It’s all about Student Learning! National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes for K – 12 Physical Education

After three years of meetings, member reviews, and lots of re-writes, the National Standards and Grade-level Outcomes for K – 12 Physical Education are available on the SHAPE America (AAHPERD) website. This document was the work of the NASPE Curriculum Framework Task Force, which was charged with creating a framework (not a curriculum) that included the revised national K – 12 standards and newly developed grade-level outcomes. Physical educators had expressed a need for grade-level outcomes, which would fill a gap they saw between the standards and curriculum development.

This gap existed because standards are intentionally written broadly to reflect what students should have learned at the end of their physical education programs. In contrast, curriculum development requires an understanding of what students should know and be able to do at various points along the way. By identifying what students should know and be able to do at each grade-level, the new outcomes are designed to provide the guideposts to achieving the standards and a physically educated (now “physically literate”) individual. The completed document serves as a framework for public school physical educators to use for instructional planning, as well as a tool for communicating with parents, administrators, and policy makers about what students should be learning in quality physical education programs.

The task force members included two university professors (Stevie Chepko and me), two practicing physical education teachers (Brad Rettig and Dan Persse), a Director of Physical Education (Georgi Roberts) and a retired teacher and well-known author (Shirley Holt-Hale). From the beginning we knew that creating a curriculum framework would not be a quick or easy project, but we were convinced it was an important one for the field and well worth our efforts. The great support we received from K-12 teachers, other discipline specialists, and AAHPERD reinforced our commitment to the project. In this essay I’d like to expand on the research and thinking that guided the task force in its work, and how with its focus on student learning, the standards and outcomes document can positively impact and strengthen the future of our profession.

Revising the Standards
Prior to beginning our work, we reviewed the materials gathered by the exploratory task force that preceded us and reviewed other curriculum frameworks as well as current research in the field. The other frameworks came from different subject areas, various states and other countries, and they gave us many ideas about the structure, organization, and language for our own framework.

Our review included the Common Core Learning Standards. This is why we adopted language such as “literacy” and “college/career” ready for our own curriculum framework. We revised the goal of physical education as follows: To develop physically literate individuals who have the psychomotor, cognitive, and affective skills to adopt a physically active lifestyle.

The expectation is that students will learn these skills in their physical education programs. The adoption of “physically literate,” rather than “physically educated,” was initially controversial. However, the task force and many practicing teachers believed that this language change placed us on more even footing with other subject areas such as language arts, math and health, while still addressing all that we are trying to accomplish in physical education.

The task force made only a few changes to the standards. These changes were motivated by wanting to make the standards read as “content standards” rather than “goals” and by making them more measurable. Notably, the way Standards 3 and 4 (2004) were written reflected the goals of physical education rather than the content, as seen below:

Standard 3 (2004): A physically educated person participates regularly in physical activity.
Standard 4 (2004): A physically educated person achieves and maintains a health-enhancing level of physical fitness.

As teachers, we don’t have a lot of control over whether students regularly engage in physical activity or are physically fit, even when we assign physical activity homework or offer exemplary Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs (CSPAPs). We do, however, teach the knowledge and skills for students to be physically active and fit. The task force combined the two standards into one (now Standard 3) and changed the wording to reflect our content, as seen below:

Standard 3 (2013): The physically literate individual demonstrates the knowledge and skills to achieve and maintain a health-enhancing level of physical activity and fitness.

Most of the other changes to the standards were editorial but the change to Standard 6 (2004), now Standard 5 (2013), was more substantive. In an effort to make this standard more measurable and reflect our content rather than our goal, the task force changed “values physical activity for health, enjoyment, challenge, self-expression, and/or social interaction” to recognizes the value of physical activity for health, enjoyment, challenge, self-expression, and/or social interaction.” As much as we might try, we can’t make people value physical activity. We can however, hold them accountable for understanding its worth.

Developing the Outcomes
Unlike the standards revisions, the task force was working with a nearly clean slate when it came to developing the grade-level outcomes. With the exception of the 1992 Outcomes of Quality Physical Education Programs, which is no longer in print, our national organization had not produced an outcomes or benchmarks document that we could use as a starting point. We knew we would need a solid foundation from the literature as the basis for our work. Motor development formed the underpinning of the document because the developmental appropriateness of the outcomes was essential. However, if we really want students to learn our content, we need to consider additional factors such as motor skill competency, student engagement, intrinsic motivation, and instructional climate (AAHPERD, 2014, in press).

Developing motor skill competency and perceived competency are critical for student learning because they are positively associated with physical activity levels in physical education classes and adequate health-related fitness in adulthood. This competency is gained through engagement in mastery-oriented tasks, where the focus is on self-improvement through carefully planned progressions and learning activities. While highly-skilled students may prefer the performance environment of competitive full-sided games, less-skilled students prefer a mastery climate, non-competitive, and cooperative activities. In addition, less-skilled students fear the potential for social comparison associated with competitive games and may disengage from the activity (AAHPERD, 2014, in press).

It is clear from the literature that it is not enough to have students participate in activities often as “passive bystanders;” students must be “engaged” in order to learn. Student engagement is influenced by perceived competence, activity choice, and cognitive challenge. Choice in activities also leads to increased intrinsic motivation and enjoyment. Gender preferences in activities also play a role in student learning. Several studies have shown that girls prefer activities such as dance, fitness, and non-competitive activities to the traditional team sport curriculum, but the physical education curriculum often doesn’t address these interests. This mismatch may contribute to lower levels of physical activity we see in girls compared to boys.

The grade-level outcomes reflect the research on student learning by focusing on developing competency, particularly in fundamental motor skills during the elementary school years. There are competitive team games, but only at the middle school level, where students have reached a point in their cognitive development where they can integrate tactics and strategies and only in small-sided formats. By high school, the outcomes center on personal choice, lifetime activities, and fitness. The outcomes are intended to address the needs of all students by fostering a mastery-oriented environment, de-emphasizing full-sided games and competitive activities, focusing on knowledge and skills that foster lifelong physical activity, and including activities, such as dance and non-competitive activities that appeal to a wider spectrum of student interests. The grade-level outcomes provide a clear scope and sequence for K – 12 student learning and curriculum development.

The standards and outcomes are already available on the AAHPERD website and in April 2014, an enhanced version will be published in book form. I say, “enhanced” because the book will include additional chapters on designing meaningful practice tasks, assessing the outcomes, and using technology to enhance student learning, as well as the research that provided the foundation for this document. The importance of developing motor skill competency and establishing a mastery climate for student learning is clear throughout.

Strengthening Our Profession
How does this focus on student learning strengthen our profession? First, I think it puts us on more even footing with other school subjects in which teachers have long had to assess and demonstrate student learning. It also aligns us with initiatives in accreditation and certification processes for physical education teacher education (PETE) programs. For example, our PETE standards (2009) for initial certification have required that teacher candidates demonstrate their impact on student learning, at least in colleges and universities seeking NCATE (now CAEP) accreditation. In high-stakes testing states like mine (New York), which have adopted edTPA as a certification requirement, teacher candidates must demonstrate they can plan, instruct, assess, and effect student learning through a rigorous electronic portfolio process. All these educational initiatives are driven at holding teachers and teacher educators accountable for K – 12 student learning.

Second, the assessment of student learning also provides us with meaningful data that can be shared with administrators, parents, and policy makers about the learning that is taking place in physical education classes. When we can demonstrate student learning, it diminishes the stereotype that physical education is just about playing games, and helps us make the case for the value of physical education as the foundation for healthy, physically active lifestyles. The standards and outcomes document can be a useful tool in communicating the expectations for student learning and for quality physical education programs to those outside our profession.

Finally, if student learning is not our focus, and if we are not accountable for it, we probably do not belong in schools. It is not hard to make the case that physical education programs that just keep students “busy, happy and good,” or focus only on MVPA at the expense of instruction and student learning, can probably be administered by paraprofessionals or outside vendors. As important as MVPA is, it cannot solely define our role as physical educators because it doesn’t address “the educational mission of schools” (Ennis, 2011, p.16). On the other hand, if student learning is our focus, we may be able to move physical education from a marginalized position to one that is more central in schools. We offer so much valuable content for students to learn – content that can enhance the quality of their lives now and throughout adulthood. What is more important to student lives than that? The national standards and outcomes provide a roadmap for developing physically literate individuals, but we will only succeed in reaching our goal and elevating our profession if physical education is all about student learning!

References
AAHPERD. (2014). National standards & grade-level outcomes for K-12 physical education. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Ennis, C. (2011). Physical education curriculum priorities: Evidence for education and skillfulness. Quest, 63, 5 – 18.
NASPE. (1992). Outcomes of quality physical education programs. Reston, VA: Author.
NASPE. (2004). Moving into the future: National standards for physical education (2nd. Ed.). Reston, VA: Author.