My PE Classroom

Pre-assessment is important at PE because we jump through units very quickly and it is essential to get baseline for each class so you can avoid reteaching concepts they already know and reinforce ideas that students struggle with. A pre-assessment that I use often is to use the summative assessment for the grade below the student's current grade. Looking at the beginning of a fourth grade football unit, I would distribute a third grade level summative assessment to gauge where the class is at. Students are divided into three separate differentiation groups. The first differentiation group is a group of five students who answered most, including the most difficult, of the pre-assessment questions correctly. It is important to me that these students are challenged and given curriculum that engages them in learning. I would want these students to help other students who are struggling, but also have time to experience gameplay at their level. The students progress would be monitored ...

This mock data was used to simulate the assessment results from the Football unit for my 4th grade Physical Education students. Homogenous Groups — My class operates on the principle of having six teams for game play and team work. In this class there are 23 students, which equates to 5 groups of four students and 1 group of three. When looking into homogenous groups for this class, I decided to make my strongest students my smallest group because they would have the easiest time functioning as a team of three during gameplay. After setting up that team, I worked through the data to make groups mainly based on the end of unit assessment. There were a few students in between the groups that either progressed or regressed throughout the unit. In general, I decided to place those students in the lower level group so they could support or be supported within their group. The groups were then assigned colors in rainbow order based on skill level with Red being my strongest studen...

This project encourages students to dive a little bit into another culture and asks students to examine sports across the globe. Students will research native sports to different countries and which are the most popular. The main goal is that students will learn about different countries and their native cultural expression through sports. Students will work in groups to learn about the sport and also research a bit about the country and its culture around sports. They will talk about and explain the native sport, the approach to sports in general in that country, and what is most popular there. I think this is a great way to open students up to other cultures using something familiar and comfortable like sports. The project is targeted towards 5th graders at PE. The project delivery is open and creativity is be encouraged. Students can film a video, make a powerpoint, perform, demonstrate, use visuals and notecards, etc. The project must have visual aids incorporated. The ...

When it comes to using formative assessments at PE, I find myself most often using them to assess myself as a teacher. I like to have the mentality that if my students are struggling with the material, that means that I should reflect on ways to improve my ability to teach the material or examine the assessments. I like to use assessments to address concepts and strategies for our units at PE and even sportsmanship ideals. Some assessment that I have used at PE are Exit Tickets, True/False Cards, Multiple Choice Quizzes, Think/Pair/Share, and various team work activities like Demonstrations and Whiteboard Activities. At PE, we don't have a lot of time and I try and find assessments that are quick and to the point to give me the most information in the shortest amount of time. Assessment is very important to the function of our class, so even if we don't have as much time, we have to use them effectively. Based on these assessments, I can decide how to proceed with future le...

Roller Coaster Physics I believe this teacher holds very high academic performance expectations for her students. She uses a strategy called chiming where one person is chosen as the representative from each group. This shows me that she has high expectations of every single students and expects that any one of them could be the chimer. Other ways I have noticed that she has high expectations are giving each student their own job, putting many constraints on the project, and requiring them to use a lot of detail and proper vocabulary when describing their project. In general, she is challenging each student to improve and be successful by setting her expectations very high, and giving them above and beyond the amount of tools needed to do so. I think behavior expectations are also very high in her class. Students have an expectation for daily participation and must be an active group member. Students in the class are responsible for acting as an engineer which puts them in diffe...

In my PE classroom, positive reinforcement is my main and key management tool. I use it as students walk in and get right on task, when students follow command cues, during and after game play, and at any point when I am giving directions or someone is following set classroom procedures. I almost always have an instant activity for my students everyday, like a warm up or partner activity. I give the instruction verbally or post it on a white board for students to read as they head into class. Once students enter, the minute I see students on task, I start throwing out clear and specific positive reinforcement. I have a rule of three minimum positive reinforcement interactions, but I like to acknowledge as many students as possible before we have to move on. I make this one of my main focuses because it serves so many purposes. My classroom has a much more positive tone, I am setting clear expectations of behavior, and students can look to others for an example. This kind of positive r...

In PE, it is extremely important to create a classroom climate of caring and concern. At PE, every sport or activity is going to take at least one student out of their comfort zone. It is important as a teacher to nurture a positive climate where students are encouraging and caring others. It begins with you as an instructor. “When asking students to explore issues of personal and social identity, teachers must provide safe spaces where students are seen, valued, cared for and respected. It is also important that students have opportunities to learn from one another’s varied experiences and perspectives” (Scharf).  A positive and caring classroom climate is a place where students feel safe and secure in their vulnerability. One key element is dialogue, or just an openness to new things and ideas. To establish this as a teacher and within your students, you must practice the skills of listening, humility, respect, trust, and voice. PE is a place where students tend to feel vuln...