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TOWARD A COMMON PHYSICAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM
by Terry
Langton, Hanover schools, MA
 School
must overcome many barriers in their
quest to provide quality physical education
to students. These problems can include:
low quality physical education programs
(Placek, 1983;
Siedentop, 1987, 1992; Vickers, 1992;
Doolittle, 2007; Rhea, 2009);
poorly written state learning standards
(Marzano, 2006)
or no clear state standards (NASPE
& the American Heart Association,
2010); exemptions, waivers, and
the substitution of ROTC, interscholastic
sports, and marching band for regular
participation in physical education
(NASPE & American
Heart Association, 2010); shrinking
learning time for students (NASPE
& American Heart Association, 2006);
hall of shame (Williams,
1992, 1994), smorgasbord, (Siedentop,
1992) and fad type content (Belka,
1986); and physical educators
doing little to promote student learning
(Johnson, 1986;
Grineski & Bynum, 1996).
Barrosso,
Kelder, Murray, McCullum-Gomez and Hoelscher
(2005) identify more obstacles: numerous
classes; excessive and disproportionate
class sizes; negligible amounts of student
learning time; few teaching resources;
little support from administrators;
lack of agreement on program goals,
content, and learning experiences across
K-12 programs; and few opportunities
for professional development in school.
Collectively, these obstacles can cause
a physical education program to become
and remain an outlier in a school.
Multiple
teachers, located at different schools,
each teaching students at different
grade levels, manage today’s physical
education programs. Absent is a common,
consistent focus that is essential for
teaching and learning. Psychomotor,
cognitive and affective goals cannot
be developed without a consistent emphasis
throughout the whole program. Learning
objectives should clearly describe the
student behavior and performance standards
expected and the content or context
to which the behavior applies. Unfortunately,
student learning objectives in physical
education often lack the specificity
and clarity needed to serve as a guide
for teaching. They are too general and
vague to permit selection and organization
of content and learning experiences,
and to determine how to go about gathering
evidence on the degree of their attainment
(Taba, 1962).
Curriculum
development is a complex activity. Recently,
forty states adopted national common
core math and English/Language arts
standards (Common
Core State Standards Initiative, 2010a,
2010b). If a common core physical
education curriculum was developed and
state mandated, physical education would
be transformed. Physical educators nationwide
would be expected to provide quality
learning experiences in common content
areas. This would establish an identity
and common purpose for PreK-12 physical
education. The remainder of this article
will discuss: (1) a common national
PreK-12 physical education curriculum;
(2) the necessary learning environment;
and (3) an accountability system that
might potentially answer many of the
problems that currently plague physical
education.
A
Common Physical Education Curriculum
The National Association for Physical
Education (NASPE,
2004) content standards can be
achieved only if students acquire an
appropriate common wealth of skills,
understanding, attitudes and dispositions.
Content standards are broad statements
of what students should learn. But broad
guidelines prevent teachers from proceeding
effectively from them (Popham
& Baker, 1970). They result
in multiple interpretations of content
and learning experiences. Many teachers
select Hall of Shame, smorgasbord, and
fad type content. This results in low
quality physical education programs.
A common physical education curriculum
would identify explicit learning objectives
and content that would enable physical
educators to select, organize and provide
appropriate learning experiences to
students.
This is not a new idea. Great Britain
has a national physical education curriculum
with a common content core (Smith,
1993). The British curriculum
includes statutory content areas (breadth
of study) that include: games activities
(net/wall, invasion, striking/fielding
and combat/self defense); gymnastic
activities (creating simple to complex
sequences on the floor and on apparatus
in educational gymnastics); dance activities
(creative and cultural); individual
athletic activities (e.g., track and
field); swimming and water safety activities;
outdoor and adventurous activities (e.g.,
orienteering, canoeing, rock climbing);
and fitness and health activities (Department
for Education and Employment & Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority, 1999; Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority, 2009).
The British curriculum allows for some
local control by becoming decreasingly
less restrictive with each subsequent
level of development (key stage). During
key stage 1 (ages 5-7), students must
be provided instruction from games,
gymnastics and dance (swimming and water
safety is optional). At key stage 2
(ages 7-11) students must receive instruction
in five areas of study (Department
for Education and Employment & Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority, 1999).
Key stages 3 (ages 11-14) and 4 (ages
14-16) require instruction in four and
two content areas respectively (Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority, 2009).
British learning targets also become
less prescriptive as key stages increase.
In order to help American K-12 physical
education programs reduce their breadth
of study to promote movement competency
and a deeper understanding of concepts,
a common curriculum might include the
following content: cultural/folk, creative
and social dance; educational gymnastics;
games (e.g., invasion, batting/fielding,
net/wall, and target); cooperative games/challenges
and outdoor adventure (e.g., bicycling,
rock climbing, sailing, skateboarding);
track and field; aquatics (swimming
and water safety); and health and skill
related physical fitness.
A common curriculum would prevent fragmented,
multi-activity or smorgasbord type physical
education. Years ago, Dewey (1938) warned
us of the consequences of selecting
poor learning experiences for students.
Poor learning experiences are disconnected
from one another, not linked cumulatively,
have little influence upon later experience,
and emphasize parts rather than whole
or the trivial rather than the significant.
Low quality learning experiences become
expanding lists of unrelated activities
that do not build on previous experience,
meet student readiness, build on what
has been learned nor reinforce or complement
one another. A common physical education
curriculum would build skill and understanding
through cumulative development by revisiting
key skills in major content areas each
year and throughout the elementary and
secondary years.
The curriculum is like a recipe (Stenhouse,
1975). It can be varied according
to its alignment with major goals (healthy
eating) or simply to its appeal to students
and teachers (taste). Unfortunately,
teachers can become enamored with “the
taste” or appeal of too broad
a range of activities. The result is
a curriculum that is an indigestible
mélange of sundries rather than
a patterned diet for learning (Taba,
1962). The means of curriculum
become the ends (Goodlad,
1994), which results in busy,
happy, good programs (Placek,
1983). Instead, a quality curriculum
should focus teachers on the ends through
common, appropriate content and learning
experiences.
The Physical Education Learning
Environment
A common curriculum should identify
school delivery standards or opportunity
to learn (OTL) standards. OTL standards
describe the learning environment necessary
for students to meet curricular goals.
Time is the key OTL standard. The number
of objectives a student can achieve
depends upon that student’s opportunity
to learn. According to NASPE (2004),
elementary (K-6) students require at
least 150 weekly minutes while secondary
(grades 7-12) learners need 225 minutes.
Other opportunity to learn factors include:
instruction, teacher quality, curriculum,
class size; length of class periods,
duration of units, facilities, equipment
and material, technology, and assessment
(Goals 2000, 1994).
In addition to England, Japan (Nakai
& Metzler, 2005), Singapore
(Wright, McNeill
& Schempp, 2005), and South
Korea (Yoo & Kim, 2005), mandate
a physical education curriculum and
recommend opportunity to learn (OTL)
standards (i.e., standards that describe
the conditions through which teaching
and learning should occur). Australia
is moving toward a national curriculum
(Manzo, 2009).
These countries have also found that
the time devoted to physical education
does not adversely impact student learning
in other subjects. Students in these
countries routinely achieve high scores
on international standardized tests
(Mullis, Martin,
& Foy, 2008).
OTL standards within a physical education
curriculum should mandate sufficient
learning time and the appropriate conditions
necessary for students to achieve curricular
goals. OTL standards should state that
learners must pass physical education
each year from kindergarten through
grade twelve in order to advance to
the next grade and to graduate high
school. They should also recommend appropriate
instructional methods, teacher quality
standards, student to teacher ratios
for elementary and secondary classes,
length of class periods, duration of
units, facilities, equipment and materials,
technology, and assessment methods
(NASPE 2009a, 2009b, 2009c).
Accountability for Student
Learning in Physical Education
School administrators need to hold
physical education programs accountable
for student learning. Physical educators
need to measure and evaluate the degree
to which students are achieving curriculum
goals. These things cannot occur without
a shared understanding of student learning
targets.
A common physical education curriculum
should include learning targets that
indicate performance standards and performance
criteria. These learning targets show
students how well they need to perform
in order to achieve the learning target.
A standard of performance (i.e., competency,
proficiency, mastery, a grade of C and
so forth) shows students the degree
to which they must perform to meet a
learning goal. Performance criteria
describe the learning or aspects of
performance that learners need to focus
on most (Bloom,
Madaus, and Hastings, 1981; Clarke,
2001; Stiggins, 2008). Quality
criteria allow teachers to certify competency
and make a distinction between one level
of student performance and another.
A common physical education curriculum
could include a (web-based) portfolio
system where students show evidence
of achievement against learning goals
(e.g., performance standards/criteria)
in order for promotion and graduation.
Here, a team of trained internal (district
teachers and administrators) and external
(state level) evaluators can assess
student performance evidence. Such an
assessment system would require students
to assume responsibility for achieving,
documenting, presenting, and defending
performance evidence in relation to
desired learning targets (Wolf,
Bachofer & Slattery, 2010; Mathews,
2004).
Finally, a common physical education
curriculum would create an identity
for physical education by identifying
the content, learning experiences, learning
environment, and assessment required
for quality physical education. It would
also identify the skills, understanding,
dispositions, and attitudes that physically
educated people will be equipped with.
This curriculum would focus teacher
education and professional development.
A common curriculum would increase student
learning, promote accountability for
that learning, and move physical education
closer to becoming a valued core academic
subject area.
references
Terry Langton
is with the Hanover (MA) school district
and has taught elementary physical education
for twenty years. He has conducted numerous
workshops and presentations at district,
state, and national levels and teaches
graduate courses. Terry is co-author
of Elementary Physical Education: Building
a Solid Movement Foundation and author
of Teaching with Assessment: Using Assessment
for Learning in K-12 Physical Education.
Readers can visit http://www.stipes.com/physed.html
for book information.
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