Middle School Curriculum

1. Middle School Curriculum

2. Building a Quality PE Elem. PE Program • Remember “building a quality PE program” lecture and NAPSE “appropriate practices” documents

3. Content Emphasis for Each Grade & Standard • Related file

4. 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.

5. 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

6. Content Emphasis • Middle school PE focuses more on traditional team sports: • Football, basketball, softball, etc • Exceptions: • 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.

7. Content Emphasis • Suggested middle school and high school activities file • Refer to for possible exam questions

8. 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. • 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 • 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.

9. 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

10. Appropriate Content • Standard 10 (2) • Wonderful text is • Concepts and Principles of Physical Education: What Every Student Needs to Know (Mohsen, 2003)

11. Appropriate Content • Standard 11 (3) • Remember, it is our goal to help students transition from what we do in class to what they do outside of class • “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 • 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 • Get students started early on this concept

12. Appropriate Content • Standard 12 (4) • Many middle school students are generally not fit. • Developing in class fitness is usually not the best choice for in-class program time. Instead: • Focus on building personal fitness programs • Monitor student performance periodically throughout the year • Hold students accountable for achieving health-enhancing fitness levels

13. Appropriate Content • Standard 13 (5) • 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 • Wondering “who am I?”

14. Appropriate Content • Standard 14 (6) • Encourage students to be physically active for the fun of it and make lessons aligned with that end. • Students may/may not be physically active for the health benefits.

15. Issues in MS PE • Title IX • Must be coed except contact activities • Separation may only be within one class • Equal funding and treatment of males and females • Standards for skill measurement may be different, thus without gender bias (Fitnessgram). • “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

16. Issues in MS PE • Competition v. Cooperation • 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. • Many activities involve self-competition where students are attempting to better themselves such as fitness or gymnastics. • Benefits of a mixed approach: • 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 • Don’t have the same students “losing” all the time

17. 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. • Fall/spring alternative

18. 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?

19. Foundations of High School Curriculum

20. 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!

21. Content Emphasis • Although some middle school activities may be continued, the focus of high school PE is on lifetime-oriented activities in an elective model. • Why not continue continue teaching basketball, baseball, and other mainstream sports? • 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

22. 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

23. Content Organization • Schools may use a traditional approach (9th grade PE) or combine PE and Health • Farmington example

24. 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). • 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)

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. 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. • More than just intramurals