. As practitioners of teaching for learning, we understand the need to

include some practical application to align with the concepts that you have

read about throughout the book. Thus, to reinforce the essential components

of teaching offered throughout the book, we have included tips from

experienced teachers to help you implement effective management and

instruction. We believe that all physical educators have a common goal to

develop physically literate K-12 students by offering quality physical

education programs. This book provides you with the necessary tools to

begin and complete this journey.

50 Million Strong by 2029

Approximately 50 million students are currently enrolled in

America’s elementary and secondary schools (grades pre-K to 12).

SHAPE America is leading the effort to ensure that by the time

today’s preschoolers graduate from high school in 2029, all of

America’s students will have developed the skills, knowledge and

confidence to enjoy healthy, meaningful physical activity.

Acknowledgments

There are many people we wish to thank for their help in shaping this book.

First and foremost, we must thank our students, both past and present, who

work hard to become the best physical education teachers they can be. They

inspire us to continually find more effective ways to prepare teachers. We

must also acknowledge our colleagues at Kent State University, throughout

the state of Ohio, and within the broader profession. Their insights and

feedback continue to make us better at what we do. We particularly thank

those teachers who provided us with their wisdom in the form of the “Advice

From the Field” elements in each chapter. These are all exemplary teachers

whose expertise has been recognized by SHAPE America at the district or

national level. Lastly, our thanks to the staff at both SHAPE America and

Human Kinetics for their enthusiasm, diligence, and attention to detail as we

have moved this project through to completion.

SHAPE America acknowledges and thanks Brett Fuller, Milwaukee Public

Schools’ curriculum specialist for health, physical education, and safe and

supportive schools, for reviewing the content in this book.

How to Access the Web Resource

Throughout The Essentials of Teaching Physical Education, you will notice

references to a web resource. This online content is available to you free of

charge when you purchase a new print or electronic version of the book. The

web resource offers supplemental activities, assignments, and more. To

access the online content, simply register with the Human Kinetics website.

Here’s how:

1. Visit

www.HumanKinetics.com/TheEssentialsOfTeachingPhysicalEducation.

2. Click the first edition link next to the corresponding first edition book

cover.

3. Click the Sign In link on the left or at the top of the page. If you do not

have an account with Human Kinetics, you will be prompted to create

one.

4. Once you have registered, if the online product does not appear in the

Ancillary Items box at the left, click the Enter Pass Code option in that

box. Enter the following pass code exactly as it is printed here, including

any capitalization and hyphens: MITC HELL-9MJG-WR.

5. Click the Submit button to unlock your online product.

6. After you have entered your pass code for the first time, you will never

have to enter it again in order to access this online product. Once you

have unlocked your product, a link to the product will appear

permanently in the menu on the left. All you need to do to access your

online content on subsequent visits is sign in to

www.HumanKinetics.com/TheEssentialsOfTeachingPhysicalEducation

and follow the link!

If you need assistance along the way, click the Need Help? button on the

book’s website.

Part I

Building the Foundation of a

Teaching for Learning Approach

Teachers teach so that children can learn, and they often teach in different

ways. The various approaches to teaching, the variety of curriculum models

and instructional methods, the many different assessment strategies and tools

—all are intended to lead to one thing: student learning! And despite the

many approaches, models, and resources available, several aspects of

teaching are foundational for all teachers. These aspects of teaching are the

focus of part I of this book.

Chapter 1 addresses the development of physical literacy as the learning goal

for physical education. The concept of physical literacy is defined,

particularly in light of the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes.

Evidence and data that emphasize the importance of developing physically

literate individuals are presented. The chapter provides data related to health

and physical activity, overweight and obesity, and the relationship between

academic performance and physical education outcomes.

Ideally, teachers will use the National Standards or a state-level equivalent to

guide their planning, but they might vary in their preferences for a focus on

different learning outcomes. This issue is partly philosophical. In most

instances teachers are able to plan within the framework of professional

standards while maintaining freedom to vary the emphasis they place on each

standard at a particular grade level. Regardless of the desired outcomes, the

principle of alignment is foundational to teaching for learning. Chapter 2

focuses on curriculum alignment and instructional alignment, the first being

the alignment of standards, goals, models, and assessment across an entire

curriculum, and the second being alignment of learning goals and objectives,

content, and assessments within lessons and units of instruction.

For those in teacher education programs or just starting out in a teaching

career, a primary concern is that of motivating students to participate

willingly and actively. Chapter 3 addresses the topic of student motivation by

attempting to answer common questions that preservice teachers ask, such as,

“How can I motivate my students to want to be active?” and “Why do they

become less motivated as they get older?” Reference to some motivational

theory helps to explain the answers and provides strategies to motivate

students. This chapter, along with chapters 1 and 2, will provide you with a

foundation through which you can enhance the learning of your students.

Chapter 1

Developing Physically Literate

Individuals

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you will be able to do the following:

Understand and explain the concept of physical literacy.

Explain the importance of developing physically literate

individuals from a health and fitness perspective.

Explain the importance of developing physically literate

individuals with behaviors and attitudes toward the self and

others that will lead to engagement in physical activity over the

lifespan.

Explain the links between physical literacy and academic

performance.

Key Terms

physical literacy

social justice

The concept of physical literacy is still relatively new as a goal for the

subject of physical education, having appeared in the professional lexicon

only since the early 2000s and introduced into SHAPE America’s National

Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education, as revised

in 2014. When we think of people becoming literate, we think first of their

ability to read and write, though more recent years have seen the term literacy

extended to refer to basic knowledge and skills in specific areas of study. Our

society has become familiar with concepts such as computer literacy, arts

literacy, statistical literacy, financial literacy, health literacy, and now

physical literacy. Before going further, the questions to address are these:

Who is a physically literate individual, and why do people need to develop

physical literacy?

Physical literacy is a 21st century term that first emerged in the sport

literature before also being applied to physical education. The term was first

used in the United Kingdom by UK Sport to mean the development of

physical skills across a wide range of sports. It was later broadened by the

Canadian Sport Center to encompass physical skills, knowledge, and attitudes

needed for a healthy and active life. SHAPE America – Society of Health and

Physical Educators, borrowing from Mandigo and colleagues (2012), defines

physical literacy as “the ability to move with competence and confidence in a

wide variety of physical activities in multiple environments that benefit the

healthy development of the whole person” (Mandigo et al., 2012, p. 28). This

definition is operationalized in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes

for K-12 Physical Education as

the attainment of motor skill competence,

understanding of movement concepts,

acquisition of the knowledge to achieve and maintain a health-enhancing

level of physical activity and fitness,

the exhibiting of responsible personal and social behavior, and

the recognition of the value of physical activity for personal and social

reasons (SHAPE America, 2014).

So if the goal of physical education is to provide a platform for students to

pursue a physically active life, physical educators must foster the

development of physically literate individuals who

have learned the skills necessary to perform a variety of physical

activities,

know how to perform physically and understand the implications and

benefits of involvement in physical activities,

participate regularly in physical activity and are physically fit,

respect themselves and others in physical activity settings, and

value physical activity and its contributions to a healthful lifestyle.

Promoting Physical Literacy

Why is physical literacy important, and why should the development of

physical literacy take place in schools? To those of us who are physical

educators, these questions may seem not worth asking, or they can be easily

answered by saying something seemingly obvious (to us) such as, “Because

these things are good for you and it is part of the overall education of children

for which schools are responsible!” But although most people might

understand the value of developing the skills, knowledge, and dispositions

that lead to a healthy lifestyle, not all agree that schools should have this role.

For example, in the mid-1980s, early in a teaching career, one of the authors

was approached at a parent–teacher conference by a well-meaning parent of

an active and reasonably athletic seventh-grade student. The parent said,

“Please tell me why my son has to take physical education at school because

I would like him to have room in his schedule to take an additional foreign

language.” The teacher responded to this unexpected request by referring to

the importance of giving students the skills to be physically active. With

hindsight, the answer given was not particularly good, largely because it

seemed (to this teacher) so obvious that forethought had never really been

necessary. At that time neither academic content standards nor abundant

research literature was available to draw on to formulate a response. A

present-day response would be easier because standards are available to refer

to, either state standards or the National Standards for K-12 Physical

Education shown in the “National Standards for K-12 Physical Education”

sidebar. A better response, perhaps accompanied by a simple handout on the

standards, might have been something like this:

Physical education is important for your son because as he gets older he

will need to develop the skills, knowledge, and positive attitude to try a

wider range of activities than just those he does now. His preferences

and opportunities will change, so he needs to be equipped to be fit and

active for life in any situation.

National Standards for K-12 Physical

Education

Standard 1: The physically literate individual demonstrates

competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.

Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge

of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to

movement and performance.

Standard 3: The physically literate individual demonstrates the

knowledge and skills to achieve and maintain a health-enhancing

level of physical activity and fitness.

Standard 4: The physically literate individual exhibits

responsible personal and social behavior that respects self and

others.

Standard 5: The physically literate individual recognizes the

value of physical activity for health, enjoyment, challenge, selfexpression

and/or social interaction.

The standards presented in the sidebar clearly show that the goal of physical

education is to develop physically literate individuals in the fullest sense

because the standards cover the three domains of psychomotor, cognitive,

and affective learning. But perhaps the most pressing concerns relate to

health and fitness issues, particularly given lifestyle changes in the past 20 to

30 years that have led to concerns over the health effect of inadequate

physical activity levels and poor dietary habits. The following section

expands on this as part of the rationale for developing physically literate

individuals.

Health and Fitness Concerns

The question of why it is important to develop physically literate individuals

can be answered through reference to available health-related data that point

to a clear response: Because we must! The Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC) reports that less than half (48 percent) of all adults meet

the 2008 physical activity guidelines of 150 minutes of physical activity per

week combined with some strength training, and fewer than 3 in 10 high

school students get at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day (Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). Alarming health trends also exist

for children and adolescents. The CDC reports the following:

Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in

adolescents in the past 30 years.

The percentage of children age 6 to 11 years in the United States who

were obese increased from 7 percent in 1980 to nearly 18 percent in

2012. Similarly, the percentage of adolescents age 12 to 19 years who

were obese increased from 5 percent to nearly 21 percent over the same

period.

In 2012 more than one-third of children and adolescents were

overweight or obese. Overweight is defined as being above the 85th

percentile on body mass index (BMI) and obese as above the 95th

percentile.

Patterns of increasing childhood obesity since the early 2000s are evident in

figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 Obesity patterns in U.S. adolescents: (a) 2003, (b) 2009, (c) 2013.

Reprinted from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2014.

Regional differences are evident in figure 1.1. American adolescents living in

the South are likely to be less physically active than Americans living in the

West, Northeast, and Midwest regions of the country. The same pattern is

observed with adults. Alarming trends are seen for underrepresented and

disadvantaged groups:

More white adults (22.8 percent) meet the 2008 physical activity

guidelines for aerobic and muscle-strengthening activity than black

adults (17.3 percent) and Hispanic adults (14.4 percent).

Men (52.1 percent) are more likely than women (42.6 percent) to meet

the 2008 physical activity guideline for aerobic activity.

Adults with more education are more likely than adults with less

education to meet the 2008 physical activity guideline for aerobic

activity.

Adults whose family income is above the poverty level are more likely

than adults whose family income is at or near the poverty level to meet

the 2008 physical activity guideline for aerobic activity.

Retrieved from www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/data/facts.html.

Therefore, you as a prospective or beginning physical educator need to

provide instruction for children and adolescents in the skills, knowledge, and

dispositions that will lead to a physically active lifestyle. Inadequate physical

inactivity combined with poor diet contributes to obesity-related illnesses that

lead to more than 300,000 deaths each year in the United States—second

only to the number of deaths resulting from tobacco use. The problem here,

of course, is that children who are overweight or obese later have an

increased risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritisrelated

disabilities, and some cancers. Being overweight during childhood

and adolescence is associated with increased adult inactivity and subsequent

mortality (CDC, 2014).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reports on the

psychological benefits of regular physical activity, suggesting that it can help

keep thinking, learning, and judgment skills sharp as people age. Of

particular importance for students of K-12 age is that physical activity can

also help relieve stress, reduce the risk of depression, and help with sleep

patterns (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). This point is

particularly important now because a large number of people (70 million in

the United States) are affected by sleep loss and sleeping disorders.

In addition to its physical benefits, regular physical activity can help reduce

stress and promote restful sleep.

Key Points

Physical literacy is the goal of physical education in schools.

Physically literate individuals have achieved the grade-level outcomes

that accompany and provide student benchmarks for attaining the

National Standards for K-12 Physical Education.

Overweight and obesity in children is a significant issue and a cause for

concern.

An appropriate amount of moderate to vigorous physical activity can

have physical and mental benefits.

Inactive children are likely to become inactive adults.

Concerns for Social Justice

As teachers, teacher educators, and researchers, we need to address social

justice, defined here as “the protection of equal access to liberties, rights, and

opportunities, as well as taking care of the least advantaged members of

society.” All physical educators should seek to create a learning environment

that reflects social justice principles. All children should have fair and equal

access to opportunities for physical activity and the learning of the skills and

knowledge identified in the SHAPE America content standards, regardless of

race, ethnicity, ability, gender, or sexual orientation. This involves learning

outcomes in all domains.

Health, wellness, and concerns over childhood obesity have captured most of

the headlines in recent years, particularly with the large amounts of data

available to place these issues in the public eye. Yet physical literacy

involves more than just the psychomotor domain. Two of the National

Standards focus on the affective domain, especially on the goal that

physically literate individuals should exhibit “responsible and social behavior

that respects self and others.” Physical education teachers are responsible for

educating the whole child. Although physical outcomes are clearly important,

the learning environment of the gymnasium can and does affect children

psychologically, emotionally, and socially.

In no other school subject are the abilities of children exposed to the extent

that they are in physical education. Although ability, or lack thereof, can

often be difficult to discern in a classroom environment, successes and

failures in a physical performance environment are public and immediate.

The gymnasium is a place of achievement for some, but it can provoke

feelings of fear and humiliation in others. These feelings of insecurity are

particularly common in lower-ability students who fear making good faith

efforts that might lead to ridicule by higher-ability students, often boys, who

tend to dominate the environment. For example, students with poor agility or

manipulative skills who do not perform well in game-related environments

may be subjected to ridicule by teammates or classmates. Similarly,

overweight or obese students might be made aware of their physical

limitations in a fitness education setting. All too often teachers ignore the

insecurities of lower-ability students and fail to call into question the lack of

acceptance and patience exhibited by higher-ability students, especially

failing to address issues of inappropriate language and the poor social and

emotional climate produced by negative student interactions. Name calling

(e.g., “moron” or “spaz”) by some students as a reaction to errors made by

lower-ability classmates serves only to reinforce negative feelings. Teachers

need to address such situations directly. Qualities such as acceptance of

others, patience with others, and empathy for others should be central

outcomes in any learning environment because respect of self and respect of

others are important goals for the physically literate individual. Later chapters

provide examples of teaching for social justice.

Physical Literacy

Advice From the Field

In your experience, what are the benefits of teaching

physical education in schools?

Susan Sellers, Lynnwood Elementary School (Lynnwood,

Washington): The benefits of teaching physical education in schools

is that it prepares students for a lifetime of activity by ensuring that

they gain proficiency in both health-related and skill-related fitness

components, movement experience that leads to physical competence

and confidence, and the content knowledge to be an informed

consumer of health, fitness, and activity-related situations throughout

their lives.

How does physical education contribute to physical

literacy?

Amy Prior, Gray Stone Day School ( Misenheimer , North

Carolina): Physical education class develops skills that are directly

linked to physical literacy such as running, catching, and throwing.

PE allows students to learn these skills, practice learned skills, and

ultimately show mastery of learned skills. By developing, practicing,

and mastering skills, students additionally develop confidence in their

abilities, find participation more enjoyable, and are more likely to

participate in physical activity in the future.

What advice do you have for other physical educators?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Learn as

much as you can about physical literacy. Have an open mind about

learning new information. Make our field credible as a core subject.

Share information with other physical educators in your state and

area.

Academic Links to Physical Literacy

The answer to the question of why we should teach for physical literacy in

schools perhaps remains simple: Because we can! Ninety percent of children

in the United States are educated within the public education system (Center

on Education Policy, 2012). These children are in school for approximately

35 hours per week and 36 weeks per year, allowing enough time for a wellrounded

education. Physical literacy should be part of that education. In

response to those who advocate more classroom time in place of physical

education, we can point to research that examines the effect of physical

activity on brain activity (see figure 1.2) and the work of Dr. John Ratey

(2008), who thoroughly summarizes the research on exercise and the brain in

his popular book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the

Brain.

Figure 1.2 Effect of physical activity on brain activity. This composite shows

the effects on 20 students’ brains after sitting quietly or taking a 20-minute

walk before a test.

© Charles H. Hillman

Other authors in our field support the importance of including physical

education within the school curriculum. Trost and van der Mars (2009) point

to research that disputes the belief that time spent in physical education will

take away from time spent in the classroom and therefore would have a

negative effect on academic performance. Summarizing research conducted

in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Iceland, and

Hong Kong, Trost and van der Mars offered these conclusions:

Decreasing (or eliminating) the time allotted for physical education in

favor of traditional academic subjects does not lead to improved

academic performance.

Increasing the number of minutes students spend per week in physical

education will not impede their academic achievement.

Increasing the amount of time students spend in physical education may

make small positive contributions to academic achievement, particularly

for girls.

Regular physical activity and physical fitness are associated with higher

levels of academic performance.

Physical activity is beneficial to general cognitive functioning.

(Trost and van der Mars, 2009, p. 4)

Likewise, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) reviewed 43

studies of the associations between physical activity and academic

performance and found that physical activity was positively related to

measures of academic achievement, classroom behaviors, cognitive skills,

and attitudes.

Specific to physical education, the same CDC review of research looked at 14

studies and concluded that time spent in physical education has either a

positive relationship or no relationship with level of academic achievement

and that increased physical education time does not have a negative

relationship with academic achievement. Taken together, these arguments

support instruction in physical literacy and the inclusion of physical

education within the K-12 curriculum.

Summary

In teaching for physical literacy, physical educators recognize the need to

teach for outcomes relating to the whole child. The National Standards for K-

12 Physical Education, as well as standards developed at the state level, are

comprehensive as they relate to physical literacy and cover three domains in

which the goal is psychomotor, cognitive, and affective learning. The goal of

physical literacy is easily justifiable on the grounds of health and fitness

concerns, the need for a stronger social justice agenda in education, and the

relationship of physical well-being to academic attainment.

Review Questions

1. Define what it means to be a physically literate individual.

2. How is teaching for physical literacy put into practice?

3. Explain three reasons why the goal of physical education should be to

develop physically literate individuals.

4. Explain the links between physical education (also physical activity and

fitness) and academic achievement.

5. What would you tell a parent who asked that her daughter be released

from physical education class so she could take another math class?

To access supplementary materials, such as activities to extend

your learning, editable templates, and sample rubrics, visit the

web resource at


Chapter 2

Understanding a Teaching for

Learning Approach

Learning Objectives


Explain a teaching for learning approach.

Compare and contrast a teaching for learning approach to an

activity-based approach.

Identify and describe the components of curricular alignment.

Identify and describe the components of instructional alignment.

Key Terms

assessment

curricular alignment

curriculum and unit goals

curriculum models

instructional alignment

standards and outcomes

unit and lesson plans

As a physical educator, or future physical educator, you have been or will be

tasked with ensuring that children learn the knowledge, skills, and confidence

that will enable them to be physically active for a lifetime. To develop

physically literate individuals, you need to provide quality teaching and have

a sound understanding of a teaching for learning approach. As listed in the

preface, several components define teaching for learning:

Understanding students and student motivation

Working knowledge of standards-based outcomes and appropriate

content to achieve those outcomes

Ability to plan for learning in the short and long term

Management and teaching skills to ensure an equitable environment that

fosters student learning in three domains

The commitment and means to assess student learning, track student

progress on learning, and make adjustments to instruction so that

students can progress toward acquiring knowledge, skills, and

confidence

In broader terms, a teaching for learning approach focuses on creating and

implementing a quality standards-based physical education program that

includes appropriate planning, implementation of best practices through

instruction, and assessment of student learning. This approach is in stark

contrast to an activity-based approach in which teachers select an activity

they are comfortable with and want to teach. They provide limited or no

instruction and simply “play the game” (see the sidebar for a comparison of

the two approaches). This book attempts to provide you—preservice,

beginning teachers, and experienced teachers—with a detailed breakdown

and guide of these teaching for learning components. But learning about the

details, you need to know how all these components align at the level of both

the physical education program (i.e., curricular) and the unit of instruction

(i.e., lesson).

Comparison of the Teaching for Learning and

Activity-Based Approaches

Teaching for Learning Approach

Standards and outcomes based

Detailed planning of units and lessons

Purposeful and meaningful instruction across all three learning

domains

Developmentally appropriate content

Sufficient time on task and modified game play

Specific feedback provided to improve performance

Assessment of student learning

Activity-Based Approach

Not aligned to standards or outcomes

No planning—random selection of the unit

No or minimal instruction—may go over rules, name moves or

skills

Adult version of the game

No skill development, all game play

General or no feedback provided

No assessment

Curricular Alignment in Physical

Education

As a preservice teacher, you will not be focused on curricular alignment in

your methods and content courses and field-based experiences. But as a

beginning teacher, upon hire, you will immediately need to have knowledge

of your school or school district’s physical education curriculum, and if a

curriculum is not already established, you might be expected to develop one.

Your heart might have skipped a beat on reading that, and rightfully so;

curriculum development is a daunting task for beginning teachers. Although

curriculum development is not the focus of this book (refer to the book

Standards-Based Physical Education Curriculum Development if interested),

you need to understand what a curriculum is, what is included in a physical

education curriculum in its broadest sense, and how the components align

with one another.

A curriculum “includes all knowledge, skills, and learning experiences

provided to students within the school program” and “represents the plan that

guides delivery of [these] learning experiences and instruction” (Lund and

Tannehill, 2015, pp. 6-7). For many years, a physical education curriculum

was simply a list of content that would be taught over the course of the

academic year, using an activity-based approach. For example, at the

elementary level, content would focus on throwing, catching, and tag,

whereas at the middle and high school levels, content would include

basketball, volleyball, and soccer. Basketball might be taught year after year,

yet what was being taught was always the same, so students experienced

many of the same activities and games every year. Ever since the former

National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) published

the first National Standards for Physical Education book in 1995, physical

educators, as a field, have been on a mission to provide students with learning

experiences that are standards based. Thus, many physical education

programs today offer a standards-based curriculum to their students, which

encompasses SHAPE America’s National Standards & Grade-Level

Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (2014), curriculum and unit goals,

specific curriculum models and content, and curriculum assessments (see

figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1 Components of curriculum alignment.

National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes for

K-12 Physical Education

National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education

(SHAPE America, 2014) provides teachers with a framework for producing

physically literate individuals who demonstrate what they know and are able

to do by the end of each grade. These standards and outcomes aid

preservice and in-service teachers in planning their physical education

curriculum, whether that be for a specific grade level, grade band, or

comprehensive K-12 curriculum. The idea is that the National Standards are

the basis for all student-learning opportunities, which counters the former

physical education curricula that were based solely on content and activity

selection. For more information on the National Standards, refer to part II of

this book, which addresses each of the five standards in stand-alone chapters

to help guide your program, unit, and lesson planning.

Curriculum Goals

Grade-level outcomes were not included in the second edition of National

Standards for Physical Education (National Association for Sport and

Physical Education, 2004), causing many teachers to struggle with how to

design a meaningful curriculum for students that aligned with the standards.

The first step was, and still is, to break down or unpack the standards into

general and specific curriculum goals that reflect what teachers want students

to learn and achieve by the end of a grade band. Fortunately, the third edition

of National Standards (SHAPE America, 2014) includes specific grade-level

outcomes that provide teachers with a more detailed guide on which to base

curriculum goals that align with the national standards. The following three

examples, one each at the elementary, middle, and high school level, of what

these specific outcomes look like will give you a clearer picture of the

standards and outcomes. Outcome S1.E3.5 under Standard 1 (competency in

motor skills and movement patterns) for grade 5 reads as follows: “Combines

jumping and landing patterns with locomotor and manipulative skills in

dance, gymnastics and small-sided practice tasks in game environments”

(SHAPE America, 2014, p. 26). Outcome S3.M16.8 under Standard 3

(achieve and maintain a health-enhancing level of physical activity and

fitness) for grade 8 reads: “Designs and implements a program to improve

levels of health-related fitness and nutrition” (SHAPE America, 2014, p. 48).

Outcome S5.H2.L2 under Standard 5 (recognizes the value of physical

activity) for high school reads: “Chooses an appropriate level of challenge to

experience success and desire to participate in a self-selected physical

activity” (SHAPE America, 2014, p. 60). The goal is for you to develop

curricular (and unit and lesson) goals that align with the standards and

outcomes.

Physical education teachers should offer quality instruction that is aligned

with National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes, as well as specific

learning goals.

Curriculum Models and Content

In physical education, there is no national curriculum, so physical education

teachers usually have autonomy in the structure and content they teach, as

long as instruction is aligned with the National Standards. Students need to

demonstrate their progress toward the standards in multiple ways in a variety

of physical activities. They may even have a choice in the content they

participate in, which would ideally increase their motivation to engage in

physical education. Some states and specific school districts have fixed

policies and by-laws that may influence the autonomy that teachers have in

developing their own curriculum. Regardless of your circumstance, you will

have some flexibility in the third phase in developing curriculum alignment,

curriculum models, and content, which is the basis on which you provide

instruction to students. Curriculum models provide a framework, or blueprint

(Metzler, 2011), that has a specific and clear focus on how to provide

instruction based on the content. Each curriculum model is based on a main

theme (e.g., tactical games, adventure education, personal and social

responsibility, skill themes) and is designed with the intention of providing

learning experiences that allow students to achieve the selected curriculum

goals and ultimately meet the selected standards and grade-level outcomes.

Chapter 11 in part III provides more information on a variety of curriculum

models that can be implemented at the elementary, middle, and high school

levels.

Curriculum Assessments

How do you know whether students are meeting the standards? How do you

know whether your physical education program is effective? To answer these

questions, you need to develop or use curriculum assessments that align with

the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes for all standards that you

address in your physical education program, not for just one particular

standard (e.g., skills tests for Standard 1 and fitness testing for Standard 3). In

most states, standards-based accountability mandates ongoing assessment of

students’ progress and evidence of student growth (SHAPE America, 2014).

To provide this evidence, you must conduct assessment continuously

throughout the learning process and track data over time. Specifically, you

need to implement assessments that evaluate the goals of the curriculum and

indicate whether student learning occurred as a result of completing the

physical education program (Lund and Tannehill, 2015). Because there is no

national curriculum, there are no required assessments to measure the quality

of physical education programs. But you can use SHAPE America’s

(formerly NASPE’s) PE Metrics (2008, 2010, forthcoming) to assess student

learning and evaluate the effectiveness of your physical education program.

Collectively, the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes, curriculum

goals, curriculum models and content, and curriculum assessments are all

interconnected. They must align with one another for effective teaching for

learning to occur at the curriculum level.

Key Points

A teaching for learning approach focuses on creating and implementing

a quality standards-based physical education program, which includes

appropriate planning, implementation of best practices through

instruction, and assessment of student learning.

A curriculum includes all the knowledge, skills, and learning

experiences provided to students within a school physical education

program.

Curriculum alignment includes the National Standards and Grade-Level

Outcomes, curriculum goals, curriculum models and content, and

curriculum assessments.

Teaching for Learning


What are the benefits of implementing a teaching for

learning approach to physical education?


Carolina): The teaching for learning approach, to me, seems

common sense for a physical education classroom. Students are

engaged in what they are learning through participation in activities,

which allows for higher retention through movement. Students have

to collaborate and work with their peers to accomplish tasks,

especially during scrimmages or small-sided games. Physical

education provides a unique classroom environment where teachers

facilitate their instruction in large groups with opportunities to work

individually with students who need more direction. Many schools

have access to pedometers, heart rate monitors, iPads, and other

technology that allow students to track their own progress and

monitor their exertion. And the classroom arrangement changes

constantly in physical education depending on what is being taught

for that day. This brings an excitement for class and what students

will be learning.

What is the biggest challenge of a teaching for learning

approach, and how have you dealt with the challenge?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas):

Sometimes lessons don’t go exactly the way you plan, which makes

assessments difficult if the objective isn’t met. So you roll with the

challenge of reteaching and making sure you reach everyone’s

understanding. Not every child learns the same, reacts the same, and

assesses the same. So it is important to figure out which approaches

work and which ones do not. Don’t put every child in the same

category; they are all different.



Carolina): If you are not using the teaching for learning approach or

something similar, you will have a harder time getting your students

engaged, end up frustrated, and struggle to gain support for your

program.

Instructional Alignment in Physical

Education

Instructional alignment is an important component of teaching for learning

for preservice, beginning, and experienced teachers. As a preservice teacher,

you will not be expected to formulate and align a curriculum, but you will be

expected to align the unit and lesson plans you develop for your field-based

experiences, both in methods and content courses and during student

teaching. The concept of instructional alignment, which is “alignment for

what we intend our students to learn (goals), how we teach and how students

practice (instructional strategies), and how we determine student success

(assessment)” (Lund and Tannehill, 2015, p. 58), is the basis of offering a

quality physical education program centered on student learning. For this to

occur, four relevant components must align: SHAPE America’s National

Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (2014),

unit goals and outcomes, instruction implemented based on unit and lesson

plans, and assessment of student learning (see figure 2.2). This section

provides an overview of each of these components, but the bulk of this book

is structured on the concept of instructional alignment (i.e., part II—Teaching

to the National Standards for K-12 Physical Education, part III—Building the

Curriculum, and part IV—Instruction and Assessment).

Figure 2.2 Components included for instructional alignment.

National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes for

K-12 Physical Education

As with the description of the National Standards under curriculum

alignment, within instructional alignment National Standards & Grade-Level

Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014) guides

teachers on how to articulate what students should know and be able to do by

the end of each unit of instruction or individual lesson. Without framing your

instruction using the standards and outcomes, questions arise: “So what?

What is the point?” Using the standards to develop unit and lesson plans

provides purpose, intention, and accountability about what you are teaching

and why you are teaching it. With standards and outcomes for each grade

level rather than by grade band (e.g., K-2, 3-5, 6-8, high school), you have a

clearer understanding of what students should be expected to accomplish by

the end of each grade, which provides more insight about the unit goals and

instruction that you should offer over the course of the academic year,

semester, or quarter.

Unit Goals and Objectives

Initially, as a preservice teacher, you will have the task of developing an

individual lesson plan. You might believe that this task is formidable, and it

is! Over the course of your methods and content courses, you will probably

develop and implement numerous lesson plans. Then, either at the end of

these courses or during student teaching, you find out that you have been

taught backward and that you first need to develop a unit of instruction before

you construct individual lesson plans. A unit of instruction is the big picture

of what you intend to teach from start to finish of a particular content,

concept, or theme based on one or more of the standards and outcomes. As a

teacher, you have to identify the units of instruction that you intend to teach

over the course of the academic school year, semester, or quarter (depending

on the grade levels you teach). After you have selected the units of

instruction, you then have to determine the standards and outcomes you are

going to address over the course of each unit. After selecting the standards

and outcomes, the next step is to formulate specific unit goals and objectives

indicating what students will learn by the end of the unit that align with the

identified standards. For example, Standard 1, which focuses on motor skills

and movement patterns, is the basis for most units of instruction at the

elementary level. In a unit on underhand throwing, the unit goal and objective

might be to have students implement the critical elements of the underhand

throw and hit a target x number of times at x distance. In contrast, at the

middle school level, the unit goal and objective you develop for your students

to achieve may be for students to maintain possession consistently, create

space, attack the basket, and defend an opponent in 3v3 basketball game play.

Unit and Lesson Plans

After you have identified the national or state standards and outcomes and

developed specific unit goals and objectives, you can start planning for

instruction. As already indicated in the unit goals section, ideally, you first

want to create a unit of instruction and then individual lesson plans. Besides

standards, outcomes, and unit goals, a unit of instruction includes other

content and materials (e.g., management plan, content analysis or map, block

plan, instructional materials) that you intend to implement and use within the

unit. The basketball example can demonstrate what is meant by “other

content and material.” First, you want to make sure that you develop specific

rules, routines, and expectations for the basketball unit in addition to your

daily physical education rules. Second, you want to plan all the content that

you intend to teach from the start to the end of the unit. In basketball at the

middle school level, this might include triple threat, various types of passes,

dribbling, shooting, lay-ups, and zone or person-to-person defense. Third, a

block plan is an outline of what you will teach or focus on in each individual

lesson over the course of the unit. Fourth, instructional materials are anything

that you believe will help provide instruction for students or be a resource for

them, such as handouts or posters of the rules or various skills and

movements, signals for officiating, or league standings or tournament

brackets, to name a few. As a preservice or beginning teacher, planning all

this in advance can be challenging, but doing the detailed planning for the

entire unit before you formulate individual lesson plans allows you to see the

big picture of what you want students to learn and makes for a smoother and

easier transition to individual lesson planning. Each lesson plan should

include specific standards, outcomes, lesson objectives, instructional tasks

that the students will engage in over the course of the lesson, and a formal or

informal assessment to measure whether the students have learned. Detailed

information on unit and lesson planning is provided in chapter 9.

Assessment is an important component of unit and lesson planning. It lets

you know whether students are learning and whether your lesson and unit

goals and objectives are being met.

Assessment of Student Learning

As indicated in the section about curricular alignment, assessment is

implemented to measure student learning. Whereas curriculum assessments

are designed to measure the goals and outcomes of the overall physical

education curriculum and program (Lund and Tannehill, 2015), assessment of

student learning that occurs within units of instruction and individual lessons

measures the goals and outcomes of a specific unit. When developing a

lesson plan, you want to include a formal or informal assessment that you

will implement in the lesson to provide both students and teachers feedback

about whether students learned from the instruction provided (i.e., formative

assessment) and whether they are making progress toward achieving the

standards and unit goals and objectives (summative assessment). This last

sentence included a variety of terminology about various types of

assessments, all of which is described in detail in part IV, chapter 14. The

intent of this section is not for you to gain an understanding of the various

types of assessments and ways to implement them to measure student

learning, but to develop an understanding of the importance of assessment.

Even if quality instruction is offered, the absence of assessment diminishes

the meaning and accountability of physical education.

Collectively, the national standards and outcomes, unit goals and objectives,

instruction (units and lessons), and assessments of student learning are

interconnected and must align with one another for effective teaching for

learning to occur at the instructional level.

Summary

In a teaching for learning approach, proper curricular and instructional

alignment must occur over the course of a physical education curriculum,

unit of instruction, and individual lessons. The components of curricular

alignment include National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes,

curriculum goals, curriculum models and content, and curriculum assessment.

The components of instructional alignment include national standards and

grade-level outcomes, unit goals and objectives, instruction provided through

unit and lesson plans, and assessment of student learning. The intent is to

offer effective, quality instruction, based on standards and learning outcomes,

that measures whether students have learned and achieved the standards and

curriculum and unit goals. When one or more components in curriculum or

instruction are not properly aligned, student learning is compromised

(Metzler, 2011).

Review Questions

1. What is a teaching for learning approach and how does it align with K-

12 physical education?

2. Compare and contrast a teaching for learning approach with an activitybased

approach.

3. Describe the components of curriculum alignment and explain how each

of the components needs to align with the others.

4. Describe the components of instructional alignment and explain how

each of the components needs to align with the others.

5. Discuss how curriculum and instructional alignment can affect students’

academic achievement in physical education at the elementary, middle,

and high school levels.



web resource at


Chapter 3

Examining Student Motivation

Learning Objectives


Explain flow theory and the importance of developing tasks of

appropriate difficulty.

Explain achievement goal theory and its relationship to

attribution theory.

Explain how and why children’s motivation changes over time.

Explain the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic

motivation and identify situations in which encouraging

motivation through external incentives might be appropriate.

Explain the importance of relatedness in terms of student

motivation.

Key Terms

achievement goals

amotivation

attribution theory

extrinsic motivation

flow

intrinsic motivation

motivation

relatedness

Any textbook on the essentials of teaching physical education is incomplete

without addressing the topic of student motivation. Motivation is the

foremost concern of most preservice and beginning teachers, and it is

certainly relevant for experienced teachers as well. In their training,

preservice teachers ask several common questions, particularly during early

field experience teaching when they have limited time to establish

relationships with the children they are teaching:

1. How can I motivate my students to want to be physically active during

my lessons?

2. Why do they (K-12 students) become less motivated as they get older?

Those who already have teaching experience at the elementary level ask

this question often. For the most part, they have taught children who are

compliant, enthusiastic, and, as one teacher once put it, “will run

through walls for you.”

3. Is it OK to use extrinsic rewards as a motivational tool?

4. Some of my students just don’t seem to care; they have no motivation.

What can I do?

These questions are useful and relevant. The goal of this chapter is to provide

answers through reference to some established motivation theory, an

understanding of which can go a long way toward enabling you to establish a

motivating environment. This chapter does not attempt to cover all the many

theories of motivation. Nor does it “dumb down” the excellent research on

children’s motivation by just scratching the surface. Rather, the chapter offers

concise summaries of some theories that, in combination, provide answers to

the preceding questions.

Establishing a Motivating Environment

Preservice teachers often have enlightening experiences. In a field experience

teaching visit to a school, a future teacher is approached by a seventh grader,

who declares, in no uncertain terms, that she doesn’t like a particular activity

and doesn’t want to take part (on occasion, the language might be a bit more

colorful). On perhaps a different visit, the same preservice teacher finds that

higher-ability learners easily get off task and become disruptive, not in a

mean way but disruptive nonetheless. Rather than take it personally, teachers

need to think about what that seventh grader might really be saying or why

the higher-ability learner gets off task. In thinking about these things, an

understanding of the concept of flow might be helpful.

Flow Theory

The theory of flow, depicted in figure 3.1, was first proposed by Mihaly

Csikszentmihalyi (1975) in his book Beyond Boredom and Anxiety. Flow

theory suggests that people are in a state of flow when the difficulty of a task

in which they are engaged matches up with their perceived ability, or selfefficacy,

to accomplish that task successfully. Figure 3.1 indicates that if a

child with low self-efficacy is faced with a task that is difficult, then he or she

will experience anxiety, resulting in lower motivation. This idea might

explain why some students declare that they don’t like a particular activity.

They might really be saying something like, “I know I can’t accomplish this

task because it is too difficult for me, but I will feel foolish if I say that. Much

better to say that I don’t like it.” This approach gives them a way to protect

their self-esteem. Figure 3.1 also indicates that a child with high self-efficacy

might experience boredom when faced with a task that is too easy. Again,

this circumstance can lead to a decrease in motivation and off-task behavior.

Figure 3.1 Flow theory.

Flow theory has clear implications for physical education teachers,

particularly in the way they design tasks. You need to help young learners

develop a realistic perception of their own abilities and then design tasks that

are realistic yet challenging. Doing this is more difficult when classes are of

mixed ability, as just about all physical education classes are, or when they

include students with disabilities. In such situations, challenging all students

maximally on any given activity task is difficult. So you always need a range

of modifications available both to simplify and to increase the difficulty of a

task. You should plan both simplifications and extensions for every task so

that you have a bag of tricks to pull from. Of course, these options are not

tricks; they are well-planned modifications designed to ensure that tasks can

be changed to challenge every student at an appropriate level and thus

increase the likelihood of a flow experience and maximum motivation that

takes each learner beyond boredom or anxiety. Examples of simplifications

and extensions are provided in table 3.1.

Achievement Goal Theory

Another motivation theory that is relevant to student motivation is

achievement goal theory. Originally proposed by Nicholls (1984),

achievement goal theory suggests that people define success and failure in

different ways and set goals according to those definitions (see Weinberg and

Gould, 2015, for a review of the achievement goal theory literature). In

simple terms, the theory identifies two common goal orientations, one being a

task (or mastery) orientation and the other being an ego orientation. Learners

who are task oriented are more likely to define success and failure in terms of

how well they complete a task and are likely to set goals related to improved

performance on a task. Because they focus primarily on accomplishing a task,

learners who are task oriented are more likely to persevere and less likely to

drop out when faced with a challenge. For example, in a fitness setting a

student who is primarily task oriented is more likely to persevere to beat his

or her own previous performances, even (perhaps especially) when the going

gets tough. Learners who are ego oriented define success relative to other

people and usually set goals related to demonstrating their ability relative to

others (i.e., to win or to show better performance than others). Because these

students typically focus on demonstrating their ability relative to others, if

they are not able to do so, they may experience a decrease in motivation. This

result is often seen in games environments when ego-oriented people lose

interest when losing in a competitive situation.

This distinction between task and ego orientations is indeed simple, perhaps

too simple, because a couple of other things need to be considered. First,

research on social psychology and physical education indicates that people

most likely have some of both task and ego orientations in their makeup

(Lirgg, 2006). So if task-oriented students are more likely to persist in the

face of a challenge, you should encourage goal setting relative to success on a

task rather than in relation to others. You can foster a task or mastery climate

by setting goals, or encouraging learners to set goals, relative to selfimprovement

or task accomplishment.

Second, you also have to consider the role that perceived ability might play.

Task-oriented people are likely to be well motivated regardless of their

perception of their own ability, simply because they want to be successful at

completing a task (assuming that the task is of appropriate difficulty—see the

previous discussion on flow theory). But it might be a bit more complicated

for people who are largely ego oriented. Ego-oriented learners who perceive

their ability to be high are also likely to persevere in the face of a challenge

because they believe that they have the ability to be successful (i.e., to win).

But a problem arises for ego-oriented learners who perceive their ability to be

low relative to others. These people define success by showing how good

they are relative to others, but if they don’t think they will able to do so, the

available options are failing to achieve their goal or withdrawing from the

activity. These students are most likely to lose interest regardless of the

activity, whether it is an openly competitive game setting or a fitness or dance

environment. Remember the first question at the beginning of this chapter.

These poorly motivated students are probably primarily ego oriented. They

need a teacher’s input to create a class climate focused more on task mastery

that helps learners set task-oriented goals of improving performance relative

to a task.

Creating a Task or Mastery Climate

So a key question for teachers concerns how to create a climate that focuses

on task mastery. As discussed earlier, one potential strategy is encouraging

learners to focus on task accomplishment rather than comparing their ability

to others. But an understanding of attribution theory (Weiner, 1979) and its

implications is also worth a mention here.

As with many psychological theories in physical education and sport,

attribution theory research began in classroom settings before research was

conducted in sport environments. This theory concerns the reasons that

learners give for outcomes or, put another way, what learners attribute their

successes and failures to. Simply put, the initial theory suggested that people

make attributions for outcomes on three dimensions: controllability (internal

or external control of an outcome), stability (reasons such as effort, which is

unstable, or ability, which is stable), and locus of control (factors that are

either internal or external). For the sake of simplicity, figure 3.2 depicts two

of these dimensions (stability and controllability), but the subsequent

discussion address all three.

Figure 3.2 Dimensions of attribution theory.

Figure 3.2 shows four possible combinations of attributions (reasons) that

people might make (give) for particular outcomes. Starting in the top left

corner, people might believe that outcomes are controllable (i.e., under their

own personal control, such as attributing their success to trying hard or their

failure to not trying hard enough). Attributing outcomes to effort, or lack of

effort, is therefore an example of a learner making a controllable and unstable

(and internal) attribution. This reasoning would clearly be beneficial to

motivation because it reinforces the belief that effort leads to success or, in

the case of failure, that increased effort can improve the outcome. For

example, a student who identifies lack of effort as the main reason for either

low fitness assessment scores or an adverse competitive game outcome

clearly believes that he or she can do better next time with greater effort.

Moving to the bottom left corner, again a person might attribute success or

failure to controllable but more stable internal factors such as ability (given

that most recognize that ability is harder to change than effort). In this case,

motivation will be maintained in cases where learners are successful because

they can attribute this success to their own ability (“I succeeded because I am

pretty good!”). But in cases of failure, attributing this result to ability will be

detrimental to a young learner’s motivation (“I failed because I am not good

enough!”). Continual attribution of failure to low ability might lead to what is

known as learned helplessness (“I’m not good enough, so what’s the point in

trying?”) (Dweck, 1979; Prapavessis and Carron, 1988; Walling and

Martinek, 1995). Therefore, regardless of the activity being performed, you

would do well to encourage learners to attribute outcomes, particularly

negative outcomes, to internal unstable factors, especially to effort. This

approach reinforces the value of trying hard and suggests that performance

can be improved by increasing effort.

The right side of figure 3.2 indicates potential attributions to uncontrollable

external outcomes such as luck, the officials, weather, or the playing surface.

Again, in cases of failure, although controllable effort attributions are

preferable, you could encourage attributions to unstable rather than stable

factors to suggest that outcomes can change (“You were just a bit unlucky”).

Attributions to uncontrollable factors are also potentially problematic in

situations of success because here learners would not consider how they

might repeat their success. Regardless of the activity, students’ motivation

does not improve if they come to believe that they were successful only

because they were lucky.

Achievement goal theory and attribution theory may be linked in some way,

and you may be able to encourage motivated thinking that focuses more on

accomplishing tasks (i.e., task, or mastery, orientation) rather than

demonstrating ability (i.e., ego orientation). Encourage your students to

attribute outcomes to effort, in other words, to make effort attributions, which

are both controllable and unstable. When outcomes are unsuccessful, effort

attributions suggest that an outcome can change and motivation can be

enhanced if a student increases effort.

Key Points

You should ensure that, as far as possible, the difficulty of tasks is

appropriate for the ability levels of your learners.

A focus on successful task accomplishment, rather than a focus on being

better than others, will be effective in helping learners be well

motivated.

Encouraging students to attribute outcomes to controllable factors is

likely to lead to higher levels of motivation, particularly attributions to

effort, which is unstable and can therefore be changed.

Student Motivation


What is the biggest barrier to student motivation?

Shelly Hoffman, Franklin Elementary School (Wichita, Kansas):

I don’t believe you can pinpoint just one. I think there are three large

barriers: (1) students’ lack of experience participating in fun and

engaging activities, (2) negative experiences in physical education,

and (3) physical education teachers’ failure to create a community of

respect in the classroom. It has been my experience that elementary

students absolutely love moving (even if they are not great at it) if

they are engaged in the activities, the activities are age appropriate

and fun, and they feel safe to participate and play without fear of

being laughed at or put down by the teacher or other students.

What is your best strategy for motivating students?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Get to

know your students. Know their interests. This doesn’t happen in one

semester. Ask them about their interests and be true about it. Kids can

tell whether you are interested in them. If they know you care, they

will care about you and they will care about what you teach. Also

being able to recognize when they have given effort and praising

them for it, even if it is the smallest achievement and it is recognized,

helps them want to do more.



Young children naturally love to move and play. It is our job as

physical educators to promote and develop this love for movement so

that children will regard movement as enjoyable and therefore want to

have numerous movement activities in their lives, especially in

adulthood. We cannot merely throw out the ball in classes as in years

past and be confident children will love to move. We have to develop

an appropriate curriculum of activities for their ages using a variety of

equipment and activities while teaching them skills and all the while

keeping them engaged through thoughtful lesson planning.

Retaining Students’ Motivation

Consider now the second question asked at the beginning of this chapter:

Why do they (K-12 students) become less motivated as they get older? To

answer this question, we can look at a developmental theory of motivation

first proposed by Nicholls (1984). In simple terms this issue again concerns

the concepts of effort and ability and the way in which young learners define

those concepts. Based on his research in classroom environments, Nicholls

suggested that young learners initially view effort and ability as the same

thing, so they might conclude that, regardless of the outcome, they tried hard

and have therefore done well. But he also suggested that this view changes

over time. As children develop into adolescents, they are more likely to

compare their own performances, and therefore their ability, to those of

others.

Other researchers have taken this theory and applied it to children’s

motivation in sport, suggesting that in the early years of schooling (about

ages 4 through 6) children perceive effort and ability as the same thing so that

a child who tries hard is successful. A child who accomplishes a task that

requires more effort views him- or herself as having higher ability (Duda,

1987). For example, young children who successfully accomplish a fine

motor task, such as knocking down bowling pins from a distance of 20 feet (6

m), might say that they are good because they tried hard to aim the ball and,

more important, that they need to aim better if they are not successful in

knocking down the pins. The differentiation between effort and ability takes

place gradually, in stages, from about ages 7 to 12. Between ages 7 and 9,

children see effort as the cause of outcomes; they expect the exertion of little

effort to lead to limited outcome (“I can hit some of the pins if I just aim a bit

better”) and the exertion of a lot of effort to lead to a good outcome (“If I

really focus I can hit all the pins”). But from ages 9 to 10, children are

starting to differentiate effort from ability and beginning to realize that

greater effort does not always lead to a better outcome (“I keep trying to aim,

but I just can’t hit all the pins”). Finally, by the age of about 12, they

completely differentiate effort and ability, seeing ability as something stable,

or at least less likely to change easily, that might limit the effects of effort. At

this point students who fail to hit the pins might just start to believe that they

are just not very good at bowling and give up, fearing that further failure will

serve only to demonstrate how bad they really are.

Encouraging students to focus on effort rather than on demonstrating ability

will help them concentrate on task mastery.

The gradual differentiation of effort from ability is key to understanding the

answer to the question of why motivation decreases as children become

adolescents. Simply put, children at a younger age firmly believe that trying

hard indicates ability and is itself a positive outcome. Only as they get older

and develop the tendency to compare their ability with that of others do they

start to realize that their efforts do not always result in the desired outcomes.

So think about this from the perspective of a middle school student who starts

to realize that, regardless of how much effort he or she puts in, success does

not result and that trying harder and still not succeeding is just a further

indication of low ability. Far safer from that child’s perspective to either

devalue an activity (“I don’t like it”) or withdraw (“I don’t want to”). This

developmental theory of motivation links to achievement goal theory and

attribution theory in that if you focus on encouraging effort attributions and

create a climate based on self-challenge and task mastery, you are more likely

to have positively motivated students.

But realistically, as children become adolescents, convincing them that

greater efforts can overcome limited ability will become harder. At this point

flow theory becomes applicable; you need to set tasks of appropriate

difficulty relative to the ability of your students. This idea is particularly

relevant given research indicating that learners’ perceptions of a challenging

learning environment are strong predictors of whether they will be

intrinsically motivated (Mitchell, 1996). The next section has more on

intrinsic motivation.

Key Points

At first, children see ability and effort as the same thing, so they always

try hard when they are younger.

Between ages 9 and 12, children start to realize that the effects of their

efforts are limited by their ability. This realization might result in lower

motivation because they see that they are not successful no matter how

hard they try.

A focus on effort attributions, task mastery, and appropriate task

difficulty is key for you to encourage a positive motivational climate.

Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation

Preservice and beginning teachers also wonder about specific strategies for

enhancing motivation, particularly the use of extrinsic rewards. Most teachers

understand the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, but a

recap may be useful. Intrinsic motivation is defined as motivation that

comes from within the person (e.g., a desire to master a skill or for the

pleasure of learning something new), and extrinsic motivation as behavior

that is motivated by external factors such as rewards (e.g., points, medals,

food) (Deci and Ryan, 1985). Although having intrinsically motivated K-12

students is clearly preferable, the appropriateness of using external incentives

to foster motivation in students is debatable. Cognitive evaluation theory may

provide an answer (Ryan, Vallerand, and Deci, 1984).

Cognitive evaluation theory is concerned with the meaning that people attach

to external rewards. Reviewing cognitive evaluation theory in sport,

Frederick and Ryan (1995) suggest that recipients of extrinsic rewards

(whether material in nature or just praise or criticism) “cognitively evaluate”

the role of those rewards to decide whether their purpose is informational

(i.e., to provide information on performance) or controlling (i.e., to control or

direct behavior) or amotivating (i.e., to convey incompetence). Research has

indicated that extrinsic rewards interpreted as providing information about

performance will increase motivation, whereas rewards interpreted as

controlling or amotivating will decrease intrinsic motivation. For example,

teachers who use the sport education curriculum model will probably award

points for team performances and regular season successes, and students may

interpret these award points in different ways. So how, then, do you decide

whether it is appropriate to use extrinsic rewards to motivate learners? The

best advice is twofold:

1. First, give task-related feedback that provides learners with information

about the quality of their performance. This feedback itself will be

motivational. Keep it positive and specific.

2. When you use material extrinsic rewards (points, stars, perhaps a trophy

or two), use them sparingly, make sure that they are really based on

performance or behavior (i.e., that they are earned), and try to withdraw

the reward gradually over time so that it is not perceived as controlling

students’ behavior and performance.

Eradicating Amotivation

The fourth question from the beginning of this chapter concerns students who

have extremely low motivation and don’t seem to care about being involved

in physical activity or performing with any degree of competence. These

students are amotivated, and they engage less than others do in in-class

physical activity and have less confidence. A feeling of relatedness is the

key to encouraging positive motivations in these students (Perlman, 2010).

Relatedness is best defined as a student’s feeling that he or she is connected

to the class, the content, the teacher, and peers and is in a caring setting that

allows his or her voice to be heard. Relatedness is one of three components of

self-determination theory, the other two being feelings of autonomy and

competence (Deci and Ryan, 2012).

For amotivated students, the best approach, again, is to foster a climate

focused on task mastery to ensure that tasks are of an appropriate degree of

difficulty to provide optimal challenge. Additionally, your own behavior can

go a long way to ensuring feelings of relatedness and caring. For example,

appropriate teaching behaviors include

taking time to know students’ interests and to address their concerns,

enjoying their successes, no matter how small,

sharing personal stories and interests,

allowing choice where possible and appropriate so that students are

learning content that is meaningful to them, and

ensuring a fair play environment.

Summary

An understanding of some basic and established motivation theory can be

helpful for teachers because many struggle with how to motivate their

students. There are no magic answers to this concern, but research supports

theoretical approaches to looking at motivation—in particular, flow theory

and achievement goal theory. If you intentionally develop tasks of

appropriate difficulty, you will optimize the level of challenge for your

students. Task-related feedback will encourage students to make attributions

to effort and will lead them to focus their effort on accomplishing tasks. You

also need to be aware that definitions of effort and ability change as learners

move from childhood into adolescence; a change in motivational behaviors is

likely to occur as students get into middle school. A continued focus on task

accomplishment and appropriate task difficulty becomes more important at

this stage.

Review Questions

1. Explain flow theory and give an example of appropriate task difficulty.

2. Describe some strategies that you think might help you be successful in

encouraging your students to focus on task mastery.

3. Why do children’s levels of motivation seem to change as they become

adolescents?

4. What teaching behaviors can you use to help your students feel

connected in your class?



web resource at


Part II

Teaching to the National Standards

for K-12 Physical Education

The National Standards for Physical Education were first published in 1995

under the auspices of the National Association for Sport and Physical

Education (NASPE). Those standards provided a way to define the physically

educated person and help teachers plan their curriculum. The initial seven

standards were reduced to six in 2004 with the first revision. They have now

been consolidated into five National Standards in the current (2014) edition,

as described in chapter 1. Perhaps the most significant revision to the

previous edition is the addition of Grade-Level Outcomes for each standard,

providing teachers with developmentally appropriate outcomes from which to

develop unit and lesson objectives. These outcomes and the consolidation of

standards are helpful for teachers because they provide a clearer picture of the

important outcomes to focus on when curriculum time is limited.

Contact time with K-12 students is limited for most teachers, sometimes to as

little as 30 minutes per week at the elementary level, so addressing all

standards equally within each grade level might not be possible. In fact,

doing so might not be appropriate given the developing physical and

cognitive abilities of children from the elementary level to the high school

level. To help teachers decide which standards they should focus on most at

particular grade levels, the relative emphasis (RE) table, shown here, was

developed. The RE table simply takes each standard and suggests its relative

emphasis within each grade band using the terms light, moderate, and strong

to describe how much emphasis a standard should receive.

The use of grade bands (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12) simplifies the process and gives

teachers some flexibility to adjust emphases within a grade band based on the

strengths, weaknesses, and specific needs of their students. No attempt is

made to quantify what is light, moderate, or strong in terms of the number of

lessons or weeks to be given to a particular standard. Curriculum planning is

more complex than that, particularly because multiple standards can be

addressed within a unit of instruction or even within a lesson. For example, a

soccer unit will focus not only on the skills of the game (Standard 1) but also

on the cognitive components in terms of understanding soccer tactics

(Standard 2), fitness aspects of the game (Standard 3), and the personal and

social behaviors (Standard 4) inherent in team sport participation.

In part II of the book, a chapter is devoted to each of the five National

Standards for K-12 Physical Education. Each chapter begins with a short

discussion of key terms and the extent to which that particular standard

should be emphasized within a grade band. The RE table is referenced in

each chapter. Content examples are then provided for each grade band, along

with suggestions for assessment and curriculum planning. Assessing

performance of motor skills and movement patterns of elementary children

can be challenging because assessment requires live observation on the gym

floor, often with limited time and large class sizes. Although some strategies

for these situations are offered in the later chapter on assessment (chapter 14),

this section of the book provides some examples of assessments that might be

used for each standard. Keep in mind that the assessments offered here are

sample assessments based on SHAPE America’s Grade-Level Outcomes for

K-12 Physical Education, but you are encouraged to devise your own

assessments as well. In addition, social justice concerns are addressed where

particularly appropriate to a standard.

Chapter 4

Standard 1: Developing Motor

Skills and Movement Patterns

Learning Objectives


Discuss the relative emphasis of National Standard 1 in the

elementary, middle, and high school physical education

curriculum.

Explain level of motor skill development from precontrol

through control, utilization, and proficiency.

Differentiate between locomotor, nonlocomotor, and

manipulative skills.

Explain three phases of skilled movement (preparation,

execution, and follow-through).

Identify the content that should be included in a physical

education program in relation to Standard 1 at the elementary,

middle, and high school levels.

Identify social justice issues that may arise during instruction

relative to Standard 1.

Key Terms

applied setting

competency

control

critical elements

execution phase

follow-through

isolated setting

locomotor

manipulative

nonlocomotor

precontrol

preparation phase

proficiency

relative emphasis

utilization

This chapter addresses teaching to help your students achieve the goals of

Standard 1: The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a

variety of motor skills and movement patterns (SHAPE America, 2014). A

quick look at the relative emphasis for Standard 1 shown in table 4.1

indicates our belief that this standard is particularly important in the

elementary grade bands, perhaps with an intentional decrease of emphasis

during middle and high school. Most learning of basic motor skills and

movement patterns should take place at the elementary level as the

foundation for further learning and application. Of course, motor skills and

movement patterns should not be completely ignored at the secondary level

because instruction will focus on the use of fundamental skills and

movements as building blocks for the development of more specialized skills,

notably those used in sport, gymnastics, or dance settings. At this time, most

likely during the middle school grades, context-specific instruction in motor

skills development will be necessary to help your students learn and perform

effectively. But if new activities are being introduced at the secondary level,

most likely a local curriculum decision, then Standard 1 might take on more

emphasis at those times.

Competency Versus Proficiency

A definition of competency is required to clarify expectations for student

performance. Competency might mean different things to different people. A

search for the word yields several possibilities including “capability” and

“proficiency.” The first of these is the meaning relevant here. Related to

Standard 1, competency is the ability to perform a given task as requested or

instructed. Given the limited availability of instructional time in most schools

and the typical mixed-ability nature of most physical education classes,

expecting proficiency, or an advanced level of competence, is unrealistic. If

you develop in your students the capability to perform motor skills and

movement patterns in variety of activities, then you will fulfill the goals of

this standard.

One lens through which you might view the development of skilled

performance is by thinking of competence along a continuum of four levels

of skill proficiency (Graham, Holt-Hale, and Parker, 2013) (see figure 4.1).

The initial level is the precontrol level, in which success is haphazard and

often accidental. Repeated attempts at skill execution often look dissimilar

from each other. The second level is the control level, in which performance

becomes more consistent and success more frequent. At the utilization level,

consistent performance is present and skills are ready to be used in

combination with each other. Finally, at the level of proficiency,

performance requires less effort and movements are fluid and usable in a

variety of situations. Although it would be wonderful for all students to

demonstrate physical performance at a level of proficiency, and some will do

so, the utilization level is a realistic overall goal and may provide a more

concrete idea of what it means to be competent.

Motor Skills and Phases of Performance

The motor skills and movement patterns to which this standard refers are

identified in SHAPE America’s National Standards & Grade Level

Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education. They can be broadly classified into

locomotor, nonlocomotor, and manipulative skills or movement patterns

(SHAPE America, 2014).

Locomotor skills are associated with body movement and include hopping,

galloping, running, sliding, skipping, leaping, jumping, and landing. As

students develop these locomotor skills to the point where they can perform

them with consistency (control level), they can combine the skills with each

other (utilization level) to create movement patterns, perhaps best thought of

as routines.

Nonlocomotor skills are sometimes referred to as statics (Werner, Williams,

and Hall, 2012). These skills include balance, weight transfer, curling,

bending, stretching, and twisting. Again, after students develop these skills in

isolation, they can combine them with each other, and with locomotor skills,

into movement patterns.

Manipulative skills, as the name suggests, involve the manipulation of an

object, most often but not always a ball. These skills included throwing,

catching, dribbling (with hands, feet, or a stick), kicking, and striking with

one or two hands. Manipulative skills most often form the basis for more

specialized sport skills, particularly at the upper elementary and middle

school levels.

Performance of motor skills involves the successful execution of critical

elements. Most skills, particularly manipulative skills, include many critical

elements. For example, when kicking a ball with the goal of accurately

reaching a target (as opposed to the goal of generating power), a performer

should do the following:

Approach the ball with a long step (technically a leap) to get the kicking

leg back into the correct position.

Plant the nonkicking foot next to the ball.

Keep the head over the ball.

Turn the foot outward and contact the ball with the inside of the foot.

Contact the center of the ball.

Keep the kicking leg bent when making contact with the ball.

Follow through by moving the kicking leg toward the target.

Regain balance.

Similarly, when striking a moving ball with the forehand in either pickleball

or tennis, a performer should do the following:

Use an appropriate forehand grip.

Move the feet so that the ball is falling as contact is made.

Step into the forehand stroke with the foot opposite the striking hand.

Contact the ball when it is in the comfort zone between knee and waist

height.

Keep the wrist firm.

Hit from low to high.

Follow through in the direction of the target.

In both cases, the numerous critical elements give the performer a lot to think

about and you a lot to observe, and that is for just two manipulative skills.

Novice performers have many skills to learn, and you must be familiar with

many critical elements. Of course, some critical elements are more critical

than others. To make both the learning and the teaching easier, think of

skilled performance as the sum of three phases of movement—the

preparation, execution, and follow-through phases. Thinking of skill

performance in these terms can make observation and error detection easier.

Preparation Phase

The preparation phase refers to an appropriate positioning of the body to

make successful execution more likely. Generally, while observing a

performer you might ask the key question, “Is the body position good enough

for the student to execute the skill?” In the execution of a manipulative skill,

this evaluation will probably concern the position of the body in relation to

the ball. For example, in the earlier soccer example, the long step to the ball

and landing next to the ball are essential. In the tennis and pickleball

example, moving the feet to hit the falling ball is crucial. In a locomotor task

such as jumping, an appropriate preparation phase position will be with the

knees bent and the arms back. Regardless, all motor skills have a preparation

phase in which the performer positions him- or herself in a way that can

either help or hinder performance. If the body position in the preparation

phase is good, then successful execution is more likely and, of course, vice

versa.

Execution Phase

The execution phase refers to the point in time when a skill is actually

performed—the contact in kicking or striking, the release in throwing, the

reception in catching, the push-off in jumping. With a successful preparation

phase, the performer has a good chance of successful execution, but many

critical elements remain to be considered within this middle phase of a skill.

A good general question for you to ask might be, “Does the contact point or

surface (or release point) make a successful outcome likely?” This question

emphasizes the importance of the precise moment of execution—the contact

on the ball, the contact surface used, the release point (in a throw), or the

moment when force is applied (takeoff in a jump). For example, the contact

surface will be critical in executing a soccer kick for accuracy, as will the

contact point in the tennis or pickleball forehand, the release point in an

overhand throw, and the angle of takeoff in a jump.

Follow-Through Phase

Follow-through is the phase of movement that occurs at the end of skill

performance. For example, a soccer player follows through with the leg and

foot after a pass or shot, a tennis player follows through with the racket after

a forehand or backhand groundstroke, and a golfer follows through to

complete the golf swing. Legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus once wrote that the

follow-through is not as important as the rest of the golf swing because the

ball has already left the clubface. Instead, he argued that follow-through is

really an indication that what has preceded it in the preparation and execution

phases has been done correctly. This observation may have some merit (who

wants to argue with Jack Nicklaus?), but observing follow-through and

getting novice learners to think about following through toward a target will

increase the likelihood of applying force in the appropriate direction. The key

question for you here then might be, “Is follow-through balanced and in the

direction of the target?”

Key Points

The classification of motor skills and movement patterns into

locomotor, nonlocomotor, and manipulative skills provides a

classification system for skills taught within the physical

education curriculum. In addition, the use of generic levels of

skill proficiency provides a way of thinking about competency in

terms of using motor skills in combination with each other.

Observing skill performance in the preparation, execution, and

follow-through phases will improve your ability to diagnose

performance errors. The remainder of the chapter provides

content ideas for Standard 1 teaching at the elementary, middle,


Creating a Positive Learning Environment

Social Justice Issues to Address

Although Standard 1 is all about your students’ acquisition of

competency in motor skills and movement patterns, you also may

need to address social justice issues, especially because success and

failure in the gymnasium is public and immediately visible. Social

justice issues are most likely to arise where students of low ability

stand out and are subjected to ridicule by classmates, usually because

of their lack of success in a particular activity. This circumstance is

perhaps most likely to occur in the later elementary grades (3-5) and

middle school, by which time students are able to identify who is high

and low in ability. As discussed in chapter 3, the ability to distinguish

between effort and ability develops over time. Young children (K-2)

are less likely to identify low-ability performers, particularly if

everyone is trying hard. And high school students are more likely to

be aware of, and sensitive to, the difficulties of others or at least more

easily able to understand and empathize with the struggles that come

with trying hard at something and not succeeding.

You want to create a learning environment that encourages students

to be positive with each other and supportive of others’ efforts. Above

all, you must not permit teasing and ridicule. Language matters! You

should openly address inappropriate name-calling that targets and

ridicules lower-ability classmates to send a message that such

language, and the verbal abuse of others, has no part in your

gymnasium. This objectionable behavior is particularly likely to

occur when the environment becomes competitive, which it might

during games and sport instruction. Integrating Standard 4 outcomes

and content, which aim to instill a sense of personal and social

responsibility, might be effective in reinforcing the desired

environment.

Besides encouraging, indeed demanding, appropriate language and

positive student-to-student interactions, you can adjust the content to

increase the likelihood that all students will achieve success. Most

activities requiring skilled performance are, by definition, biased

toward high-ability performers. But to encourage K-12 students to be

active voluntarily, you must ensure appropriately challenging

activities (see the discussion of flow theory in chapter 3). Modifying

tasks using strategies suggested in table 4.1 would help ensure an

equal likelihood of success for all students, regardless of ability.


The elementary grades are a period of growth and physical development.

Children’s motor skills develop accordingly, in terms of both how much they

can do and how well they can do it. Of course, the rate of learning varies

from learner to learner, even within the same grade level. Ensuring that the

content taught is at an appropriate level and that activities can be varied to

suit different levels of ability will be a challenge. Variations, or

modifications, to activities might come in the form of changes to a task or to

the environment, or perhaps to something related to the learners themselves

(Oslin and Mitchell, 1998).

Relative Emphasis and Content Examples

The elementary grade levels are the time when children should learn

fundamental movements and basic skills as building blocks for the later

development of specialized sport and lifetime physical activity skills. As

such, Standard 1 takes on considerable importance in grades K-5, as evident

in table 4.1. The content ideas presented in this section focus on this process

of individualized instruction.

Locomotor Skills

The ability to move in a variety of ways is foundational to becoming

physically literate and living a healthy active lifestyle. This process starts in

the early school years. Locomotor skills to be taught at the elementary level

include running, galloping, sliding, skipping, hopping, and jumping. Initially,

these skills will probably be taught in isolation at the K and grade 1 level, in

combinations in grades 2 and 3, and eventually incorporated into sport,

gymnastics, and dance-related sequences of movement in grades 4 and 5.

This type of progression is outlined in National Standards & Grade-Level

Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014).

Locomotor skills are foundational to physical development.

Running includes the ability to distinguish between jogging and sprinting, a

distinction that increases in importance as learners become accustomed to

running for varying amounts of time and over varying distances, when an

understanding of pacing becomes necessary. This understanding typically

develops during the elementary years. You can combine the teaching of

running technique, particularly the importance of a heel–toe action and the

opposition of arms and legs, with practice over varying distances and

durations. Of course, you can modify distance and duration to suit individual

or group needs, such as by using a two-minute group, a four-minute group,

and a six-minute group to challenge students maximally.

Galloping typically precedes sliding in that the gallop is a forward-facing

movement that becomes a slide when the performer turns sideways. The slide

is foundational for the footwork involved in some sport skills. For example,

sliding the feet is foundational to good defensive movement in many invasion

games and is key to court movement in net games. Similarly, a fielder in

softball or cricket often uses a sliding movement in the preparation phase for

fielding and throwing a ball hit along the ground. Children need to learn how

to jump correctly, both horizontally and vertically, and to land in a

comfortable and balanced position. Jumping can be from one foot or two, and

it is foundational to many sports and to both gymnastics and dance activities.

The ability to land without injury is also necessary. Whether jumping for

distance (horizontal) or for height (vertical), attention should be paid to the

position of the hands and arms in the preparation phase, together with the

appropriate knee bend, the angle of takeoff and the arm action in the

execution phase, and the cushioning of the landing by bending the knees in

the follow-through phase. Jumps can be combined with shapes (tuck, stretch,

star, or pike) and turns (one-quarter, one-half, or three-quarter) in the air for

those with higher ability.

Combinations of locomotor skills become an enjoyable challenge for learners

in grades 3 through 5, in either a gymnastics or dance lesson or unit.

Emphasize developing sequences or routines that include a variety of

locomotor skills of varying degrees of difficulty according to ability levels.

Using music can encourage the development of rhythm. As skills are

combined into sequences, encourage your students to focus on the quality of

transition from one skill to another, so that movements are linked smoothly

and effortlessly into a visually pleasing routine. The development of routines

in a gymnastics context becomes increasingly challenging with the addition

of nonlocomotor skills, or statics.

Nonlocomotor Skills

Nonlocomotor skills primarily involve skills of balance and rotation, and

static shapes formed by curling, stretching, twisting, and bending. Basic body

positions of tuck, pike, and stretch can be taught first, through simple

rotational activities, so that rolling movements can later be used to link

balances. Rolling can be done in various body positions and directions, but a

sideways movement is best at first. Forward and backward rolling can be

covered in the later elementary grades. Balances can be taught progressively,

beginning with a wide base of support on three or four body parts and

moving to two- and one-point balances. Be sure to use appropriate spotting

techniques when teaching balance skills such as handstand and headstand.

These can then be combined into simple routines done individually and in

pairs or small groups (Werner et al., 2012).

Nonlocomotor body shape and rotational skills can also be combined into

rhythmic gymnastics or dance routines, with or without manipulative

equipment such as balls, ribbons, and hoops. When giving the challenge of

developing a routine, specify the components to be included. For example, a

gymnastics routine might include a starting position, three rolls, two balances

of varying difficulty, and a finishing position. By increasing the complexity

of the rolls and balances, you can challenge advanced performers so that that

all learners work to their full potential.

Manipulative Skills

Manipulative skills to be learned in the early elementary level (K-2) include

underhand and overhand throwing, catching, dribbling with hands and feet,

kicking, striking with the hand and a short-handled implement, and the early

stages of jumping rope. Anticipated manipulative skill outcomes are outlined

in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education

(SHAPE America, 2014), but a general discussion of the concept of

progression related to manipulative skills is worthwhile at this point.

Generally, instruction in manipulative skills involves setting tasks that move

from simple to complex and that you can vary according to the needs of the

learner. As mentioned earlier, you can vary three things—aspects related to

the performer, to the task itself, or to the environment (Oslin and Mitchell,

1998). Similar to a developmental task analysis that identifies ways of

modifying task complexity for specific skill learning (Haywood and Getchell,

2014; Herkowitz, 1978), general progressions of complexity for manipulative

skill tasks are useful (see table 4.2).

Manipulative skills are most effectively learned in isolated practice to

develop adequate technique. Any performance becomes more complex as the

number of participants increases. The movement of the performers should

also be limited so that requirements for movement do not interfere with

learning the skill. Task requirements can be varied using several factors.

Equipment can be modified to make performance easier, such as by using

smaller and lighter balls for novice performers. The distances over which

balls must be thrown, caught, dribbled, kicked, or struck can be varied;

shorter distances typically aid the novice learner. Movement of a ball also

adds complexity. A static ball is preferred in the early stages of learning to

kick and strike a ball, so using a tee is helpful in the early stages of learning

two-handed striking. And although performing more repetitions is naturally

better in skill learning, the goal for the number of repetitions should increase

as learners improve. Similarly, when using a target to aim at in manipulative

learning, the target should be large in the early stages of learning and

decrease in size as learners progress. Environmental factors such as weather,

class size, and gymnasium size are often not under your control, but you can

often control the size of the space devoted to a particular task. In some

instances a larger space can aid skill development because it affords the

learner more time. As space decreases, so does the time available to execute

skills.

Assessment and Program Planning

As mentioned in the introduction to part II, observing and assessing the

performance of motor skills and movement patterns of elementary school

children can be challenging, often because of the limited time available and

the large class sizes that teachers have to manage. Nonetheless, assessment is

possible with appropriate observation instruments, such as rubrics. Rubrics

must include the essential critical elements to guide the observer. Generally, a

three-level rubric is best, for two reasons. First, three levels of performance

are easier to identify and discriminate between than four or five levels

because the smaller number of weaker and stronger performers will be easy

to identify, likely leaving the majority of a class scoring in the middle range.

Second, and related to the first reason, a three-level scoring system will

provide a more reliable assessment than a four- or five-level system (see

more on the issue of reliability in chapter 14). Figure 4.2 provides an example

of a locomotor skill rubric, in this case for the assessment of skipping in

second grade. Figure 4.3 is a sample assessment of balance, a nonlocomotor

skill, and figure 4.4 is an assessment rubric for catching, a manipulative skill.

Movement sequences or routines are an important aspect of the Grade-Level

Outcomes in the later elementary grades. These can also be assessed through

observation. Figure 4.5 is a rubric that might be used to observe and assess

any routine, whether in gymnastics, dance, or perhaps jump rope. The

advantage of using the same rubric for assessing routines in a variety of

content areas is that both you and your students will become accustomed to

the criteria required at each level of performance, thus improving both your

students’ performances and the reliability of your assessment.

Elementary program planning for Standard 1 should account for all grade

levels K-5 to ensure that all outcomes are addressed before the end of fifth

grade. You might find this process to be a challenge if you teach in a school

district that splits elementary schooling into two or more bands, perhaps with

a K-2 school and a 3-5 school or even three separate buildings that split the

K-5 grade band. This situation requires communication between teachers and

the planning of a sequential curriculum that addresses the Grade-Level

Outcomes progressively and uses appropriate curriculum models to do so. A

skill theme approach that aligns the learning of movement with locomotor,

nonlocomotor, and manipulative skills would certainly be one appropriate

approach (Graham et al., 2013). Much more on curriculum models is

included in chapter 11.

Key Points

Standard 1 is important at the elementary level because the acquisition

of motor skills is the foundation for the further development of sport and

lifetime physical activity skills.

Motor skills are best classified as locomotor, nonlocomotor, and


Instruction in motor skills should proceed from simple to complex.

Assessment can be by simple checklists and rubrics.


Assuming that your students have received quality instruction at the

elementary level and have adequately developed locomotor, nonlocomotor,

and manipulative skills, the middle school grade levels are the time when the

combination and application of these skills becomes the focus of Standard 1

teaching and learning. For example, the manipulative skill of dribbling, with

either the hands or the feet, is good to master, but it is of much greater value

if it can be performed in a game of basketball or soccer. And in playing in

dynamic game environments, your students will have to combine the separate

skills they have learned. For example, in basketball and soccer they have to

combine dribbling, passing, and shooting skills to perform effectively.

As the discussion shifts to games and sports, note that context matters. You

should not teach middle school students the adult versions because these

often require spaces that are too large for them to handle, equipment that is

either too big or too heavy, and a number of participants that results in too

many decision-making options. Volleyball is a good example of this issue.

Having learned the manipulative skill of volleying to keep a ball in the air in

the elementary grades, perhaps beginning by using a balloon to self-volley in

kindergarten and progressing up to playing four-square in fourth grade, a

logical progression is for students to learn volleyball in middle school. But

moving your students straight into the adult form of the game would be a

mistake because playing 6v6 volleyball on a full court with a regulation ball

is extremely difficult. At the novice level, points played rarely last longer

than the ball crossing the net once or twice, the result being that students

spend a lot of time chasing or picking up loose balls. This form of volleyball

will be frustrating for you and your students, so modifying the game by

reducing court size (to a shorter half-court game), reducing the number of

players to 3v3, and using a lightweight trainer volleyball will provide a much

greater chance of success. The following sections offer some other examples

of how you can modify context of the activities you teach so that students can

better apply the skills they have learned.

Relative Emphasis

While developing competency in motor skills and movement patterns is still

important during the middle school grades, it should have a more moderate

emphasis compared with the strong emphasis in the elementary grades.

Although your students will always display differences, most will arrive in

middle school being able to perform basic motor skills and movement

patterns at least at the control level and ideally at the utilization level,

enabling you to focus more on other standards.

Modifying the Context

SHAPE America’s Grade-Level Outcomes at the middle school level are

categorized into discrete curriculum content areas:

Dance and rhythms

Games and sports

Invasion games

Net and wall games

Fielding and striking games

Target games

Outdoor pursuits

Aquatics

Individual-performance activities

In each category the expectation during the middle school years is that your

students will make the transition from performing in practice settings to

performing in more applied settings such as small-sided game play or small

group dances. The following examples show some outcomes from various

categories and suggest ways in which you might modify the context to help

your students’ performance.

Outcome S1.M4.6 in the invasion games category for grade 6 reads as

follows: “Passes and receives with hands in combination with locomotor

patterns of running and change of direction and speed with competency in

modified invasion games such as basketball, flag football, speedball or team

handball” (SHAPE America, 2014, p. 42). Clearly, this outcome calls for you

to observe your students in modified game play. The adult version of any of

the mentioned games would not provide students with sufficient touches of

the ball for you to gauge whether they are able to pass and receive with

competency, so a key question for you as the teacher concerns how to modify

the game so that you can observe a class of perhaps 20 to 30 students.

Assume that you have a class size of 24 and sufficient space to play more

than one game at a time on a court or field that is smaller than regulation.

With 24 students you have the possibility of playing two games of 6v6 or

three games of 4v4 or even four games of 3v3. Obviously, 24 is a perfect

number in terms of its divisibility and life is rarely this perfect, but this

scenario serves to illustrate the potential of having your students play

multiple games at the same time on adjacent courts or fields. Generally, the

smaller the number of players, the more touches of the ball players will have

but the fewer decision-making options they will have when in possession of

the ball. So the optimum number of players is really a tradeoff based on your

goals for student learning. You might also modify the game rules to

emphasize the outcome. For example, with this particular outcome you might

temporarily limit or prohibit dribbling or moving with the ball so that forward

progress can be made only by passing and receiving.

Outcome S1.M18.7 for target games in grade 7 reads as follows: “Executes

consistently (70 percent of the time) a mature underhand pattern for target

games such as bowling, bocce or horseshoes” (SHAPE America, 2014, p.

44). Here again you need to provide sufficient opportunities for your students

to practice the underhand pattern for any of these games, particularly given

the importance of the footwork involved (stepping with opposition) in the

preparation phase of the movement, the release point in the execution phase,

and the movement toward the target in the follow-through phase. Again,

multiple simultaneous games will be necessary in sufficiently small numbers

to provide your students with plenty of opportunities or skill repetitions. Of

course, you will also need adequate equipment. To address the equipment

issue, teachers can get creative by using a variety of balls, by using plastic

bottles as pins, or by using cones as horseshoe targets. Groups of four is

probably optimal for target games because of the need for different roles such

as ball collector, scorekeeper, and pin relocator.

Lastly, Outcome S1.M1.8 for dance and rhythms in grade 8 reads as follows:

“Exhibits command of rhythm and timing by creating a movement sequence

to music as an individual or in a group” (SHAPE America, 2014, p. 42). This

outcome provides you and your students with plenty of scope regarding the

actual content in that although the movement sequence could easily be

developed in dance, it could also be developed in gymnastics, jump rope, or

yoga. In fact, assuming adequate learning of locomotor and nonlocomotor

skills, you can provide your students with these options and then sit back and

enjoy their creativity. The context is important in that the process should end

with a culminating performance, either to the whole class or just to a subset,

to hold your students accountable for their work and to serve as a motivator.


Assessment of Standard 1 outcomes at middle school is more complex than at

elementary school because the expectation is that students can perform motor

skills and movement patterns in applied settings (i.e., games) as well as in

more isolated settings (i.e., practice). Therefore, you need to construct or

find rubrics that define the performance levels you want to see in observable

terms. Figure 4.6 provides an example of an analytic rubric for observing and

assessing student performance in basketball, although with some minor

modifications it could easily apply to other invasion games. Again, three

levels of performance are identified using language that describes how

student performance should look at each level. The rubric applies to several

motor skills and movement patterns, and contains suggestions for game play

and for the critical elements you might observe.

Assessing live performance during game play is more challenging than

assessing performance in practice settings. Activity happens more quickly

and spontaneously, and you have far less control over the number of times a

student touches the ball. You may need several lessons to assess a whole

class because you may be able to assess only one or two groups or teams

within a single class session. The planning and assessment chapters revisit

these issues.

To accommodate the emphasis on performance in modified but applied

settings in SHAPE America’s Grade-Level Outcomes for middle school, the

middle school program needs organizational frameworks that have a core

contextual focus. One such framework exists within the sport education

curriculum model, which emphasizes fair play and team affiliation within

sport seasons (Siedentop, Hastie, and van der Mars, 2011). This model would

apply particularly as a way of organizing content for instruction in the

categories of invasion, net and wall, fielding and striking, and target games.

Complementary to sport education, the tactical games model (Metzler, 2011;

Mitchell, Oslin, and Griffin, 2013) provides an instructional approach that

emphasizes modified game play and the application of skill in a modified but

applied context, also making it an appropriate approach for instruction in the

middle school outcomes.

Key Points

Middle school is a time when motor skills should be combined and used

in applied settings.

In applying skills to game setting, you should modify games so that

students are not performing in the adult version of the game.

Curriculum models such as sport education and tactical games are useful

as ways of organizing instruction within the middle school curriculum.

Motor Skills and Movement Patterns


How do you organize the teaching of motor skills and

movement patterns in your program?


Carolina): We use a curriculum that helps us place students in

groups and use stations to teach motor skills and movement patterns

for each unit we cover.

Which motor skills and movement patterns are hardest

for your students to learn, and how do you help them

overcome difficulties?

Susan Sellers, Lynwood Elementary School (Lynnwood,

Washington): The movement patterns and motor skill that I find

most difficult for today’s students are those that require body

awareness and balance—those associated with the content areas of

tumbling and gymnastics. I am confident that this stems from the

restrictions that most children have to movement at the infant and

toddler stages. My advice is not to shy away from teaching balance

and tumbling skills to students of all ages. Even at the secondary

level, there are new and exciting ways to incorporate balance and

tumbling skills into your curriculum (slack line, climbing walls, indo

boards).


Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Find out

what works for you and include those patterns in lessons and games.


The primary goal of high school physical education is for students to

graduate as physically literate individuals who can be independent consumers

of physical activity for the rest of their lives. The range of possible activities

offered at the high school level might be limited by available facilities and

equipment or the number of teachers. Although an elective program that

allows students to pursue activities of their own choosing is recommended,

that approach is not always possible or may offer only limited choices to

students. Nevertheless, high school teachers should make efforts to include

content from across the spectrum of lifetime activities, dance, and fitness

activities so that students graduate with the skills they need to be participants

across the lifespan.

Relative Emphasis

A look at the relative emphasis table suggests that Standard 1 should receive

only light emphasis at the high school level. Some teachers at the high school

level might disagree because they see students with relatively poor motor

skills coming into their high school programs. Even so, light emphasis on

Standard 1 in high school is recommended for two reasons:

1. For many students of high school age, repetitive skill practice activities

can be demotivational. These students are motivated more by being

required to apply whatever skills they have.

2. Some, if not most, high school students have reached the ceiling of their

ability relative to motor skill execution, so further gains will most likely

require more practice time than you have available within your program.

Instead, performance improvement is more likely to come from

improved understanding of activities, as required in Standard 2.

Content Examples

Recommended high school content for Standard 1 is focused primarily on

activities that your students are likely to pursue after they graduate. Content

categories include lifetime activities, dance and rhythms, and fitness

activities. Again, one outcome is highlighted as an example from each

category.

Lifetime Activities

Outcome S1.H1.L1 for high school reads as follows: “Demonstrates

competency and/or refines activity-specific movement skills in two or more

lifetime activities (outdoor pursuits, individual-performance activities,

aquatics, net/wall games or target games)” (SHAPE America, 2014, p. 56).

This outcome suggests a wide range of possible content, which is appropriate

at the high school level. It also suggests that when games are involved, given

the presence of net and wall games and target games and the absence of

invasion and field games, the focus should be more on what might be

traditionally thought of as individual or dual games. This approach makes

sense because after graduating from high school, although some might

actively seek out team sport environments, young adults will likely have

fewer opportunities to engage in group activities or team sports and will need

to be aware of available alternative individual options. Where possible, given

available facilities and number of teachers, an elective program is probably

the preferred mode of delivery, giving students opportunities to develop

competency in activities they are most likely to pursue in their adult lives.

Although games and sport instruction might tend to move away from a skills

emphasis toward a game performance emphasis, other activities within this

category might require a concentrated focus on acquiring basic skills. For

example, outdoor activities such as orienteering, rock climbing, and canoeing

or kayaking require instruction in basic techniques to ensure safety and some

measure of student success. Similarly, aquatics skills would most likely be

taught formally, as might individual performance activities such as archery,

dance, or track and field.

Dance and Rhythms

The dance and rhythms category is included in the high school outcomes

because it is likely that students will, at some time, find themselves in social

settings where group dancing takes place. Developing confidence in their

dance and rhythm skills will make it more likely that they will participate

when the opportunity arises. For example, Outcome S1.H2.L1 reads as

follows: “Demonstrates competency in dance forms used in cultural and

social occasions (e.g., weddings, parties) or demonstrates competency in one

form of dance (e.g., ballet, modern, hip hop, tap)” (SHAPE America, 2014, p.

56). This outcome leaves plenty of scope for students to learn dance forms

that appeal to them. They will most likely learn these dance forms through

formal instruction but also perhaps through individual and small-group

practice.

Fitness Activities

A considerable proportion of most high school physical education programs

is spent in health-related fitness activities, which is appropriate given 21st

century concerns regarding the health of the nation. In particular, you might

engage your high school students in aerobic activities of various kinds,

resistance training using a range of equipment, activities such as yoga to

increase flexibility, or kick boxing to increase explosiveness and agility. In

all these examples, students must use appropriate technique to avoid injury.

This Standard 1 emphasis is reflected in Outcome S1.H3.L2, which reads,

“Demonstrates competency in two or more specialized skills in health-related

fitness activities” (SHAPE America, 2014, p. 56). Although the ultimate goal

is for your high school students to become independent participants in

aerobic workouts, resistance training, yoga, or kick boxing, they cannot

safely reach this goal until you first provide instruction in technique.


Similar to the assessment of middle school outcomes, high school

assessments must account for context and, in particular, student performance

in both isolated settings (i.e., a practice) and applied settings (game or actual

use) (see table 4.3). The primary goal of high school physical education is for

students to graduate as physically literate individuals who can be independent

consumers of physical activity for the rest of their lives. The goals of

independence and performance in applied settings are reflected in the sample

assessment presented in figure 4.7.

Key Points

Elective programs are recommended and are more common at the high

school level.

High school instruction is less focused on Standard 1.

When skill instruction is done, the content should focus on lifetime

physical activities that students can use after they have graduated from

high school.

Summary

Providing learning experiences that will help students develop competency in

motor skills and movement patterns is central to most physical education

programs. Initial goals focus on the development of a repertoire of basic

locomotor, nonlocomotor, and manipulative skills. Students then apply these

skills first in modified contexts and later in more mature or adult contexts.

The ultimate goal is to provide students with the skills they need to be

independent participants in their preferred activities over the duration of the

lifespan and to equip them with sufficient skills to transfer to new activities

as these become available or are discovered.

Review Questions

1. Explain the difference between locomotor, nonlocomotor, and


2. Use a manipulative skill example of your choice to identify and define

three phases of skilled performance.

3. Use a locomotor or manipulative skill example to describe how children

develop their performance from the precontrol level to the proficiency

level.

4. Explain why and how you might modify an invasion game to provide a

suitable game in which middle school students can apply newly learned

skills.

5. Describe the content you would include in a high school physical

education program. Provide reasons for what you select.



web resource at


Chapter 5

Standard 2: Applying Concepts,

Principles, Strategies, and Tactics

Learning Objectives


Discuss the relative emphasis of National Standard 2 in the

elementary, middle, and high school physical education

curriculum.

Identify the content that should be included in a physical



Explain appropriate ways of assessing Standard 2 outcomes at

each level.

Identify social justice issues that may arise during instruction

relative to Standard 2.

Key Terms

movement concepts

strategy

tactics

This chapter addresses teaching to help your students achieve the goals of

National Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of

concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and

performance (SHAPE America, 2014). Clearly, this description suggests

cognitive outcomes, particularly the acquisition of knowledge and the

application of this knowledge to enhance performance. Simply put, the more

your students know, the more tools they have at their disposal to help make

them better movers. The relative emphasis table indicates that this standard

should receive lighter emphasis at the elementary grade levels, particularly in

grades K-2, than in middle school and especially high school, where the

ability to analyze performance is a major focus (see table 5.1). More

discussion on this topic follows in the grade band sections, but the “Grade

Band Summary of the Learning Goals for Standard 2” sidebar outlines the

differences between the grade bands in terms of the intent of this standard.

Grade Band Summary of the Learning Goals

for Standard 2

Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of

concepts, principles, strategies, and tactics related to movement and

performance.

High school, grades 9-12: Uses movement concepts and

principles to analyze and improve performance of self or others

in a selected skill

Middle school, grades 6-8: Uses tactics and performance

concepts in physical activities

Elementary school, grades K-5: Uses basic movement concepts

in dance, gymnastics, and small-sided practice tasks

A glance at the sidebar suggests that as an elementary teacher, you want to

ensure that your youngest learners can understand and demonstrate

movement concepts such as space, direction, speed, force, shape, levels, and

movement along varying pathways. An understanding of these concepts will

enhance students’ ability to apply them later in various movement contexts as

they progress through the elementary grades. At the middle school level, an

understanding of movement concepts and principles (i.e., governing tenets of

movement) should enhance student performance. For example, if students

understand that movement pathways can vary (straight, curved, zigzag), they

can transfer that knowledge into tactics such as creating or defending space in

invasion games like soccer or flag football. Or if students understand the

concept of varying force, they can use that understanding to make an

appropriate decision about the type of shot to play in badminton, using either

a lot of force to play an overhead clear or a little force to play a drop shot.

And at the high school level, these understandings will help students observe

and analyze their own performance and that of others.


The following section describes the appropriate relative emphasis for

Standard 2 for the elementary grade levels and suggests developmentally

appropriate content to address SHAPE America’s Grade-Level Outcomes.

Ideas for assessment are also provided.

Relative Emphasis

Referring to the relative emphasis table, the emphasis on Standard 2 should

increase as students move through the K-5 grade band. Most young learners

can easily gain an understanding of movement concepts. For example, K-2

students are usually able to grasp the difference between general space and

self-space, or between fast and slow speeds, or between striking a ball hard or

softly. But many students need more time to acquire the actual skills, say the

skill of striking, so perhaps less time is necessary for Standard 2 than for

Standard 1 within the K-2 grade band. In grades 3-5, however, you might

reasonably expect students to begin to apply their understanding of concepts

such as space, direction, pathways, and force in specific contexts such as

dance, gymnastics, and modified game activities.

Movement Concepts

The focus of Standard 2 at the elementary level is for young learners to

develop and then apply to their performances an understanding of movement

concepts. Movement concepts specified in the K-2 outcomes include space,

pathways, levels, shapes, speed, direction, and force. These elements are

again identified in the grade 3-5 outcomes, which also feature reference to

alignment and muscular tension, and strategies and tactics. Activities to

address K-2 concepts will likely use basic locomotor and nonlocomotor

(especially balance) skills, so they will simultaneously be addressing

Standard 1 outcomes. These activities might initially involve only separate

locomotor movements and then later develop locomotor sequences (see

Graham, Holt/Hale, and Parker, 2013 for examples), or might take place

within the context of simple gymnastics (Werner, Williams, and Hall, 2012)

or dance (Purcell-Cone and Cone, 2012). The goal of combining movement

concepts is exemplified by Outcome S2.E2.2, in which the learner “combines

shapes, levels and pathways into simple travel, dance and gymnastics

sequences” (SHAPE America, 2014, p. 32).

The expectation is that the application of movement concepts to movement

and performance will become more skilled and complex in the upper

elementary grades (3-5). For example, Outcome S2.E1.5 reads: “Combines

spatial concepts with locomotor and nonlocomotor movements for small

groups in gymnastics, dance and games environments” (SHAPE America,

2014, p. 32). Outcome S2.E5.5a reads: “Applies basic offensive and

defensive strategies and tactics in invasion small-sided practice tasks”;

Outcome S2.E5.5b requires the same in net and wall games (SHAPE

America, 2014, p. 33).

The sequencing of the elementary Grade-Level Outcomes for Standard 2

suggests that by the end of grade 5, students should be able to demonstrate,

through their performance of movement tasks, an understanding of how their

bodies move in space and should be starting to apply this understanding to

some specific contexts, namely dance, gymnastics, and games. This will

prepare them to address the middle school (grades 6-8) outcomes, in

particular those that focus on the application of knowledge to tactical

situations during game play.


As with the assessment of Standard 1 outcomes, determining student

application of movement concepts requires primarily that performance be

observed and judgment be made based on that performance. For example,

Standard 2 includes the following two outcomes:

1. Kindergarten: Travels in general space with different speeds (S2.E3.K).

2. First grade: Differentiates between fast and slow speeds (S2.E3.1a).

In either case, you can observe performance of these concepts over time, and

your assessment could be combined with instruction. Ask students to perform

movement tasks associated with the concepts of space and speed. For

example, an appropriate movement task might be for the class to move freely

in general space while executing locomotor skills and changing speed when

signaled to do so. This task would assess outcomes related to the concepts of

space and speed, but the general rubric in figure 5.1 can also be used to assess

knowledge of other movement concepts (e.g., force, levels, pathways) if you

instruct students to use these concepts.

Again, as with Standard 1, bear in mind that you need to be able to observe

and assess each outcome more than once. Young learners have good and bad

days, so a one-off assessment might not be a fair reflection of their

performance level. You can be more time efficient if you can observe more

than one or two students at a time, and the assessment task should allow for

that. You may even be able to have an entire class moving at the same time in

general space. A scan of the class would most likely show the weaker

performers (level 1) first followed by the strongest performers (level 3). The

remainder (most likely about two-thirds) of the students would be performing

at level 2. Lastly, you can integrate ongoing assessment with your instruction

to help students improve through the feedback received in the assessment

process.

Similarly, Outcome S2.E2.2 requires that the learner “combines shapes,

levels and pathways into simple travel, dance and gymnastics sequences”

(SHAPE America, 2014, p. 32). You may be able to assess this outcome by

having students individually develop and practice a sequence of locomotor

movements. The sequence might require at least the following:

1. Movement or balance using two different shapes (tuck, pike, or stretch)

2. Movement or balance at two or more different levels (low, medium, or

high)

3. Traveling in at least two different pathways (curved, straight, or zigzag)

You can easily build this movement task into an instructional unit by giving

students time to develop and practice their movement sequences. Three or

four students at a time might do performances (perhaps on a “performance

day”) so that you can adequately observe each student while not taking too

long to observe the whole class. Again, if possible, you would be wise to

allow for more than one observation or assessment. Assessment could be

done by using the sample rubric shown in figure 5.2.

Lastly, Outcome S2.E1.5 requires that the student “combines spatial concepts

with locomotor and nonlocomotor movements for small groups in

gymnastics, dance and games environments” (SHAPE America, 2014, p. 32).

You might assess this outcome by having students perform a task that

necessitates group movement patterns in gymnastics, dance, or games

environments. In gymnastics this might be a pairs routine, in dance it might

be a pairs or group dance, and in games environments you could use smallsided

formats of perhaps 1v1, 3v3, or 5v5 (depending on the game being

played) so that learners have more opportunities for involvement, which in

turn makes it easier for you to evaluate performance.

You can use the rubric shown in either figure 5.3 (gymnastics or dance) or

figure 5.4 (games) to assess this outcome. Regardless of the context, some

assessment guidelines are warranted here. First, bear in mind that several

simultaneous practice areas or small-sided games will be necessary, so you

might need more than one lesson to observe a class. Second, assuming that

several groups are active simultaneously, you must be careful to position

yourself so that all students are visible but the practice area or game being

assessed is the most visible. Third, if you are using this assessment in

gymnastics or dance, you might want to consider having a “performance day”

or “showcase” when groups perform their routines before a panel of judges

recruited from either the class itself or from outside.

Given that Standard 1 emphasizes performance and Standard 2 emphasizes

application of knowledge, much of this content can be planned, taught, and

assessed simultaneously. As your elementary students learn to perform

locomotor, nonlocomotor, and manipulative skills, you might also challenge

them to apply their knowledge of movement concepts by performing skills in

varying spaces and pathways, and at different levels and speeds. The

interaction between movement skills and concepts provides a way of

maximizing and integrating student learning (Graham, Holt/Hale, and Parker,

2013).

Adapt Teaching Strategies to Meet Each

Student’s Needs


In the same way that teaching toward Standard 1 outcomes might

favor the physically talented students, a focus on Standard 2

outcomes would probably favor those students who achieve higher

academically or have greater access to resources. As with everything

you do, take care to plan with all your students in mind and be

prepared to give additional input when it is needed, particularly in the

use of any technology necessary to complete Standard 2 assignments.

Not all students have the same access to these resources in their home

environments, so they will come to you with varying amounts of

familiarity and experience.

Key Points

Standard 2 should receive lighter emphasis than Standard 1 at the

elementary level.

The focus of Standard 2 instruction at the elementary level should be

movement concepts.

Instruction in movement concepts can often be combined with

instruction in motor skills.

In the later elementary grades students should be able to combine an

understanding of movement with motor skills in applied settings.


In this section, attention turns to grades 6-8 to suggest content to address

SHAPE America’s Grade-Level Outcomes for middle school. Again, the

relative emphasis for Standard 2 at the middle school level is discussed, and

ideas on assessment are provided.

Relative Emphasis

Middle school students are likely to receive a curriculum that transitions them

from learning motor skills and movement concepts to learning how to use

skills and movement concepts to address the problems confronting them in

game play environments. Assuming that this is the case, Standard 2 outcomes

will take on greater importance at the middle school level because your

students will spend more time in modified game play than they did

previously. Game play environments present problems that go beyond just

executing skills. The solutions to these problems are found in the students’

effective use of their knowledge of tactics.

Modified games provide problem-solving and decision-making challenges for

students.

Applying Knowledge of Tactics

Before going further, the difference between strategy and tactics should be

explained. Whereas strategy refers to an overall game plan, tactics refers to

the moment-to-moment adjustments that players make to solve the problems

presented by the game. Tactics are perhaps more relevant here because

middle school physical education often uses small-sided games (usually of

fairly short duration). Generally, game tactics can be divided into those

required for scoring and those necessary to prevent opponents from scoring

(Mitchell, Oslin, and Griffin, 2013). Tactical knowledge is required both

when players have the ball and when they do not. For example, both

offensively and defensively, the tactical use of space is important in all

games, particularly in invasion games. Offensively, players must be able to

create space for themselves and teammates by moving with the ball when

they are in possession and by moving to appropriate spaces when they do not

have the ball. Defensively, players must move to reduce the amount of space

available to opponents.

Space is also important in net games and in fielding and striking games. For

example, badminton tactics require that players open up space by moving

their opponent around the court and then landing the shuttle in the space they

have created. Defensively, players must move to cover the space on their side

of the net to make it difficult for their opponent to attack. In softball, players

must recognize the available spaces in the field and try to hit the ball into

those spaces to increase the likelihood of scoring runs. Of course,

defensively, players need to cover spaces in the field to make hitting and

running more difficult.

The concepts of trajectory, speed, and force are important for effective

performance in target games such as golf, bowling, and horseshoes, in which

players have to hit a target with an object. The correct combination of these

concepts will result in a greater likelihood of success. Shot selection is also

important in a target game like golf. Selecting the right club is an example of

the decisions that players need to make.


Similar to assessment of Standard 2 outcomes at the upper elementary (grade

3-5) level, assessment at the middle school level requires that you observe

student performance. SHAPE America’s Grade-Level Outcomes indicate that

this observation needs to be of performance during game play. Again, this

requirement raises issues of the time necessary to observe an entire class

during game play and the setting up of enough small-sided games for

students to get sufficient opportunities to be involved. As an example,

Outcome S2.M2.8 for grade 8 students reads: “Executes at least 3 of the

following offensive tactics to create open space: moves to create open space

on and off the ball; uses a variety of passes, fakes and pathways; and give and

go” (SHAPE America, 2014, p. 45). You could assess this outcome by

observing your students in small-sided game play and scoring their

performance based on the rubric and recording table shown in figure 5.5,

which could be used in any invasion game.

Outcome S2.M7.8 for grade 8 students reads: “Creates open space in net/wall

games using either a long- or short-handled implement by varying force or

direction or by moving opponent side to side and/or forward and back”

(SHAPE America, 2014, p. 45). This outcome could apply to a variety of

games including badminton, tennis, pickleball, or racquetball, but the rubric

shown in figure 5.6 could be used regardless of the game.

Program planning at the middle school level needs to include content that

provides students with opportunities to apply their knowledge. Game-based

approaches such as teaching games for understanding (Bunker and Thorpe,

1982), the tactical games model (Mitchell, Oslin, and Griffin, 2013), and

sport education (Siedentop, Hastie, and van der Mars, 2011) provide many

game performance opportunities for your students and are worthy of

consideration.

Concepts, Principles, Strategies, and Tactics


What approaches do you use for teaching strategies and

tactics during game play?

Jeff Jacobs, Worcester Elementary School (Lansdale,

Pennsylvania): When teaching these concepts, I give students just

enough information so they can form their own ideas about what

strategies and tactics may be useful in specific situations. A good

example is a simple activity of poly spot exchange where all students

attempt to move to a new poly spot, at the same time, on a given

signal. The goal is for the entire class, cooperating as a group, to do

this as quickly as they possibly can. After they have made a few

attempts and understand the activity, I ask questions: “How can we do

this faster?” “How can we do this more efficiently?” Then we put

their ideas into play to see which are the most effective. Having

students come up with their own tactics and strategies is a much more

valuable process than just providing them with answers.

How do you help your students understand principles of

movement and performance?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Practice

the movement, show the movement, then break it down for them.


Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Don’t just

give the answers to them right away. Let them struggle. Most of us

remember and learn through our mistakes. Also, I believe students

who go through that struggle learn perseverance and know that they

can stay on a task and solve it or get the answers they need. I think

the tendency is that students want the answers quickly but they don’t

retain any information when that happens. They just want the answer

to complete the task as fast as they can. The trick is to get them

interested in the process by asking questions to provoke thinking. Use

comparing and contrasting skills and let them develop strategies. Help

them with choices and allow them time to figure out solutions.

Key Points

Standard 2 learning becomes more important as students move into

middle school.

The focus of instruction is on understanding game tactics and strategy.

Games are categorized into invasion, net and wall, striking and fielding,

and target games.


At the high school level the Standard 2 outcomes move from a focus on

performance to a greater emphasis on the ability of students to use their

knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies, and tactics to analyze

movement and improve their own performance and that of others. Content

will likely vary at the high school level given the potential for elective

programming.

Relative Emphasis

Standard 2 takes on particular importance in grades 9-12 because this time

will be the last opportunity for some of your students to receive formal

instruction. After high school many students will have to rely on their own

ability to diagnose and correct weaknesses in their performance. In addition,

some students might want to teach or coach in youth sport or physical activity

programs, so they need to be able to analyze performance.

Analysis of Performance

The Grade-Level Outcomes for Standard 2 are divided into two levels,

reflecting the common practice in many (although not all) states of requiring

two semesters of physical education as a requirement for graduation. Within

each level, outcomes are written to focus your instruction and student

learning on selected, or probably self-selected, skills and activities. Table 5.2

summarizes the intent of the outcomes at each level.

Level 1 and 2 outcomes suggest that students might learn some

subdisciplinary content, most likely in the areas of biomechanics, principles

of health-related fitness, and the historical and cultural roles of sport. These

outcomes might take the form of classroom instruction on days when activity

spaces are not available or preferably, so that activity time is not lost,

addressed as out-of-class assignments. Some excellent work has been

produced when students are asked to analyze performance in activities of

their own choosing because they have a chance to show off what they know

and to use media with which they are comfortable.


Given the emphasis on the analysis of performance at the high school level,

assessment might include some written or computer-based work. For

example, three of the outcomes in level 1 are as follows:

1. Applies the terminology associated with exercise and participation in

selected individual-performance activities, dance, net or wall games,

target games, aquatics and/or outdoor pursuits appropriately (S2.H1.L1).

2. Uses movement concepts and principles (e.g., force, motion, rotation) to

analyze and improve performance of self or others in a selected skill

(S2.H2.L1).

3. Creates a practice plan to improve performance for a self-selected skill

(S2.H3.L1) (SHAPE America, 2014, p. 57).

These outcomes can be assessed by having students develop a portfolio in

which they select an activity, or more than one, and complete specific tasks to

demonstrate their ability to apply their knowledge of movement to analyze

performance. Specific competencies might include the following:

A description of skill-related critical elements, strategic requirements,

and tactical requirements for successful performance in the activity. The

description should identify and define key terminology associated with

the activity.

A description of the movement concepts and principles that affect

performance (e.g., force, stability, angles, motion, rotation).

Analysis of personal performance describing the strengths and

weaknesses of performance and a detailed practice plan indicating how

performance might be improved. The practice plan should document the

frequency, duration, and intensity of practice (the what, when, where,

and how of practice).

Portfolios could be either electronic or hard copy and could stand alone as a

project. They could also incorporate assessments from other standards,

particularly those in Standards 3 and 5. The rubric in figure 5.7 might be

appropriate for scoring the portfolio.

High school programs typically focus as much as possible on providing

content and activities that might form the basis for future self-directed

physical activity after graduation from high school. Many believe that an

education in the principles and practices of lifetime fitness should form the

cornerstone of the high school program because this knowledge is essential

for young adults. But curriculum development is largely a matter of

philosophical preference insofar as state guidelines allow. Chapters 10 and 11

revisit the topic of curriculum planning.

Key Points

Standard 2 is of considerable importance at the high school level.

Learning is focused more on the analysis of performance than on

performance itself.

Learning activities might involve classroom or out-of-class assignments.

Summary

The cognitive outcomes that are the focus of Standard 2 nicely parallel the

psychomotor outcomes of Standard 1. Simply put, the goal of Standard 1 is

that your students will be able to perform in a range of content areas, whereas

Standard 2 aims to ensure that they have the knowledge to develop, analyze,

and improve their performances. Cognitive outcomes have typically been

viewed as learning to be demonstrated on paper but, as shown by the

assessment examples in this chapter, you can also observe these outcomes in

your students’ performances if you define carefully what you are looking for.

And it is important that you assess these outcomes because the less physically

talented students have the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities and to

shine.

Review Questions

1. Identify the movement concepts that are the most important for

elementary students to learn.

2. With K-2 students in mind, describe some appropriate activities that

would help them learn movement concepts either in isolation or in

combination with each other.

3. Explain the difference between strategy and tactics.

4. Explain some of the tactics associated with invasion games and net and

wall games.

5. Explain how the focus of Standard 2 outcomes changes from

kindergarten to grade 12.

6. Give some examples of how Standard 2 outcomes can be taught and

assessed at the high school level.



web resource at


Chapter 6

Standard 3: Achieving Health-

Enhancing Physical Activity and

Fitness

Learning Objectives


Explain the similarities and differences between physical activity

and fitness.

Discuss how the relative emphasis of National Standard 3 at the

elementary, middle, and high school levels will influence the

development of a physical education curriculum.

Identify the content that should be integrated in a physical



Identify social justice issues that may be present when creating

and implementing units of instruction that align with Standard 3.

Key Terms

body education

FITT principle

health-related fitness components

physical activity

physical fitness

skill-related fitness components

SMART goals

stress management

The focus of this chapter is on Standard 3: The physically literate individual

demonstrates the knowledge and skills to achieve and maintain a healthenhancing

level of physical activity and fitness (SHAPE America, 2014).

Specifically, this standard emphasizes students’ knowledge and skills about

both physical activity and fitness in the attempt to educate and encourage

students to lead an active, healthy lifestyle. Physical activity is broad in

nature, because it encompasses all the movement that students engage in both

inside and outside physical education class. Physical activity may include

playing tag at recess, going on a walk or hike with family or friends, or being

on a sport team. As discussed in chapter 1, according to the Physical Activity

Guidelines for Americans (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,

2008), children between the ages of 6 and 17 should engage in 60 minutes of

physical activity every single day. Physical fitness is included under the

physical activity umbrella, but the concept is more specific because it

concerns students’ ability to achieve certain health-related levels of fitness

based on criterion-referenced fitness assessment standards (National

Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2004). Health-related fitness

components include cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength and

endurance, flexibility, and body composition (see table 6.1). These healthrelated

fitness components align with FitnessGram (Cooper Institute, 2014)

as well as the 2014 Presidential Youth Fitness Program’s report Monitoring

Student Fitness Levels, which was endorsed by the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention and SHAPE America. Although most organizations

and governing bodies endorse those health-related fitness components, the

United States Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth

(National Physical Activity Plan, 2014) breaks down health-related fitness

components in a slightly different way: metabolic, morphological,

cardiorespiratory, motor, and muscular. The remainder of this chapter

provides information about Standard 3 that relates specifically to the

elementary, middle, and high school levels.

Commonly Used Fitness Terminology

Fitness terminology can be confusing because many scientists,

researchers, and fitness experts use different terms that mean or

represent the same thing, which sparks a debate among experts

regarding the most accurate terms to use. Furthermore, slang

expressions that heighten the confusion are often used, and some

terminology changes from one period to the next (e.g., aerobics

classes in the 1970s and ’80s are fitness and wellness classes today).

As a physical educator, you will be perceived as the school expert on

fitness. If a student, parent, or school board member asks you to

explain the differences among fitness terminology, such as

cardiorespiratory endurance exercises versus the local gym’s “cardio”

exercise offerings, you should be able to provide an accurate and

well-informed answer.

Currently, SHAPE America recommends using the term

cardiorespiratory endurance to describe the fitness component often

identified by terms such as cardiovascular fitness, aerobic fitness,

cardiorespiratory fitness, or cardiovascular endurance (Corbin et al.,

2014). Cardiorespiratory endurance is the ability to perform largemuscle,

whole-body exercise at a moderate to high intensity for

extended periods. Therefore, the term cardiorespiratory endurance is

appropriate for use in fitness education because it reflects the ability

of a person to perform functional fitness activities of daily life

associated with three principal systems that support performance—

cardiovascular, respiratory, and muscular.

Many terms are used with strength training, such as resistance

training and weight lifting. When focusing on the health-related

components of muscular strength and endurance, you or your students

might hear various terms used in relation to strength training such as

mirror muscles, guns, curls for the girls, jacked, ripped, and so on.

Mirror muscles, or show muscles, are the muscles that a person can

see when looking at another person straight on—the chest muscles

(i.e., pecs), biceps, and deltoids. This term is mostly associated with

men, especially in media outlets, but it can also be associated with

women who focus on strength training. Guns is a slang name used for

the biceps when they are flexed, and curls for the girls is a saying

also associated with the biceps. Jacked is used to label a person who

has large-sized muscles, and ripped describes a person who has not

only large-sized muscles but also a well-defined musculature. All the

terms identified here have been developed by everyday people and

are not situated in any form of research.

People can and should learn a plethora of fitness terminology,

especially when developing fitness goals and a fitness plan. Before

developing a plan, your students (and you) should do some research

to learn about the various terminology. You should frame your unit of

instruction using the fitness education model (McConnell, 2015).


Elementary-age children are active movers and engage in a variety of

physical activities both inside and outside school. Although you don’t have to

motivate most elementary children to move, they need to learn the

importance of, benefits of, and concepts related to physical activity and

fitness. This goal is especially important because of the minimal amount of

time that students receive physical education in school.

Relative Emphasis

In elementary physical education, across all grade levels, physical activity

and fitness receive moderate relative emphasis (see table 6.2). This means

that over the course of each academic year, from kindergarten to grade 5,

physical activity and fitness are important components to include in the

curriculum. At the elementary level for Standard 3, SHAPE America’s

Grade-Level Outcomes focus on physical activity knowledge, engagement in

physical activity, fitness knowledge, and assessment and program planning.

Refer to the National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical

Education (SHAPE America, 2014) to determine how much emphasis to

place on each of these four categories of outcomes.

Content Examples

Content based on physical activity and fitness at the elementary level can

range from including any form of movement that occurs in physical

education class to teaching students how to calculate their heart rate. As a

physical educator, you need to determine developmentally appropriate

content and assessments to align with the standards and outcomes.

Physical Activity Knowledge

In the K-2 grade band, you have to provide students with information about

physical activity—the meaning of physical activity and examples of physical

activity in physical education—at school and outside school. You could

provide this information verbally, show pictures of a variety of physical

activities conducted at various locations, or ask students to share ways that

they play and move both inside and outside school. At the 3-5 grade band,

you can use the physical activity pyramid (see figure 6.1) to have students

chart their level of participation on specific days or over the course of a week.

Begin to discuss the health benefits of physical activity as well as the

recommendation to engage in 60 minutes of physical activity per day. If

students complete an activity like the physical activity pyramid, they can

begin to determine how much time they are physically active in and out of

school and whether they are meeting the recommended guidelines and

achieving any fitness benefits based on the physical activities in which they

participate.

Figure 6.1 The physical activity pyramid allows students to identify and

chart various physical activities they engage in daily and weekly.

Reprinted, by permission, from C.B. Corbin, Guy C. Le Masurier, and K.E. McConnell, 2014, Fitness

for life, 6th ed. (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics), 96. Source: C.B. Corbin

Engagement in Physical Activity

As already discussed in this chapter, physical activity can incorporate any

type of movement that students do, perform, or participate in on a daily basis

both in and outside school. But for Standard 3 at the elementary level, the

focus of this outcome emphasizes only how students “actively” engage in

physical activity in physical education class, whether it is based on

instruction, prompting you provide, or independent moving without such

direction. If a student is only observing classmates engaged in a task or

activity, refuses to participate, or must be prompted repeatedly to move and

get involved, he or she is not actively engaging in physical activity.

Fitness Knowledge

Fitness knowledge is specific to the health-related components of fitness. Of

the five health-related components, cardiorespiratory endurance is the most

important to teach students because of the relationship between

cardiorespiratory endurance exercise and obesity and chronic diseases (e.g.,

heart disease, diabetes). Although students at the K-2 grade levels may not

learn about these benefits until second grade, you need to teach students

about the heart—that it is a muscle, that it pumps blood throughout the body,

and that working the heart causes a faster heartbeat and faster breathing.

When students are in grades 3-5, you will begin to teach them about all the

components of fitness and specific exercises they can perform for each

component, including using their own bodies as a form of resistance (e.g.,

push-ups, crunches, planks). Furthermore, you should begin to teach students

about the importance of completing a warm-up and cool-down appropriate to

the type of fitness activity performed. Besides focusing on the health-related

components of fitness, which benefit all people across the lifespan, you

should teach grade 5 students about the skill-related fitness components

(see table 6.3) because many students play on sport teams and are beginning

to practice sport-related skills on a more frequent basis.


A fitness assessment provides the most accurate information about a person’s

fitness levels. Although fitness results will provide you, the teacher, as well

as students, administrators, and parents or guardians, with valuable

information about students’ fitness levels, having students engage in fitness

testing is not recommended until fourth grade according to the Grade-Level

Outcomes. You can still have your students in kindergarten through third

grade engage in fitness exercises and activities, but you should not complete

a formal, criterion-referenced fitness assessment, such as FitnessGram, until

they are in fourth grade. For students in fourth and fifth grade, you should

complete a pre-and posttest for fitness with them, teach them the meaning of

their results, provide opportunities for them to analyze and make meaning of

their results, and develop strategies about how they can improve their healthrelated

fitness, especially if they scored below the acceptable fitness levels. In

fifth grade, students can begin to develop their own fitness plans to maintain

or improve their physical activity and fitness levels.

Nutrition is another factor that influences students’ fitness levels and overall

health. In K-2, students should begin learning about healthy and unhealthy

foods and the amount of energy that different foods provide. As students

progress to third through fifth grade, you should provide instruction that

informs them about what to eat and drink before and after exercise, why

hydration is important, and how food choices can affect their physical

activity, fitness, and sport performance as well as their overall health.

Key Points

An elementary physical education curriculum (K-5) places moderate

relative emphasis on physical activity and fitness.

Students should engage in 60 minutes of physical activity every single

day.

Students should be actively engaged in physical education class.

Content should be based on the five health-related components of fitness

—cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance,

flexibility, and body composition.

Elementary students should formally complete a fitness assessment

beginning in the fourth grade.

Promote Healthy Body Education


Because of the public nature of physical education, students’ bodies

and performance (i.e., physical ability) are on constant display in

front of their peers and teachers. Students who accept themselves for

who they are, whether that is their physical ability or their bodies,

may not have negative experiences or encounter embarrassment in

physical education. Sadly, the number of students to which this

applies is small, leaving many students who struggle within the

physical education context, especially at the secondary level.

Therefore, you need to consider this issue when you are developing

unit and lesson plans that align with Standard 3.

Besides offering the content already suggested to frame your units of

instruction, you should provide learning opportunities about the

physical body as well as the emotional body (i.e., how people feel

about themselves). Do you have students who wear a variety of

clothing in physical education? Students who will not change in front

of others or will not change at all? Students who try to hide or are

disengaged, especially when it comes to various forms of fitness, such

as fitness testing? Even the most athletic and outgoing students may

struggle with how they feel about their bodies. They may compare

their bodies to the bodies of others in their class or school or people

they see in the media. Physical education teachers need to educate

students about what constitutes a healthy body and how that may

differ from a socially acceptable body based on popular culture.

Students’ bodies are changing at this age, and they are trying to fit in

socially and be accepted. Physical education teachers need to engage

explicitly in body education. Yes, doing so may be uncomfortable

for you, but if it is uncomfortable for you, imagine how your students

feel. The challenge, of course, is to create safe spaces to engage in

such discussions and to provide students with a variety of

opportunities to share their thoughts, perspectives, and feelings

privately, with a friend, with a small group of peers, or with you. If

you are going to assess students’ body mass index (BMI) for body

composition, will you weigh them in front of others or have them

weigh themselves privately? What types of cardiorespiratory

endurance and strength-training exercises will you have them

perform? Will they have choices? How will you learn how they feel?

What will you do with that information? These are among the many

questions to consider and address that go beyond the scope of this

chapter, but you cannot hide from such issues. Certainly, you do not

want to teach your students that it is acceptable to hide. You want to

dispel the harmful socially constructed perceptions and ideologies

that could otherwise stay with them for a lifetime.


In middle school some students continue to be physically active, whereas

others choose to spend their time in other recreational activities. Educating

students about the importance of physical activity and fitness and ways to

formulate an exercise plan that works for them is critical at this age level if

students are to become lifelong movers. At the middle school level, you

revisit and build on physical activity and fitness concepts that students

learned in elementary school as you encourage them to become independent

movers outside physical education class.

Relative Emphasis

In middle school, across all grade levels, physical education places moderate

relative emphasis on physical activity and fitness (refer to table 6.2). Over the

course of each academic year, from sixth through eighth grade, physical

activity and fitness are important components to include in the curriculum. At

the middle school level for Standard 3, Grade-Level Outcomes (SHAPE

America, 2014) focus on physical activity knowledge, engagement in

physical activity, fitness knowledge, nutrition, and stress management. The

first four categories are the same as those in the elementary level, but the

components build on what students learned and provide developmentally

appropriate learning opportunities for middle school students. Stress

management has been added to this grade band.

Content Examples

Content based on physical activity and fitness at the middle school level

begins to become more specific in relation to the frequency, intensity, time,

and type of the physical and fitness activities. The focus is more inclusive

about the engagement of physical activity outside school in addition to what

occurs in physical education. Furthermore, content includes other factors,

such as nutrition and stress, that can influence, positively and negatively,

overall health and wellness. You need to determine developmentally

appropriate content and assessments to align with the standards and

outcomes.


In middle school, teachers need to make the connections of how physical

activity and fitness lead to a healthy body. Information includes the benefits

that people receive from physical activity, but middle school students should

also be taught about the barriers they can encounter that may hinder

maintenance of a physically active lifestyle. Physical activity engagement and

fitness levels of middle school students have declined for a variety of reasons,

such as becoming involved with other interests, having fewer sport-related

opportunities than they had during their youth, and facing greater homework

demands. At this age, some students have more responsibilities at home such

as chores and taking care of pets and younger siblings, which can also reduce

the amount of time that they can engage in physical activity. For all these

reasons and others, middle school physical education teachers need to

provide students with strategies and knowledge to overcome those barriers.


At the elementary level the focus on students’ engagement in physical

activity was centered solely on physical activity that occurred in physical

education class. In contrast, at the middle school level the emphasis includes

students’ engagement in physical activity at school outside physical

education class and outside school. You might want to consider offering

alternative physical activity and fitness opportunities so that students are

aware of physical activity options they might have available to them outside

school, such as various strength-training exercises, Pilates, yoga, Zumba,

kick boxing, and a variety of dances. These activities do not have to be

conducted in a weight room or fitness center; rather, they can occur in the

gymnasium with minimal equipment. Encourage your students to engage in

some of these activities outside school, whether on their own, with a friend,

or with a family member. Although you cannot control what students do

outside school, you still have the responsibility to participate in discussions

with students about the physical activity they do outside school. Consider

having them report the various physical activities they complete over a period

of a couple of days, share their physical activity experiences in a journal

entry, or include them as part of their physical activity plan. You can provide

them with the knowledge, but in this grade band your goal is to get students

to self-select activities in which they want to engage, especially on their own

time outside school.

Fitness Knowledge

In grades 6-8 you begin to provide students with the appropriate fitness

vocabulary and terminology, such as moderate to vigorous physical activity,

rate of perceived exertion, aerobic and anaerobic, dynamic and static, FITT

principle, and so on. Although providing students with definitions of terms is

a good start, you want students to be able to demonstrate, compare and

contrast, analyze, and perform these fitness concepts. For example, engaging

in 60 minutes of physical activity per day is not a new concept to students

because they learned this throughout elementary school. But now students

need to begin to engage in activities knowledgably, within that 60 minutes,

that are moderate and vigorous for some of that time as well as perform bonestrengthening

exercises a couple of days a week (U.S. Department of Health

and Human Services, 2008). You want to instruct students about taking their

heart rate, appropriate stretching and strength-training techniques, the various

muscles and body systems they are working, and the benefits of each healthrelated

fitness component. Likewise, students should gain an understanding

of the FITT principle (F = frequency, I = intensity, T = time, T = type) and

be able to apply it to cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength and

endurance, and flexibility. Having each student develop a physical activity

plan will make it personal and relevant to each one and allow you to assess

the student’s application of the FITT principle as well as many other fitness

concepts (see the “Addressing Fitness Issues in Physical Education” sidebar).


Starting with fourth grade, students should complete a pre- and

postassessment of health-related fitness, such as FitnessGram, in physical

education every academic year. As physical activity and fitness become more

emphasized in middle and high school physical education, fitness results

provide students with their fitness levels in relation to the criterion-referenced

assessment that will be beneficial when completing physical activity or

fitness plans. At the middle school level, you want to teach your students to

compare and contrast their results to the acceptable fitness levels as well as

identify areas of weakness. Results can be used to design a physical activity

or fitness plan. Middle school students should be accustomed to logging their

physical activity, both inside and outside school, which they should continue

to do, but students should also be learning about and recording their daily

nutrition.

Nutrition

Many middle school students are required to take health, which, based on the

national health education standards (Joint Committee on National Health

Standards, 2007), includes a unit on nutrition. But whether you teach health

and physical education or do not teach health at all, you as a physical

educator have the responsibility to teach middle school students about

nutrition, because both proper exercise and nutrition have positive benefits to

overall health. Consider providing instruction about the food groups based on

MyPlate, which has replaced the previously known food pyramid (U.S.

Department of Agriculture, 2011). You should also teach your students how

to read nutrition labels and determine appropriate servings and portion sizes.

After students have an understanding of basic nutrition content, you can

begin to teach students how to balance healthy food and beverage intake with

daily physical activity. Just as students need to learn about the barriers to

engaging in physical activity, they need to understand the relationship

between poor nutrition and possible health risks.

Stress Management

Middle school students are starting to take on more responsibilities while

simultaneously going through puberty, which can be overwhelming and

confusing to them. Some students feel comfortable talking about such

struggles, whereas others feel as if they are the only ones who are having

such challenging experiences. Many students will be encountering stress, a

feeling of emotional or physical tension, for the first time. As a physical

educator, you need to educate students about stress management. You

should teach students about the positive and negative results of stress and

ways to develop strategies to deal with stress. In physical education, you can

incorporate these knowledge concepts when teaching yoga, tai chi, or Pilates

by showing students how to relax and engage in deep breathing and

visualization. Having students participate in activities such as yoga may not

result in reduced stress for all students, but the hope is to provide them with

the knowledge of how stress can negatively affect their health and wellness.

In addition, you want to identify strategies that students can use when they

find themselves in stressful situations.

Key Points

A middle school physical education curriculum (grades 6-8) places

moderate relative emphasis on physical activity and fitness.

Students should learn about the benefits and barriers to engaging in a

physically active lifestyle.

Students should engage in physical activity in physical education class,

throughout the school day, and outside school.

Content should include a variety of terms such as rate of perceived

exertion, moderate to vigorous physical activity, and aerobic and

anaerobic. Concepts such as the FITT principle (F = frequency, I =

intensity, T = time, T = type) should be included in instruction so that

students can apply them to cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular

strength and endurance, and flexibility when developing physical

activity plans.

Students should identify areas of weakness from fitness assessment

results and develop programs to work on those weaknesses.

Students should learn about the food groups, reading nutrition labels,

and appropriate portions and serving sizes.

Students should develop strategies to deal with stress.

Addressing Fitness Issues in Physical

Education

Many physical education teachers and school districts use fitness

testing as a form of summative assessment of their students,

especially at the middle and high school levels. Although fitness

testing is important, grading students on how fit they are and how

well they do is not a measure of learning. Yes, the psychomotor

domain is important in physical education, and you want your

students to be physically fit, but the focus of physical education is on

student learning. As you can see in the National Standards & Grade-

Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America,

2014), fitness testing is not an outcome, although fitness testing is

necessary to complete many of the outcomes, especially developing a

personal exercise and fitness plan. The plan will inform you whether

your students have learned the content in Standard 3, not how many

laps they get in the PACER test or how many push-ups they complete

in one minute.

Many physical education programs, particularly at the high school

level, are becoming focused primarily on fitness and physical activity.

In that way, physical education programs have started to model the

health and fitness club mentality. Students develop their exercise

plans and complete their exercises every single class. Although

students need to learn how to develop an exercise plan and implement

it, both in and outside school, physical education teachers need to

create a physical education curriculum that aligns with all the

standards and outcomes, not only Standard 3.


At the high school level, students are on the brink of becoming adults. They

are taking on additional responsibilities, becoming more independent, and

making most decisions and choices for themselves. These years are the last

opportunity for teachers to educate students about the importance of being

physically active and choosing to be lifelong movers. Before students

graduate from high school, they need to be able to develop realistic exercise

plans and know how to access locations and resources in their community

that might be viable physical activity outlets for them.

At the high school level, it is important for students to complete a fitness test

so they can use the results when they formulate their fitness plans.

Relative Emphasis

In high school physical education, across all grade levels, strong relative

emphasis is placed on physical activity and fitness (refer to table 6.2).

Throughout high school physical education, physical activity and fitness are

important components of the curriculum as you prepare students to lead a

physically active lifestyle as adults. At the high school level for Standard 3,

SHAPE America’s Grade-Level Outcomes focus on physical activity

knowledge, engagement in physical activity, fitness knowledge, assessment

and program planning, nutrition, and stress management. All six categories

are identical to the middle school grade band categories, but the expectations

are higher and the content is more advanced.

Fitness-Enhancing Physical Activity


How do you educate your students about fitness and

physical activity in your physical education curriculum?

Karen Bonnett , Woodrow Wilson High School (Beckley, West

Virginia): All students and teachers in my county have iPads

provided by the county to enhance instructional strategies. I have

used iPads for student assignments that include downloading free

fitness apps, using the app for physical activity outside of school,

discussing the app features and success of the program, then deciding

individually whether to keep that app and perform with it or to delete

that app and try another physical activity or fitness app. The apps we

try out include yoga, Pilates, CrossFit, and 7-minute workout. My

students record their physical activities performed outside of PE class

and have their parents sign the sheet as verification. I also assign a

physical activity calendar to be completed for two periods of time

during the semester. The first calendar goal is to record actual activity

time in order to increase awareness of time students spend in physical

activity. The second period of recording activity time is with the goal

of increasing time spent in physical activity.

How do you educate students about engaging in fitness

and physical activity outside of physical education and

the school setting?


Because I get to see my students only twice a week for 45 minutes on

each of their two days, it is very important to plant ideas and give

them suggestions of how they can be active outside of physical

education class. Because they have limited financial resources and

limited access to equipment, and participation in club sports and

activities rarely happens, this becomes very important in helping my

students with ideas and avenues to achieve 60 minutes of physical

activity daily. This factor alone prompts me to give my students ideas

for movement opportunities. One way I try to help my students with

this is to give them recess ideas and opportunities. We are landlocked

in an inner-city school with a very small playground. I put out new

equipment every so often to spark interest in students, and I

constructed some simple outside fitness stations that I change every

six weeks or so to keep them interested in that as well.


Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Know

what is available in your community for students. Have fitness and

wellness fairs in your schools. Have family fit and fun nights. Send

out fitness calendars for families to use together. Put pictures or

videos on your school website of what you are doing in your classes.

Content Examples

Content based on physical activity and fitness at the high school level is

based on preparing high school students to engage in physical activity and

fitness outside school. Teachers often tell students what to do, and most

follow the instructions. But at the high school level, you want them to be

independent learners so that they are able to create physical activity or fitness

plans on their own. High school students are expected to develop a

comprehensive physical activity plan that has them setting goals, selecting

activities to engage in, and using appropriate technique for the exercises. The

focus is more inclusive regarding the engagement of physical activity outside

school in addition to what occurs in physical education class. Besides

developing a physical activity plan, high school students need to create a

nutrition plan and formulate strategies to reduce stress. As a physical

educator, you need to determine developmentally appropriate content and

assessments to align with the standards and outcomes.


At the high school level, physical activity knowledge extends beyond the

physical education class or school as you begin to educate students about

factors that influence their knowledge about physical activity and their

overall physical activity engagement. For example, students have access to

technology that provides quick access to media, social media, and an array of

commercials and advertisements that support or refute appropriate physical

activity and fitness. Teachers often do not educate students to be critical

consumers of what they see, read, and hear. By high school, students need to

learn about the truths and myths regarding physical activity and fitness. They

need to know how to analyze information they obtain from the media and the

Internet. You should focus not only on the plethora of wrongful information

and techniques available on the Internet but also on the abundance of apps

and technological devices that may enhance engagement in physical activity.

The idea is to provide students with appropriate physical activity knowledge

and teach them to be critical consumers. After graduation, some high school

students will remain in the area, but others will move away; some students

will enter the workforce, whereas others will go to college or enlist in the

military. Regardless of their intent or eventual outcome, you are responsible

for providing learning opportunities about how and where to access physical

activity facilities and groups, clubs, and recreational teams. Although

students will not gain full awareness until they are out of high school, you

should inform them how engagement in physical activity will influence all

aspects of their health and wellness.


As with middle school students, the expectation for high school students is to

engage in lifetime or fitness activities outside school at least a few times a

week. Each student should self-select this engagement. The goal is for

students to select a community event with a focus on physical activity, such

as running or walking a 5K or participating in a dance performance, and

develop a plan to prepare them to complete the event. Students can research

local events during the lesson in which you instruct them how to access

physical activity opportunities in various locations.

Fitness Knowledge

Fitness knowledge for high school students centers on the muscular strength

and endurance health-related components of fitness, with some additional

focus on cardiorespiratory endurance. Specifically, as already indicated, you

want to prepare students to know how to develop a physical activity and

fitness plan and properly perform each exercise. The goal is for graduating

seniors to engage in physical activity as adults, but lack of appropriate

knowledge can reduce their chance of being physically active. Many adults

who are physically active join a gym, wellness center, or some form of health

facility or buy equipment to create their own workout station at home. When

performing strength-training exercises, using the appropriate technique is

important, whether that is to complete a squat, push-up, or leg extension,

which can be done on resistance-training machines or with free weights.

Your instruction will be contingent on the equipment you have available, but

you still need to educate students about the various types of strength-training

exercises (isometric, isotonic, isokinetic) and specific techniques for a variety

of exercises for each muscle group. Students should continue to learn about

muscles and muscle groups, such as by knowing the names and locations of

each major muscle, the importance of developing a balance of opposing

muscle groups (e.g., biceps and triceps, quadriceps and hamstrings, pectorals

and rhomboids and latissimus dorsi), and the various fiber types in each

muscle (e.g., fast twitch versus slow twitch). With cardiorespiratory

endurance, students should be able to measure their heart rate, calculate their

target heart rate zone (THRZ), and be able to adjust their pacing or

performance to remain in that THRZ if their heart rate is too low or too high.

Students need to be aware of the energy systems they use (e.g., aerobic

versus anaerobic, such as running versus biceps curl) based on the physical

activity they select.


As previously mentioned, at the high school level, students need to be able to

develop a fitness program and an overall physical activity plan that they can

implement not only while they are taking physical education class but also

when they graduate and elect to attend college or join the workforce (those

who enter the military or play on a sport team will likely have a fitness or

exercise program given to them). Students’ physical activity plans should be

based on fitness assessment scores, SMART goals (S = specific, M =

measurable, A = attainable, R = relevant, T = timely) for improvement,

specific fitness and physical activities performed within the health- and skillrelated

components of fitness, a log of activities completed to reach goals, a

timeline of attaining the goals and completing the plan, and a postassessment.

If high school students have the ability to create and implement a

comprehensive physical activity plan, they will have the knowledge and skills

they need to be physically active for a lifetime.

Nutrition

As discussed in this category at the middle school level, students need to

understand the importance of balancing sufficient exercise with proper

nutrition to be a healthy person. You will likely have to review the content

that was taught at the middle school level, such as the food groups, reading

food labels, and determining serving and portion sizes. Students need to have

a sound understanding of nutrition in general and be able to apply it to

physical activity and exercise. For example, when should they consume food

and beverage while preparing for or participating in exercise? What food and

beverage should they consume to obtain the most energy and replenish after a

workout? After students learn this information, they should develop a

nutrition plan to maintain an appropriate energy balance for a healthy, active

lifestyle.

Stress Management

At the middle school level, students began to learn about the positive and

negative results of stress and began practicing some techniques to decrease

their stress levels. Because learning how to navigate and negotiate stress is a

lifelong commitment, high school students should learn to identify various

stress management strategies (especially because every person manages stress

in a different way) and apply the strategies to learn which ones work best for

them. Taking time away from performing physical activity in physical

education class is problematic, but as indicated at the start of this section, the

relative emphasis on fitness and physical activity at the high school level is

the most emphasized standard of all five. At this age, physical education

should focus on teaching students to be healthy and active holistically, going

beyond the physical, because all aspects of life influence overall health and

well-being.

Key Points

In a high school physical education curriculum (grades 9-12), strong

relative emphasis is placed on physical activity and fitness.

By high school, students need to know the truths and myths about

physical activity and fitness. They should know how to analyze

information they obtain from the media and the Internet.

High school students should engage in lifetime or fitness activities

outside school at least a few times a week and participate in a

community-based physical activity event.

Students should learn about the various types of strength-training

exercises (isometric, isotonic, isokinetic) and the specific techniques for

a variety of resistance-training exercises for each muscle group. They

should know how to calculate heart rate and target heart rate zone.

Students should develop a physical activity plan that is based on fitness

assessment scores, SMART goals, activities to be performed, a log of

activities completed, a timeline of attaining the goals and completing the

plan, and a postassessment.

Students should develop a nutrition plan to maintain an appropriate

energy balance for a healthy, active lifestyle.

Students should identify various stress management strategies and apply

the strategies to learn which ones work best for them.

Summary

The focus of this chapter was on Standard 3: The physically literate

individual demonstrates the knowledge and skills to achieve and maintain a

health-enhancing level of physical activity and fitness (SHAPE America,

2014). Specifically, this standard emphasizes students’ knowledge and skills

about both physical activity and fitness in the attempt to educate and

encourage students to lead an active, healthy lifestyle. According to the

Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services, 2008), children between the ages of 6 and 17 should engage

in physical activity at least 60 minutes a day. Because most students do not

receive physical education for 60 minutes every day all academic year,

students need to become physically literate about physical activity and fitness

so that they have the knowledge and skills to perform a variety of physical

activities as well as develop their own physical activity or fitness plan for

both in and outside school. At each grade band, students should learn content

that focuses on physical activity knowledge, engagement in physical activity,

fitness knowledge, and assessment and program planning. At the middle and

high school levels, students also need to learn about nutrition and stress

management. Because of the public nature of physical education, students’

bodies and performance (i.e., physical ability) are on constant display in front

of their peers and teachers. To help students navigate their experiences in

physical education, both positive and negative, you should provide learning

opportunities about the physical body (i.e., body education) as well as the

emotional body in your units of instruction. The overall goal is for students to

have the appropriate knowledge and skills to be physically active for a

lifetime.

Review Questions

1. Describe the similarities and differences between physical activity and

fitness.

2. What is relative emphasis and how is it applied at the elementary,

middle, and high school levels for Standard 3?

3. Describe and discuss the content that should be emphasized and

implemented at the elementary, middle, and high school levels for each

category.

4. Describe and discuss activities and tasks you could develop and

implement at the elementary, middle, and high school levels to address

each category.

5. Explain how you will address social justice issues within your units of

instruction that focus on Standard 3.



web resource at


Chapter 7

Standard 4: Exhibiting Responsible

Personal and Social Behavior

Learning Objectives





Describe the content that should be integrated in a physical





Key Terms

corrective feedback

general feedback

inclusive behaviors

personal responsibility

rules, routines, and expectations (RREs)

The focus of this chapter is on National Standard 4: The physically literate

individual exhibits responsible personal and social behavior that respects self

and others (SHAPE America, 2014). The intent of this standard is to

emphasize students’ “achievement of self-initiated behaviors that promote

personal and group success in activity settings,” which includes “safe

practices, adherences to rules and procedures, etiquette, cooperation and

teamwork, ethical behavior and positive social interaction” (National

Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2004, p. 39). In physical

education class, learning about and understanding students’ similarities and

differences have always been important, but this issue is currently being

magnified as bullying continues to increase and students become more

immersed and integrated with technology, decreasing their ability to talk,

engage, and interact with others in the school setting. Whether in physical

education class, on the playground, or on a sport team, teachers, parents and

guardians, coaches, children, and others often shout out, “Play like a team,”

“Be nice to one another,” “Get along with your partner,” “Stop arguing,”

“Don’t tattle and figure it out on your own.” But many children and

adolescents have not been taught how to respect themselves and others, how

to cooperate and work like a team, and so on, so this issue is an important

component of a physical education curriculum. This chapter provides

information about Standard 4 that specifically relates to the elementary,



Elementary students are accustomed to being told to follow the rules, work

nicely with others, be respectful, and engage in many other behaviors that

teachers and administrators would like students to exhibit. Physical educators

are no different. You establish rules, routines, and expectations (RREs);

protocols; and a classroom management plan to “manage” students’ behavior,

but your goal as a physical educator is to help students learn how to be both

personally and socially responsible when they are in physical education class,

outside class, and outside school. To accomplish this goal, you must create

instructional activities that focus specifically on learning these behaviors

within the affective domain (see chapter 10 for more information).

Relative Emphasis

Elementary physical education, across all grade levels, places strong relative

emphasis on personal and social behavior (see table 7.1). During each

academic year, from kindergarten through grade 5, personal behavior and

social behavior are important components to include in the curriculum,

because “the behaviors and attitudes formed in elementary school exert an

extremely strong influence on the behaviors and attitudes of adolescents and

adults in physical activity settings” (SHAPE America, 2014, pp. 17-18).

SHAPE America’s Grade-Level Outcomes for Standard 4 focus on personal

responsibility, accepting feedback, working with others, rules and etiquette,

and safety. Refer to SHAPE America’s National Standards & Grade-Level

Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (2014) to determine how much

emphasis is placed on each of these five categories.

Content Examples

Content based on personal and social behavior at the elementary level can

range from following directions to working with a partner on a task or

activity. The emphasis within the K-2 grade band is usually on personal

behavior, and within the 3-5 grade band the emphasis shifts to social

behavior. You need to determine developmentally appropriate content and

assessments to align with the standards and outcomes (see chapter 10).

Personal Responsibility

In the K-2 grade band, you need to provide students with specific directions,

instructions, and activities that give them the opportunity to learn how to

follow directions and rules and how to respect the equipment they use within

the space and boundaries you define. Because you want your students to

exhibit these behaviors in every class, you should include specific activities

that focus on these behaviors at the start of the school year. This approach

allows you to set the tone for the behaviors you expect students to display on

a regular basis.

At the 3-5 grade band, students begin to exhibit personal responsibility

during teacher-directed activities as well as when they have the opportunity

to work independently for a specified period. You can give students within

this grade band an opportunity to develop their interpersonal behaviors by

working with a partner or in a small group. If unacceptable behaviors arise in

these contexts, you should expect students to take responsibility for their

behavior and accept any consequences that are given because of the behavior.

Accepting Feedback

Accepting feedback can be challenging for adults, never mind elementary-

aged children, so you should educate students how to accept feedback from

others and how to use feedback to improve their knowledge, skills, attitudes,

and behaviors. At the elementary level, a simple to more complex

progression guides what physical educators should be teaching their students

about accepting feedback. In kindergarten you want students to follow

directions and instructions, but by first grade you should expect them to begin

to respond appropriately to general feedback (see the “Tips for Providing

Feedback” sidebar). In third grade the feedback advances to corrective, and in

fourth grade the goal is for students to be able to accept corrective feedback

from others, including their peers. In their final year of elementary school,

fifth graders should not only be able to accept feedback from others but also

be able to provide feedback to their peers about their performance and

behavior. The progression is designed for students to take on more

responsibility as they become more independent learners and people both

inside and outside school.

Tips for Providing Feedback

Providing sufficient feedback can be a challenge for beginning

teachers. Beginning teachers often focus mainly on managing the

classroom and providing quality instruction, so they tend to forget

about the importance of giving feedback to students. Feedback can be

offered based on skill or game performance (e.g., executing critical

elements of an underhand toss, moving to open space in a soccer

game) or behavior (e.g., following directions, working with others).

This chapter focuses on behavior because Standard 4 is based on

student learning within the affective domain—in particular, personal

and social responsibility. You have the option of providing feedback

to the whole class, to a small group or team, or to an individual

student. The feedback can be general, specific, or corrective. You

should provide specific and corrective feedback more often than

general feedback, because specific and corrective feedback provides

students with direct and clear information on their performance. The

feedback can be to praise positive performance or to help improve

performance. The following examples of each type of feedback are

based on students’ behavior at the elementary level:

General for whole class—“Nice job getting into line.”

Specific for whole class—“I really liked how you kept your

hands to yourself and got into line right away when I asked you

to do so without my having to repeat my instructions.”

Corrective for whole class—“I am glad that everyone is in line

and ready to get started with the activity, but next time I would

like you to listen to my instructions the first time and move

immediately so that I don’t have to repeat my directions.”

General for individual—“Michael, good job.”

Specific for individual—“Michael, I really liked how you helped

Cole get up off the floor after he fell down. That is very

responsible of you and a nice thing to do for someone.”

Corrective for individual—“Michael, I know you did not mean

to bump into Cole, knocking him onto the floor, but next time, I

would like you to help him get back up to his feet instead of

standing there watching him struggle to do it on his own.”

Working With Others

One of the primary goals of physical educators is to help students become

more independent over the course of their K-12 academic careers. As with

accepting feedback, at the elementary level a gradual progression occurs in

getting students to work with others. Not surprisingly, in kindergarten you

want students to understand the importance of sharing. In physical education

class, you specifically want students to share equipment and space with

others. After students have mastered the ability to share with others, you can

challenge students in first grade to work independently with others in smalland

large-group activities. For example, if students are learning various

locomotor movements and are moving around the gym freely performing a

slide or gallop, they should be aware of the other students moving in a variety

of directions and try not to collide with them or prevent them from

performing the movement or activity.

By second grade, students should be able to work independently with a

partner, and in third grade, they should begin to provide praise to their

classmates for success in a particular movement, skill, or activity. Around the

end of third grade or the beginning of fourth grade, students begin to notice

differences among themselves in physical education class, especially in

relation to their skill level, so you need to educate them about those

differences in fourth grade (see also Standard 5) and expect them to exhibit

behaviors that they accept students of all skill levels in physical education

class.

By fifth grade, students move beyond acceptance of others’ skill level and

begin to recognize and involve students in physical activities whether they

are higher or lower skilled. This outcome is certainly challenging to achieve

in fifth grade, so you need to educate students explicitly about their

similarities and differences. Students should treat others with respect,

regardless of their skill level, the clothing they wear, their body size, or

whether they are boys or girls (students at this age begin to recognize

differences between boys and girls and start to partner up and group together,

if given the choice, with classmates of the same gender).

Rules and Etiquette

Within this outcome, the same progression from kindergarten to fifth grade

occurs as was demonstrated in accepting feedback and working with others.

At the kindergarten level, students are recognizing the rules, routines, and

expectations (RREs) and protocols of the class, whereas first graders move

beyond recognizing and advance to exhibiting these RREs. In third grade,

students not only recognize the RREs but also recognize the etiquette to

display in physical activity with their peers. In the fifth grade, as you

continue to challenge students to become more independent, you can provide

opportunities for them to critique the etiquette or rules of various game

activities.

Safety

A safe learning environment in physical education includes both physical and

emotional safety. Providing safety may involve how you set up equipment,

what type of equipment you use, how students are positioned within a given

space, and whether students are on public display when performing a task or

skill. Of course, you as the teacher set up all these situations. But the focus of

this outcome within Standard 4 is based on students’ ability to work safely by

themselves and with others. In kindergarten and first grade, students are

expected to follow teacher directions for safe participation and proper use of

equipment. By second grade, students are already expected to work safely

and independently with the equipment needed for a task. Throughout third

through fifth grade, students continue to work safely, whether independently

or with the peers, in a variety of physical activities and settings.

Key Points

In an elementary physical education curriculum (K-5), strong relative

emphasis is placed on personal and social responsibility.

Students accept and exhibit personal and social behavior independently

and when working with others.

Students accept a variety of feedback (e.g., general, corrective) from you

and their peers.

Students work cooperatively with others and accept others regardless of

their skill level.

Students recognize and exhibit the rules, routines, and expectations

(RREs) in a variety of physical activities.

Students use equipment properly and work safely in a variety of physical

activities.

Cultivate an Accepting Atmosphere


Accepting differences of others is a consistent outcome across all

grade bands in Standard 4. For students to become accepting of

others, especially in regard to their differences, you need to denote

what those differences are and formulate unit and lesson plans that

explicitly educate students about people’s differences and provide

them with learning opportunities to engage with other students who

are similar to and different from them. Differences may include

students’ ability or disability, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual

orientation, class, religion, body type, clothes, and hairstyle, to name

just a few. After you have identified the differences you want to

include in your physical education curriculum, you have to create

formal unit and lesson plans that provide students with learning

opportunities about difference. For example, at the elementary level,

you might implement activities that have students switch partners

often and have a rule that no one can say no to being someone’s

partner. After the activity, you can have discussions with the class

about how students felt working with various partners, why they

might not have wanted to be someone’s partner, and why they did

want to be someone’s partner. Elementary students may struggle to

articulate their thoughts and feelings, but the goal is to get students to

reflect on their own behavior and decision making.

At the secondary level, students notice more differences among their

classmates. At times, they make fun of others and call them

derogatory names (e.g., fag, ginger, fat, loser), thus highlighting who

is considered privileged or superior and who is considered inferior

and marginalized. Sometimes students think that they are all alone,

that they are the only ones feeling as if they are not good enough to

be accepted by their peers. In turn, they do not accept themselves. An

activity that fosters an environment for students to get to know one

another and to begin addressing sensitive topics about difference is a

challenge circles activity (see the illustration). In this activity, you

and the students begin in the comfort zone and either remain there or

move to the stretch zone (an intermediate zone) or the panic zone in

response to questions posed by you or even the students (see sample

challenge circles activity). When doing such an activity, you should

engage in a debriefing discussion after it is over to learn what the

students are thinking and feeling. By engaging in such an activity

yourself, you build trust with your students. This activity is only one

of many that address differences in students. How you address this

topic and what type of instruction and learning activities you provide

might be based on your own level of comfort and knowledge, so you

need to stretch out of your comfort zone to meet the needs of the

students. These activities and issues can be sensitive to conduct in a

physical education setting. If you feel uncomfortable initially but

recognize the importance of addressing such issues, you can always

confer with the school counselor, school psychologist, or colleagues

to get suggestions. Or you can choose a different, more subtle activity

to engage in such conversations without continuing to perpetuate this

hidden curriculum (Bain, 1990) that has been the elephant in the room

in physical education for decades. Realize that some or many of your

students are dealing with these issues on a daily basis, especially at

the secondary level, but they are not accustomed to talking about

them. Give them the space to do so.

Sample Challenge Circles Activity: Diversity in Physical

Education

Different Identities

Hand out an index card (examples of identities to put on cards are

included on the web resource) or have students use their own

identities, whichever you feel comfortable doing and see fit for your

students. You can add or remove identities to represent the students in

your school. After the activity is completed, specifically address these

identities in your discussion.

Gender

Culture

Race

Sexual orientation

Class or socioeconomic status

Body type

Motor elitism and ability

Special needs (e.g., learning disability, autism spectrum,

physical disabilities, ESL, hearing or visual impairments)

Topics to Discuss During Activity

As you see fit throughout the activity, ask individual students how

these issues affect their experiences in physical education.

I can afford to purchase athletic clothing.

I am a successful performer in physical education.

I feel comfortable changing my clothes in front of others.

I feel comfortable demonstrating a task in front of my peers.

My peers want me on their team.

I can play on an after-school or travel sport team.

I try to look as if I am active in PE, but I hope no one notices

me.

No one pays attention to me in PE.

My teacher asks me to help if needed.

My teacher suggests that I try out for the school team.

My classmates make fun of me or laugh at me.

People assume I am more athletic than I am.

I feel comfortable working with someone of a difference race or

ethnicity.

I have hand-me-down clothes for my PE clothes.

I hate or dislike physical education.

Physical education is my favorite class.

I prefer to change in the bathroom stalls.

I understand my teacher’s instructions.

I feel comfortable in physical education class.

I can easily engage in all activities conducted in PE.

I need special assistance from the teacher or a classmate.

I am embarrassed in physical education.

I count down the minutes until physical education is over.

I feel marginalized in physical education.

I prefer not to work with students who are gay.

I do not judge others by the way they look.

I am accepted by my peers in PE.

I am accepted by my teacher in PE.

If I had the choice to participate in PE, I would.

Discussion Questions: After Challenge Circles

How do you think your PE teacher perceives you?

How do you think your peers perceive you?

How do you perceive yourself?

What is it like for you to experience PE in this context?

If you were given an index card with an identity, how did you

feel with the identity you were given?

What are the lessons to be learned from this activity?


By the time students get to middle school, teachers expect them to be

personally and socially responsible, but the occurrence of behavior problems

often peaks in middle school. This occurs for numerous reasons. Middle

schoolers are starting to gain independence and challenge boundaries

established for them, they are going through social and bodily changes, and

they are taking classes with students whom they don’t know, to name a few.

For those reasons, you need to continue to educate students about how to be

responsible. Students want more responsibility, but they do not know how to

be more responsible on their own. Therefore, you need to provide learning

opportunities that educate students about appropriate and inappropriate

behavior within a movement setting.

Relative Emphasis

In middle school physical education, across all grade levels, moderate relative

emphasis is placed on personal and social behavior (refer to table 7.1).

Therefore, during each academic year from sixth through eighth grade,

personal and social responsibilities are important components to include in

the curriculum. At the middle school level for Standard 4, the Grade-Level

Outcomes focus on personal responsibility, accepting feedback, working with

others, rules and etiquette, and safety. All five categories are the same as

those at the elementary level, but the components build on what students

previously learned and provide developmentally appropriate learning

opportunities for middle school students.

Content Examples

Content in middle school tends to become more competitive and emphasizes

game play more than skill development, which increases the likelihood that

students will get into arguments and exhibit poor behavior. Because of these

changes, among others, you want to provide content based on personal and

social behavior at the middle school level, which specifically emphasizes

students’ being self-reflective, having awareness of themselves, and

cooperating with and providing feedback to their classmates. As a physical

educator, you need to determine developmentally appropriate content and

assessments to align with the standards and outcomes.


Before students can be socially responsible, they first need to be personally

responsible, although how each person behaves affects all people within that

context. For that reason, middle school students need to exhibit personal

responsibility on a consistent basis by using etiquette, having respect for

facilities, demonstrating safe behaviors, and using appropriate strategies such

as positive self-talk to self-reinforce positive behaviors. Eventually, by eighth

grade, students should be accepting responsibility for improving their own

level of physical activity and fitness. When these behaviors become routine

and consistent, students can focus on exhibiting social behaviors such as

cooperating with and supporting classmates and demonstrating inclusive

behaviors. As discussed in Standard 3 at the middle school level, students at

the adolescent age begin to decrease their involvement in physical activity for

a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is lack of motivation, which is why in

Standard 4 you want to encourage students to be motivated to be physically

active both in and outside school.

Accepting Feedback

As highlighted in the elementary section, accepting and providing feedback is

challenging for most people, regardless of age. In middle school, students are

comparing themselves with their peers and realizing how they measure up. At

times, this process can cause students to be negative and down on

themselves, which can have significant repercussions on their academic

performance and interactions with others (refer back to chapter 3 to

understand why these behaviors may occur). Students first need to be able to

provide corrective feedback to themselves (sixth grade) before they can

advance to providing feedback to others. In seventh grade, you should

consider teaching students how to provide feedback to and receive feedback

from their classmates by using appropriate tone and other communication

skills. Initially, you may give students a script or a handout with bullet points

to guide them on what type of feedback they should be giving to a partner or

classmate. This tool will help students focus on the feedback provided and

understand the importance of the delivery in giving feedback, especially

when it is corrective in nature. By eighth grade, you want to remove the

script and guidelines because eighth graders should be able to provide

encouragement and feedback to their peers without your direction or

prompting.

Working With Others

As everyone knows, working with others is not always easy. In fact, it can be

challenging at times. Students face the same issue, but adults normally know

how to behave when working with other people, whether they like them or

not. Therefore, you need to teach students how to work with others,

especially at middle school age when they notice differences among

classmates and begin to rank them according to their similarities and

differences. Specifically, you want to teach students about accepting

differences among classmates in relation to physical and body development,

skill level, and social identities such as gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality.

Accepting others is a rather challenging task for students, as it is for most

adults. Although this is the outcome for sixth graders in this category, the key

is to provide learning opportunities within your instruction about differences

of people. If you do not provide them with safe educational opportunities to

learn about differences and to know that it is OK to talk about such issues,

many students will not accept one another’s differences. That condition could

be perpetuated throughout their adolescence and adulthood.

Students should also learn how to resolve conflicts cooperatively (e.g., use

rock–paper–scissors if one team thinks the ball went out of bounds and the

other team does not) and how to respond to ethical or unethical behavior

during physical activity in a way that aligns with the rules and guidelines of

the physical education class and the sport or physical activity being played

(e.g., students respond to other students’ behavior by referring to a play book

or rule book to resolve the issue). Besides learning to resolve conflict,

students need to learn how to cooperate and solve problems when working in

small groups across all content, such as sport-related games, cooperative and

team-building activities, and small- to large-group initiatives.

Teaching middle school students how to be socially responsible helps them

work together in a variety of activities in physical education class.

Rules and Etiquette

Within this category of outcomes, a progression occurs from sixth to eighth

grade, some of which has already been discussed in previous categories in

this section. In sixth grade, students should be able to identify the rules and

etiquette for a variety of physical activities from sport-related games to

dance. Seventh graders are expected to demonstrate knowledge of rules and

etiquette by self-officiating modified physical activities or being able to

create or modify a dance. By eighth grade, students should be able to apply

rules and etiquette by officiating games and create their own dance routine

based on guidelines provided by the teacher or assessment criteria that will be

used to evaluate their performance.

Safety

Safety, both physical and emotional, is always a concern in physical

education. As you allow students to become more independent, they need to

be aware of safety issues and appropriate practices and demonstrate safe

behaviors within physical education class. You initially might want to teach

students how to use equipment appropriately and safely and supervise them

to be sure they are being safe. Eventually, you want to be able to trust

students to use the equipment independently and safely.

Key Points

In a middle school physical education curriculum (grades 6-8), moderate

relative emphasis is placed on personal and social responsibility.

Students exhibit personal and social responsibility by using etiquette,

exhibiting safe behaviors, and working cooperatively with and being

inclusive of classmates.

Students provide corrective feedback to themselves and peers.

Students cooperate, solve problems, and resolve conflict with peers in a

variety of physical activities.

Students identify, demonstrate, and apply rules and etiquette to a variety

of physical activities.

Students independently use physical activity and exercise equipment

appropriately and safely.

Personal and Social Behavior


What approaches do you use to foster personal and

social responsibility?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): I use the

Hellison model for personal and social responsibility through physical

activity. It is easy to understand and easy to teach to students. At the

beginning of every semester I go over the model. Our program has

permanent posters with the levels on them hanging in our gym. We

discuss what each of these levels looks like, so it is easy for students

to understand. If you see a student with level 2 behavior, let her know

what she can do to improve, and let her know you have faith in her to

do better. Then let the student rise to the occasion. Some kids take

longer than others. Relationships are a process, so give yourself time

to learn how to relate to that person, but keep trying and don’t give

up. And when the student does the right thing, praise, praise, praise.

How do you hold students accountable for their

behavior?


Carolina): Students have to tell me how they demonstrated good

character each day in their fitness logs. Eventually this becomes

second nature and students no longer have to consciously think about

how to behave; they just do it. Should there be an issue with behavior,

it becomes a conversation with the students involved, where each

student is allowed to explain his or her feelings and we come to a

mutual agreement. I usually ask what would make each student feel

better about the situation or what would make the situation right to

help determine who apologizes, shakes hands, and so on. I try to

facilitate a conversation between two students and let them talk to

each other. This also teaches my students how to handle conflict.


Jeff Jacobs, Worcester Elementary School (Lansdale,

Pennsylvania): Even if you think you do not need a classroom

management system, begin with one anyway. Each class is unique,

and you may find that some classes may not even need to use your

management system as the year progresses. Make sure to take enough

time in the beginning of the school year to introduce and discuss your

behavior management system. Use this opportunity to discuss your

rules, clarify your expectations, and give students a clear

understanding of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. The time

spent in the beginning of the year is an investment in making the year

go much smoother.


The difference between middle and high school can be drastic for many

students. In many ways, they suddenly grow up. Not only do they want to be

more independent and assume more responsibility, they actually are more

responsible. As with the other standards, at the high school level you prepare

students to be physically active outside school throughout their adult lives.

Ideally, they are able to follow the rules, use etiquette when working with

equipment and participating in various sports and physical activities, and

work well with others, but that is not always the case. As you teach high

school students to be personally and socially responsible, you will make

numerous connections to life in the real world, such as when they go off to

college, take a job, enter the military, or use local fitness centers, trails, and

parks. Many of the behaviors you teach students in physical education will be

applicable and useful across all aspects of their daily lives.

Relative Emphasis

In high school physical education, across all grade levels, moderate relative

emphasis is placed on personal and social behavior (refer to table 7.1).

During each academic year, semester, or quarter in high school physical

education, personal and social responsibilities are important components to

include in the curriculum. According to SHAPE America (2014), Standard 4

outcomes at the high school level “support the knowledge and skills of

Standard 3 by promoting the development and refinement of life skills such

as self-management, problem solving and communication” (p. 54). These are

critical life skills for students to learn as they become self-directed adults. At

the high school level, SHAPE America’s Grade-Level Outcomes for Standard

4 focus on personal responsibility, rules and etiquette, working with others,

and safety. Refer to National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12

Physical Education (2014) to determine how much emphasis is placed on

each of these four categories.

Content Examples

High school students are expected to accept and provide feedback to others,

safely follow the rules and guidelines of all physical activities, and ultimately

demonstrate respect for the facilities, equipment, themselves, the teacher, and

their peers. In 9th through 12th grades, the focus of all content that you teach

should be based on preparing students to assume more personal and social

responsibility so that they are knowledgeable, competent, and accepting

physical movers as adults. As a physical educator, you need to determine

developmentally appropriate content and assessments to align with the

standards and outcomes.


As indicated in the Relative Emphasis section, Standard 4 connects well with

Standard 3. In Standard 3, you should teach content in which students have to

identify and analyze barriers to physical activity, which is also addressed in

Standard 4. The difference is that students need to employ self-management

skills to any barriers they face and have the ability to modify physical

activities as needed. Furthermore, with Standard 3, you are going to teach

students how to analyze and critique the media. With Standard 4, you want

students to accept themselves for who they are, not for the socially

constructed idealized body images and elite performances they see in the

media. Getting to a place where people accept themselves for who they are

can take time; some people never get there. You need to teach high school

students about self-acceptance by creating unit and lesson plans that provide

learning opportunities for them to analyze and deconstruct what they observe

in the media, especially in relation to the body and physicality.

Rules and Etiquette

Building on the rules and etiquette that students learned in middle school

physical education, the goal at the high school level is for students to observe

etiquette, demonstrate respect for others, and engage in teamwork across all

physical activities. As you provide a unit of instruction on the media, engage

in discourse on current contemporary issues in sport, such as performanceenhancing

substances, gambling, payment to student-athletes at the

intercollegiate level, concussions, and so on. Because many of your students

are consumers of media, particularly sport media, they will have heard or

read information and discourse on these topics by people who have a strong

opinion one way or the other. Even at the high school level, students might

believe what they see and hear, so you need to help them analyze and

deconstruct aspects of what is portrayed in the media so that they can become

critical consumers.

Working With Others

Cooperation is an important component of being able to work well with

others. By high school, students should be able to work cooperatively in

teams and groups, but by the time they graduate, they should be able to

assume leadership roles, whether being a coach or referee in a sport-related

game or being the lead choreographer when developing a dance routine.

Students should be able to solve problems and think critically in a variety of

physical activity settings as well as accept other students and their ideas,

regardless of their body type, racial and cultural identity, gender, and sexual

orientation. You want them to go beyond saying that they are accepting of

others and demonstrate that they accept others by collaborating and working

cooperatively with those who are different from them on a project, activity, or

any form of physical activity. Although the outcomes in Standards 3 and 4

demonstrate the importance of accepting difference, you need to educate your

students explicitly about all differences. You need to go beyond just telling or

mentioning to students that they should be accepting of others who are not

similar to them.

Safety

As you prepare students to be physically active for a lifetime, they need to be

aware of all safety principles and practices when engaging in physical

activity, because they will have to make decisions on their own and employ

such practices when they are physically active outside school. In addition to

instructing students in proper use of equipment, you want to teach high

school students how to prevent injuries, use appropriate alignment and

posture, be hydrated, and be knowledgeable about training principles, such as

overload and progression (see Standard 3).

Key Points

In a high school physical education curriculum (grades 9-12), moderate

relative emphasis is placed on personal and social responsibility.

Many connections can be made between Standards 3 and 4.

Students analyze barriers to their own physical activity engagement and

accept differences of others.

Students exhibit respect for others and examine moral and ethical

conduct within sport and physical activity situations.

Students assume leadership roles and accept the ideas of others.

Students apply best practices for participating safely in a variety of

physical activities.

Summary


exhibits responsible personal and social behavior that respects self and others

(SHAPE America, 2014). Specifically, this standard emphasizes students’

ability to be personally responsible, accept feedback from others, work with

others who are similar to and different from themselves, implement

appropriate rules and observe etiquette, and follow safety procedures at all

times. All the learning opportunities that students engage in, across all grade

levels, within this standard will benefit them in all aspects of their lives.

Whether they are collaborating on a classroom-based project, working at a

job, navigating relationships with siblings and friends, or interacting with

teammates, they need to be personally and socially responsible. For this to

occur, students need to accept who they are and accept others who are similar

to and different from them.

Review Questions

1. How is relative emphasis applied at the elementary, middle, and high

school levels for Standard 4?



category.

3. Describe and discuss activities and tasks that you could develop or


each category.

4. Explain how you will address social justice issues and differences within

your units of instruction that focus on Standard 4.



web resource at


Chapter 8

Standard 5: Recognizing the Value

of Physical Activity

Learning Objectives





Identify the content that should be integrated in a physical





Key Terms

self-expression

social interaction


recognizes the value of physical activity for health, enjoyment, challenge,

self-expression and/or social interaction (SHAPE America, 2014). The intent

of this standard is for students to develop “an awareness of the intrinsic

values and benefits of participation in physical activity that provides personal

meaning” (National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2004, p.

14). One of the primary goals of physical education is to educate K-12

students to be physically active for a lifetime. You can provide a quality

physical education program, but students still might not understand the

importance of being physically active when they are not required to do so in a

physical education class. Therefore, you need to teach the outcomes of

Standard 5 explicitly to your students from kindergarten through grade 12.

Students need to value physical activity so that they develop self-confidence

and promote a positive self-image and continue being physically active

outside physical education and over the course of their lifespan. This chapter

provides information about Standard 5 that relates to the elementary, middle,



In elementary school, students are not afraid to show their enjoyment of

physical activity and playing with other children, whether in physical

education class, at recess, or before or after school. You may occasionally

hear adults say that they would like to play like children—being in the

moment and free of judgment, willing to move no matter what the movement

looks like. At this stage in their young lives, you want to capture their

innocence and excitement to move.

Relative Emphasis

In elementary physical education, moderate relative emphasis is placed on

valuing physical activity for health, enjoyment, challenge, self-expression,

and social interaction (see table 8.1). During each academic year, from

kindergarten to grade 5, valuing physical activity is an important component

to include in the curriculum, because “the behaviors and attitudes formed in

elementary school exert an extremely strong influence on the behaviors and

attitudes of adolescents and adults in physical activity settings” (SHAPE

America, 2014, pp. 17-18). At the elementary level for Standard 5, SHAPE

America’s Grade-Level Outcomes focus on health, challenge, and selfexpression

and enjoyment. Refer to SHAPE America’s National Standards &

Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (2014) to determine how

much emphasis is placed on each of these categories.

Content Examples

Content based on valuing physical activity at the elementary level can range

from making connections between physical activity and health to looking at

the benefits of working with others in physical education class. At first, you

might look at the outcomes for Standard 5 and think, “We talk about this with

our students all the time,” but the difference here is to go beyond talking by

developing lesson plans that teach students directly about valuing physical

activity, similar to the suggestions about how to approach Standard 4. As a

physical educator, you need to determine developmentally appropriate

content and assessments to align with the standards and outcomes.

Health

Making connections between physical activity and health and, in this

outcome, good health, should begin in kindergarten. Therefore, as early as

kindergarten, you should teach students about what is considered good

health, inform them about the benefits of physical activity, and show how the

two connect. At the kindergarten level, you want students to recognize that

physical activity is important for good health, but starting in first grade,

students should begin understanding that other components make people

healthy, physical activity being one of them. By third grade, students should

be able to discuss, in spoken or written format, the relationship between

physical activity and good health. By fifth grade, students should be able to

compare health benefits across a variety of physical activities. They should

recognize that they receive different health benefits by participating in

basketball, working on flexibility, or engaging in a cooperative game.

Challenge

Physical educators provide students with developmentally appropriate and

challenging tasks and activities on a daily basis. But this learning outcome

does not focus on whether teachers are providing challenging content; rather,

the emphasis is on how students view challenging experiences in physical

education. Students in first and second grade commonly begin to identify

certain physical activities at which they are “good” or “bad” and start to

decide whether they enjoy that physical activity on the basis of their level of

success. Because you do not want students to give up participating in certain

activities at such a young age, you need to teach students about the various

aspects of performing a challenging activity. For example, in kindergarten,

begin to talk to students about what it means for a physical activity to be a

challenge to them and have them acknowledge certain activities that they find

challenging or difficult. You want students in first grade to start recognizing

the positive aspects of facing a challenge and potentially having success. By

third grade, students should be able to engage in discussion about the

challenges they encounter when learning a new task or activity. In fifth grade,

students should be able to express their enjoyment of participating in a

favorite physical activity. To accomplish this, students can write an essay,

create some form of visual art, or create their own dance or movement

pattern. As fifth graders, students should have some choice and be able to

make decisions that best suit their learning style and comfort level.

Self-Expression and Enjoyment

As a preservice teacher, you will have the opportunity to observe and teach

students at the elementary (K-5) and secondary (6-12) levels. One

observation you will quickly make at the elementary level is how much most

elementary students demonstrate their enjoyment for physical education.

Students jump up and down, smile, widen their eyes, and may even exude

some form of shrieking sound. Although many elementary students display

this behavior, especially in kindergarten through third grade, not all do. For

that reason, you need to give students the opportunity for self-expression, for

sharing their experiences in physical education. Starting in kindergarten,

students should be asked to identify physical activities that are enjoyable to

them and be given the space to discuss how they feel when playing with their

friends. By the end of first grade, students can begin to share with you the

positive feelings they receive from participating in certain physical activities

as well as explain why they enjoy those activities. Yes, giving each student

an opportunity to voice his or her feelings may take some time, but you need

to create spaces for students to share about themselves. As with the health

and challenge outcomes, third grade is the year when students are expected to

have higher cognitive functioning and more self-awareness. They can reflect

on and determine why they enjoy certain physical activities over others as

well as describe the benefits of social interaction when engaging in physical

activities with their classmates or friends. By fifth grade, students have the

knowledge, self-awareness, and experience to be able to analyze various

physical activities and determine whether they experience enjoyment or are

challenged in them. They can also identify why they have a positive or

negative response to each of the activities. Furthermore, fifth graders can

describe the social benefits of engaging in physical activity with others,

whether in physical education class, at recess, in a youth sport, or playing

outside in the backyard. For example, ideally, students should recognize that

they have fun when they get to play and move with their friends, when all

those involved in the game or activity get along and do not call each other

names and are not mean to one another, and when they get to select a game or

activity that they and their friends or classmates enjoy to participate in

together.

Physical education provides students the opportunity to socially interact with

one another while being physically active.

Key Points

In an elementary physical education curriculum (K-5), moderate relative

emphasis is placed on valuing physical activity for health, enjoyment,

challenge, self-expression, and social interaction.

Students make connections between engaging in physical activity and

good health.

Students identify that being challenged in various physical activities can

lead to success and personal enjoyment for mastering a challenging task.

Students identify physical activities that are enjoyable to them and have

positive social interactions when working with others.

Encourage Self-Expression, Enjoyment, and

Social Interaction


As indicated in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-

12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014), Standard 5

incorporates all the outcomes and content taught across Standards 1

through 4, which means that when addressing social justice issues in

Standard 5, you need to include all the issues considered in the

previous four standards, particularly when teaching students about

challenge, self-expression and enjoyment, and social interaction. You

need to revisit students’ differences in regard to ability because some

students are higher skilled compared with others. Students who are

higher skilled will be able to take on greater challenges than other

students, but these students do not necessarily know how to cope with

lack of success any more than students who are lower skilled or have

physical disabilities. For that reason, students need to challenge

themselves based on their level of ability. For this to occur, they need

to know they can be successful physical movers regardless of their

physical ability and do not need to compare themselves with others.

The same is true for demonstrating, within a public environment, selfexpression

and enjoyment. Students who are not successful in

physical education are more likely not to enjoy being physically

active (of course, this is not true for all students). If students do not

enjoy physical activity, they are less likely to want to engage in selfexpression.

But this can also be true for higher-skilled students who

do not like to demonstrate with self-expression or even show that they

are enjoying themselves. They might be introverts or shy or may

think it isn’t cool to show that they like or care about physical

education and physical activity. You do not have to teach students

that it is cool to participate in physical activity, but you should teach

students how to accept one another for who they are, whether it is

socially acceptable or not. You need to continue to have these

discussions by offering students safe spaces where they can share

their thoughts, feelings, and experiences and simply be who they are.

Sometimes, this means letting go of any biases you may have so that

you can create an equitable space where all students feel comfortable

and safe.


As previously expressed with Standards 3 and 4, at the middle school level

students’ physical activity levels decline, social engagement increases, and

knowledge of other students’ differences increases. Some middle schoolers

who would feel comfortable dancing or moving freely in a private and

personal context resist exhibiting such joy because it’s not cool or acceptable

in the eyes of their peers. In middle school, social interaction is significant to

students, so you can use their desire for peer relationships to enhance their

willingness to engage in physical activity and, ultimately, to appreciate and

value a variety of forms of human movement, which aligns with the emphasis

of this standard and focus.

Relative Emphasis

In middle school physical education, across all grade levels, moderate relative

emphasis is placed on valuing physical activity for health, enjoyment,

challenge, self-expression, and social interaction (refer to table 8.1). During

each academic year, from sixth through eighth grade, creating spaces to teach

students how to value physical activity is an important component of the

curriculum. At the middle school level for Standard 5, SHAPE America’s

Grade-Level Outcomes focus on health, challenge, self-expression and

enjoyment, and social interaction. The first three categories are the same as

those at the elementary level, and the fourth component, social interaction, is

added at the middle school level. The components build on what students

were to have learned previously and provide developmentally appropriate

learning opportunities for middle school students. Furthermore, you can link

the outcomes for Standard 5 to the outcomes for Standards 3 and 4. Refer to

National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education

(SHAPE America, 2014) to determine how much emphasis is placed on each

of these outcomes and the connections to make across standards.

Content Examples

Students at the middle school level are going through significant changes that

can include attending a larger school with more students, going through

puberty, and changing friend or peer groups. Middle school students also

begin to get involved with other activities, because many after-school clubs

are offered. For these reasons, along with many others, students begin to

engage in less physical activity. Some experience little enjoyment in physical

education class or when participating in physical activities outside school. As

previously stated, middle school students are quite concerned with what their

peers think of them and how they are perceived, so they do not want to be

embarrassed in physical education class if they are not successful in certain

activities. For that reason, at the middle school level you need to provide

students with content based on valuing physical activity and offer educational

experiences that allow students the opportunity to identify, reflect on, and

share their personal experiences and feelings about various physical activities

(see the “Considering Students’ Perspectives” sidebar on ways to address

this). As a physical educator, you need to determine developmentally

appropriate content and assessments to align with the standards and

outcomes.

Considering Students’ Perspectives

Educators often talk about the differences between teacher-centered

and student-centered instructional practices and curriculum models,

which may include the benefits and barriers to each and the

appropriate time to use each practice and model. Within studentcentered

units of instruction, often one of the goals is for students to

feel a sense of ownership and empowerment in their learning

experiences. But how do teachers know what the students think and

feel? To answer this question, physical educators need to gain

knowledge and insight from students’ perspectives and not rely solely

on observation and assessment data that they gather. Physical

education teachers need to provide safe spaces where students can

voice their thoughts, feelings, and perspectives and have choice

within their learning experiences.

Accessing students’ voices can include simply asking them direct

questions individually, in small groups, or as a whole class. But you

might consider a more private method for students to express and

share depending on the questions you are posing (e.g., How did you

feel in class today? How do you think your team performed today?

What can your team do to improve passing accuracy? What

influenced your level of involvement with the cooperative game

activity?). For students to feel comfortable and safe in responding to

those questions, you might consider allowing them to keep a written

or electronic journal, complete an exit slip at the end of class, or use

worksheets such as a personal and social identity profile, participation

identification, or student snapshots (refer to the JOPERD article

“Getting to Know You” [Fisette, 2010] for examples of these

activities). By having your students engage in such activities, you will

get to know your students and learn from their perspectives how they

think and feel.

Giving students a voice can be simple for some teachers and

challenging for others. The same is true for providing students with a

choice within their learning experiences. Offering choices can include

allowing students to pick their partner, group, or team; electing

whether they want to be in a competitive or noncompetitive

tournament bracket; choosing the role and responsibility they want to

carry out within the sport education model; selecting the equipment

used (e.g., choosing the size or weight of the ball); and possibly

choosing the space and distance in which an activity is performed

(e.g., taking 10- or 15-foot [3 or 4.6 m] basketball shots). Sometimes

students feel more motivated and comfortable to participate if they

have some say in the physical activities in which they participate,

which is one of the primary goals for graduating seniors across all

standards, particularly Standards 3, 4, and 5. Relative to Standard 5,

by giving students a voice and choice and by learning from their

perspectives, you can help them find greater enjoyment in

participating in physical activity and physical education.

Health

One of the repeated messages that students receive in physical education is

that many health benefits are obtained from engaging in physical activity.

That message, and in this case the instruction that should be taught to align

with Standard 5, is to have middle school students describe how being

physically active leads to a healthy body and identify how various physical

activities have a positive effect on overall health.

Another outcome within this health category can be connected to the stress

management outcomes in Standard 3, because students are educated not only

about the physical component of overall health and wellness but also about

the mental and emotional aspects. Specifically, Outcome S5.M2.6 states that

sixth graders should be able to identify “components of physical activity that

provide opportunities for reducing stress and for social interaction” (SHAPE

America, 2014, p. 50). The social interaction aspect of this outcome is unique

to Standard 5 but can be connected to the outcomes under “working with

others” and “rules and etiquette” in Standard 4 (p. 49). By eighth grade,

students should be able to analyze the benefits and consequences of being

physically active to their overall health, as per Outcome S5.M2.8 (p. 50).

Challenge

By middle school, students need to develop strategies for dealing with

challenges they face in life, in school, and, most important to physical

educators, in physical education. Students may face individual challenges,

such as not being successful in a task or activity or not liking the unit of

instruction being taught, that will warrant some form of response from the

student. In sixth grade, students should recognize when they are facing a

challenge and respond to the challenge in a positive manner, such as trying

their best and putting forth effort even if they do not like the activity, asking

for help or feedback, which can be another challenge for students (accepting

feedback connects with Standard 4), or being able to modify the task to

increase their chances of being successful. When encountering group

challenges, students need to be taught how to use positive strategies, such as

offering suggestions or assistance to the group, leading or following others

(depending on each person and the group dynamic), and providing possible

solutions. Again, a connection can be made with to Standard 4, “working

with others.” By the end of eighth grade, students should have the knowledge

and ability to develop a plan of action and follow the plan by making

appropriate decisions when facing a challenge, as per Outcome S5.M3.8

(SHAPE America, 2014, p. 50).


Including both self-expression and enjoyment within this category raises a

chicken-and-egg kind of question. Does a student’s enjoyment of an activity

increase his or her level of self-expression or vice versa? Or do both happen

simultaneously? This rhetorical question has no right answer; the purpose of

this questioning is to demonstrate the importance of teaching students about

both self-expression and enjoyment in relation to physical activity.

Competence and enjoyment are correlated, and middle school students should

be able to describe how being competent physical movers in a particular

physical activity increases their level of enjoyment. In seventh grade,

students should be able to identify why the physical activities in which they

choose to participate create enjoyment for them. To address self-expression,

students need to know the relationship between self-expression and physical

activity, including how this relationship may influence their current selfexpression

and enjoyment of self-selected physical activities and the overall

lifelong enjoyment they will receive from participating in a variety of

physical activities.

Social Interaction

In middle school, sport-related game play is an important component of the

physical education curriculum. This activity automatically places students in

situations in which they are expected to interact socially with other students

in their class. Whether students are participating in sport-related games,

creating a dance in small groups, or working on team-building or cooperative

activities, students should be able to demonstrate respect to themselves,

others, and the spirit of the game or activity. Students can demonstrate

respect in each of these areas by following the rules, helping and encouraging

others, providing support, avoiding trash talk, or asking for help. Again, this

aligns with social responsibility in Standard 4.

Key Points

In a middle school physical education curriculum (grades 6-8), moderate

relative emphasis is placed on valuing physical activity for health,

enjoyment, challenge, self-expression, and social interaction.

Connections can be made between and among the outcomes under

National Standards 3 and 4.

Students should be able to make connections between the health-related

components of fitness and physical and mental health.

Students should be able to develop and use positive coping strategies

when they face an individual or group challenge.

Students should be able to understand the relationship between selfexpression

and lifelong enjoyment of physical activity.

Students should be able to demonstrate respect for self and others.

Value of Physical Activity


How do you learn what your students value about

physical activity?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): It is good

to have an ongoing conversation with students. They will let you

know what they like and don’t like about the activity. Talking to them

about the latest trends or what they do outside of school for activity is

important. It can be as easy as a show of hands and taking surveys

about activity and how they want to be as they age.

Describe what makes your students express their

enjoyment. What makes them seek out challenges?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Students

like things that give them the freedom to be creative and enjoy

themselves. Middle school is such a social time, so it is important that

they have some freedom in expressing themselves. It is great to hear

them say, “PE was fun today” or “That was great!”


Jennifer Sferra , Leighton Elementary School (Aurora, Ohio): I

think that learning what your students value about physical activity

can be a difficult task, especially with students who do not seem to

value physical activity at all. However, this is such an important part

of building learners who will be active in the future. In my

experience, some kids seem to naturally love activity and sport (two

different things), but the ones I remember most are the ones who do

not naturally like it. In fact, I make finding activities that they enjoy a

personal challenge. I also believe that most kids love to move. It’s

when they start to believe that they are not good at it or that others are

watching them, then getting them to move is a problem. This makes

establishing personal and social responsibility in your classroom so

important. I try to provide my students at all grade levels with a

variety of activities—not just sports, games, or fitness. I also make

sure to create situations where students are not excluded from play

and participation. I seek out students who do not seem to enjoy

physical activity and ask questions about what they do enjoy or what

they do when they are at recess or not in school. This information can

provide vital insights into finding activities for all students. We have

a “challenge by choice” policy in the gymnasium, which all students

are aware of, meaning each student has the opportunity and

responsibility to make the modifications to the game or activity

(suggested by or approved by the teacher) to make it right for them

and their enjoyment. It sets a positive and encouraging tone in the

class as well as one of personal and social responsibility. I can be

heard saying, “You just can’t do it . . . yet!” It is the students’ job to

challenge themselves and make it safe for others to try new things

too.


One of the greatest rewards as a teacher is watching students learn and grow

over the course of an academic year and from one year to the next. Being able

to observe students’ enjoyment and appreciation for physical activity is one

of the greatest rewards for physical educators. At a time when physical

activity levels are low and the health issue of childhood obesity continues to

be a concern, physical educators work diligently to create learning

opportunities in physical education. The hope is that at least one activity will

connect with each student and that all students will come to understand the

importance and benefits of physical activity and intend to continue to be

active after they graduate from high school.

Relative Emphasis

In high school physical education, strong relative emphasis is placed on

valuing physical activity for health, enjoyment, challenge, self-expression,

and social interaction (refer to table 8.1). Over the course of each academic

year, semester, or quarter in high school physical education, valuing physical

activity is an important component to include in the curriculum. According to

SHAPE America, “the outcomes of the first four standards provide the

underpinning for Standard 5, in which students recognize the value of

physical activity and make it a part of their lives” (2014, p. 54). For that

reason, the amount of content taught in relation to the outcomes under

Standard 5 is minimal, but the intent of the standard—for students to value

physical activity—is the ultimate goal that you want to accomplish with high

school students. At the high school level for Standard 5, SHAPE America’s

Grade-Level Outcomes focus on health, challenge, self-expression and

enjoyment, and social interaction.

Content Examples

By the time high school students complete their physical education

requirements, the content should focus on preparing students to lead a

physically active lifestyle outside school. For this to occur, students need to

be given opportunities to select the activities in which they participate and be

provided safe spaces to reflect on their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

The hope is that by having such opportunities and experiences, high school

students will be able to recognize the value of physical activity for health,


Health

You should continue building on the Grade-Level Outcomes and content that

began in kindergarten about the health benefits received from engaging in

physical activity. By the time students graduate from high school, they should

be able to analyze the health benefits of the physical activities in which they

choose to participate, whether in physical education class or outside school.

Challenge

For most of students’ K-12 educational experiences, teachers tell students

what to do, give them the expectations or outcome expected, and establish

most of the challenges they encounter. The challenge category of outcomes

counters that model because the goal is for students to choose an appropriate

level of challenge in a physical activity of their own choosing so that they can

experience success. As the teacher, you determine whether students will

accomplish that inside or outside physical education. One option would be to

connect this outcome to the fitness and physical activity portfolio they

develop in Standard 3.


Many people automatically and correctly think of dance as a physical activity

or physical education content that alludes to or exudes self-expression. But

up to this point, demonstrating self-expression and enjoyment has been broad

in nature across many forms of physical activity, which is still true at the high

school level. For high school students, the goal is to have them select and

participate in any physical activity that meets the need for self-expression and

enjoyment. But at a more advanced level, whether you offer a unit of

instruction on dance or not, students should be able to identify the uniqueness

of creative dance as a means of self-expression. Even if students do not enjoy

or feel comfortable dancing, they should have the cognitive knowledge and

awareness of the connection between dance and self-expression, especially

because they can participate in this form of physical activity across the

lifespan.

Social Interaction

In elementary and middle school, students engage in many activities in which

they are on teams or in small or large groups. This type of activity continues

in high school physical education, but because you want to prepare students

to be physically active for a lifetime, more lifetime activities are incorporated

into the curriculum, many of which are individual activities. But one of the

main reasons that people enjoy physical activity is that they can do it with

their friends or in a social context. For that reason, high school students need

to identify and evaluate the opportunities offered for social interaction and

social support in a self-selected physical activity.

Key Points

In a high school physical education curriculum (grades 9-12), strong

relative emphasis is placed on valuing physical activity for health,


Connections can be made between and among the outcomes under

Standards 3 and 4.

Students should be able to analyze the health benefits of a self-selected

physical activity.

Students should be able to choose an appropriate level of challenge to

experience in a self-selected physical activity.

Students should be able to select and participate in physical activities

that meet the need for self-expression and enjoyment.

Students should be able to identify and evaluate the opportunity for

social interaction and social support in a self-selected physical activity.

Summary

The focus of this chapter is Standard 5: The physically literate individual

recognizes the value of physical activity for health, enjoyment, challenge,

self-expression and/or social interaction (SHAPE America, 2014).

Specifically, this standard emphasizes students’ ability to be knowledgeable

about the health benefits they obtain from being physically active, to develop

positive coping strategies to deal with challenges and difficulties they

encounter when engaging in physical activity, to understand the connection

between self-expression and enjoyment, and to demonstrate respect for self

and others when involved in activities that foster social interaction. All the

learning opportunities that students engage in, across all grade levels, within

this standard will benefit them in all aspects of their lives. Furthermore, the

alignment of the outcomes in Standard 5 with many of the outcomes in

Standards 3 and 4 demonstrates the intersection of the standards that inform

the content that you teach. For students to value physical activity, students

need to accept who they are and accept others who are similar and different

from them.

Review Questions

1. How is relative emphasis applied at the elementary, middle, and high

school levels for Standard 5?



category.

3. Describe and discuss activities and tasks you could develop and


each category.

4. Explain how you will address social justice issues within your units of

instruction that focus on Standard 5.



web resource at


Part III

Building the Curriculum

“If you build it, he will come” is a famous line from the baseball movie Field

of Dreams. The premise of this concept was that if a baseball field were built,

players and spectators would fill the field and stands. In some ways, the same

is true about teaching physical education. If physical education teachers build

a quality physical education program, then the likelihood is that students will

want to participate and be engaged in the learning opportunities offered to

them. On the flipside, if students “play” the same games and activities year

after year; receive no instruction about how to develop their knowledge,

skills, and confidence; participate in activities that use them as targets (e.g.,

dodgeball) or result in their being eliminated; feel exposed or embarrassed

because of the public nature of the environment; and engage in activities that

are not relevant to them or are socioculturally biased, they may not want to

come to or participate in physical education or physical activity in or outside

school.

The focus of part III is to provide you, as a preservice or beginning teacher,

detailed information about how to develop a quality physical education

program. At this stage in your professional career, you are not going to be

asked or be expected to establish a physical education curriculum, but you

will be required to develop a quality program at the instructional level. The

instructional level includes all the nuts and bolts that physical education

teachers offer on a weekly and daily basis.

The first step in offering quality instruction is to plan and prepare for units

and lessons in advance before you teach the content. Chapter 9 takes you

through a step-by-step process about how to formulate units of instruction

and individual lesson plans. Your PETE program or school system may use a

different format, which is fine, but whatever the design of the plan, you

should develop plans that are driven by the National Standards for K-12

Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014) and their accompanying Grade-

Level Outcomes and include learning objectives, content and instruction, and

assessment of student learning.

Within each unit and lesson plan, you need to plan developmentally

appropriate content to meet the learning needs of all students, which is the

focus of chapter 10. How do you know what to teach? What is

developmentally appropriate for students at each grade level or within a grade

band? How do you modify content based on students’ knowledge and

abilities? The chapter attempts to answer those questions and provide other

information that will enhance your ability to plan equitable and appropriate

content.

The focus of chapter 11 is curriculum models. A variety of curriculum

models have been developed in physical education to frame a unit of

instruction, which influences both your planning and your instruction of the

content. The chapter provides a brief overview of the purpose and unique

characteristics of eight curriculum models:

Skill theme approach

Teaching personal and social responsibility

Tactical games model

Sport education

Fitness education

Adventure education

Outdoor education

Cultural studies

Each chapter also highlights how you can address social justice issues when

planning equitable, inclusive, and developmentally appropriate content in

physical education.

Chapter 9

Unit and Lesson Planning

Learning Objectives


Identify the components of unit and lesson plans.

Explain factors that need to be considered for each component of

unit and lesson plans.

Describe various components of unit and lesson plans that are

needed for instructional alignment.

Develop a draft of a unit or lesson plan at the elementary,


Key Terms

lesson plan

unit of instruction

You have finally arrived at what you have been waiting for—learning how to

prepare to teach K-12 students in physical education! As excited as you may

be, planning can be a daunting and challenging task. Your instructors will

take you through the unit and lesson plan process step-by-step so that you are

well planned and prepared before you step onto the gym floor in front of

actual students. Before you read about the details of unit and lesson plans,

you will benefit from a review of what they actually are (see chapter 2).

A unit of instruction is the big picture of what you intend to teach from start

to finish of a particular content, concept, or theme based on one or more of

the standards and outcomes. As a teacher, you need to identify which units of

instruction you intend to teach during the academic school year, semester, or

quarter (depending on the grade levels that you teach). Only after you have

identified the unit of instruction will you develop individual lesson plans for

each class meeting with your students from the beginning to the end of that

unit. If you are a student teacher or beginning teacher, you understand the

significance of developing your unit of instruction first and then individual

lesson plans. But if you are a preservice teacher in a content or methods

course, your instructor will first teach you how to develop an individual

lesson plan. Later, toward the end of the semester, you might learn how to

create a comprehensive unit plan. You should first learn how to create an

individual lesson plan. After you gain experience, you will have the

knowledge and awareness to see the big picture and the ability to formulate

an entire unit plan. The intention here is to bring to life what each of these

plans includes and to give you some sample templates or frameworks that

you can use in your planning.

This chapter first covers unit planning and then lesson planning (see table

9.1). Recall the term instructional alignment discussed in chapter 2.

Instructional alignment is the alignment of the National Standards and Grade-

Level Outcomes, unit goals and objectives, instruction (units and lessons),

and assessments of student learning for effective teaching for learning to

occur at the instructional level. As you plan your unit and lessons, be sure to

check that all components in each are instructionally aligned with one

another.

Unit Planning

A unit of instruction is based on a minimum of two consecutive lessons on

the same content, concept, or theme. A unit can contain an unlimited number

of lessons. The number of lessons that makes up a unit will be based on the

grade level that you teach, the curriculum model that you use as the

framework, the frequency of class meetings in physical education, and other

decisions made at the curriculum level. If you are a preservice teacher, your

instructor will guide you about how long your unit should be; if you are a

student teacher, then your cooperating teacher will inform you; and if you are

a beginning teacher, the decision is up to you if a physical education

curriculum has not already been established.

Now that you know how many lessons will be included in the unit, you can

start planning (refer to the example in figure 9.1 or the customizable unit plan

template provided in the web resource). The unit plan outline includes nine

components:

1. Needs assessment

2. Standards and outcomes

3. Unit goals and objectives

4. Assessment plan

5. Management plan

6. Content analysis or content map

7. Block plan

8. Instructional materials

9. Resources

Metzler’s (2011) unit plan is based on seven components. Your physical

education program may have more or fewer, but in the end, whichever format

you use, the unit plan will be based on standards, objectives, content for

instruction, and assessments.

1. Needs Assessment

Before beginning to plan your unit, you want to conduct a needs assessment

to identify what the students at your school already know and are able to do.

Because you might not have knowledge of the students in your classes, ask

your cooperating teacher what he or she has already learned, observe

students’ performance, or conduct a preassessment. You need to have an

understanding of students’ knowledge and ability before you plan to ensure

that your unit of instruction is developmentally appropriate as well as

challenging enough for the students. For example, if second graders learned

how to roll to a bowling pin in first grade, you should revisit rolling to a pin,

but you want to create a more challenging task to enhance their rolling skills.

The same is true if you are going to teach basketball to eighth graders. The

likelihood is that they have been taught some aspects of basketball in a

previous grade. If they learned the various ways to pass, dribble, and shoot

and you have observed them in game play, you might focus one or two

lessons on those skills before getting into more challenging skills and

movements, such as how to perform a layup or various inbound plays. After

you have this information, you are ready to start planning.

2. National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes

As stated repeatedly, the National Standards for K-12 Physical Education and

their accompanying Grade-Level Outcomes (SHAPE America, 2014) drive

what you will teach to students. You will certainly understand this better after

you get some practice with unit and lesson planning. After you complete a

needs assessment, you need to identify the National Standards and specific

Grade-Level Outcomes that will be the basis of each lesson so that you can

identify what students should learn and be able to achieve by the end of the

unit. Although there are only five National Standards, each standard in every

grade has many specific outcomes. You will not be able to teach all five

standards in one unit, especially if the unit is only two to four lessons long.

When you are identifying the standards, ask yourself, “Which standards am I

going to teach explicitly?” More is not always better. If you are teaching

sport-related games content but do not intend to teach students how to work

cooperatively or how to accept one another’s differences, then don’t include

that standard or those outcomes. But if you are going to provide instruction

that focuses on such content, then do include the standards and outcomes that

align with that content.

3. Unit Goals and Objectives

After you have identified the standards and outcomes that will drive your unit

of instruction, you can formulate goals and objectives that state what you

want the students to learn by the end of your unit. Identify the specific

learning objectives and learning domains that align with each of the National

Standards and outcomes. Be sure that the assessments you use to measure

student learning align directly with the standards, outcomes, goals, and

objectives that you have already selected. If the assessments do not align with

the standards and objectives, you will not know whether your students have

learned. By knowing the summative assessments you want to implement in

your unit before you begin developing the actual unit plan, you will ensure

that the components align and that the instruction is meaningful and relevant.

4. Assessment Plan

As you learned in chapter 2, assessment allows you to determine whether

students have learned, based on the standards, outcomes, goals, and

objectives that you identified for the unit of instruction. Without assessing

your students, you will have no idea whether students have learned. In your

assessment plan, include the actual assessments you intend to use to measure

student learning over the course of the semester. For example, if you are

using a checklist of critical elements for a variety of manipulative skills or

movement patterns, the Game Performance Assessment Instrument (GPAI), a

written quiz or test, or an exercise plan, the actual assessment must be

included, not simply the name or type of assessment you intend to use. If you

are unsure of what type of assessment to use, ask your cooperating teacher or

instructor or refer to the PE Metrics (National Association for Sport and

Physical Education, 2010, 2011; SHAPE America, forthcoming) assessments

that align with the National Standards and outcomes. A few states have

mandated assessments that K-12 physical education teachers must conduct.

One is Ohio, which has the Ohio Physical Education Assessments (Ohio

Department of Education, 2012). If you live in a state with such a mandate,

this directive will likely drive the assessments you conduct over the course of

the curriculum. Remember that the assessments you select must align with

the standards, outcomes, goals, and objectives; if they do not, then something

must change. In addition, if you have a student on an individualized

education plan (IEP) or 504 plan or have a student with a special learning

need that has not been legally identified but who could benefit from having

modifications to an assessment, you should include the modified assessments

in your unit plan.

How a teacher will assess student learning is an important component of a

unit and lesson plan.

5. Management Plan

An important component of planning a unit (and lesson plan) is establishing a

management plan that sets the stage for the rules, routines, and expectations

(RREs) that students are expected to follow in physical education. A

management plan, both for the overall unit and the individual lesson, should

include the rules and routines as well as consequences and rewards necessary

to engage students in a supportive and positive learning environment. The

difference between a unit and lesson management plan is that you might have

rules and routines specific to the unit. For example, if you are using the

parachute in a unit on force or levels, you must create a rule so that students

do not climb on top of the parachute. When teaching badminton or volleyball,

instruct students to walk around the nets and identify where and how you

want them to gather, use, and return equipment. Because a management plan

is created to establish a safe and positive learning environment, include safety

and emergency procedures.

6. Content Analysis or Content Map

A content analysis or content map is all the content considered necessary for

students to learn the unit goals and objectives across all three learning

domains (i.e., psychomotor, cognitive, affective). Content can include skill

progressions, on-the-ball skills, off-the-ball movements, tactics, strategies,

biomechanical principles, cooperation, safety, and many others. In the

psychomotor domain, include the critical elements associated with a skill or

movement that you intend to teach students during instruction. You might

even design your content analysis or map using task progressions from

simple to complex. Include a diverse and potentially comprehensive list of

content that you will teach over the course of the unit. This list will give you

the big picture of what you need to include at some point during the unit, but

not until the block plan do you begin to identify where and when you will

teach that content.

7. Block Plan

A block plan is a detailed outline of what you intend to teach each day of the

unit. In the block plan, for each lesson, identify the specific National

Standards and outcomes, unit or lesson goals and objectives, and the specific

content that you intend to teach. If you are using a curriculum model to frame

your unit (examples are discussed in chapter 11), identify the unique

characteristics of the model you intend to use in your instruction. At the end

of the block plan, describe how you will assess student learning within each

lesson, which you can do formally or informally.

An important factor to consider when developing a block plan is to make sure

that the content of each lesson progresses from one lesson to the next and that

the lessons connect with one another. A block plan also allows you the

opportunity to shift lessons around based on students’ learning needs. For

example, when teaching invasion games, physical education teachers often

focus on the offensive side of the ball and forget how important it is to teach

defense. Suppose that you are teaching an eight-day unit on basketball and

planned to teach defense in lesson 5. You notice after your first or second

lesson that something is not right with the students’ performance. You have

an ah-ha moment when you notice that they are not playing any defense.

Instead of waiting until lesson 5, you can move up your defensive lesson to

occur sooner.

8. Instructional Materials

Instructional materials include anything that you use or intend to use in your

instruction to support student learning, such as teaching cues or critical

elements on posters, task cards, league schedules, team warm-ups, a white

board to record the instant activity of the day, digital images for

demonstrations, and many others. Developing instructional materials takes

time, but if you can help guide your students in their learning and be more

responsible for their learning, then in the end it is worth it. You can be

creative in this area and use a variety of technological tools.

9. Resources

Ideally, you will use a variety of resources to develop your unit of instruction,

including textbooks, online resources, research or practitioner-based articles,

personal communication with faculty and physical education teachers, and

other resources you found useful. These resources are important not only to

help guide your planning but also to support it. When using resources of any

kind, always seek permission and cite the source; that is, give credit where

credit is due. Plagiarism and copyright infringement are illegal—you may not

present someone else’s work as your own. You can use other people’s work;

you just need to secure permission and identify where you got the

information. If you used Children Moving (Graham, Holt/Hale, and Parker,

2012), then include the reference in your resource list. If you grabbed an

activity off PE Central (2015), then include the web link in your resource list.

Key Points

Unit planning comes before lesson planning. Units of instruction are the

big picture of what will be taught from start to finish based on a

particular content, concept, or theme, over a selected number of

consecutive lessons (at least two).

A unit plan includes nine components: needs assessment, standards and

outcomes, unit goals and objectives, assessment plan, management plan,

content analysis or content map, block plan, instructional materials, and

resources.

Planning for Instruction


Creating an equitable, safe, comfortable, and positive learning

environment is your responsibility as a physical educator. You can

take many steps to make that happen, for all students, in every class.

Does this mean that you will meet the needs of all students? Maybe

not, but you should certainly make every attempt to do so. As you

learned throughout this chapter, developing detailed unit and lesson

plans before you deliver any instruction is important. One of the first

steps you will take in creating an equitable and safe environment is

planning for one. Here are a few examples for you to consider as you

begin to formulate your own unit and lesson plans.

Formulating groups or groupings of students can be a challenge. Do

you let the students pick their partners or groups? Do you select the

groups? If you let the students pick, will you have any stipulations or

criteria about how they develop them (e.g., does it matter if they

formulate a group that is all boys or all girls)? Will you have specific

criteria if you create the groups (e.g., mixed ability grouping, mixed

gender, and so on). When having students work together in physical

education, consider not only their behavior and ability to interact

socially and work together with one another (connecting to Standards

4 and 5) but also issues of gender and ability. This example is only

one of the issues to consider when developing your management plan.

As discussed earlier, you will have to identify all students and groups

of students for whom you need to plan to make modifications so that

all students in the class have equal opportunity to learn and be

successful. You may have to develop extensions to pose a greater

challenge for your higher-skilled students as well as formulate

simplifications to break down the skill into simpler steps for students

of lower ability. Within this same category, you need to identify and

make modifications for any students who have special learning needs,

especially if they have physical limitations (being sure to adhere to

IEPs and 504 plans), speak English as a second language (ESL), or

come from a different culture (for example, you are planning to teach

a dance lesson on social dances or mixers, which requires students to

hold hands, but it is not acceptable for girls of a particular culture to

do so). Having access to students’ IEPs and 504 plans will assist in

your planning, but when developing unit and lesson plans, you will

have to attempt to get to know your students so that you can be sure

you are providing the appropriate accommodations to meet the needs

of all your students.

Lesson Planning

A lesson plan is the detailed plan you develop for each class meeting with the

students. Before you learn about what needs to be included in a lesson plan,

what do you think needs to be considered when you are teaching students at

the elementary, middle, or high school level? What needs to be included in a

lesson plan? As a preservice or beginning teacher, you will quickly learn that

a lot goes into planning just one lesson, never mind trying to plan all that you

want to include in an entire unit of instruction. For that reason, many

instructors in physical education teacher education programs teach how to

write and plan an individual lesson before they teach how to develop a unit of

instruction, even though the process is backward. Sometimes teachers think

that they have certain aspects of their lessons in their heads and therefore do

not need to record those elements on paper. As you will soon learn, however,

if you have not already, when you are on the gym floor in front of students,

the process can break down. Your mind can become boggled with 101 things,

and you forget many of the thoughts you had as you planned and prepared for

the lesson. Alternatively, changing circumstances can require you to adapt.

For these and other reasons, you need to develop detailed lesson plans to

guide the instruction and assessment you will deliver to your students.

As with the unit plan, a lesson plan format is provided, although your

instructors might use a different or modified version. That’s OK! Regardless

of the format, a lesson plan should include standards and learning outcomes

or objectives, a management plan, detailed lesson content, and assessment of

student learning. This lesson plan format includes the following components

(see the example in figure 9.2 or the customizable lesson-planning template

in the web resource):

1. Lesson focus

2. Learning objectives and standards

3. Teacher goals

4. Management plan

5. Equipment needs

6. Resources

7. Instructional and activity tasks

8. Modifications

9. Teaching cues and questioning

10. Organization of tasks

11. Closure

12. Assessment

The format is extensive, but after you have some practice planning and

teaching lessons, much of this will become easier. The goal is not to

overwhelm you but to prepare you to be a quality physical education teacher.

1. Lesson Focus

The lesson focus is the emphasis of your lesson for that day. Are you

teaching second grade students how to dodge and flee, seventh graders how

to advance the runner in softball by hitting to the opposite side of the field, or

ninth graders how to develop SMART goals and an exercise plan? The key

with the lesson focus is to be specific. You don’t want to state just “softball.”

That term may tell you the unit focus, but it does not indicate the specific

content or concepts you intend to teach for the individual lesson. How you

identify the lesson focus sets the tone for the rest of your lesson plan. The

more specific you are with the lesson focus, the more specific and detailed

you will be throughout the remainder of the lesson plan.

2. Learning Objectives and Standards

By now, you know that standards should drive a physical education

curriculum, unit of instruction, and now individual lesson plans. In a lesson

plan, you write learning objectives, similar to unit goals and objectives, that

are specific to what you want students to learn by the end of the lesson. You

should write out the learning objectives (which can be completed for any or

all of the three learning domains) and specifically identify the National

Standard and Grade-Level Outcomes to demonstrate the alignment among the

three. Whether you write out the full standard and grade-level outcome or

abbreviate in parentheses will be up to your instructor.

3. Teacher Goals

Without goals and objectives, a lesson does not have a purpose or direction,

which is why learning objectives, along with the standards and outcomes,

guide all the planning. So if creating goals and objectives is important for

students, what about you as a teacher? Preservice and beginning teachers

should have goals that they want to accomplish by the end of a lesson. You

should develop one management and one instructional goal to focus on in a

lesson; having more than two goals might be too difficult to accomplish, and

one of your goals is to be successful. An example of a management goal is to

decrease the transition time from one activity to the next by 10 seconds. A

teacher goal for instruction can be to provide 15 specific feedback comments

to individual students. You should include criteria as part of the goal so that

you can collect data and measure whether you accomplished your goal or not.

This element will not be feasible with all goals, but it will be with many.

4. Management Plan

An effective teacher develops a sound management plan and implements it

consistently with every class. Effective and efficient class management

allows more student learning to occur. As you plan your lesson, you want to

establish rules, routines, and expectations (RREs) and identify specific

routines for equipment, space, and people (ESPs) for your students. For

RREs, you need to select the rules you want to establish within your physical

education class, as well as clear consequences and rewards for breaking or

following the rules. Students need to be aware of the rules, consequences, and

rewards so that they understand your actions and decisions associated with

their behaviors.

For ESPs, you must determine how much equipment you need, what type of

space you will be teaching in, and how you will configure the students within

that space. With equipment, you need to establish routines for how equipment

is distributed, how it is gathered, and what students should do when they are

not supposed to use the equipment (e.g., when they have a ball in their hands

and you are giving them instructions). In regard to space and people, how

many groups or pairs can fit in a given space? How will they transition from

one space to another? Ultimately, the number of students influences the

decisions you make about space. You might also include other protocols here,

such as when and how you want students to start and stop their engagement

in activity.

5. Equipment Needs

In this section, you list all the equipment you intend to use throughout the

lesson. Alongside each item, include how many you need. Be specific,

especially if you are a preservice teacher and plan to borrow equipment from

your college or university. For example, simply writing “cones” does not tell

anyone whether you need small, medium, or large cones. Another example

would be “gator balls”; well, gator balls come in a variety of sizes. So the

size, type, length, amount, and so on are all important when creating an

equipment list. You might include a few more than needed in case something

breaks or ends up in the bleachers. Don’t forget such equipment as writing

implements, pedometers, volleyball nets and poles, music, and so forth.

6. Resources

The resource section in a lesson plan is the same as that in the unit plan; you

want to list and cite all the resources you used to inform your planning.

Particularly in the early stages of lesson planning, you may want to explain

how the resources guided your planning and ultimately your instruction. This

second part is not necessary, but your instructor may require you to include

such an explanation. This process will help you connect theory (i.e., the

textbook and research literature) that you learn in the classroom to the

practical setting.

Unit and Lesson Planning


How do you select your units of instruction for your

program? Why?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Units are

selected by our curriculum and by the equipment we have. These of

course follow the National Standards from SHAPE America. Every

unit and every lesson I teach follows the National Standards and best

practices for physical education.

What steps do you take and what factors do you consider

when planning units and lessons?


Equipment, national standards, best practices are all the factors I

consider.


Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Know

your curriculum and have training in that curriculum. You want to

make sure you are looking at all students’ learning and that some

lessons will need to be adapted for certain students. Stay true to the

best practices and follow those.

7. Instructional and Activity Tasks

Now you start planning the actual instruction—the what and how—of the

content you will teach your students over the course of a lesson. In this

section, include all the instructional and activity tasks in the order in which

you intend to teach so that the lesson has a flow. For example, if you start the

lesson with a set induction, instant activity, or warm-up exercises, you should

include all the content and information associated with that task or activity in

the first box in this section of the lesson plan. Then, proceed to the next task

or activity and follow the same format. Some preservice and beginning

teachers like to include a script (i.e., what you will actually say to students),

which will be up to you or your instructor. The content and information

section refers to a detailed description of how you will teach the task or

activity, what the students are being asked to do, and any goals, conditions, or

criteria associated with the task or activity. Within this section, include

transition statements from one task to the next until you become more

comfortable, confident, and consistent with your management. Before you

move on to the next section of the lesson plan, check to make sure that your

instructional and activity tasks (i.e., content) are aligned with the standards,

outcomes, and learning objectives.

8. Modifications for Differentiation

As you sit down to develop a lesson plan, base it on the National Standards

and Grade-Level Outcomes (SHAPE America, 2014), which guide you about

what students should know and be able to do. But with any unit or lesson

plan, no one size fits all. You will quickly learn that not all students are alike

and not all students have the same ability level. In a content area that focuses

on the psychomotor domain, plan for a variety of abilities in your class by

making modifications for your students. Modifications are adjustments you

make either to extend an activity to make it more challenging or to simplify

an activity to make it easier. For example, if the goal of your underhand toss

task is for students to toss two out of three beanbags into a hula hoop from a

distance of 10 feet (3 m), consider extending the distance to 12 feet (4 m) or

creating a smaller target for students who achieve the initial goal and need a

greater challenge. For students who are struggling, do the opposite by

shortening the distance so that they, too, can achieve the goal. Know that this

is only one example of how to modify a task.

If you have students in your class who have an individualized education plan

(IEP) or 504 designation, identify modifications to implement for those

students so that they can be successful in the task or activity. Novice teachers

who are concerned about teaching to the plan, making sure that students

behave and stay on task, and using appropriate teaching behaviors often

struggle to make modifications for all students who need them, especially if

they do not know the students well. For that reason, you should plan as many

modifications as you can think of in case you need them during the task or

activity. Even if you do not use the modifications that you planned, you are

developing a bag of tricks—tools that you may need in the future if a certain

situation arises.

9. Teaching Cues and Questioning

Critical elements or teaching cues were not included in the section on

instructional and activity tasks. These critical elements and teaching cues

should have their own column so that they are easy for you to identify when

you review your lesson before teaching or need to take a quick peek during

the lesson. The critical elements and teaching cues you identify will assist in

providing specific and focused feedback to students. For example, if you are

teaching the overhead clear in badminton, you want to establish a few

teaching cues, such as extend the racquet back, make contact at the highest

point, and follow through. Then, when students are hitting the overhead clear

back and forth to one another as many times in a row as possible, you can

inform them, globally or individually, to make sure they are making contact

at the highest point if the shuttle is landing into the net and not in the back

section of the court.

You also want to include any questions you will ask students in addition to

the critical elements and teaching cues. This might be a check for

understanding: “Who will start the overhead clear activity? How many times

in a row do you perform the overhead clear? What do you do with the

equipment when I blow my whistle?” Or, if you are using the tactical games

model (Mitchell, Oslin, and Griffin, 2013), you might pose these questions to

students after a 1v1 game: “Where are the available spaces on the court?

Where is it hardest for your opponent to attack you (front or back)? Where do

you want to send your opponent? Is it easier to send your opponent back by

using an overhead or underhand shot?” Asking questions can be a

challenging task for preservice and beginning teachers, so including them in

your lesson plan will help you include them in your instruction.

10. Organization of Tasks

The organization of the gymnasium, especially when implementing a variety

of instructional tasks and activities, is important for increasing the efficiency

of transitions and maximizing academic learning time (Siedentop,

Tousignant, and Parker, 1982). To guide you through this process, you should

include a diagram or description of each instructional or activity task (see an

example on the web resource). Within this diagram or description, include

how the tasks are set up, where you want the students to be, how they will

rotate if that is part of the task, and so on. A diagram or description allows

you to see how the task might look, giving you time to make adjustments if

necessary. Early on, you will want to include diagrams to indicate where you

want your students to sit and where you are going to position yourself when

you are providing instruction. The idea is for you to visualize how you want

your gymnasium to look, from start to finish of the lesson, from one

instructional task or activity to the next.

11. Closure

At the end of each lesson, save enough time, at least one or two minutes, to

wrap up, or close, the lesson. During this time, review the content that you

taught in the lesson, ask students the scores of their games for league

standings, learn whether students met the goal or criteria of the task or

activity, provide class feedback and suggestions, and connect what was

taught and learned in the lesson with upcoming lessons. Some teachers like to

include an informal assessment during closure to gain some sense of what

students learned during the lesson. When you first start teaching, you will

have no idea what a 30-minute elementary lesson or 45-minute middle school

lesson will feel like in regard to pace and flow. You may become so caught

up in teaching that you lose sight of time (time management is another

characteristic of effective teaching). You will have to hustle your students to

get in line to go back to class or send them off to the locker rooms to change

without any wrap-up or closure. If you have ever experienced this situation as

a beginning teacher or student, then you know that being in a rushed state

leaves a feeling of being disconnected with the lesson. Explicitly planning for

the closure allows everyone involved to leave the lesson with a positive

feeling.

12. Assessment

Every lesson should include some form of assessment to check whether

students have learned and, ultimately, whether they met the learning

objectives and outcomes identified at the beginning of the lesson plan. You

cannot implement a formal assessment for every lesson because you would

have no time for instruction, but you should find some way to assess whether

student learning occurred, whether through question and answer, group

demonstrations of a skill or movement, or an exit slip. For some lessons you

can conduct an assessment that is more formal, such as a Game Performance

Assessment Instrument (Mitchell, Oslin, and Griffin, 2013), performance of a

dance routine, or a skill or movement checklist. Initially, your cooperating

teachers and instructors will guide you about what kind of assessment is

needed, but as a beginning teacher, you will use the curriculum map and unit

plan to guide what kind of assessment to include in each lesson. One last

reminder is to make sure that your assessment aligns instructionally with the

standards, outcomes, objectives, and content that you have identified and

planned for throughout the lesson plan.

Key Points

A lesson plan is the detailed plan you develop for each class meeting

you have with the students within the unit of instruction.

A lesson plan includes lesson focus, learning objectives and standards,

teacher goals, management plan, equipment needs, resources,

instructional and activity tasks, modifications, teaching cues and

questioning, organization of tasks, closure, and assessment.

Summary

Planning is a critical aspect of being a physical educator and offering students

a quality physical education program. As a physical educator, you will be

involved with planning at the curriculum, unit, and lesson levels. This chapter

has focused on how to develop unit and lesson plans. In the long term, you

want to develop unit plans—looking at the big picture—before you formulate

individual lesson plans. But preservice teachers first learn how to write a

lesson plan before they create a comprehensive unit plan. Both types of plans

include detailed and important information that will guide you in providing

quality instruction to your students. With all planning, instructional alignment

must be present among the standards and outcomes, goals and objectives,

content and instruction, and assessment of student learning. You now have

the components and characteristics of what is needed in unit and lesson plans.

Now you are ready to start planning your own units of instruction and

individual lessons!

Review Questions

1. What are the various components in a unit plan? Lesson plan?

2. What factors need to be considered with each component in a unit plan?

Lesson plan?

3. What are some examples for each component of the unit or lesson plan

for content at the elementary, middle, or high school level?

4. What aspects of a unit and lesson plan need to have instructional

alignment?



web resource at


Chapter 10

Planning Developmentally

Appropriate Content

Learning Objectives


Understand and be aware of three types of knowledge for

teachers: content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and

pedagogical content knowledge.

Describe the three learning domains and connect the learning

domains with the National Standards.

Explain a variety of ways to learn about students’ prior

knowledge and experiences.

Sequence content within a unit of instruction and develop task

progressions in an individual lesson plan.

Explain the importance of modifying content to meet the needs

of all learners and provide examples of how physical educators

can modify content within a lesson.

Identify social justice issues that need to be considered when

planning developmentally appropriate content in units of

instruction and lesson plans.

Key Terms

affective domain

cognitive domain

content knowledge

pedagogical content knowledge

pedagogical knowledge

psychomotor domain

task progression

three phases of movement

How do you know what to plan for your 2nd, 7th, or 10th grade students?

Where do you begin? How do you select developmentally appropriate

content for students in a specific grade level? This chapter provides

information that will help you respond to these questions and ultimately be

able to plan developmentally appropriate content for all students in physical

education. Too many physical education teachers simply “roll out the ball.”

Some teachers offer no instruction or content, play games only, play the

infamous dodgeball, or provide instruction that is too challenging or too easy

for most students in the class. By the end of this chapter, you will understand

why dodgeball is not appropriate content to teach students and how you can

identify developmentally appropriate content to teach at the elementary,

middle, and high school levels. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work, so

this chapter provides information that will help guide your decision making

as you plan equitable learning opportunities for all students in your classes.

Types of Knowledge

Before learning about how to plan developmentally appropriate content for

students, you will benefit from reviewing the various types of knowledge you

will gain as a preservice or beginning teacher, focusing on three: content

knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), and pedagogical content

knowledge (PCK), which are based on Shulman’s (1987) seven categories of

knowledge base for teachers. Shulman (1987) developed these knowledge

categories because he believed that content and pedagogy were being treated

as mutually exclusive domains and that teacher education programs should

combine the two knowledge bases to prepare teachers more effectively.

Content knowledge (CK) is the “what” of teaching, or the “knowledge about

the subject matter to be taught” (Metzler, 2011, p. 46). Content knowledge in

physical education can include knowledge about a variety of sports and

games, fitness, outdoor pursuits, dance, gymnastics, locomotor movements,

manipulative and nonmanipulative skills, track and field, aquatics, tactics and

strategies, problem solving, creating, fair play and good sporting behavior,

among many others. As a student in a teacher licensure program, you are

developing your content knowledge specific to a particular subject matter,

physical education. Many of you will also have developed content knowledge

as sport players, physical movers, and coaches. Content knowledge in

physical education provides an academic language in the field, making a

physical education program unique in schools. Teachers need to develop both

breadth and depth of content knowledge so that they can proficiently plan,

instruct, provide feedback, and assess student performance.

Pedagogical knowledge (PK) includes the “how” of teaching in general, or

the “knowledge about teaching methods that pertain to all subjects and

situations” (Metzler, 2011, p. 46). As you take methods or practicum courses,

such as the one you might be in right now, have field experiences working

with students, student teach, and, most important, when you obtain a teaching

position, you will develop and increase your pedagogical knowledge. Across

content areas, PK may include how to plan a unit and individual lessons,

manage a class, provide quality instruction (much is included in delivering

quality instruction alone!), and assess student learning. This list might appear

short, but you learned from the previous chapter that a lot goes into planning

a lesson (much of which is based on your content knowledge) and even more

goes into giving quality instruction. Specific to physical education,

pedagogical knowledge includes knowing how to transition students from

one activity or task to the next, demonstrating a skill and practice task,

providing feedback to students, grouping students, managing equipment,

space, and people, and so on. Gaining this pedagogical knowledge will bring

you closer to the goal of becoming an effective physical education teacher.

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is the “how and what” of teaching,

or the “knowledge about how to teach a subject or topic to specific groups of

students in a specific context” (Metzler, 2011, p. 46). Gaining PCK takes

time and experience. Methods students go into elementary, middle, and high

schools for field experiences to develop their pedagogical knowledge and, in

some instances, their content knowledge as well. But they do not develop

much PCK because they do not know the students or have a sound

understanding of the school context. A teacher who has PCK can adjust

content and pedagogy with a whole class, small groups, and individual

students. For example, you may recognize a few students struggling with a

particular task, so you develop a different practice task that you did not

previously plan to help improve their performance. You had to have the PK

to recognize that students needed assistance beyond going over the critical

elements with them, and you also had to have the content knowledge to be

able to change the task on the spot. Ultimately, the blending of CK and PK

creates the most optimal and developmentally appropriate learning

experiences for all students.

Key Points

Content knowledge (CK) is the “what” of teaching, or the knowledge

about the subject matter to be taught.

Pedagogical knowledge (PK) includes the “how” of teaching in general,

or the knowledge about teaching methods that pertain to all subjects and

situations.

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is the “how and what” of

teaching, or the knowledge about how to teach a subject or topic to

specific groups of students in a specific context.

Plan Developmentally Appropriate Content


What do you think about games and activities such as dodgeball,

prison ball, climbing a rope, or elimination games (e.g., certain tag

games)? Were you successful in such activities in your own physical

education classes? Did you think they were fun? Why? Do you still

think the same way? How do you think the other students in your

class felt when doing the same activities? As you learn the standards,

outcomes, and assessments, you will certainly notice that those

activities do not belong in a standards-based, quality physical

education program. Thus, they are not considered developmentally

appropriate content in physical education. You might have been

successful in such activities, but students who are not as skillful

become immediate and easy targets and are often bullied, increasing

the risk of their being embarrassed and disengaging from physical

education. The goal is to provide positive and safe learning

opportunities for all students. Offering the activities listed earlier,

among many others, does not accomplish this important goal in

physical education.

You have to be thoughtful in the content you select to teach your

students and the way that you go about delivering that content. As

you develop unit and lesson plans, ask yourself these questions: Have

I developed any games or tasks that could eliminate any students?

Use students as physical targets? Put students on public display?

Expose or emphasize body size or physical limitations? How would

someone who is overweight or obese feel about engaging in such and

such activity? Will students for whom English is their second

language (ESL) be able to understand and be involved? Have I made

any gender or race biases in the content I selected (e.g., girls

participate in dance or fitness while boys play football)? Ultimately,

is my content not only developmentally appropriate but also equitable

for all students in my physical education class? If the answer to any

of these questions is no, then you must make changes to your

planning before you teach such content to provide equitable learning

opportunities for all students in your class. Considering all students’

needs and making modifications for a variety of groups of students or

individual students might seem like a daunting task, and getting to

know your students and gain experience will certainly take time. But

this is the commitment you make when you obtain a teaching license

and step into the position of a physical education teacher.

Standards, Outcomes, and Assessments

This text has consistently stated that unit and lesson planning must be driven

by the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes (SHAPE America,

2014) and, for some, by national (i.e., National Association for Sport and

Physical Education, 2010, 2011; SHAPE America, forthcoming) and state

(e.g., Ohio, South Carolina) assessments. If you have not purchased National

Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE

America, 2014), you should. The National Standards text, as outlined in part

II, contains specific and clear Grade-Level Outcomes that students should

know and be able to do by the end of that grade level for each standard. If

you are in a field experience or are a beginning teacher at the elementary

level, you will want to know how to differentiate content in Standard 1 for

every outcome for each grade. For example, one of the Standard 1 outcomes

is for students to learn how to jog and run. Do you think that the expectations

are the same for students in kindergarten and fifth grade? What about

kindergarteners and second graders? The simple answer to both questions is

no, because students should progress year after year with their motor skills

and movement patterns. The same is true for middle school students’

cognitive knowledge about how to create space with offensive tactics in

invasion games; the expectation for sixth graders will be different from that

for eighth graders. Ideally, students will gain new knowledge year after year

that they can apply to various practice and game contexts.

Providing modifications to meet the needs of all students should be included

in the planning and instruction of physical education. Teachers need to be

sure to meet the needs of students’ IEPs and 504 plans.

Learning Domains

In the two examples in the previous section, the elementary example was

based on Standard 1 and the middle school example was focused on Standard

2. Although physical education focuses on the physical, the National

Standards are developed across three learning domains: psychomotor,

cognitive, and affective (see table 10.1). The psychomotor domain is about

doing; it is the physical aspect of what students should be able to perform in

physical education, and it aligns specifically with Standard 1 and aspects of

Standard 3. Examples include students’ ability to perform an overhand throw,

a jump shot in basketball, and a yoga or dance routine. These examples are a

small sampling, of course, of what students may be asked to develop in

regard to their psychomotor performance.

The cognitive domain centers on thinking, or knowledge and understanding

of a variety of concepts, principles, strategies, and tactics related to

movement and performance (SHAPE America, 2014), which aligns with

Standard 2 as well as some outcomes in Standard 3. Students may be able to

perform a bounce pass in basketball but not know when to use a bounce pass

versus a chest pass or how to move to open space to receive a pass so that the

defense cannot deflect or intercept it. In this basketball example, students

need to understand how to perform several critical elements to produce a

successful bounce pass as well as know how to create space to elude a

defender. These two distinct cognitive examples are both important for

students to learn in physical education. Because all the fitness and physical

activity content is in Standard 3 (meaning that the cognitive content for

fitness and physical activity is in Standard 3, not in Standard 2), students

need to understand a variety of cognitive concepts in relation to fitness and

physical activity, such as various training principles (e.g., FITT, overload,

progression), and know how to perform a squat or chest press or how to

develop a personal exercise plan.

The affective domain, the third learning domain, centers on feelings,

emotions, and behavior. The affective domain relates directly to Standard 4,

which is about personal and social behavior, as well as Standard 5 in regard

to valuing physical activity. The affective domain is sometimes overlooked in

a physical education curriculum, but if students do not have appropriate

behavior, respect themselves and others, and follow the rules, learning in the

psychomotor and cognitive domains will be difficult. As discussed in

chapters 7 and 8, it is important to create explicit learning opportunities to

teach students how to be respectful of all people, how to navigate conflict,

and how to be open and accepting of one another’s differences.

Students’ Prior Knowledge and Experiences

The section about unit planning in chapter 9 suggested that you conduct a

needs assessment to find out and explain why it is important to teach a

particular unit focus or content to students. A major factor in implementing a

needs assessment is to learn about the students’ prior knowledge and

experiences with that content, whether it occurred in physical education class,

on a sport team, or in the community. When determining developmentally

appropriate content to teach students at a specific grade level, you need to

know what they have already learned across all three learning domains and

the five National Standards. Finding out this information before you plan

your unit of instruction is critical, because you do not want to reteach the

same thing year after year, which would deprive students of additional

learning opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills or cause them to

become bored. On the flip side, you do not want to teach content that is too

difficult, which would cause many students to fail. Conducting a

preassessment, talking with students, talking with cooperating teachers or

your coworkers (if you are a beginning teacher), looking at the entire physical

education curriculum for the school district, and researching sport and

physical activity opportunities in the community will provide you with

valuable information about what students have experienced in relation to

physical education content.

Developmentally Appropriate Content


How do you modify content to meet the needs of all of

your students?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): I am

fortunate to work in a school district that has paraprofessionals who

do an excellent job in helping adapt the activity for those students

who need extra help with activities. They do a great job of keeping

students moving.

What challenges do you encounter in your attempt to

educate students of mixed abilities in the same class?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Part of

the social and responsible behavior model that I use (Hellison model)

helps students learn. Expectations are to work willingly with

everyone in a group. The principle is to make yourself and those

around you better. Using small groups also helps with this. This

doesn’t work every time, but students know the expectation and

hopefully we reinforce it. For example, if we are playing a game that

involves a ball or object, one rule might be that everyone has to touch

the ball before anyone can score. Or we play the kindness scoring

game: For as many passes that you make, those are the points you get

if you score. (If you make five passes in a row and make the basket or

goal, you score five points.)


Jennifer Sferra , Leighton Elementary School (Aurora, Ohio): I

modify content to meet the needs of all of my students (which, by the

way, is one of the most challenging tasks for me as a teacher, but

when I do, it is so rewarding for both the student and me). The first

thing I do is think about my students and the range of abilities—not

just the lower-ability students but my higher-ability group as well. I

tend to make a chart with a variety of modifications and extensions,

from minor changes to more drastic changes. I also do not stick to one

method of modification and extension but look for different

equipment that can be used, distances (how close to the target), and

rule changes that can be implemented to challenge students or reduce

the challenge for other students. Sometimes a challenge for a student

can be to remember to incorporate all players. I think the biggest

challenge that I have encountered when trying to educate a mixedability

group is to make the adaptations subtle (an overt adaptation

might embarrass a student). I have found that this task is easier during

practice tasks than in game play. For example, have students perform

a task successfully a certain number of times and then move on to a

more challenging task when he is ready. This is one aspect in the gym

where I believe that you must plan ahead—do not just wing it. My

advice to other physical educators is to ask for input from other

teachers, special education teachers, parents, physical therapists, and

even research and other resources.

Sequencing of Content and Task

Progressions

After you have determined the unit focus and content in which you are going

to teach, you are ready to sequence the content across a unit of instruction.

The block plan that you developed in your unit plan allows you to sequence

content from start to finish of the unit. You should connect content taught

from one lesson to the next so that the content flows and does not appear

disconnected. Most often, this sequencing should go from simple to complex,

based on a logical progression of what students need to develop their game,

activity, or concept knowledge and performance. This idea applies to all

learning domains. For example, in a unit of instruction on basketball, you will

likely teach lessons early on in the unit that focus on maintaining possession

of the basketball (e.g., triple threat, passing, dribbling), creating space (e.g.,

cuts, picks), attacking the basket (e.g., shooting), and defending space (e.g.,

person-to-person, zone). In your block plan of a 10-day unit, you might have

identified where and when you would teach those concepts and skills, but

after seeing students’ performance, you might have to shift content foci

around. For example, you may have intended to teach a lesson on give-andgo,

but your students are still having difficulty with passing and moving to

open space. Thus, you need to provide more learning opportunities for them

to develop that content first before you move on to something more complex

such as the give-and-go. Learning how to sequence content across a unit of

instruction will take time, but gaining knowledge of your students’ abilities

and experiences and attempting to align your units with the National

Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes will guide you initially until you gain

more teaching experience.

As with sequencing content, at the individual lesson level you need to

develop instructional and activity tasks that progress from simple to complex

and, for most grade levels, end in a game context. The definition of what is

simple and complex can vary based on the content being taught and the

ability and grade level of your students. As a rule of thumb, you want each

activity or task to build from the previous one so that you are slowly

increasing the challenge and complexity of the content, which is called a task

progression (see the “Example Task Progressions” sidebar for examples).

With skill and movement development, you first might have students

practicing with a partner in a stationary position and then change tasks so that

they are on the move. In the third task you might add a defender. Eventually,

you may have them engage in a small-sided game or gamelike activity so that

they have the opportunity to practice the skill of passing in a game context.

Example Task Progressions

Forehand Ground Stroke in Pickleball

Task 1: Students work individually in the same formation as

half-court singles with a paddle and a ball. The student stands in

the middle of the court holding the paddle in his or her dominant

hand, tosses the Wiffle ball in the air, and attempts to strike the

ball and hit it to the other side of the court. Emphasis is on

stepping with opposition, turning the paddle over to initiate the

best contact possible, and following through across the body.

Little focus is given to landing the ball within the court. Each

student executes five hits after first letting the Wiffle ball hit the

ground before striking it. The student then executes five more

hits by hitting the toss out of midair to simulate game conditions.

Task 2: Students work in groups of three—a hitter, feeder, and

retriever. The hitter stands in the middle of the court, and the

feeder stands on the sideline holding five Wiffle balls. The

feeder tosses the Wiffle ball into the air. The hitter must wait for

the ball to bounce once and then strike it over the net. The

retriever gathers all five balls and returns them to the feeder. The

process is repeated, but this time the hitter strikes the Wiffle ball

out of midair. Greater emphasis is placed on making sure that the

Wiffle ball lands within the court. Students rotate from hitter to

feeder to retriever and then back to hitter.

Task 3: The setup used in the previous task is used again. This

time, four hula hoops are placed in various locations on the court

(two in front, two in back). Students try to hit the first 5 Wiffle

balls into one of the two front targets and the second round of 5

Wiffle balls into one of the two targets in the back of the court.

Before the task begins, students set a personal goal (challenging

yet attainable) of how many out of 10 total they believe that they

can land in the desired hula hoop.

Task 4: Students are now in half-court singles play. Conditions

placed on the game allow students to use only forehand ground

strokes. A loss of point occurs if the student uses an overhead

shot or smash. The game is played to seven points.

Introducing Space Awareness (Where the Body Moves)

Progression 1: Moving in Self-Space

Task 1: Simon says game in self-space without traveling (arms

only).

Task 2: Simon says game in self-space without traveling (arms

and legs only).

Task 3: Simon says game in self-space without traveling (all

body parts moving).

Progression 2: Curling, Stretching, and Twisting in Self-

Space

Task 1: Curl your body like a little ball in self-space.

Task 2: Now, after you are all curled up, begin to stretch slowly

until you are stretched as tall and wide as possible.

Task 3: Twist your body as you reach into the cookie jar placed

on your back.

Task 4: Pretend that you have an itch in the middle of your back

that is impossible to reach. Twist your body in various directions

as you attempt to reach the itch. Stretch, curl, and twist body

parts in self-space to scratch the itch.

Progression 3: Moving Whole Body in Self-Space

Task 1: Practice walking in self-space.

Task 2: Practice running, skipping, hopping, jumping, and

turning slowly with different beats in self-space.

When focusing on the psychomotor and cognitive domains (i.e., Standards 1,

2, and parts of 3), you should teach a skill or movement across the three

phases of movement: preparation, execution, and follow-through (Potter and

Johnson, 2007) (see the “Examples of Phases of Movement” sidebar).

Preparation is what people do before they perform the skill or movement,

execution is completing the skill or movement, and follow-through is what

people do after they finish the skill or movement. For each of these phases,

you want to identify the critical elements of the skill or movement that you

intend to teach your students, which usually become your teaching cues. The

three phases of movement and critical elements are where you display your

content knowledge, which will guide your observation of student

performance and the feedback you provide (i.e., pedagogical knowledge and

eventually pedagogical content knowledge).

Examples of Phases of Movement

Overhand Throw

Preparation

Side (i.e., nonthrowing arm or shoulder) points to target.

Execution

Arm is back and extended.

Elbow is at shoulder height.

Elbow leads.

Step with opposite foot as throwing arm moves forward.

Hip and spine rotate as throwing action is executed.

Follow-Through

Follow through toward target and across body.

Adapted, by permission, from SHAPE America, 2014, National standards & grade-level

outcomes for K-12 physical education (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics).

Fielding a Ground Ball

Preparation

Feet are shoulder-width apart.

Knees are bent; balance on your toes.

Glove is low and hands are down.

Face toward the batter.

Be ready to charge when ball is hit.

Execution

Charge the ball.

Get glove down and low.

Spread feet shoulder-width apart; field ball in front of body.

Make sure ball goes into the glove; use two hands.

Be ready to get the ball quickly out of your glove to throw to

first base.

Quickly remove ball from glove.

Point your glove and nonthrowing shoulder at the target you are

throwing to.

Follow-Through

Arm continues down and across body.

As weight is shifted, leg opposite throwing arm continues to step

through.

Eyes remain on target.

You can also develop content progressions for the affective domain, which

aligns with Standards 4 and 5. Physical educators often tell their students to

play like a team, be respectful of one another, show their enjoyment of

movement, and have good sporting behavior, yet they do not give students

learning opportunities to develop those skills. Outline the behaviors you want

your students to perform and provide content progressions so that they learn

how to use those behaviors within the physical education setting.

At times you may plan a sequence of lessons or progression of tasks that do

not seem to be connecting well, or you may see that your students are

struggling or are not challenged enough. In any of these instances, take a step

back, observe your students’ performance, and revise your unit or lesson

plan. Remember that unit and lesson plans are only guides to your planning,

instruction, and assessment of student learning; at times you have to adapt,

modify, or make changes in the moment on the gym floor or with upcoming

lessons within the unit. When you do this, you are enhancing your PCK! The

key is to make sure that the content you select and sequence is aligned with

the standards, outcomes, and objectives you have identified and developed.

Be sure to assess for instructional alignment both during the planning stage

and after you finish teaching. After a lesson is over, simply ask yourself,

“Did my students achieve the objectives I developed for this lesson?” You

may also want to reflect on the following questions: “Were my students

challenged enough? Challenged too much? Were they successful? How can I

get them to be more successful (if they were not)? How do I know?”

Key Points

Develop instructional and activity tasks that progress from simple to

complex and, for most grade levels, end in a game context.

In a task progression, each activity or task builds from the previous one

to produce a gradual increase in the challenge and complexity of the

content.

Identify critical elements in all three phases of movement: preparation,

execution, and follow-through.

Modifying Content

Making modifications to the instruction you provide is crucial to meeting the

needs of all students. As discussed in chapter 9, you need to develop

modifications for every practice task within a progression. This means more

than providing learning tasks that go from simple to complex. Within each

task, you have to include ways to make the task more challenging for

students who meet the goal for the task and ways to make the task easier for

students who struggle to meet the criteria.

Modifying the content based on students’ ability is one aspect of modifying

content; another is to make sure you are meeting the requirements for

students with an individual education plan (IEP) or 504 plan (United States

Department of Civil Rights Division, 2014). All licensed teachers are

required to adhere to the modifications included in these plans. As a

preservice or beginning teacher, this information might not be provided to

you, so you need to learn whether students in your classes have such a plan.

You can then work with their classroom teachers and teacher aides to learn

more about their learning needs so that you can modify the content

accordingly. The range of special learning needs is vast, so you should

consider taking adapted physical education courses in your teacher licensure

program, obtaining an adapted endorsement if your institution or one in your

area offers it, or attending workshops and conferences to enhance your

professional development. As a physical educator, regardless of grade level,

you will teach students with special learning needs. You need to know how to

create equitable learning opportunities for all students.

A major factor in your ability to modify the content is your content and

pedagogical knowledge. The more content knowledge you have, the more

likely it is that you have strategies, activities, and pedagogical tools stored in

your mind that you can use in a given situation even if you did not plan for it.

You are likely more able to provide specific feedback to help students

improve their performance. Pedagogical knowledge is also necessary,

because you need to be able to identify when you need to make

modifications. Beginning teachers usually want to stick to their lesson plans.

They are so focused on what is coming up next that they neglect to focus on

the students’ performance. Modifying content can be challenging, but the

more content knowledge you have and the better prepared you are, the easier

it will become.

Summary

You need to consider many factors in planning developmentally appropriate

content for your students. When planning, be sure you have adequate content

knowledge in the content you intend to teach and reflect on the pedagogical

elements you need to consider to make your lesson successful. The primary

place to start your planning is with National Standards & Grade-Level

Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014). In addition,

learn as much as you can about students’ prior knowledge and experiences.

Teachers can learn a lot from the students themselves! After taking these

initial steps, you can actually start to plan. You want to do this at the unit of

instruction level (i.e., sequencing of content across lessons) and the daily

lesson plan level (i.e., task and content progressions). Remember that a onesize-fits-all

plan is not sufficient. By formulating modifications of

instructional and activity tasks, you will be prepared to meet the learning

needs of all students.

Review Questions

1. What are the three types of knowledge for teachers, developed by

Shulman, discussed in this chapter? How would you describe each of

these to your peers and apply it to your own teaching?

2. What are the three learning domains, and how do they connect with the

National Standards?

3. What are three ways that teachers can learn about students’ prior

knowledge and experiences?

4. What steps will you take to sequence content within a unit of instruction

and develop task progressions within an individual lesson?

5. Why is it important to modify content to meet the needs of all learners,

ranging from those who do not meet expectations to those who exceed

them? How can physical educators modify content within a lesson?

6. What are three social justice issues that need to be considered when

planning developmentally appropriate content in units of instruction and

lesson plans?



web resource at


Chapter 11

Curriculum Models

Learning Objectives


Explain what a curriculum model is and how it can be used

within units of instruction.

Identify and describe the purpose and unique characteristics for

the skill theme approach, personal and social responsibility,

tactical games, sport education, fitness education, adventure

education, outdoor education, and cultural studies models.

Apply various curriculum models when planning units of

instruction and individual lesson plans.

Identify social justice issues that need to be considered when

planning and implementing each of the curriculum models.

Key Terms

adventure education

cultural studies

fitness education

multiactivity curriculum

outdoor education

personal and social responsibility

skill theme approach

sport education

tactical games

Thus far in part III you have learned how to develop units of instruction and

individual lesson plans that are developmentally appropriate for all students

in your physical education classes. Although some connections have been

made to how to teach the content that you planned, the book has yet to focus

on the pedagogical methods and tools you will employ when delivering

instruction, which is the focus of part IV. This chapter on curriculum models

links planning and instruction. You have to decide whether you are going to

use a curriculum model to frame your unit of instruction during the planning

phase, before you teach the unit, because your choice will influence the

decisions you make about content and its sequencing over the course of the

unit and within lessons. Furthermore, how you instruct your classes will be

contingent on whether you are implementing a curriculum model for a

particular unit.

At this point, you might be thinking, “What is a curriculum model?” A

curriculum model is a focused, theme-based framework, or blueprint, about

how you are going to design and deliver a unit of instruction to your students

(Lund and Tannehill, 2015; Metzler, 2011). Numerous factors can influence

which curriculum model you choose to use, such as your philosophy about

physical education, the grade level of students, unit focus, access to

equipment and resources, your content knowledge, the learning domains you

intend to focus on, and, most important, the National Standards and Grade-

Level Outcomes (SHAPE America, 2014) you have selected for the focus of

your unit. Will you teach first graders the same way you teach ninth graders?

Suppose that you are teaching a unit on locomotor movement patterns, rolling

to a target, world dances, basketball, fitness, or orienteering. Would you plan

and deliver instruction in the same way? Would you use a variety of

methods?

As you can see, you have more decisions to make when planning units and

individual lessons in physical education. This chapter provides a brief

overview of the following curriculum models:

Skill theme approach

Personal and social responsibility

Tactical games

Sport education

Fitness education

Adventure education

Outdoor education

Cultural studies

Many curriculum models have been developed in physical education to frame

instruction. The goal here is to provide some insight into each curriculum

model to give you a basic understanding of the purpose and unique

characteristics of each (see table 11.1). Specific resources that provide more

depth into each of the models will be recommended for additional study.

You might be wondering whether you have to use all the curriculum models

or any models at all. The answer to both questions is no. No one will require

you (except maybe your instructors!) to use curriculum models to frame your

instruction. Each of these models, however, offers a deeper sense of purpose

to the instruction provided to students. The hope is that students will become

more motivated and engaged in the content. One physical education program

that is not recommended is the multiactivity curriculum, which offers many

short units of instruction over the course of the quarter, semester, or academic

year. Its goal is to meet the interests of all students. Although offering a

breadth of content opportunities seems on the surface an effective approach,

without a framework or theme to guide instruction, the delivery of content

will be limited at best.

Skill Theme Approach

The skill theme approach, based on Ralph Laban’s movement analysis

framework, is “referred to as the developmental model for curriculum

development” (Holt/Hale, 2015). This approach is used at the elementary

level. Laban emphasized the movement concepts of body awareness, space

awareness, effort, and relationships, which were used as the building blocks

for developing the skill theme approach in the late 1970s. The skill theme

approach is based on movement skills and concepts that can be taught within

a variety of games, sports, gymnastics, and dance (Graham, Holt/Hale, and

Parker, 2012; Holt/Hale, 2015). The approach centers on the psychomotor

and cognitive learning domains and aligns directly with Standards 1 and 2.

As a curriculum model, the skill theme approach focuses on teaching

movement skills and concepts for understanding, mastery, and application,

based on the developmental level of each class and individual student;

developing competency in skills that will lead to a physically active lifestyle;

combining skills and movement concepts; and making connections between

skill acquisition and application (Holt/Hale, 2015). Using this curriculum

model as a framework and theme relieves teachers from having to select

random activities that might be fun, or that foster a “busy, happy, good”

(Placek, 1983) environment, or that teach a variety of sport skills that

eventually lead up to the adult version of the game (Holt/Hale, 2015).

Physical educators implement four phases when using skill themes:

1. Basic skill

2. Combinations

3. Skill in contexts

4. Culminating activity

Basic skill is the mastery and achievement of the critical elements of the skill

and the cognitive understanding of the concept that is developmentally

appropriate for the students (e.g., dribbling in self-space). After students

master the basic skills and critical elements, you advance them to phase 2,

combinations, by adding other skills and concepts to the basic skill (e.g.,

combining dribbling with directions or pathways). The next phase is skill in

contexts, in which the skills, movements, and combinations are performed in

a variety of contexts to enhance learning opportunities for application (e.g.,

dribbling to the beat of the music or against defense). Lastly, you want

students to apply the skill theme and concepts in a culminating event within

the areas of games, sports, dance, and gymnastics. Collectively, a skill theme

progresses from simple to complex, which aligns with the task progressions

illustrated in chapter 10. Refer to Children Moving (Graham, Holt/Hale, and

Parker, 2012) for specific and detailed content on the variety of skill themes

as well as the step-by-step process on how to develop the skill themes across

the four phases.

Key Points

The skill theme approach focuses on developing movement concepts

and skills within a variety of sports, games, gymnastics, and dance.

The four phases to the skill theme approach are basic skill,

combinations, skill in contexts, and culminating event.

Personal and Social Responsibility

The teaching personal and social responsibility (TPSR) model (Hellison,

2011) is based on using sport, exercise, and physical activity as the medium

through which children learn how to take more responsibility for their own

well-being as well as be more sensitive and responsive to the well-being of

others. Don Hellison, a professor in the College of Education at the

University of Illinois at Chicago, who was inspired by his work with

underprivileged children, developed TPSR and is the codirector of the TPSR

Alliance. The focus of personal and social responsibility aligns nicely with

the affective domain, Standard 4, and the specific Grade-Level Outcomes

(SHAPE America, 2014). The model can be implemented across all grade

levels.

Five Levels of TPSR

TPSR is based on five goals, or what many teachers refer to as levels. Similar

to task progressions, the five goals, or levels, move from simple (level I) to

complex (level V) (Hellison, 2011):

1. Respecting the rights and feelings of others (personal responsibility)

2. Effort and cooperation (personal responsibility)

3. Self-direction (personal responsibility)

4. Helping others and leadership (social responsibility)

5. Taking TPSR outside the gym (social responsibility)

The idea of using TPSR is to educate students about each of these levels by

engaging them in a variety of activities that allow them to be personally or

socially responsible. As previously discussed, particularly in relation to the

affective domain, students will not necessarily learn how to be a good

sportsperson or get along with others through osmosis; rather, teachers need

to teach students explicitly about this important content in physical education

settings, which leads into the four themes of TPSR.

Four Themes of TPSR

Most physical education teachers who implement TPSR focus on the five

goals or levels, but as just mentioned, teachers need to use four themes within

their instruction over the course of the quarter, semester, or academic year to

implement the model fully:

1. Integration

2. Transfer

3. Empowerment

4. Teacher–student relationship

Integration means that teachers need to integrate TPSR within lessons that

focus on some form of physical activity. Transfer is probably the most

challenging of the themes, because in many ways it is out of the teacher’s

control. Transfer aligns with level 5 in that students are able to be personally

and socially responsible in contexts other than physical education, whether at

recess or on the playground, on sport teams, at home, or at a friend’s house.

You hope that what you teach students will influence their daily lives both in

and outside school, and being personally and socially responsible is no

different. Empowerment can be challenging for both you and your students,

because you first need to create spaces and opportunities to place students in

an empowering situation where they can make their own choices. Then

students need to be responsible for making appropriate choices about how to

treat themselves and others. Lastly, and ultimately, the most important is the

teacher–student relationship. Establishing rapport and developing a respectful

relationship with your students is exceedingly important and valuable when

trying to establish a safe, positive, and equitable learning environment for all

students. If you are going to educate students to become more responsible,

they need to be sure that they are able to trust you as their teacher and know

that you respect and value them (i.e., lead by example).

Daily Lesson Plan

The daily lesson plan when using TPSR as a curriculum model has five parts:

1. Counseling time

2. Awareness talks

3. Physical activity content

4. Group meetings

5. Reflection time

Counseling time occurs at the beginning or end of the lesson to discuss with

each student possible strengths and areas that need improvement, reminding

them that they are unique and have a voice that matters and that they have the

ability to make decisions (and empower themselves) (Hellison, 2011).

Awareness talks are brief and directly related to the five levels of personal

and social responsibility. As the teacher, you can revisit the five levels or

specifically relate to students their responsibilities for the day’s lesson. The

actual lesson takes up most of the time in physical education class.

Remember that physical activity is the medium through which you integrate

teaching personal and social responsibility; thus, you will focus on instructing

physical education content within a unit of instruction. Toward the end of the

lesson, you will ask students to gather for a group meeting, when you may

discuss how the students felt or how they viewed the lesson. Students may

give feedback on their peers’ performance and behavior throughout the class.

If you are open and feel comfortable, the students can express how they felt

about your instruction and leadership in the lesson (Hellison, 2011). The last

part that students partake in before they are dismissed from class is reflection

time, when they reflect and evaluate themselves based on the five levels of

personal and social responsibility. A simple way to assess all students at the

same time is to ask students to give a thumbs up, down, or sideways as you

state each level. To make it less visible, students can reflect in a journal or on

an exit slip. Many teachers use the five levels as the basis for students’ daily

grade or have students “tap out” to a large poster of the levels as a form of

self-assessment as they leave the gym.

Refer to Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility Through Physical

Activity (Hellison, 2011) if you would like to learn more details and specific

strategies of integrating the five levels and four themes into your daily

lessons in physical education. As with other content, you will have to develop

routines for the various parts of the TPSR model so that students become

accustomed to learning the importance of consistently respecting the rights

and feelings of others, demonstrating effort and cooperation, being selfdirected,

helping others and taking a leadership role, and taking TPSR outside

the gym.

Key Points

TPSR is based on five levels: respecting the rights and feelings of

others, cooperation and effort, self-direction, helping others and

leadership, and taking it outside the gym.

To implement TPSR, you need to integrate four themes with your

lessons: integration, transfer, empowerment, and student–teacher

relationship.

A lesson framed by TPSR has five parts: counseling time, awareness

talks, the lesson, group meetings, and reflection time.

Curriculum Models


What curriculum models do you use to frame your units

of instruction, and why do you select these models?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Currently

I am using two curricula: the SPARK curriculum and Physical Focus.

They are two solid curriculums that are in line with National

Standards. Organizing your classroom is essential. You need to have

procedures in place that are practiced and followed. Students learn

and behave better when they have consistency and know what to

expect.

What are some benefits and challenges you have

encountered when implementing a curriculum model?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): The

benefits are endless. You have lessons and activities already lined out

for you. The challenges are to make sure you have been trained in that

curriculum. Sometimes training and the money for training do not

exist in all school districts.


Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Learn and

believe in your curriculum and know the best practices for physical

education.

Tactical Games Model

The tactical games model (TGM) is used when teaching sport-related games

because it is a problem-solving approach to games teaching. The focus of the

model is the simultaneous development of skills and tactical awareness.

Often, when sport-related games are taught in schools, physical education

teachers organize their lessons with a warm-up, a task progression of skills or

stations that focus on skill development, and then a game, which usually

models the adult version of the game. Although quality instruction might be

provided, students struggle with transferring the skills that were taught in

isolation into the formal game setting where having tactical knowledge and

understanding of the game is critical to success. The goal of TGM is to

increase students’ interest and excitement about games by providing learning

opportunities to develop and improve their skill execution, tactical awareness,

and overall game performance (Mitchell, Oslin, and Griffin, 2013; Wuest and

Fisette, 2014). Unique characteristics of the model include a games

classification system, tactical frameworks, levels of tactical complexity, and

the lesson sequence.

Games Classification System

In many sport-related games, similar tactics can be transferred from one sport

to another, even though the skills are different. Transfer of knowledge can

occur based on the games classification system (Almond, 1986; Mitchell et

al., 2013), which organizes sport-related games into the categories of

invasion games (e.g., basketball, soccer), net and wall games (volleyball,

pickleball), striking and fielding games (softball, cricket), and target games

(golf, bowling). For example, the tactic of attacking another team’s territory

or goal is the same in basketball, soccer, and lacrosse, all of which are

invasion games. If you recently completed a unit of instruction on basketball

and taught students the tactics of how to attack the goal, they should be able

to transfer that knowledge to how to attack the goal in soccer. Because of the

limited time students have in physical education, you need to maximize the

instruction you provide, so transferring knowledge from one game to another

will benefit them. You need to consider this point as you develop a physical

education curriculum and identify the units of instruction that you intend to

teach over the course of the quarter, semester, academic year, or entire grade

band (e.g., middle school).

Tactical Frameworks

A tactical framework allows you to identify the tactics, which in TGM are

called tactical problems, that are relevant for students to learn to improve

their game performance by increasing their tactical awareness and by

developing and executing skills that solve the tactical problem. In staying

with the basketball example, attacking the goal (i.e., basket) is one tactical

problem that can be identified in a tactical framework. What skills or

movements allow students to attack the basket? Your answer to this question

is the solutions—the skills or movements that you are going to teach students

to improve their game performance. Within a tactical framework, you

identify all the tactical problems, on-the-ball skills (skills when in possession

of the ball or implement), and off-the-ball movements (skills or movements

when not in possession of the ball or implement) that you intend to teach

throughout your unit. A tactical framework can be equivalent to, or at least

part of, your content map or analysis in a unit of instruction.

Levels of Tactical Complexity

Chapters 9 and 10 discussed the importance of planning developmentally

appropriate content for all students, which included modifications to

challenge and simplify activities and tasks in unit and lesson plans. In the

TGM, levels of tactical complexity for each sport-related game are

highlighted in Teaching Sport Concepts and Skills (Mitchell et al., 2013)

across all four games classification systems. These levels guide you in

sequencing the tactical problems, off-the-ball movements, and on-the-ball

skills that you intend to teach based on the developmental needs of your

students. For example, in the levels of tactical complexity for soccer, under

the tactical problem of maintaining possession of the ball, level I, the most

basic level, begins with teaching dribbling for control, making short passes,

and controlling the ball with the feet. In level II, students learn how to

support the ball carrier. In level IV, for students who are more advanced

players or are at the high school level, you teach them how to perform long

passes and how to control the ball with the thigh and chest (Mitchell et al.,

2013). Soccer has five levels of tactical complexity, but the number of levels

varies from one sport to the next. The idea is to use the same format in your

selection of content that was suggested with task progressions, going from

simple to complex. Remember, TGM is not only about skill development and

execution but also about enhancing students’ tactical awareness. The hope is

to improve overall game performance.

Lesson Sequence

In the TGM, you should follow a specific lesson sequence if you want to

develop students’ skill acquisition and tactical awareness. The lesson

sequence includes game 1, questioning, practice tasks, and game 2. The

challenge with using this lesson format is the idea that you, the teacher, are

not going to give them all the information. Instead, you want students to

solve the problem and figure out solutions on their own. This method does

not remove you from providing instruction; it’s quite the opposite really, but

you use an indirect approach to teaching rather than a direct style.

Game 1

In physical education, students often ask, “When are we going to play the

game?” If you are using the TGM, you can respond, “Right now!” because

the lesson sequence begins with a modified small-sided game. The idea of

game 1 is to expose the tactical problem by selecting a goal and designing

game conditions that allow students to figure out not only the problem but

also the solution. You already know where you are leading the students, but

students need to know not only how to do a skill (i.e., skill execution) but

also what to do (i.e., tactical awareness). For example, when starting a unit on

badminton, you initially want to teach students about creating space (the

tactical problem). You design the game so that students are playing 1v1 on

only half of a badminton court. The goal of the game is for the students to

become aware of the open spaces on their opponent’s side of the court. The

game conditions are that the players have to alternate service (and can use

any form of serve to get the shuttle over the net) and that they score a point

when the shuttle hits the floor on their opponent’s side, whether they served

or not. After you give them the game goal and conditions, you send them off

to play the game. Students need to play game 1 for only a few minutes, just

long enough to expose the problem and give you time to observe their game

performance.

Questioning

After students play game 1, you call them in and engage in questioning to

learn whether they have solved the problem. In following the badminton

example, you can ask students questions such as these: “Where were the

available spaces on the court? Is it harder for your opponent to attack you

from the front or back? Why? So is it best to send your opponent to the back

or to the front? Is it easier to send your opponent back by using an overhead

shot or an underhand shot?” The last few questions require students to

respond with the right answers. If they do not respond correctly, then you

need to scaffold your questions by retracing the questions about content they

have previously learned and making connections to creating space in

badminton. From the questions listed, were you able to figure out the

solution? Yes, it is the overhead clear. At this point, after students have

figured out the solution, you begin to demonstrate the first practice task. Note

that questioning is the most challenging aspect of the TGM lesson sequence.

Many teachers want to give away the goods by giving students the answers.

Some teachers do this because their content knowledge of the sport or game

is not fully developed. Others want to get quickly into their demonstration of

the practice task, and others simply struggle with asking critical-thinking

questions.

Practice Task(s)

Developing practice tasks in the TGM is no different from designing task

progressions of skills and movements. The progression goes from simple to

complex and ends in a gamelike task so that students have an easier transfer

from the practice setting into the game context. How many practice tasks you

design in your progression depends on the length of the class period as well

as the students’ abilities. In using the badminton lesson sequence of creating

space by pushing the opponent back using the overhead clear, your first

practice task will be for the students to maintain a forehand overhead rally

when they can use only the overhead clear. If they use another shot or the

shuttle hits the ground, they must start over. You can extend this practice task

by introducing the backhand clear (which could also be a completely

different lesson) or progress to using hula hoops as targets in the backcourt so

that students can work on their accuracy and placement of the overhead clear.

Game 2

Game 2 is often the same game as game 1 except that you might add other

conditions to increase students’ motivation to use the skill or movement they

just practiced. The goal of the game is for students to use a skillful overhead

clear to push the opponent back. The game conditions are that the players

have to alternate service (and can use any form of serve to get the shuttle over

the net) and that they score a point when the shuttle hits the floor on their

opponent’s side, whether they served or not. But in game 2, you might add an

incentive that if the student scores a point off an overhead clear, he or she

wins an extra point. You add this condition to encourage students to use the

skill they just learned in the practice tasks.

The preceding section is a brief overview of the TGM, but you have a lot to

consider when using this curriculum model. If you would like to implement

the TGM in your physical education lessons, refer to Teaching Sport

Concepts and Skills (Mitchell et al., 2013), which provides extensive lesson

plans that you can use to guide your planning.

Key Points

TGM focuses on tactical awareness and skill acquisition. Transfer of

knowledge can occur based on the games classification system, which

organizes sport-related games into the categories of invasion games, net

and wall games, striking and fielding games, and target games.

TGM is framed by the tactical problems and solutions to the problem

(i.e., off-the-ball movements and on-the-ball skills).

The lesson sequence in TGM includes game 1, questioning, practice

tasks, and game 2.

Sport Education Model

The sport education model (SEM) is designed to provide students with

authentic experiences. The goal is to develop competent, literate, and

enthusiastic sportspersons (Siedentop, Hastie, and van der Mars, 2011).

Unique characteristics of SEM include longer sport seasons, formal

competition, team affiliation, roles and responsibilities, record keeping, and

culminating event and festivities.

Sport Seasons and Formal Competition

In the SEM, units of instruction, or sport seasons, last approximately 10 to 12

class sessions at the elementary school level and 18 to 20 sessions at the

middle and high school levels (Siedentop et al., 2011). These seasons last

much longer than those of typical physical education classes. The sport

seasons last longer because the idea in the SEM is to model what an actual

season would look like in a sport setting. The intent is not to resemble the

adult sport to its fullest sense, but to provide all students with the opportunity

to experience numerous aspects of sport and games in addition to being a

player or performer. An aspect of providing this experience is to engage in a

variety of formal competitions, such as a preseason, regular season, and

tournament play. To offer such competitions within one unit, the season

needs to last for an extended period.

Team Affiliation

Another unique characteristic of the SEM is that students are placed on

mixed-ability teams at the start of the season and remain on the same teams

throughout the season. In physical education, students are usually on different

teams each class period within the same unit of instruction. Being on the

same team over the course of the season allows students to develop team

affiliation, which offers the opportunity to connect with their team members.

Some ways that teams can develop team affiliation are by playing with each

other after class, forming an identity for their team by creating team posters,

selecting a team color and name, and coming up with a team cheer. Students

enjoy having the opportunity to be creative and have a unified sense of

identity within a physical education class, whether they are skillful

performers or not.

Roles and Responsibilities

An important and frequently used component of the SEM is that students get

to assume roles and responsibilities in sports and games other than being a

player. Examples of some roles are head coach, assistant coach, equipment

manager, fitness trainer, scorekeeper, and official or referee. The roles you

select will be based on the sport season as well as how many students are on

each team. For example, in an ultimate Frisbee unit, you may place students

in teams of four. Therefore, you have to select only four roles (e.g., head

coach, equipment manager, scorekeeper, and fitness trainer) from which

students can choose, or you can give them the opportunity to select more than

one role to fulfill.

You need to describe the responsibilities associated with each role. For

example, in an ultimate Frisbee unit, the head coach demonstrates and runs

the practice tasks and is the communicator between the team and you, the

equipment manager handles all equipment duties such as retrieving and

returning equipment needed for the class, the scorekeeper keeps score of each

game and either reports the score directly to you or records it on a sheet or

board where scores are maintained, and the fitness trainer leads the warm-up

activity at the start of class and reports any absences to you.

Students enjoy having a sense of ownership and responsibility in physical

education, and this model allows them to do so. You can allow students,

within their teams, to select the roles and responsibilities they would like to

perform, in addition to being players, for the entire season. For students to

learn the various roles and responsibilities, as part of the SEM you give each

team a team contract that operates as an agreement among the team, which

allows you to follow up and assess whether they are fulfilling their roles and

responsibilities. On the team contract, you may include specific rules that

teams will follow throughout the season as well as space for some team

affiliation items such as team name, team color, and so on.

Record Keeping

Another goal of the SEM is to teach sport literacy. One aspect of sport

literacy is to learn how to record statistics during formal competitions. You

can choose the statistics that students record for each sport season (e.g., in a

softball season, they may record the number of at bats, hits, and defensive

plays), but Siedentop and colleagues (2011) suggest that the statistics you

have them record be doable and not too complex. You want to make sure that

the task is developmentally appropriate for the age group that you are

teaching. You might even want to communicate with a math teacher in your

school to find out what students have learned and are learning. In this way

you can integrate math into physical education and vice versa. Students

should record statistics in the preseason to make sure that the teams are

mixed ability and that no teams are “stacked.” Record keeping in the regular

season establishes rankings, standings, or seeding, and students record

statistics in tournament play to determine a winning team and a runner-up.

All these statistics are at the team level, but individual statistics can provide

students with data on their actual skill and game performance.

Culminating Event and Festivities

Most sport seasons end with a culminating event like the Super Bowl or

World Series. A culminating event for the SEM sport season is important as

well. The culminating event is often the conclusion of tournament play, but if

you use the SEM with content such as dance, fitness, track and field, or

gymnastics (yes, the SEM can be used with these content areas as well!), then

the culminating event will be separate, such as Dancing With the Stars or the

Olympic Games. Besides determining a winning team, the culminating event

should be festive. This might involve having team jerseys, playing certain

music, or having an opening and closing ceremony. You may decide to make

it like an actual game day, such as the day of the Super Bowl. Teams have

pregame meetings, nonplaying students can be sports reporters and interview

players, commentators do play by play, announcers introduce the

participants, and so on. Most students, not just the teams playing in the event,

enjoy being involved with something festive. You can choose how festive,

big, and authentic to make it. At the conclusion of the event, you could hold

an awards ceremony, not just for the championship and runner-up teams and

players but also to present unique awards based on the entire season (e.g.,

most improved, best team supporter, fair play).

The goal of the SEM is to establish an authentic and equitable sporting

experience for all students. The model fosters a different environment in

physical education. You need to put all this together before you teach the

season, but after you have taught students the various roles, responsibilities,

and components associated with the SEM, your classroom management

becomes easier and you can be more effective, which is especially important

when you have a short amount of time in physical education with your

students.

Key Points

SEM is designed to provide students with authentic experiences. The

goal is to develop competent, literate, and enthusiastic sportspersons.

Unique characteristics of SEM include longer sport seasons, formal

competition, team affiliation, roles and responsibilities, record keeping,

and culminating event and festivities.

Implementing Curriculum Models Within

Instruction


The curriculum models in physical education described in this chapter

offer a wide range of frameworks, or blueprints (Metzler, 2011), on

which to base your unit of instruction. The models include many

physical activities, such as movement patterns, sport-related games,

fitness concepts, and adventure and outdoor activities. The models

also align with at least one of the learning domains and National

Standards. If all the models were combined, the physical education

program would certainly be inclusive and equitable! Unfortunately,

doing so is not possible, so you need to choose which models to use

over the course of a quarter, semester, or academic year as well as

across an entire grade band (i.e., K-2, 3-5, 6-8, high school).

Skill ability is frequently at the fore in physical education, primarily

because it is the focus in physical education. And because the

environment is public, students’ performance is quite visible. The

skill theme approach uses a four-stage sequence to help develop

students’ skills, whereas the sport education model is based on

mixed-ability groupings to create teams as equivalent and fair as

possible. The challenge in SEM is that the higher-skilled students

tend to pick roles such as head coach, and students with less ability

select less important roles such as equipment manager. This sorting

has the potential to marginalize students, based on either ability or

popularity. Curriculum models such as TPSR and adventure

education provide equal opportunities to students with less ability to

be as engaged in the content and learning experiences as those who

are higher skilled.

Body issues, although rarely discussed, are a major issue with

students, especially at the middle and high school levels. Students’

body size and their feelings about themselves may influence their

level of engagement in physical education, especially with sportrelated

games or physical activities such as swimming. Curriculum

models such as TGM, which focuses on small-sided games, and sport

education, in which everyone not only is a player but also assumes a

role and responsibility, allow students who may resist participating or

who struggle to move to have a more positive experience. TPSR and

some activities within adventure education can decrease students’

focus on their bodies and instead direct their attention toward their

learning experiences. The cultural studies model explicitly addresses

how to be critical consumers of sport and physical activity personally,

locally, and globally, which will help educate all students about how

to critique socially constructed messages they continuously receive

from the media that often influence how they feel about themselves.

Ability and body issues are only two examples of social justice issues

to consider when implementing curriculum models in physical

education. All the models have many positive features to contribute to

students’ learning experiences, and they all have the potential to be

inclusive and equitable for all students, regardless of (dis)ability,

gender, race, sexuality, and body size. Despite this potential, physical

education teachers need to be aware and cautious about how such

frameworks will influence all students.

Fitness Education

Fitness has again become a primary content area taught in physical education.

Numerous reasons account for this: It is the focus of one of the National

Standards (Standard 3), the proportion of children and adults who are

overweight and obese is increasing, children and adults are engaging in less

physical activity, and students need to learn how to be physically active after

they graduate from high school. Physical education teachers implement

fitness in a variety of ways, such as having fitness Fridays, spending the first

10 minutes of class on fitness exercises, or offering a unit of instruction that

focuses solely on fitness. The challenge with fitness is the wide range of

content that could be taught and the innumerable ways to include it in the

physical education curriculum.

Over the past decade, scholars and physical educators have developed

programs that focus specifically on fitness or physical activity, such as Health

Optimizing Physical Education (HOPE); Fitness for Life (FFL); Sports, Play

and Active Recreation for Kids (SPARK); and the Child and Adolescent Trial

for Cardiovascular Health (CATCH) (McConnell, 2015). Although each of

these programs is relevant and valuable to physical education programs

across K-12, this chapter focuses on the fitness education model, also known

as the concepts-based physical education (CPE) model, a curricular model

that emphasizes how students can optimize their health. The design of the

model gets students “involved in classroom, laboratory and physical activity

experiences that are coordinated to emphasize the how as well as the why of

physical fitness and wellness” (McConnell, 2015, p. 369).

The philosophy of CPE is that students need to engage in a variety of

physical activities at a frequency and intensity that results in maximum health

benefits, learn the purpose and the importance of participating in fitness and

physical activities for a lifetime, and enhance their knowledge and

understanding of how to develop and implement their own exercise plans

(McConnell, 2015). This philosophy aligns directly with Standard 3 of the

National Standards. When determining the content that should be taught

within a CPE model, you should use the Grade-Level Outcomes that

accompany the National Standards (SHAPE America, 2014) to guide your

planning and instruction. Examples of fitness and wellness concepts that may

be included in the unit of instruction are the health-related components of

fitness, training principles (especially frequency, intensity, time, and type),

components of a workout, body types, muscle groups, types of training and

workouts, nutrition, importance of sleep, and hydration. A unique

characteristic of CPE, compared with other pedagogical approaches to

teaching fitness content in physical education, is that students first learn the

content in a classroom-based setting (focusing on the cognitive domain) and

then apply the knowledge concepts in an activity-based setting (combining

the cognitive domain with the psychomotor domain).

Key Points

Fitness education aligns with Standard 3 and provides students with

psychomotor and cognitive knowledge and experiences so that they

understand how to develop and implement their own exercise plans.

The fitness education model emphasizes how students can optimize their

health through classroom, laboratory, and physical activity experiences.

Adventure Education

Adventure education (AEd) is a curriculum model that “involves activities

that encourage holistic student involvement in a task that involves challenges

and an uncertainty of the final outcome. Activities are carefully sequenced to

ensure student safety while allowing them to take ownership of their

learning” (Dyson and Sutherland, 2015, p. 230). The most popular adventure

education program that has been integrated into the physical education

curriculum is Project Adventure, which is based on the philosophical

concepts of challenge, cooperation, risk, trust, and problem solving (Dyson

and Sutherland, 2015). Knowing a few terms associated with adventure

education, such as adventure-based learning and experiential learning, will be

useful in understanding the AEd model.

Adventure-based learning emphasizes the process that students encounter

during a sequencing of cooperative activities, initiative problems, or

challenge tasks. The sequencing of activities is critical. Students first

participate in getting-to-know-you activities. After students have started to

become acquainted with one another, they advance to activities that focus on

communication, followed by cooperation, then trust (both emotional and

physical), and finally problem solving (Sutherland, 2014). As the physical

education teacher, you need to provide students with sufficient activities at

each stage before advancing to the next.

A prolific educator, John Dewey, developed experiential learning in the

1930s. Dewey’s philosophy centered on the belief that students’ learning is

contingent on how involved they are in an activity; the more involved they

are, the more they will learn. In connecting to AEd, the emphasis on

experiential learning is the process by which students are given the

opportunity to reflect and make meaning of the experiences they encountered

in physical education with their personal lives (Dyson and Sutherland, 2015).

Adventure education is based on the four phases of the experiential learning

cycle:

1. Experience

2. Observations and reflections

3. Abstract concepts and generalizations

4. Applying or transferring the abstract concepts to real life

Five key components make the AEd model different from others:

1. Sequence and flow of activities

2. Experiential learning cycle (described in the previous list)

3. Full-value contract

4. Challenge by choice

5. Teacher in the role of facilitator

As with adventure-based learning, the sequence and flow of activities should

advance from deinhibitizers, to communication, then cooperation, followed

by trust, and conclude with problem solving and challenge (Dyson and

Sutherland, 2015). The full-value contract is a social contract that students

within a group or whole class agree on based on what they believe the rules

and behavioral expectations of the group or class should be. The physical

education teacher should have students sign their agreement to hold the group

or class accountable. AEd can be daunting to some students, so the model

uses the practice of challenge by choice. Each student can choose which

activities he or she would like to participate in as well as the degree of

challenge, difficulty, or risk he or she is willing to take. For this to occur, the

teacher needs to offer a variety of options for students with each activity or

AEd experience. Lastly, but potentially the most challenging for the teacher,

is assuming the role of the facilitator. After you have designed the activity

and provided the students with the problem or objectives of the activity, you

take a step back and allow the students to navigate, explore, and solve

problems on their own while you prompt and support them as they work

through the activity.

Adventure education allows all students to be involved, regardless of skill

ability, at an extensive level in their learning process. Although skill may be

involved with some of the activities and experiences, the focus is on the

process that the students encounter. Adventure education, similar to TPSR,

focuses on the affective learning domain and aligns with Standards 4 and 5 of

the National Standards.

Cooperative learning is an aspect of the adventure education model, one of

the eight curriculum models that can be used to frame units of instruction in

physical education.

Key Points

AEd is a curriculum model that involves activities that encourage

holistic student involvement in a task that involves challenges, has

uncertainty, and allows students to take ownership of their learning.

The five key components of the AEd model are sequence and flow of

activities, the experiential cycle, the full-value contract, challenge by

choice, and the teacher in the role of facilitator.

Outdoor Education

People often interchange adventure and outdoor education models as if they

are the same. Although numerous characteristics are similar in the two

models, including some of the activities, the models are completely separate.

The clear distinction between the two is that in outdoor education, all

activities occur in a natural setting where people have no control over the

environment and may encounter potentially hazardous situations. Outdoor

education offers students of all abilities a level of excitement that they may

not experience in other activities. They encounter challenges and may even

engage in activities that involve risk (Stiehl, Parker, and Coulter, 2015).

Outdoor activities may include kayaking, canoeing, backpacking, hiking,

cycling, orienteering, snowshoeing, fishing, and many others. For students to

engage successfully in many of these outdoor activities, they need to have a

health-enhancing level of fitness; knowledge, appreciation, and tolerance for

the outdoor environment; and willingness to assume responsibility regardless

of the outdoor conditions (Stiehl, Parker, and Coulter, 2015).

You need to consider several factors when incorporating outdoor education in

the curriculum, such as the students’ skill development, their ability to be

responsible, equipment needs, and availability of natural habitats where such

education can occur. Of course, as the teacher, you need to have extensive

content knowledge to offer such a curriculum because the level of risk

increases as you head outdoors. You have to instruct your students indoors

first and practice some of the skills if possible (e.g., kayak in a pool first to

learn what to do after capsizing before heading on to a river or lake) so that

they have proficient skills before they encounter a potentially hazardous

situation. Skill development is a key component of outdoor education, which

is not the same expectation of adventure education. Besides teaching students

the skills of various activities, you need to teach them how to be responsible

in the outdoor setting, which may include choosing the proper clothing to

wear, handling adverse weather, being able to read a map, and knowing

where and how to get help, to name only a few. Again, as the teacher, you

will have explored the area extensively and have the information to share

with your students.

The availability of equipment and access to various spaces affects the

decisions that physical education teachers make when deciding on curricular

offerings. This issue becomes more significant when it comes to outdoor

education, because the equipment required can be abundant and expensive

and the spaces (i.e., natural environments) need to be within a reasonable

distance for physical education classes to occur. Depending on the outdoor

activities selected, the equipment can be expensive. For example, if you want

to teach students how to kayak or canoe, you need to have enough kayaks and

canoes for your students. Many physical education programs are fortunate to

get a few hundred dollars for a budget each year, which will not be enough to

purchase one kayak! Therefore, you will need to search for local places that

are willing to let you borrow kayaks, raise the funds to purchase such

equipment, or apply for grants. Unfortunately, cost could deter you from

offering such content to your students.

The other important consideration is the natural environment. You need to

contemplate a few questions: Is a suitable local setting available to you and

your students? Are you familiar with the environment and area? Do you need

to gain permission to use the area or facilities? How will you get your

students to and from the location? Students often have limited or no

knowledge of nearby natural resources, so exposure to such places would

likely be a positive learning experience. If you are going to take students off

the school grounds, you will have to obtain permission from the

administration as well as students’ parents or guardians before doing so, and

you will likely have to find additional chaperones for safety purposes.

Collectively, Stiehl and colleagues (2015, p. 259) suggest that you educate

your students about the following skills and competencies before exposing

your students to outdoor conditions:

Technical—orienteering, belaying

Outdoor living—cooking, sanitation

Safety—inspecting and repairing equipment, emergency procedures

Environmental—trail etiquette, leave no trace

Organizational—planning routes, arranging transportation

Instructional—developing teaching progressions

Facilitation—resolving conflicts, fostering productive group

environments

Leadership—sharing decisions, providing opportunities for using good

judgment

Environmental ethics—developing and applying appropriate standards

of outdoor ethics

Outdoor education has the potential to offer an abundance of learning

experiences to students in physical education. These learning experiences can

be applied in all three learning domains and across all the National Standards.

If you have content knowledge and personal experience in outdoor activities

and are willing to offer such opportunities to your students, then go for it!

Your students, and you, will be glad you did.

Key Points

Outdoor education occurs in a natural setting where people have no

control over the environment and may face potentially hazardous

situations.

Students need to develop skills and competencies in the following areas

before heading outdoors: technical, outdoor living, safety,

environmental, organizational, instructional, facilitation, leadership, and

environmental ethics.

Cultural Studies

The purpose of the cultural studies (CS) model is to develop students as

literate and critical consumers of sport, physical activity, and physical

cultures (O’Sullivan, Kinchin, and Enright, 2015). CS has been included in

physical education curricula for well over a decade, mainly in Ireland,

England, New Zealand, and Australia. Integration of CS has been limited or

minimal in physical education programs in North America. This is

unfortunate because our society is strongly influenced by the media, which

influences children, adolescents, and adults on a daily basis. Our

consumption of both media and sport and physical activity is reason enough

to educate students to be literate and critical consumers of physical

movement.

The design of the CS model has students engaging in some form of physical

activity while simultaneously participating in “a critical analysis of the role

and meaning of human movement in their lives, in their school and

community, and in the wider society” (O’Sullivan et al., 2015). To

accomplish this, you will have students participate in a unit of instruction,

such as volleyball, two or three days a week, and on the other days they will

engage in research, projects, and group discussion in a classroom or computer

lab setting. The intent of CS is for students to become more informed and

knowledgeable about various movement cultures as well as develop the

ability to critique and discuss the messages of media outlets that many

students adopt as truth, which can ultimately influence how they feel about

themselves, both internally and externally. The CS model aligns directly with

some of the Standard 5 Grade-Level Outcomes for middle and high school

students. The model is important to physical education teachers in the United

States because it provides a framework and guidelines about how to teach

important and challenging content.

Most chapters of this book include a sidebar that discusses social justice

inequalities present within the physical education context so that you do not

continue to perpetuate them. The CS model wants you not only to expose

such issues but also to educate students so that they too can identify and

address socially unjust situations and contexts as they relate to sport and

physical activity. For example, if you are teaching a unit on volleyball, you

can have students research a variety of media outlets to learn how volleyball

is advertised and publicized within the local community and throughout the

larger society. They could gather newspapers and magazines, watch episodes

of the local news or national sports networks, and explore the various

volleyball events that local communities are offering. After the students have

gathered the materials, they can review the content and provide a critique

based on guiding questions or prompts that you provide. This example is just

one of many explorations or assignments that students can do as they learn

how to become critical consumers of sport and physical activity. Other

learning experiences include action research projects, journal writing,

individual or group presentations, and community explorations, to name a

few.

As a preservice teacher, you are not in a position where you have to think

about curriculum development, but if you are a beginning teacher, you may

be involved with revising, refining, or even establishing a physical education

curriculum for your school district or at least the grade levels that you are

teaching. When you are in this situation, O’Sullivan and colleagues (2015)

suggest dividing the three content strands of CS over an academic year or

throughout an entire grade band (e.g., middle or high school). The idea is to

integrate these strands with movement content that will simultaneously be

taught in the gymnasium.

The first strand focuses on the personal dimensions of physical activity and

sport. As with most things in life, students need to explore themselves and

their personal lives before investigating the community and world around

them. An activity that aligns with this strand is having students complete their

personal biographies in relation to sport and physical activity, beginning as

far back in their childhood as they can remember. Within their biography,

they can include specific people or situations that influenced their movement

experiences.

The second strand to integrate into the physical education curriculum is

educating students about sport and physical activity in the school and local

community. To do this, students will have to do some research and

investigate a variety of resources to learn about the sport and physical

activities offered at their school and in the surrounding community. You

could even ask students to do a historical search to explore how sport and

physical activity opportunities have changed over time. In Standard 5 at the

high school level, students are expected to learn about the various spaces

within the local community that offer sport and physical activity

opportunities for youth and adults, an expectation that aligns directly with

this strand.

The third strand is to stretch students beyond what they know and possibly

outside their comfort zone to look at physical activity and sport in the wider

society. Contemporary issues in sport and physical activity tend to be hot

topics in the media and in local establishments (e.g., at the coffee shop or

grocery store). Current issues in today’s society include performanceenhancing

drugs and substances, concussions, domestic violence, violence in

sport, and the large number of physically inactive people. This strand

supports the importance of having students learn not only what is being

conveyed in the media from local, national, and global perspectives but also

how to be critical consumers of that information. Ultimately, some aspects of

what students explore and discuss in relation to the wider society connect

back to their personal selves and biographies. For example, is how students

feel about themselves based on the comparisons they make to the idealized

female or male bodies and images displayed in the media? Do they choose

not to participate in a sport because of the concussion debate or because a

sport has been genderized by television and the Internet (e.g., figure skating

is for females and American football is for males)? These examples are only

a couple of the ways in which the wider society influences people

individually and vice versa.

As you educate students how to be lifelong movers, you need to teach them

to be not only physically literate but also critically literate and critical

consumers of sport and physical activity. You need to create the spaces for

such learning to occur, through discourse, projects, exploration, and research.

The more knowledgeable and aware students are of themselves and their

local and global communities, the more likely they are to question and

challenge socially unjust and inequitable situations that arise within sport and

physical activity.

Key Points

The purpose of the cultural studies model is to develop students as

literate and critical consumers of sport, physical activity, and physical

cultures.

The three content strands of CS that can be integrated into the physical

education curriculum are personal dimensions of physical activity and

sport, sport and physical activity in the school and local community, and

physical activity and sport in the wider society.

Implementing Curriculum Models Within

Units of Instruction

This chapter has provided an abundance of information on eight curriculum

models that you can use as a framework, or blueprint, for your units of

instruction. All eight models have different purposes. Each offers unique

characteristics that can enhance students’ learning across learning domains

and the National Standards. After you have wrapped your head around the

content of the models, you need to consider the steps you are going to take to

implement these models in your physical education programs.

First, you need to decide which units of instruction you are going to offer

over the course of the quarter, semester, or academic year. Second, you have

to determine the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes you want to

achieve in each of the units. After you have made these first two decisions,

you can select a curriculum model to frame your unit. Or you can integrate

multiple models into one unit of instruction. For example, if you are teaching

sport-related games, you can use the tactical games model as the framework

for how you are going to deliver instruction within each lesson.

Simultaneously, you can implement the sport education model to create the

framework for the overall unit and enhance your classroom management.

You can also infuse teaching personal and social responsibility with almost

any of the other curriculum models. Finally, after you have made those

decisions, you can start planning!

You may wonder whether you have to use all the characteristics of a model.

The answer depends on the curriculum model you intend to use. For example,

because the TGM has a lesson sequence to follow that focuses on a specific

tactical problem, the full sequence needs to be incorporated; without using

the entire sequence, you are not implementing the model. The same is true for

the skill theme approach because the four phases progress from simple to

complex to improve students’ skill development; removing one of the phases

at the elementary level can negatively affect students’ learning. But within

the SEM, which has many components, you do not have to use every

component within one unit of instruction. The roles and responsibilities and

the team contracts are usually standard in any SEM unit, but you may decide

not to allow time for developing team affiliation directly or not to engage in a

festive culminating event. You may opt not to use three different seasons

(especially if the content is dance, fitness, or track and field). Models such as

fitness education and cultural studies are somewhere in the middle. Some

teachers have students learn the history and rules of the sport or game they

are playing and say that they are using the cultural studies model. Others

teach students about the health-related components of fitness and believe they

are using fitness education. With both of those models, you need to know

about the intention of the model as well as its design and structure before

implementing it.

You may also wonder whether you need to use the model with all your

classes or for every unit of instruction you teach. The simple response is no.

As with implementing assessment or trying out a new pedagogical method,

you may choose to incorporate the model with one class or one grade level.

This approach may be less daunting than trying to implement it with all your

classes, particularly for a beginning teacher, who may otherwise decide not to

use a model at all. After you feel comfortable using the model, you can use it

with other classes or grade levels. In regard to using a curriculum model for

all units of instruction, no one is going to force you to do so; you make that

decision yourself. But because curriculum models offer a framework to the

unit and enhance your instruction and student learning, using curriculum

models for all units of instruction may be best.

Summary

Curriculum models are focused, theme-based frameworks, or blueprints,

about how to design and deliver a unit of instruction to students. Numerous

factors influence how you choose which curriculum model to use, such as

your philosophy about physical education, the grade level of your students,

unit focus, access to equipment and resources, your content knowledge, the

learning domains you intend to focus on, and, most important, the National

Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes you have selected for the focus of your

unit. This chapter has provided a brief overview of the following curriculum

models: the skill theme approach, personal and social responsibility, tactical

games, sport education, fitness education, adventure education, outdoor

education, and cultural studies. Each of these models has a specific purpose

and clear focus on how to frame a unit of instruction. Each offers unique

characteristics that can enhance students’ learning across learning domains

and National Standards.

Review Questions

1. What is a curriculum model, and how does it relate to various units of

instruction?

2. What are the purpose and unique characteristics for the skill theme

approach, personal and social responsibility, tactical games, sport

education, fitness education, adventure education, outdoor education,

and cultural studies models?

3. How will you plan a unit of instruction using each of these curriculum

models?

4. What are three social justice issues that need to be considered when

planning and implementing curriculum models in physical education?



web resource at


Part IV

Instruction and Assessment

With long- and short-term planning in place, you will be well positioned to

deliver a quality physical education program for your students. Of course, the

delivery of your program—that is, the quality of your instruction—is what

really matters. But before you can teach, you must be able to establish and

manage a safe, learning-oriented environment in your gymnasium. And

coupled with instruction should be effective assessment of standards-based

learning outcomes. These issues are the focus of part IV of this book.

Chapter 12 focuses on management of the learning environment because, as

every experienced teacher knows, effective management must be in place

before learning can occur. The gymnasium, in contrast to the classroom, is a

dynamic place with lots of equipment and people in a space of varying

dimensions, so you need to establish some rules and routines to ensure that

your classes run smoothly and that your students remain safe. Safety, of

course, is paramount because any physical activity involves risk of injury.

Your job is to minimize this risk while simultaneously maximizing levels of

activity and challenge for your students. This task is not easy, particularly

when you are working with children and young adults who might be

inconsistent in their decision making and behavior. You need to implement

effective routines, including routines for entry and exit to and from your

gymnasium; distribution, collection, and use of equipment; and transitions

within your lessons. Although good routines will likely decrease off-task

behavior, issues may still arise that require you to intervene and correct

student behavior, so you need a system for behavior management.

Teaching for learning can really take place only after the environment is

physically and emotionally safe and conducive to learning. Chapter 13

addresses some important features of effective instruction, in particular the

value of knowing how to use a range of teaching styles so that you can use

one appropriate to the content you are teaching and the varied learning needs

of your students. A range of teaching styles is described, from direct to

indirect, providing you with plenty of options to vary the way you teach.

Using a range of teaching styles will be motivational for both you and your

students because it will vary the way you teach and the way they learn. This

chapter also discusses important teaching skills such as providing

demonstrations, using cues and feedback, asking good questions, and

monitoring the learning environment during activity.

Essential to ensuring instructional alignment is the difficult issue of

assessment, the subject of chapter 14. Assessing student learning remains

difficult for many teachers for several reasons, including the limited

curriculum time available, the large number of students to be assessed, and

the wide range of student abilities in classes. This chapter covers some

assessment basics such as the difference between formative and summative

assessment, and between formal and informal assessment. The qualities of a

good assessment, in particular issues of validity, reliability, and feasibility,

are also addressed. The chapter then describes assessments specific to the

psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains, before closing with a

discussion of issues of data management and handling.

Chapter 12

Establishing and Managing a Safe

Learning Environment

© Radu Razvan/fotolia.com

Learning Objectives


Establish a safe and learning oriented environment by

identifying rules, routines, and expectations for equipment,

space, and people.

Create an environment focused on preventing off task and

inappropriate student behavior.

Manage inappropriate student behavior as necessary.

Manage the learning environment during instruction.

Construct a socially just learning environment that addresses the

needs of all students.

Key Terms

intervention scale

routines

transition

Your goal as a physical educator will be to teach and help students acquire

knowledge and skills that will enable them to be physically active across the

lifespan. But before you can do this, you must be able to establish an

environment that is conducive to teaching and learning. Your gymnasium (or

other activity space) must be well organized, and students should know the

rules and routines that will ensure productive use of the limited time you

have with them. Note that rules and routines are a feature of the lesson plan

format in chapter 9. This chapter provides some ideas for the sort of rules and

routines you might develop to help create an effective learning environment.

Later in the chapter are suggestions for managing the learning environment

while instruction and activity are ongoing.

Setting Rules for Your Gymnasium

The idea of a set of rules to guide the learning environment might seem a

little negative to you, but the most effective teachers always have a set of

rules that their students understand are in place to ensure the smooth running

of every lesson. These rules are often posted on the gymnasium wall, usually

close to the door where they are visible to students when they enter. Posting

of rules is particularly common at the elementary level where the goal is to

ensure that students understand how to behave in an environment that

naturally provides them with more freedom of movement and expression than

they are accustomed to in the classroom. The website PE Central provides

some good examples of teachers’ rules, several of which are shown in the

sidebar.

ABCD

Sample Rules for Gymnasiums

A—Act safely.

B—Be prepared and be positive.

C—Cooperate.

D—Do your best.

Have Fun—Work Hard—Learn

PEACE

P—Protect PE Equipment

E—Enter and Exit Quietly

A—Attention: Follow Directions the First Time

C—Cooperation: Work Well With Others

E—Esteem: Respect Others

Used by permission of PE Central (pecentral.org), the premier website for physical education

teachers. Our goal is to provide educational resources to teachers who, in turn, will help

guide youngsters in the process of becoming physically active and healthy for a lifetime. PE

Central is supported by S&S Worldwide (pe.ssww.com), a 110-year-old company dedicated

to assisting teachers to motivate kids to play and learn using their innovative and educational

products.

Note that the sample rules in the sidebar are stated in terms of what students

should do rather than what they should not do. Making students aware of

what is appropriate behavior is always better than telling them what is

inappropriate behavior. Keep the number of rules small, from four to eight, a

number that is not excessive for students but is sufficient to cover a range of

expectations for student behavior. Some teachers use acronyms such as

PEACE to make their gymnasium rules easier for students to remember.

Another strategy is to capitalize the key words you want your students to

understand and implement. Rules posters are also available commercially,

such as those shown in figure 12.1. These visuals make a good addition to the

gymnasium environment.

Figure 12.1 Sample poster for gymnasiums: (a) lower elementary, (b) upper

elementary or secondary.

The most effective teachers are swift to offer positive reinforcement to

students for following the rules, either verbally (praise), nonverbally (a smile,

nod, or thumbs up), or materially (perhaps with extra points or choice of

activity). But these teachers also have a range of consequences on hand if

they need to correct behavior and bring students back in line with the

gymnasium rules. Consequences should be progressive and might be as

simple as a verbal warning for a first-time rule violation, followed by a

temporary time-out if a student must be removed from activity either to

ensure safety or to prevent disruption to the learning of other students. As the

teacher, you should always try to use your gymnasium rules as a form of

preventative behavior management, but on occasion behavior modification

may be necessary.

Managing Student Behavior

In spite of your best efforts to ensure a learning environment where every

student is consistently on task and working within the scope of your

gymnasium rules, at some point the concentration of one or more students

will stray and they will become off task. They may become bored or anxious

(see chapter 3) or simply forget from time to time how they are supposed to

behave in your gymnasium. In these instances you have to intervene to

prevent inappropriate behavior from continuing and, of course, to change

inappropriate behavior to appropriate behavior. Because students respond

differently, no one-size-fits-all remedy is available to correct unacceptable

behavior, but the following suggestions are useful with all students:

1. Think of your intervention strategies as being on a scale—a continuum

beginning at 1 and ending at perhaps 8 or 10.

2. Intervene at a point on your scale that best fits the nature of the off-task

behavior you are trying to correct.

3. If possible, try to save room to move up the scale; don’t overreact to a

minor rule violation by intervening at too high a level on your scale.

Serious misbehavior is probably rare in most physical education settings, but

managing student behavior is one of the major concerns of beginning

teachers. A well-thought-out intervention scale can provide you with

strategies to go to in the event you need them. The intervention scale shown

in figure 12.2 illustrates a sensible starting point for the scale and a set of

progressive responses to use depending on the off-task behavior being

exhibited.

The most likely beginning (point 1) for behavior modification is a facial

expression that indicates displeasure at a student’s behavior. For example, if a

student is off task during an activity but not disrupting or causing a safety

hazard to others, you might simply make eye contact and raise your eyebrows

or frown, indicating that you would like to see a change in that student’s

behavior. Students who are off task usually look at the teacher to see whether

they are being observed, so making eye contact is not difficult. You should

learn what your facial expressions communicate. You might feel a bit silly

doing it (do it in private), but a good exercise is to think thoughts, both

positive and negative, and try to communicate those thoughts with your facial

expression. Look in the mirror while you do this to learn what your face says!

Facial expression, or other body language, can correct off-task behavior from

afar, which is often preferable to having to cover distance on foot to

communicate a message orally. Proximity or getting closer to off-task

students is a next step or an option if you cannot make eye contact. Giving

one or perhaps two verbal warnings is the next level. These warnings can

initially be private so that the student is not embarrassed and has the

opportunity to explain whether anything is wrong. A simple question to ask

in private might be something like, “Is there any particular reason for your

behavior?” Bear in mind that the student might have an explanation for the

behavior. Although the explanation should not excuse inappropriate behavior,

it might allow you to show understanding and gain student compliance.

Should verbal warnings fail to correct the behavior, you might need to

remove the student from the activity, refer him or her to the school

administration (in the case of serious or repeated misbehavior), and

ultimately contact a parent or guardian.

This question of when to intervene is important. The answer is that it depends

on the off-task behavior exhibited by your students. Law enforcement

personnel say the punishment should fit the crime. Although that dictum

sounds a bit dramatic, the same is true for intervening to correct off-task

behavior. Minor off-task behavior, such as shooting a soccer ball at the

basketball hoop instead of at the soccer goal as instructed, is not serious

misbehavior and can most likely be corrected with a teacher look or

proximity. But the use of inappropriate language should be addressed orally

to ensure that students understand what language cannot be accepted.

Similarly, any behavior that creates a safety hazard for any student should be

addressed orally and immediately, perhaps with only one warning before the

student is removed from activity. If removal from activity is to be temporary,

remember to revisit the student after he or she has had time to reflect on what

has happened. Get the student’s assurance that you will see a behavior change

if you allow him or her back into activity. The remainder of the scale is for

serious misbehavior that endangers others and for repeat violations of your

gymnasium rules.

You may wonder how to leave space to move on the scale. The answer to this

question is tied to intervening initially in the most appropriate place on the

scale. For example, if you observe minor off-task behavior and intervene with

an immediate temporary removal from activity (i.e., a time-out), you give

yourself fewer strategies to use if repeated rule violations occur. Looking at

figure 12.2, if you were to respond to minor off-task behavior by intervening

at point number 5 on the scale, then a repeat minor violation would lead to

removal from activity for the duration of the lesson (point 6), which might

seem harsh given the nature of the violation.

Many, if not most, students enjoy physical education, so you are unlikely to

face instances of serious and persistent violation of your gymnasium rules.

Remember to use positive reinforcement of appropriate student behavior,

both verbally and nonverbally, to remind students what behavior you expect

of them. In some instances, however, intervention strategies may be

necessary. Regardless of the strategy you use to correct inappropriate

behavior, you should observe corrected students and then positively reinforce

their changed behavior to communicate that you are now happy to see them

back on task.

Students with special needs may have unique behavioral issues, and you need

to be aware of those issues. For example, students diagnosed with attention

deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or certain forms of autism might react

in atypical ways to particular teacher interventions. Thus, you need to try to

understand individual students’ behavioral issues and act accordingly to

avoid triggering a negative reaction that could be beyond the student’s ability

to control. You should be included in the development of students’ individual

education plans (IEPs) so that you can understand the potential behavioral

issues of students in your classes. Some of the resources available are

provided in the “Resources for Working With Students With Disabilities and

Special Needs” sidebar.

Resources for Working With Students With

Disabilities and Special Needs

Alexander, M., and Schwager, S. 2012. Meeting the physical

education needs of children with autism spectrum disorder.

Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Block, M.E. 2007. A teacher’s guide to including students with

disabilities in general physical education. 3rd ed. Baltimore:

Paul H. Brookes.

Grenier, M. 2014. Physical education for students with autism

spectrum disorders: A comprehensive approach. Champaign, IL:

Human Kinetics.

Kowalski, E., Lieberman, L.J., and Daggett, S. 2006. Getting

involved in the IEP process. Journal of Physical Education,

Recreation and Dance, 77(7), 35-39.

Kowalski, E., Lieberman, L., Pucci, G., and Mulawka, C. 2005.

Implementing IEP or 504 goals and objectives into general

physical education. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation

and Dance, 76(7), 33-37.

SHAPE America. 2010. Eligibility criteria for adapted physical

education services.

SHAPE America. 2015. The essential components of physical

education.

Key Points

Establishing rules for your gymnasium is essential to ensuring a safe and

learning-oriented environment.

Behavior management is best addressed through implementation of an

intervention scale made up of a set of progressive responses to use

depending on the off-task behavior being exhibited.

Maximizing Learning and Activity Time

Although a set of rules is undoubtedly important for ensuring a learningoriented

environment, developing and teaching a set of routines can also

ensure that students know what to expect when they enter your gymnasium

and during activity. This section describes sensible routines, particularly

routines that provide students with direction for what to do on entering and

leaving the gymnasium, how to transition during a lesson, and how to handle

equipment appropriately. An example of effective routines from a lacrosse

lesson plan is provided in figure 12.3.

Entering the Gymnasium

The way in which your students enter the gymnasium can have a significant

effect on the start of your lesson, so you should design a routine to get an

active and positive start. A routine is particularly useful at the secondary level

where students first go to the locker room and change clothing, giving the

potential for lost time. An effective entry routine includes an instant activity,

either a different activity for each lesson that is posted for students to see or

perhaps a consistent fitness activity that has students enter the gymnasium

and move immediately to a designated area to begin. Knowing that they will

be active right away, not just sitting or standing around waiting for

attendance to be taken, motivates students to get changed quickly. The sport

education curriculum model described in chapter 11 has teams assigned to

home courts where they go for warm-up activity, perhaps under the direction

of a designated athletic trainer for each team. This example of an effective

entry routine is built into an instructional approach.

At the elementary level, time between lessons is usually minimal; one class

enters the gymnasium as the previous class leaves. Elementary lessons are

also usually considerably shorter than secondary lessons, making an effective

entry routine even more important to minimize time lost. Students should be

allowed to get into activity as quickly as possible because the opportunity for

movement is the best feature of physical education for elementary children. If

attendance taking is necessary, you can do it while students are active. This

task is best accomplished by counting how many students are present and

determining absentees by noting the number on the class roster, as opposed to

having students stand in a line or sit in rows while you mark down who is

present. You might need to use part of a lesson at the beginning of the school

year to practice an entry routine, but the time will be well spent and will give

your lessons an active start and help them run smoothly.

Transitions During a Lesson

Physical education lessons usually have several phases in which students are

engaged in activities in various parts of the gymnasium. For example, your

lesson might involve activity at fitness or skill-related stations, so your

students will have to move smoothly between stations as they change

activity. Or you might need to have your students change from game play to

skill practice (or vice versa), probably also involving changes in the amount

of equipment being used. Movement between these lesson phases is known

as transition, and well-planned and well-executed transitions are crucial to

maintaining the flow of a lesson. Write the transition statements (i.e., what

you will say to students) into your lesson plans and think through each

transition carefully—they can make or break your lesson. To give an

effective transition statement, make sure you have your students’ attention

and then clearly tell them the following:

When to move (on your signal or when you say, “Go”)

How to move (carefully or quickly)

Where to move

What to do when they arrive

Using the previous activity examples, the “Sample Transition Statements”

sidebar shows transition statements that would be appropriate for moving

students from station to station in a fitness lesson, for gathering students for a

skill or activity demonstration, and for moving students from a skill practice

to a game in a sport education lesson. Note the addition of designated student

responsibilities to the third of these.

Sample Transition Statements

For Fitness Stations

“When I say, ‘Go,’ please move quickly to your next station and wait

for my signal before you start activity. You have 10 seconds. Go!”

To Gather for a Demonstration

“When I say, ‘Go,’ please hustle in and sit in a semicircle facing me.

Be here by the time I count down to zero. Go, 5-4-3-2-1-0.”

Dispersal to Game Play During a Games Lesson

“When I say, ‘Go,’ I would like equipment managers to put away

your team’s practice equipment and get your team vests for game

play. The home team will start the game, and that team’s equipment

manager will get the game ball. Coaches, please take your team

quickly to today’s game court and get your teams ready to play with

today’s starters ready on the court and subs sitting on the bench ready

to come in when it is their turn. I will blow the whistle to start game

play in 45 seconds. Go!”

All the transition statements in the sidebar include some assumptions. In the

first transition, the assumption is that the students know, through instruction

or demonstration, where the next station is located, usually the one in either a

clockwise or counterclockwise direction. In the second transition statement,

the assumptions are that your students are aware that a countdown means

they have to hustle in to wherever they are gathering, that you have practiced

this with them, and that you have previously held them accountable for not

hustling in. This transition statement could apply to gathering your students

for a demonstration or for any other occasion when you need to gather them.

In the third transition, the assumption is that part of the coach’s responsibility

is to know which court his or her team is playing on and whether they are the

home or away team by looking at a posted game schedule. The “bench” in

this transition statement might be an actual bench or just an area of the gym

floor next to the court.

A last word on transitions: Try to avoid what is known as double transitions.

Don’t gather your students in one place initially if you’re just going to move

them all again to a second place. For example, some beginning teachers

develop a habit of always transitioning their students to the same place,

perhaps the center of the gymnasium, when gathering them. This idea might

seem appealing because students get used to the procedure and know where

to go. But suppose you need to show a demonstration at a particular court or

activity space using some students who have been performing well.

Gathering your students directly at the demonstration court or space would

alleviate the need to move them a second time.

Managing Equipment

Using and manipulating equipment is one of the joys of physical education

for most students. In most cases more equipment is preferable to less because

more practice opportunities are then available to students. For example,

having one ball for each pair of students provides twice as many dribbling or

passing practice opportunities in soccer or basketball practices than having

one ball for every four students. Similarly, playing badminton or pickleball in

a singles format provides twice as many practice opportunities as playing

doubles. Because having more equipment on your gymnasium floor will

inevitably complicate your management of the equipment, you need to plan

routines that students can implement. The following guidelines should help:

Where possible, have designated equipment managers. This role is one

of the team roles in a sport education setting, but equipment managers

do not have to be exclusive to this model. Rotate this responsibility so

that all students get to know your equipment routines and have the

opportunity to take on this responsibility.

Have equipment collected from and returned to the same place—a ball

rack, bag, or basket; a cone stack; or a hook where jump ropes hang. In

the case of paper and pencils, boxes and envelopes could be taped to the

wall in specific places.

To avoid congestion, have more than one site for equipment retrieval.

For example, in a badminton or pickleball lesson, in which each student

needs a racket or paddle, have several places (most likely boxes) from

where students can retrieve their equipment. This arrangement ensures

that too many students are not trying to collect or return equipment at

the same time in the same place.

If equipment managers are not formally designated, have just one person

per pair or group collect and return the equipment while the partner or

other group members go to the activity area and get ready to begin.

Again, this procedure prevents congestion.

Exiting the Gymnasium

The end of a lesson is also important because you want your students to leave

the gymnasium in an orderly manner so that they behave appropriately in the

locker room and go to their next class ready to learn. A cool-down activity,

perhaps relaxation breathing or stretching, and a closure in which you review

the key points of the lesson, can be followed by an orderly exit from the

gymnasium to the locker room. In most elementary schools, the exit will be

to the gymnasium door, where the class will line up ready for the classroom

teacher to take them back. An orderly exit is best accomplished by having

students move to the locker room or door in teams or groups. For example,

you could have students who have birthdays between January and March go

first, followed by those who have birthdays between April and June, and so

on, or you could dismiss students in groups according to the color of shirt

they are wearing.

Managing the Learning Environment

During Instruction and Activity

Although having routines for certain parts of a lesson, such as entry and exit,

is important, management is necessary throughout every lesson. Some

general management guidelines are helpful here. The following section

provides advice for organizing people and space during activity, giving

management instructions, monitoring ongoing activity, and managing station

activities and game rotations.

Stopping and Starting Activities

At times during activity, you will need to stop your students for one reason or

another. For example, you might need to stop activity to give teaching cues or

feedback to the whole class rather than to individuals or small groups, or you

might need to correct frequently occurring behavior issues. In these or similar

instances, you need the attention of the whole class, so you must develop

routines for starting and stopping activity and teach these routines to your

students. First, a clear stop signal is important. The signal you use might

depend on the activity being taught and the equipment being used. In a

gymnasium made noisy by bouncing balls, say in soccer, basketball, or

volleyball, use a short and sharp blast on a whistle. In quieter environments,

perhaps in badminton, gymnastics, elementary movement, or initiative

activities, many teachers use music and manage activity by stopping or

starting the music. If you do this, try to use remote control so that you don’t

always have to move back to the location of the music system. If you cannot

use music or if music is a distraction, use an oral command. One suggestion

is simply to say, “Stop,” loudly and clearly, perhaps preceded by something

to let students know that the stop command is coming. Perhaps this could be

a drawn out “Nooooow” or “Aaaaand,” so that the full stopping command is

a loud and clear “Aaaaand stop.”

The word “freeze” is not recommended as a blanket management term to stop

students because you may need to use this term to stop them from moving to

make an instructional point. Those who coach a sport or have been coached

are likely familiar with the idea of freezing game play to make a point,

perhaps to show students or players something done well (freeze replay) or to

demonstrate how play can be improved (freeze reconstruct). For example, in

soccer or basketball you might see a player choose to pass to a teammate

when another teammate was better positioned to receive the ball. In these

situations you need students (players) to stop immediately where they are and

not move so that the game situation is not altered. Your students should know

that when you call, “Freeze,” they should freeze immediately in place and not

move from where they are. Although this call applies most commonly to

games instruction, you might also use it in teaching gymnastics or dance

routines when you might need students to freeze in place at a stage in the

routine where you want to suggest options.

Managing the distribution and collection of equipment was discussed earlier

in the chapter, but equipment must also be managed during activity. For

example, assume you have stopped your badminton or floor hockey class in

place to give students a task extension, additional teaching cues, feedback to

the whole class, or clarification of a practice task. The question concerning

equipment here is whether you want your students to put down their rackets

or sticks while you give the extension or keep them in their hands. Students

will need a little extra time to put down their equipment, and a few will likely

drop their rackets or sticks noisily on the floor, a behavior you will want to

correct. On the other hand, if you allow your students to keep equipment in

their hands, some of them will most likely fiddle with their rackets or sticks

and end up dropping them anyway, again creating a noisy distraction. So

what should you do? This is a case of personal preference and tolerance; only

you can decide what works best for you and your teaching situation. A

guideline might be that if whatever you need to communicate takes 10

seconds or less, having students place equipment on the floor is not worth the

distraction. For example, you don’t need much time to tell a class to keep the

floor hockey puck closer while dribbling or to use more wrist snap when

practicing an overhead clear, so having students place equipment down

between their feet while you give this instruction is probably an unnecessary

disruption to the flow of an activity. On the other hand, if you need to

pinpoint a player or group who are performing well on a badminton task, you

might need a little longer, so equipment in students’ hands might be a

distraction. So in this case, you could use a management statement and say,

“Aaaaand stop. Place your rackets carefully on the floor at your feet, stand

still, and face me (or watch this group).” Again, your management of

equipment during activity will be a matter of preference, but you need to be

consistent and hold your students accountable for managing the equipment as

instructed.

Using Appropriate Gathering Formations

During a lesson you will occasionally gather your students for instruction.

You might do this to give activity instructions, have them watch a

demonstration, or close a lesson with a short question and answer session.

Regardless, you should give thought to the gathering formation you use. Do

you want your students to sit or stand? Do you want them to gather in a line,

a semicircle, or a circle (or other formation)? Again, the answers to these

questions come down to personal preference, but some guidance may be

helpful. Generally, if it’s worth bringing students in, it’s worth sitting them

down. In other words, if you are gathering your students, you are presumably

doing it for a purpose (most likely an instructional purpose) that will take a

few minutes or you would not have bothered to gather them. It follows that

you want them to pay close attention, so you should have them sit down

where they can see rather than leave them standing up where they are free to

move around and be distracted. The formation you gather students into might

depend on how many students you have and where you are gathering them.

Semicircles work well because all can see and hear; a straight line does not

work as well because inevitably some of your students will be too far away

from you and less likely to hear or to pay attention, especially with a large

group. A good general guideline is to keep your students close to you so that

they pay attention. If you do not gather them in a semicircle, you can use the

lines on the gymnasium floor to have them sit in a half square or on the

corner lines so that they are not too spread out.

Effective management is important to ensure a safe learning environment.

Giving Instructions and Checking for

Understanding

The transition statements (see previous sidebar) and management instructions

you give are critical to establishing and managing an effective learning

environment. Some points are worth reiterating:

Give complete management instructions before signaling students to

begin.

Make these management instructions routine so that students get

accustomed to your management style.

When giving instructions for students to disperse to various parts of the

gym or field, tell them what they should do when they arrive. Beginning

teachers often forget to do this, so students disperse to activity areas

without clear instructions about what to do when they get there. The

result is often off-task behavior that is an unnecessary disruption to the

flow of the lesson.

Use checks for understanding to determine whether students understand

what they have to do, particularly regarding the organization of their

activity. Asking your students to remind you of the rotation, the number

of repetitions to be performed, or the rotational pattern of an activity is a

good way to determine how well they understand task requirements.



What management strategies do you suggest for

handling large mixed-ability classes?


Management is a critical part to any classroom. Procedures about how

to organize from start to finish are important. Small groups work best

with mixed abilities. Grouping them with different levels so those

who are more skilled can help those who are less skilled will work

with some classes but not all (previous training for all students on

working with others is essential before you begin this type of

learning). Grouping students with similar abilities is another way.

Students who are self-conscious about their ability sometimes prefer

this less competitive approach. Allowing the groups to have time to

work through problems and conflicts and giving them time to succeed

are important.

What management strategies do you use to address offtask

behavior?


Carolina): If I notice off-task behavior I will usually question the

students about why they are doing the particular behavior instead of

what they are assigned. I might ask them about why they think the

assigned activity is important and how participation will benefit them.

I ultimately want to lead them to decide to participate, which helps

prevent off-task behavior in the future.



Carolina): Establish your boundaries early. It is always easier to pull

back once you’ve gotten into the semester than it is to tighten up

midway through. This can be hard for some teachers who want the

students to like them, thinking, If they like me, then they will do what

I want them to do. But the opposite is true: Students will walk all over

you and you will lose control. You have to earn their respect, be firm

but be fair, and give them a voice to express their thoughts and

feelings.

Monitoring Activity

Having started your students on developmentally appropriate activity tasks,

you now need to monitor the environment for safety and observe student

performance. Effective monitoring is important for several reasons, related to

both management and instruction, so this section could just as easily be

placed in the next chapter on instructional strategies. But the first thing you

should observe as you monitor the environment is whether your students are

safe. Because safety is a management concern, monitoring is included in this

chapter. Graham, Holt/Hale, and Parker (2013) suggest the following four

sequential questions that you should ask as you observe student activity after

it has begun:

1. Is the activity safe?

2. Are my students on task?

3. Do I need to make any changes for the class as a whole?

4. Do I need to make any changes for individuals?

As previously mentioned, the first question is management related, as is the

second in so far as it might involve having to address behavior or move

students to demonstrate a task again. The third and fourth questions are more

instructional because they concern the ways in which you might modify tasks

for students to simplify or increase the level of challenge. Regardless, as you

observe, you should keep your vision broad at first by moving around the

perimeter of the gymnasium. Stopping to observe is OK, but you should do

so from a place where you have a broad field of vision. You need to get a

sense of how well the whole class is doing as well as spot any students who

need individual attention. When observing a specific student up close, try to

do so from a position where you also have a view of as many other students

as possible so that you can monitor broadly with your peripheral vision as

you instruct the individual. You can venture into the middle of the

gymnasium as long as you do not stay there for more than a few moments,

particularly because crossing through the center might be the fastest way to

get to someone on the other side who needs attention. A figure-eight pattern

of movement is conducive to keeping a broad field of vision while also

getting close enough to work with individuals.

Managing Stations

All teachers use a station teaching format at some point, probably sooner

rather than later. Stations are perhaps most often used in teaching fitness

content. Students typically spend up to about a minute at each fitness station

before moving to the next. This format can also be used in skill teaching by

having students execute different locomotor or manipulative skills at each

station. Regardless of the content, stations require tight management to

ensure that lessons run smoothly. Several management issues are important.

Demonstrating and Assigning Students to Stations

Assuming that you have set up your stations before students enter the

gymnasium, the first thing to do after the lesson starts (presumably following

a warm-up) is to demonstrate the task requirements of each station. You will

probably set up your stations in the perimeter areas of the gymnasium,

leaving a space in the middle where you will likely gather your students.

Demonstrating the station tasks is best done by students if you have students

who are able to demonstrate, leaving you free to provide verbal instructions.

Visual aids such as pictures of the station activities attached to cones will

help your students understand the task requirements. The number of students

you ask to demonstrate depends on the number of stations, but try to use a

fairly small number to avoid having too many students moving around. Keep

the rest of the class sitting in the center of the gymnasium as long as they are

not too far from where the demonstration is taking place. Avoid having all

students move from station to station during the demonstrations because this

procedure takes too long and provides opportunities for off-task behavior.

Having demonstrated all station tasks in sequence, you should then either

assign students or groups to specific stations or allow them to select the

station where they will begin. When you disperse students to stations,

remember to use complete instructions, including what to do when they get to

their starting stations.

Managing Rotations Between Stations

You want your students to rotate around the stations during the lesson. The

length of time they spend at each station depends on the content. Fitness

stations are likely to be of relatively short duration, perhaps a minute or less

because the intensity will be high, whereas skill stations might require more

time for practice. Timing might be done with a stopwatch or with

commercially available prerecorded music that has specific activity periods

followed by shorter transition music or silence. Regardless, try to ensure that

rotations are orderly (blowing a whistle and yelling, “Rotate” is not an

orderly or effective transition) and include complete instructions for when

and how to move and what to do when they arrive at the next station. Tell

students whether they should jog or walk to the next station. Then they need

to know whether they should start activity immediately on arriving at a

station or wait for a signal before beginning activity. You might need to

provide some instruction during a rotation, such as a short demonstration of

technique or intensity of effort you would like to see from all your students,

or a pulse rate check in the case of a fitness lesson.

Monitoring Students at Stations

Station activities provide a challenge for effective monitoring of students.

Because stations are usually set up around the outside of the gymnasium, the

tendency of the beginning teacher is to move around the middle area. The

problem with this method is that you are facing outward as you observe, so

you will not be able to see a large proportion of your students. As suggested

previously, you should move around the perimeter of the gymnasium, using

figure-eight patterns when you feel the need to move to the center. Lastly,

remember to have your students help you take down the stations, especially if

you need to clear the gymnasium floor before the next class. Beginning

teachers occasionally forget to do this, leaving themselves with a lot of clean

up to do in a short time.

Managing Game Rotations

Another management challenge comes with organizing game play and

rotating teams or individuals so that they play against different opponents.

Figure 12.4 illustrates a typical game play setup of eight teams playing four

games in a gymnasium or on a field. This scenario could apply to any

invasion game lesson or to a net game like volleyball or badminton (in which

the game played would be half-court singles or full-court doubles).

Figure 12.4 Sample game rotation for eight teams.

This situation could arise in any invasion or net game. Suppose that the first

set of games being played simultaneously are team 1 versus team 2, team 3

versus team 4, team 5 versus team 6, and team 7 versus team 8. Assume that

you want to have students play more than one game and therefore need to

have teams rotate. You can do this in several ways. The preferred way likely

depends on how many games you want teams to play. Several rotations are

possible:

Keep one side of the court (or net) stationary and have the other side

rotate one court down for the next game. If the left-hand side stayed in

place, team 8 would go to the top and play against team 1.

Split your gymnasium into two halves and play two minitournaments.

Teams 1 through 4 play in a round-robin format, and teams 5 through 8

do the same.

To have every team play against every other team, during each rotation

leave one team (the same team each time) where they are and rotate all

other teams one place clockwise. For example in figure 12.4, leave team

1 at their court and keep rotating the other teams one place clockwise (or

counterclockwise). All teams will have played each other after seven

rotations.

As suggested with station rotations, take just a moment during each rotation

to reemphasize the level of performance you expect to see during game play,

perhaps by pinpointing a team or player in a quick demonstration. This

approach will encourage your students to maintain the quality of their

performance. The rotation time also gives you the opportunity to record

scores if your students are in tournament play.



Social justice issues of equity and opportunity can be either alleviated

or exacerbated by your management of the learning environment,

such as your management of team or group selection. Groups can be

selected for activity in a variety of ways, including the following:

Students self-select partners.

Pairs select another pair to work with if groups of four are

needed.

Use count-off strategies to distribute talent levels evenly

(although this takes a little time).

Group by color of shirt or birthdate.

Students find a partner, and partners face each other along a line

to make two teams.

During free movement warm-up, students group themselves

according to your instructions. For example, say, “As you run,

listen for the whistle and the number (which tells you how many

you need in a group).” Finish the activity by making the last

number the size of the groups you need.

Although teams can be selected in several ways, you might remember

the teacher who allowed students to select teams by lining up the

class and having higher-ability students select their team members

one by one. Do you remember the look on the faces of those who

were selected last? If you have ever been in their situation, you might

know how they felt. Team selection is best done in advance by you. If

you intend to allow your students to select teams, have a few of them

do so in private without assigning themselves to a team, making it

less likely that they will attempt to stack a team because they won’t

know the team to which you will assign them. Although such team

selectors should be of approximately equal ability, they do not always

have to be the higher-ability players. Similarly, although teams

should be of approximately equal ability, they should also be of

mixed gender in a coeducational setting.

Key Points

Routines are essential for effective management of the learning

environment.

Necessary routines include those for entry to and exit from the

gymnasium, transitions between activities, and monitoring student

activity.

Summary

Your ability to manage the learning environment effectively will be critical to

your success as a beginning teacher. Establishing a set of simple rules and

routines goes a long way to ensuring successful class management and the

smooth running of your lessons. Routines for entry and exit to your

gymnasium, equipment management, and transitions are essential because

without these, you will likely lose valuable instruction time. A transition is a

pivotal moment during a lesson, whether it is a transition from a

demonstration to a practice task, from one station to the next, or from one

space to another when rotating teams to play different opponents. Ensuring

efficient transitions will go a long way to making sure that a lesson runs

smoothly from start to finish. You need to monitor both activity and behavior

throughout a lesson, and by using efficient movement patterns, you can

monitor the environment effectively. Lastly, you need to adopt a set of

strategies to modify student behavior if necessary. An intervention scale is

useful for this purpose, but however you accomplish it, you need to have a

system in place to manage student behavior.

Review Questions

1. Think of a familiar physical education setting (perhaps from when you

were at school or on field experience). Develop a set of rules for that

context.

2. Develop a set of equipment routines for the following lesson content:

Gymnastics (third grade)

Weight training (high school)

Soccer (eighth grade)

3. Write specific transition statements for the following:

Station to station transition in a fitness circuit

Transition to clean up and close a second grade manipulative skills

lesson that uses beanbags, hoops, and cones

Entry into the gymnasium in a sixth grade ultimate Frisbee lesson



web resource at


Chapter 13

Developing Essential Teaching

Skills

Learning Objectives


Describe a range of direct and indirect instructional styles and

give examples of when and how to use each one.

Explain how to give an effective demonstration of a skill or task.

Give examples of questions that will lead to student thinking.

Set SMART goals for your students.

Develop teaching cues and use them as the basis for providing

specific feedback to your students on their performance.

Key Terms

direct instruction

feedback

indirect instruction

instructional style

teaching cues

Chapter 12 described ways to establish and manage a safe, learning-oriented

environment. It is fair to say that teaching for learning cannot take place if the

environment is not conducive, but a well-managed environment is not

sufficient for learning to occur. As a teacher, you must possess and use a set

of instructional skills that, combined with the planning of good content, will

give your students the best opportunity to accomplish the learning goals you

have set for them. This chapter addresses a range of instructional styles and

skills that will enhance your effectiveness as a teacher.

Exploring Instructional Styles

To be an effective teacher, you need to develop and use a range of

instructional styles. Your style of choice will probably depend on several

factors, including your personal comfort level with a style, the content you

are teaching, and the students you are teaching. Instructional style varies

depending on who, the teacher or the learners, is making decisions during an

activity or a lesson. This point will become clearer by looking at a specific

example. The concept of instructional style is often viewed on a continuum

from direct to indirect, although several styles fall between the two extremes.

So it is fair to say that some instructional styles are more direct or more

indirect than others. Defining the two ends of the continuum will be useful

before delving in to look at the range of styles.

Direct instruction refers to a teaching and learning situation in which the

teacher exercises full decision-making responsibility and acts as a

communicator of knowledge and skills to his or her students. Metzler (2011)

refers to this type of teacher as being a “sage on the stage” who controls the

decision making regarding things such as content to be taught, pacing,

organization, and learning activities. Alternatively, he refers to a teacher who

uses more indirect instruction as being a “guide on the side.” Using an

indirect style involves allowing students to make more decisions, such as

decisions about the level of challenge they take on, the amount of time spent

on activities, the rate at which they progress through a unit of instruction, or

the actual content they learn.

The most cited work on teaching styles is that of the late Muska Mosston,

dating back to the mid-1960s. Many citations and resources for what Mosston

(1966) called the spectrum of teaching styles are available online at

www.spectrumofteachingstyles.org/styles-quick-guide.php. Mosston’s work

was further developed over the years, and his spectrum still has many

proponents who use the range of teaching styles to define instructional

practice (Mosston and Ashworth, 2008). The next sections describe a range

of Mosston’s teaching styles from direct to indirect and give examples of

when, why, and how you might use each one. Mosston’s styles are shown in

table 13.1.

Direct Styles

Although direct instructional styles vary in the amount of decision making

that is in the hands of the teacher, in each case the teacher is the primary

decision maker. These styles are also sometimes called reproduction styles

because the goal is for students to reproduce the outcomes chosen by the

teacher. The following five instructional styles are classified as direct, or

reproduction, styles, beginning with the most direct and moving to the least

direct.

Command Style

Command style teaching is the most direct instructional style in that as the

teacher you make all decisions regarding content and management. This style

sounds a little authoritarian, but regardless of your preference for more or less

control, in some circumstances command style teaching is appropriate or

even necessary. For example, suppose that you are teaching archery or a

throwing event (say shot put) or teaching students how to spot simple

gymnastics movements. These activities bring with them significant safety

concerns, so allowing student control or decision making would be reckless.

When teaching archery, you would have students shoot arrows on your

command and retrieve the arrows from the target only when you give them

the all clear to do so. Similarly, when teaching shot put, you would want

students to throw and retrieve on your signal. In the case of gymnastics

spotting skills, students would need to put their hands on the performer in

exactly the right places to ensure the performer’s safety during the

movement.

As suggested earlier, command style teaching is useful (probably essential)

when safety is a major concern. Some teachers also like to use command

style teaching early in the school year to establish rules, routines, and

expectations or to make the best use of limited time. Others use it when

teaching the critical elements of a skill, particularly when a specific technique

is essential to successful performance, or when giving individual instruction

to a student who is struggling to learn a particular technique. Volleyball skills

are a good example in that a specific technique must be often be used. Take

the forearm pass or the set: Both require specific critical elements to get the

ball where it needs to go and to keep the execution of the skills within the

rules of the game. Otherwise, the game breaks down. So you need to use

command style teaching under some circumstances, though perhaps not as

often as other styles.

Practice Style

Practice style teaching is probably the most commonly used instructional

style in physical education. This style puts more autonomy in the hands of

students, particularly for things such as location of activities, order of tasks,

starting time, stopping time, intervals between activities, initiation of

questions for clarification, and the pacing of activity. As the teacher, you

decide on the content for students to learn and develop appropriate learning

activities. After an appropriate explanation, accompanied in most cases by a

demonstration, you allow your students to practice independently while you

observe and give feedback to assist their learning. Students might practice

individually, in pairs, or in small groups or teams, but they practice at their

own pace while you provide teaching cues and feedback. You are particularly

likely to use practice style teaching in games and sport units of instruction

when students practice skills independently after being shown an appropriate

demonstration.

Reciprocal Style

In reciprocal style teaching you relax control just a little bit more. Although

you still select the content and the learning goal, students work together

(usually in pairs) to provide feedback to each other based on criteria you have

given them. For example, fourth grade students working on bowling might be

in groups of three made up of one performer, one manager who sets up the

pins and rolls the ball back, and one coach who provides feedback to the

performer. The coach might use a check sheet like that shown in figure 13.1

to observe the performer. The check sheet also helps the coach focus on the

critical elements of bowling as he or she observes. Note that figure 13.1

includes only five critical elements so that the coach does not have to observe

too many things at the same time. The critical elements are presented in the

order in which they would be observed, and they are drawn from all phases of

movement, namely the preparation, execution, and follow-through phases.

Self-Check Style

Less direct still is the self-check style. In this style the learner is allowed to

work independently at a task and engage in self-assessment based on preset

criteria, usually recording assessments on a check sheet. As the teacher, you

select the task, provide the criteria against which your students assess their

level of performance, and develop the check sheet. You then communicate

with students as they check their performance against your criteria, and you

provide feedback based on their assessments. This process encourages critical

self-reflection on the part of students and requires a certain level of honesty

in doing self-assessment. Thus, this style has an affective component.

Of course, self-check style does not lend itself to all content because openended

or fine motor tasks often require the observation of performance from

an external perspective. But a self-check style is suitable for closed or gross

motor skill performance. Novice performers unfamiliar with the content

being practiced cannot easily use this style. An example of a self-check sheet

is provided in figure 13.2, the task being for students (probably third or fourth

grade) to assess their own performance on a set of progressive striking tasks

using a foam ball, first with the hand and then with a racket.

Self-check also lends itself nicely to the affective domain, particularly given

the emphasis placed on affective outcomes in Standard 4 of the National

Standards. A self-check style of teaching provides students with the

opportunity to reflect individually on their behaviors. For example, figure

13.3 is a check sheet for middle school students to assess the extent to which

they have contributed to their team and carried out their designated roles

within a sport education season (see chapter 11 for a refresher on the sport

education curriculum model).

Inclusion Style

The inclusion style invites students to have input into the level at which they

participate. This style can apply to almost any content as long as you provide

your students with options for the level of challenge they might face. In

games teaching they might get to choose the level at which they play soccer,

perhaps with your giving them a choice of playing on the “pro” field, the

“college” field, or the “high school” field. Options such as these allow

students to select their level of play based on their own perceived ability

relative to task difficulty. If you cast your mind back to chapter 3 on student

motivation, you will recall the importance of this aspect in helping your

students experience a state of flow (table 3.1).

Essential Teaching Skills


How do you create good rapport with your students?

Diane Wyatt, Abilene Middle School (Abilene, Kansas): Spend

time learning about each one and knowing what they are interested in.

This may take some time to do if you have large classes, but it is the

best thing for connecting with your students. Being approachable with

your students is essential. If they feel like you are unapproachable or

don’t care about them, rapport won’t happen.


Jennifer Sferra , Leighton Elementary School (Aurora, Ohio): To

ensure student engagement, get students moving quickly. I often greet

my students in the hallway and give directions for the instant activity

or warm-up (fewer distractions) and we are immediately moving once

we get into the gymnasium. I think demonstrations, feedback, and

pinpointing are important teaching skills to use to ensure student

engagement and the quality of activity that you are looking for.

Indirect Styles

The midpoint in Mosston’s spectrum is where the range of teaching styles

starts to become more indirect as more autonomy and responsibility for

learning are handed over to students. In Metzler’s terms, as you use more

varied and indirect teaching styles, you become less a “sage on the stage” and

more a “guide on the side” as you transfer decision-making responsibilities

from yourself to your students. Using indirect teaching styles can be

intimidating for some beginning teachers because handing over autonomy

also means handing over some control. But incorporating indirect styles into

your teaching can produce additional student motivation because they have

greater autonomy. Indirect styles that involve questioning and problem

solving hand over to students some control of their own learning, likely

making that learning more permanent (Danielson, 2009). The styles become

progressively more indirect throughout the range.

Indirect teaching styles provide students with problem-solving and decisionmaking

opportunities.

Discovery Styles

Mosston identified three discovery styles in which the goal is for you to guide

your students’ learning: guided, convergent, and divergent. Metzler’s phrase

“guide on the side” applies here. Discovery styles are question driven in that

your role is to provide the questions and tasks that place students in the

problem-solving situations that will guide their learning.

A guided discovery style involves your asking logically sequenced questions

to lead your students to discover new concepts or principles. The tactical

games curriculum model (see chapter 11) provides many examples of guided

discovery teaching and learning. Question and answer segments are

important in linking game play to skill practice settings within games lessons

(Mitchell, Oslin, and Griffin, 2013).

Convergent discovery style is similar, but discovery does not take place in a

step-by-step manner as it does in guided discovery. Instead, as the teacher,

you present students with a question or problem that has a correct answer or

solution and you allow them the latitude to discover the answer or solution

for themselves. Some team-building activities lend themselves well to using

convergent discovery, particular those without inherent safety concerns. For

example, the stepping-stones activity provides a low-level challenge to which

there is really only one workable solution (Glover and Midura, 1992).

The third discovery style is divergent discovery, in which a variety of

answers to a question or solutions to a problem might be viable. Again, your

role as the teacher is to present the problem and allow students to discover

possible solutions. Some initiative activities such as the river crossing activity

might be taught using divergent discovery (Glover and Midura, 1992). As

another example, you might present your upper elementary or middle school

students with a gymnastics routine that has to include a starting position,

three balances, three rolls, and a finishing position, a challenge that students

could solve in various ways and with various levels of complexity.

Learner-Designed Programming

The most indirect instructional style that you are likely to use is learnerdesigned

programming. The style enables your students to design their own

learning experiences. It is most commonly associated with fitness

programming in high schools when students might design individual fitness

programs to address their specific needs based on the results of a fitness

assessment. Students who think that they have scored poorly on the muscular

strength part of a fitness assessment might choose to emphasize weight

training in their program, whereas those who scored lower on

cardiorespiratory endurance might choose to emphasize activities like

running, cycling, and swimming. A further example is a learner-designed

project to meet the high school requirements of national Standard 2 or 5, in

which students select their own preferred activities for biomechanical

analysis (Standard 2) or advocacy and promotion (Standard 5). Yet another

place where you might use this style is within the sport education curriculum

model (see chapter 11), when team athletic trainers or coaches select the

warm-up activities or practice tasks for their teams.

Key Points

Effective teachers are able to select from a range of instructional styles

and use an appropriate style according to the content being taught, the

learning environment, and the needs of students.

Direct instructional styles keep most of the decision making in the hand

of the teacher.

Indirect instructional styles put some or most of the decision making in

the hands of students.

Employing Effective Teaching Tactics

Although effective class management (chapter 12) is essential, and you

should cultivate a range of teaching styles, you need more than just varied

teaching styles to ensure that learning takes place. Effective teaching for

learning in physical education requires you to use a particular set of skills and

teaching behaviors after you have your learning environment organized. The

following sections address some of these skills.

The Essentials of Teaching Physical Education Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment (SHAPE America set the Standard) (2)

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