Health and Physical Education
Teacher InstructionHealth and physical education makes a major contribution as the primary area of the curriculum concerned with helping students develop and maintain healthy lifestyles and physical skills.
Guidelines for Quality Instruction
- Beginning of school or semester: Instruction should start the first day of class.
- Teaching considerations: All students active and engaged in learning; continuous teacher reinforcement of the learning; ongoing assessment both subjective and objective; development of skills for lifetime participation in physical activity.
- Challenges: Provide the students with goals; design rubrics to challenge all students - allow for success; make activities relevant and meaningful; communicate expectations of performance to students.
- Modifications: The skill levels of all students should be assessed during skill practice; modification of rules, equipment, boundaries, number of players on teams, etc. should be considered to promote the successful participation of every student; teams should be formed with the skill levels of students taken into consideration; whenever possible, just as in all organized recreational activities, opposing teams should be formed that are at comparable skill levels to make the games challenging; one whole class playing against another whole class is not an acceptable teaching strategy or learning environment.
- Instant Activity: Teachers should offer several different activities to accommodate the interests of all students -- not just basketball; a maximum of 10 minutes; should not take priority over instructional time.
- Warm-up Activity: Should have physical or health related objectives--relevant, meaningful, challenging; variety to stimulate interest and challenge the students (aerobics/step/kickboxing/dyna-bands); a maximum of 10 minutes; should not take priority over instructional time; group/station activity or walk/run laps - not both.
- Skill Activity: Instructional methods should be based on the philosophy of all students active and engaged in learning; the skills should be practiced individually, with a partner, and/or in small groups; we have adequate equipment for each student in a class to have their own piece of equipment to promote maximum time on task; one class per activity to facilitate best use of space and equipment.
- Planning: Design lessons utilize space and equipment; review the Health and Physical Education Standards of Learning to align activities with standards.
- Assessment: based on dress, participation, skills, written work when applicable; design rubrics and communicate expectations to students.
Physical Education is your best health insurance!
Student ChallengesDuring the school year there will be available to student's challenges. You may do these during your Physical Education class or on your own. Let your physical education teacher know when you have completed a challenge. Enjoy the challenges and if you want to create a challenge please do so and give the information to your physical education teacher to be considered for use on this site www.pecchallenge.org. Additional challenges such as Volley Up, Throw and Catch, Balance Shuffle, Paddle Strike and Jump the Rope are located on the challenge site.