Transcript Middle School Curriculum

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