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Message |
Terri Covey - pelinks4u webmaster (Coveyte)
Senior Member
Username: Coveyte
Post Number: 25
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 - 8:23 am: |       |
The pelinks4u August/September 2007 editorial is entitled "PE Teaching: It's ALL About Outcomes " Please post comments to the editorial in this thread.
After September the editorial can be found in the archives.
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Margaret Bates (Mbates)
New member
Username: Mbates
Post Number: 1
Registered: 8-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 12:02 pm: | |
Judy, you are right on!! When teachers stop to look at individual students for formal assessment, then and only then does the teacher internalize the success of what has been taught. |
Howard Weiss (Weissice)
Junior Member
Username: Weissice
Post Number: 9
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 4:02 pm: | |
Physical Education has many unique problems that other subjects do not face. Most subjects are academic and are much easier to assess with written tools. Upon graduation, employers expect their employees to be literate. They don't particularly care if ther employees can't shoot hoops. They are starting to expect some level of fitness (with health care costs skyrocketing). But I don't see them giving fitness tests or attaching heart rate monitors to their job appicants.
The goal of PE should be to have our students acquire the skills and knowledge to become life long movers.
Assessing the knowlege part is the easy part. We can give written tests on fitness concepts, resources, rules, body mechanics, etc. Skills are a different matter. Not only are they difficult to assess, but they may actually do more harm to our goal of our students becoming life long movers. Students need to find their physical niche. We must offer many different kinds of activities. They need to understand the importance of fitness and be able to judge a particular activity as it relates to their personal fitness. They need to understand proper body mechanics in order to enjoy a particular activity. They do not need to be proficient in a particular skill that a teacher or locality deems important.
If we ever want to be taken seriously as an academic subject, we must give written work: essays, tests, portfolios, research projects. That is the only way to compete with other subjects. |
Thomas J. Loughrey (Loughreyt)
New member
Username: Loughreyt
Post Number: 1
Registered: 8-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 8:25 am: | |
I heartily applaud the work of Judy Rink and others, especially in developing the state-wide assessment guidelines for South Carolina. Also remember that basic guidelines were established through the NASPE Outcomes Project (1992) with examples of Benchmark statements provides at grades K, 2, 4,6, 8, 10, and 12 to guide curriculum development teams in local school districts to define and implement their own standards for assessment.
Being able to define the product of our program (The Physically Educated Person) and to be able to monitor progress toward achieving that end is an absolute necessity in demonstrating accountability for the time and resources devoted to our program. In those schools where teachers are accountable and students are achieving, district priorities for the program increases. For example, in the Parkway School District of St. Louis County (student population 18,000+) the Health and Physical Education program this year is the second highest funded (2nd only to math) of all the subject matter areas. Most of you are aware of the PE4Life center in Grundy Center, IA, where the Physical Education program under the leadership of Rick Schupbach and influence of Beth Kirkpatrick clearly demonstrates high-level achievement through a powerful database of student work covering psychomotor, cognitive and affective outcomes and as a result continues to be the number one funded program in the district.
As Judy is demonstrating, we have the knowledge and the tools to demonstrate accountability for outcomes that affect the quality of life of each student, and to not accept this responsibility is to do a disservice to the students we serve. I cannot help but think of all the adults in our population who either don't know or care about the role of Physical Activity and other Healthy Living Behaviors in their life, or to think of the adults who turn to a Personal Trainer (certified ??? or not) for Remedial Education in Physical Education. For us to not be able to document the progress of students toward meeting psychomotor, cognitive, and affective outcomes designed to help them develop and maintain a healthy and active lifestyle may mean that we abdicate our responsibilities and out-source to untrained and questionably capable commercial enterprises what we should be able to accomplish. |
Alex Dail (Alex)
New member
Username: Alex
Post Number: 1
Registered: 9-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 04, 2007 - 2:39 pm: | |
Hi,
In Washington State we have defined minimum outcomes that students are expected to achieve at particular grade levels, however, accountability is less stressed simply because of the emphasis on assessing and measuring in reading, math, and science. In Washington State P.E. is also considered a core subject, but in my district there is no support for P.E. instructors to engage in professional development.
There are steps P.E. teachers can take to enhance credibility; however, this does not alleviate the shared responsibility that administrative and political leaders have in building the credibility of P.E. through hiring, providing continuing education opportunities, adequately funding P.E., seeing that facilities match needs created by mandates, stating (rather than suggesting) how much time students will be in P.E. class, and ensuring that P.E. specialists (not general education teachers) will be instructing students for their required P.E. time.
Excellent organizations when they make changes adjust all the various parts of an organization to support a change. Relating this to P.E. specifically, and education in general, when changes are introduced like, "No Child Left Behind" then comprehensive changes must be made in all areas that will support the change. It is great to provide teacher training, but is other necessary supports in place to make sure no subject is left behind? And has equal thought been put into planning so no State, district, or teacher is left behind due to short falls in funding or strategic planning. I have taught long enough to see changes being ordered without providing the immediate needs for accomplishing the change; or providing for initial funding but not adequately funding so the mandated change will maintain its initial vigor.
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