Category: Middle & High School

This category focuses on how to effectively teach middle school, junior high school, and high schoolers. Learn more about how best to connect with and instruct students who are transitioning from childhood to adulthood, and how to motivate them to be physically active and make healthy lifestyle choices.

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High School Physical Education-Part 2: Going On Offense with Innovative New Programs and Online Options

This article is the second part of a two part series. The first segment was published here.

In Part 1 of this series, I described ideas for “going on offense” rather than “playing defense” with high school physical education programs. I suggested that we build strong standards based programs that show accountability. I also suggested the implementation of a strong fitness education program that adheres to the SHAPE America fitness education framework to bring credibility to our programs. Finally, I suggested that offering innovative electives is another key ingredient for taking an offensive approach. In this second article in the series, I offer additional ideas for “going on offense” including ideas for innovative new programs and ideas for quality online options.

Create Innovative New Programs

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Celebrate Student Learning with SPELL!

There are several ‘tools available for our tool belts’ as teachers of physical education when it comes to quality assessment procedures. In this article, we would like to SPELL one out for you!

 

Assessing student learning is a vital component of the teaching process and can act as a way to celebrate student achievement. Surveys, checklists, rubrics, rating scales, e-portfolios, etc., are just a few examples of possible assessment instruments to demonstrate and assess academic growth.

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What Keeps You Coming Back?

Recently, I was getting ready for the start of another school year. We all go through the same basic checklist: lesson plans ready for the first week, storeroom all set to get the equipment out, office put back together, and new supplies put away and ready to use. You may have even purchased a new pair of sneakers to start the year!

But let’s get to the deeper question. What motivates us to prepare every fall to begin a new school year? Why do we keep coming back year after year? Whether you are a rookie just starting out or a “seasoned veteran” who over the years has seen things come and go in education, why do you keep coming back? Why don’t you take a better paying job somewhere doing something else? Why don’t you retire the minute you are able to?

My guess is that we all got into teaching for very similar reasons. We wanted to help kids. We all liked being active in some ways ourselves and wanted to use that love of movement to teach kids the same appreciation.

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High School Physical Education-Part 1: Going on Offense to Improve Programs and Prevent Program Loss

This article is the first part of a two part series.  The second segment will be published in the next issue of PHE America.

Recently, I was asked to participate in a college class activity in which students “defended physical education” before a simulated school board.  I, along with several others, served as “board members” for this activity.  Different groups were asked to make presentations to the board concerning proposed exemptions for band and athletics, or proposed decreases in the physical education requirement.  The activity was realistic because we in physical education often find ourselves on the defensive.  Challenges to our programs “pop up” and, in the defensive mode, we prepare statements or appear before school boards to defend them.

In recent years, I have written position papers for submission to school boards (solicited by physical educators or prepared on my own), and have presented to a number of school boards to defend programs. After involvement in several program challenges, I have come to believe that by the time a program challenge has reached the school board agenda, the battle has already been lost.  Indeed program losses, especially at the high school level, have been significant over time.

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Back to Basics Coaching and Teaching Physical Education

When our school district developed our “Injury Prevention Initiative” a little over two years ago (see November, 2011 article in pelinks4u, “An Injury Prevention Initiative Based Upon the Functional Movement Screen [FMS]”), little did we realize the impact it would make. We initiated this injury prevention program by mandating all athletic teams incorporate the recommendations into their warm-up routines. Since then, we have cut the number of surgeries resulting from athletic injuries by over 40%.

The results were so dramatic that I’m now hounding our district’s physical education specialists to begin using these functional movement exercises in all of our elementary and middle school physical education classes. My thinking is based upon the huge impact Gray Cook and Lee Burton have made with their Functional Movement Screen and the exercises designed to enhance FMS scores and athletic performance.

This fall, I came across an article and video, “Yes, kids are stars on the playing field, but can they do a push-up?” (Nancy Cambria, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 21, 2013). I was pleasantly surprised by what was in the article and attached video, and started looking at what’s happening in our society to our youth-their activity levels, outdoor time, and obesity levels. The focus of Cambria’s article was:

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Celebrate Students’ Victories with a Brag Board

Not long ago I was preparing to schedule student teacher observations and field experience visits. I then discovered it was that time of the year when standardized tests took over our schools. Schedules change and teachers and administrators are overly stressed ensuring proper procedures are being followed. Some students care a great deal, while others not a bit. And of course the purpose of all of this testing is to tell us how our students, teachers, and schools are doing, and to compare each of them with others around the state, county, region, and nationally.

Perhaps your health and physical education classes have escaped the specter of standardized tests? Or maybe you are accountable for fitness tests, motor skill assessments, or have to create your own student-based learning outcomes? In either case, I believe that most teachers, parents, and administrators will tell you these standardized tests fail to adequately express the full story of what America’s students, teachers, and schools are achieving. Stories of great academic achievements rarely reference test scores. There is so much more that my students, my fellow teachers, and I do that can’t be easily assessed by standardized tests. These are the real victories that I believe are most important, and I think we should celebrate more than the means, medians, and standard deviations the testing agencies report to us.

I first saw the first “brag board” at the fitness center where I worked out. People could post their latest accomplishments, goals attained, and personal bests. I decided this was a great idea I could use to celebrate students’ real progress toward becoming lifelong movers that was not revealed with fitness tests. My original brag board started out as a white board where students could write their accomplishments in and out of class. For younger grades, I would often be the person to select content. For example, my second graders told me they were able to do the swing step while jumping rope at recess so I told them to put that on the board. The white board was short lived and quickly replaced by a large sheet of white paper. I did away with the white board because we quickly started to run out of room but I didn’t have the heart to erase anything. The papers create a lasting celebration of student success.

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A Tale of Two Contrasts: Being a Coach and Being Coached

I have been coached and I have coached. And the differences between these two experiences is a tale to be told.

 

I am an athlete, maybe a little on the grey side, but still an athlete. I skate weekly and I was at one time a high level skater. But I was also an athlete in team sports. I played softball both slow and fast pitch. I was pretty good and pretty bad at the same time. As Frank Deford (2014) would say – I played real sport, the ultimate where one individual goes directly against another, mano-a-mano – where you must not only compete, but also compete against your rival’s attempts to stop you.

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