Planning PE
Planning PE
Planning PE
INSTRUCTION
(20hrs)
Unit Introduction
Teaching requires engaging in closely related, but distinct activities such as planning,
implementing, and assessing. However, of these activities, our ability to plan well is usually the
most decisive factor (Fink, 2003). As is true in most activities, the quality of planning affects the
quality of results. The planning of PE experiences occurs at varying levels of specificity, from
the broadest curriculum level that provides general framework of educational experiences to a
specific daily lesson plan. Whether it encompasses one or several periods of instruction, the
process of planning begins with a series of questions like, what to teach & why for? How to
gauge evidence of learning? Which parts of the given material needs to be emphasized? How
instructions should be organized to achieve the objectives in a specified time and so forth . While
helping you answer these and other such questions is the essence of the entire module, this first
unit is devoted to set the basis for better learning of the other three units. Thus, the three
consecutive sections of this unit addresses the primary requirements of instructional plan,
practical stages involved, and structuring of a lesson for actual delivery. Effectively working
through this unit requires you to engage in reflection questions, activities and tasks provided.
Finally, make sure that you achieved the following outcomes of the unit.
What do you think are some of the benefits of planning instruction? Share your ideas
with your classmates.
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Planning may well include the most important decisions, since it is the phase upon which all
other decisions rest. Simply stated, having a clear sense of where you and your students are
headed and how you will get there provides the focus, direction, and urgency that will allow you
to ensure significant academic gains in your classroom. Good planning sets the stage for good
teaching, which in turn fosters optimal learning. Poor planning results in having no clear
understanding of what is to be accomplished.
Specifically, plans have the following benefits:
A. A plan drives you and your students to purposefully prioritize actions that lead to the
achievement of the ultimate goal. Knowing where you want your students to be by the
end of the year helps you to make decisions about where to focus your resources and
energy. Establishing clear end goals for your students will enable you to get on track
easily. You will be much less likely to become side-tracked by objectives, lessons,
activities, or time expenditures that do not advance your ultimate goal.
B. A plan allows you to measure your progress towards your end-goals. The plan allows
you to set your pace. You will want to refer to your plan frequently and ask yourself, “Am
I where I need to be? Am I spending too much time on certain skills and concepts given
the other skills and concepts I have left to teach?” This reflection process enables you to
continuously make purposeful instructional decisions that will lead to daily, weekly, and
monthly academic progress toward your big goal.
C. Developing a plan encourages you to purposefully consider what you really want
students to be able to know and do by the end of the course. Developing this clear vision
of what you want students to accomplish will keep you on track to make a meaningful
impact in your students’ lives. Further, once you have established this thorough
understanding of your content area, you can begin to identify and plan for potential
student misunderstandings, remediation and enrichment instruction, and connections
between concepts and skills throughout. These steps will increase your ability to maintain
rigorous instruction that strategically leads your students to reach their academic goals.
D. Lastly, having a plan provides you with the comfort of knowing what you will teach
throughout the year. With an effective vision for the year, you can anticipate and
respond to changing classroom realities, instead of struggling daily to decide what you
will teach next. Thus, a plan is a key tool for making purposeful, practical decisions that
will lead your students to achieve significant academic learning.
Dear student, having those important benefits of planning in mind, you should proceed to
building its primary components. The next section will aid you in this aspect.
1.1.2. Situational Factors
Once you have a clear reason for why to plan, then you should make the necessary preparation
for the actual planning process. This includes collecting information on essential factors. The
question below helps you to begin this process.
Activity 1.1
Answer the following questions individually and then share it with a partner.
1. What are some of the vital information required for planning instruction?
In order to plan, you need to integrate information about students, the subject matter (the
curriculum), the available resources, the classroom environment, and other potential factors.
Your reflection and integration of these factors leads to an instructional plan, modification of the
curriculum to fit the unique characteristics of students and teaching contexts. Therefore, the first
thing you should do when designing instructional plan is to size up the situation carefully. This
means reviewing information already known about the teaching and learning situation, and in
some cases, gathering additional information.
Student Characteristics
What aspects of students require consideration? Why?
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You plan in order to modify the curriculum to fit the unique characteristics of students and
resources. Thus, initial important considerations when planning instruction are the present status
and needs of the students. What are they developmentally ready to learn? What topics have they
mastered thus far in the subject area? How complex are the instructional materials they can
handle? How well do they work in groups? What exceptionalities do they have and how are they
accommodated? What is the range of students’ culture and language in a given classroom? What
are their learning styles?
Your students’ ability levels, interests, maturity, prior knowledge and experience, and special
needs or necessary accommodations provide valuable information about what and how to teach.
You may need to begin your long-range planning, however, before you know all this in the detail
that you’d like. Regardless, your job is to design and enact a classroom program that will not
only meet the needs of your students but also motivate them to want to keep learning.
Instructional resources
Dear student, to have a clear image of how to deal with the above issues, you (individually or in
a small group) should engage in the task below. Then, elaborate further during classroom
presentation and discussions.
Activity 1.2
Make a thorough discussion with a secondary school PE teacher to answer the questions
below:
1. How realistic is it to expect a teacher to plan instruction that takes into account the
important needs of all the students?
2. What would be the characteristics of a class that would be easy to plan for? What
would be the characteristics of a class that would be difficult to plan for?
3. What can a teacher do to address the potential conflicts among different factors and
instructional requirements?
4. Enrich your answers to the above questions through additional readings and present
to the class.
Activity 1.3
Make a small group discussion on the questions below and present to the class.
1. In your view, what should be the purposes of teaching PE at secondary school level?
Justify why.
2. What resource(s) can you use to decide which subject matter to teach?
Decisions regarding the subject matter for teaching are taken by curriculum planners at different
levels. These bodies merely decide the broad outlines of the curriculum. That is, curriculum
delineates a set of goals (outcomes) that describes what students are to achieve in a particular
subject matter and the activities planned to achieve those outcomes” (Siedentop & Tannehill,
2000, p. 130). When planning instruction, you are translating the curriculum into appropriate
yearly plans, unit plans, and daily lesson plans. Therefore, you should reconcile the dictates of
the curriculum (syllabus) with the educational and learning needs of the students.
Another resource for deciding what is planned, taught, and learned in classrooms, in the case of
physical education, is the teacher’s guide. However, are you required to strictly follow a
teacher’s guide or you select only that interests you? Just respond to the question below to clarify
your thoughts.
Activity 1.4
Individually respond to the question below:
1. What are the drawbacks of strictly following a teacher’s guide for deciding what to
teach?
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2. What criteria can you use to select or modify subject matter or lessons suggested in a
guide?
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Dear student, to unconsciously follow a teacher’s guide is to quit instructional decision making.
The major potential limitation to base instruction only on a teacher’s guide is that it tends to push
toward accepting one authority and one point of view. You shouldn’t abandon your planning,
teaching, and assessment decision-making responsibilities, which require you carefully assessing
the adequacy of the textbook and other materials in terms of student needs and resources.
You should screen the teacher’s guide using the following criteria:
Are the materials clearly stated?: In the event that the guide author’s objectives are
vague and ambiguous, the teacher must define these terms, recognizing that his or her
definition may differ from the author’s and thus may not be reflected in the instructional
suggestions and materials that accompany the textbook.
Are the text materials suitable for students in this particular classroom? Teachers
guides authors can only state a single set of objectives and plans. Often these objectives
and plans are more suitable for some students than for others. Consequently, you must
ask, “Do my students have the prerequisites needed to master the textbook objectives?
Can they be taught these objectives in a reasonable amount of time? Will the lesson
activities interest them? Do the lesson activities pertain to all the important expectations
or learning outcomes in the unit?”
Do the guide materials exhaust the expectations and activities to which these
students should be exposed? : Teachers guide tend to emphasize structured didactic
methods in which the teacher either tells the students things or elicits brief replies to
teacher questions. Thus, you should introduce additional higher-level objectives in your
instruction.
Dear student, as you have seen above, the decision of subject matter to teach begins with the
curriculum framework, mainly outlined in the form of broad educational goals and contents or
activity descriptions). But are goals or contents? What is the scope or criteria to identify each?
Let’s begin with learning goals.
Learning Goals
What does learning goal mean to you? Give at least one example relevant to PE
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When you design a course, unit or lesson, you must ask what your goals are.
Educational goals are what you want students to know or be able to do at the end of a given
experience. Goals provide a framework for what students should know and be able to do by the
end of a unit or year. The purpose is not to articulate specific skills that can be taught in one
lesson but to outline an overarching concept that encompasses multiple skills, requiring
substantial time and instruction to accomplish. They only serve to orient you and help you
understand the general national education expectations for your students.
Examples include:
Activity 1.5
Write three broad goals relevant to secondary school PE with two subordinates to each
goal. Exchange your work with a partner for comment.
Goal-1:
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Goal-2:
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Goal-3:
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Dear student, to plan the classroom instruction, you need to know the content that allow
realization of each and every goal mentioned earlier. Thus, it would be better for you to start
learning about the nature and criteria of content selection by responding to the question below:
Content Selection
What does content refer to? What is the basis for selecting a given content over
another?
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Content is the body of facts, concepts, skills, and so forth that represent what you will teach. It is
likely that you will be ahead of your students to start with, but it is still necessary for you to
study and update yourself on the content that you will be teaching.
Decisions about content may need you to answer:
What do I want the students to learn?
What activities can I select to support this learning?
How challenging should these activities be?
Content selection is suggested to be made in line with the goals determined, because those are
expected to provide a preliminary guide for suggesting the line of emphasis. Regardless of the
design preferences or philosophical orientations, Selection of contents should fulfill the
following criteria:
1. Validity: Validity of content and learning experiences is the degree to which it is closely
connected with the desired educational goals. Only those experiences that actually do
contribute towards an outcome should be selected. This means that all the goals stated in
the curriculum should have corresponding content or experience.
2. Comprehensiveness: A wide range of objectives requires a wide range of experiences.
Comprehensiveness requires that valid experiences must be provided for a wide range of
objectives, because objectives without experiences make no contribution to behavioral
change.
3. Suitability (Appropriateness): The experience must be with in the range of the students
involved. Learning proceeds most effectively when the learner is developmentally ready
for an experience. With readiness must be considered is pacing, which applies to the
provision of appropriate kind and difficulty of experiences. If the learning experience
involves the kind of behavior which the students are not yet able to make, then it fails to
attain its purpose.
4. Feasibility: Content selection has to be considered within the context of the existing
reality. Feasibility emphasizes content selection in light of the time allowed, availability
of resources, and school climate.
Activity 1.6
1. Discuss in groups what each of these criteria mean for physical education.
2. List relevant content or learning experiences appropriate to achieve the goals you
listed above in activity 1.2. Then share it to your partner.
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Dear student, as you have seen above, what to teach about a given subject area at various levels
is often suggested within a relevant curriculum guides and textbooks. Therefore, through close
study of secondary school PE curriculum, you will identify the purposes and scopes suggested
therein. The assignment below intends to help you thus.
Assignment 1.1
1. Based on secondary school PE syllabus of one grade level (9 th -12th), identify purposes of
communicated within the contents using the format below:
2. Reflect on the content of your syllabus based on criteria listed below. Your reflection
should address the strengths and limitations observed in the syllabus as well as
suggestions of improvement:
I. Usefulness/validity from the standpoint of society's requirements & its relation to goals.
II.Feasibility in the light of resources, time, etc
III. Appropriateness in terms of student’s readiness and capability.
IV. Comprehensiveness in terms of the ranges of learning domains
Activity 1.7
In a pair setting, respond to the questions below and then, present it to the class.
1. Compare and contrast learning goals with objectives.
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2. Describe the importance of beginning a lesson planning from objective identification?
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You can now observe how your responses to the above questions relate to the descriptions
below.
An objective is a description of an acceptable level of performance learners must exhibit at the
end of an instructional event. It is a statement which specifies in measurable terms what a learner
will be able to accomplish as a result of instruction. On the other hand, goals are written in broad
terms to be realized over an extended period of time. As a result, goals often are not suitable for
measurement while objectives serve as the key tool for evaluating your own and your students’
success on a daily basis. Thus, each learning goal must be translated into discrete, specific lesson
objectives that can be taught in one lesson.
The Psychomotor Domain: A third behavioral domain is the psychomotor domain which looks
at the skills and practices necessary to perform a job or task. The psychomotor domain includes
physical and manipulative activities. Shooting a basketball, setting up laboratory equipment,
brushing teeth, and playing a musical instrument are examples of activities that involve
psychomotor behaviors.
There are a number of psychomotor behavior domain taxonomies. Like the affective domain,
however, no single taxonomy has become widely accepted and used. The organization of
psychomotor taxonomies typically ranges from a student showing a readiness to perform a
psychomotor task, to the student using trial and error to learn a task, to the student actually
carrying out the task on his or her own. As the level of neuromuscular coordination goes up, the
action becomes more refined, speedy and automatic.
Dear student, effective teaching of PE requires you to apply what you have learned about the
three learning behaviors, both throughout learning this module as well as during actual teaching
settings. To actualize this outcome, just begin with the following activity.
Activity 1.8
Give brief answers to the questions below using your own words.
1. Construct at least two objectives for each of the three domains from PE.
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2. Describe some of the essential elements (components) of appropriate instructional
objective?
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Dear student, evaluate and revise the objectives you created above using the criteria described as
under. You should also have clear understanding about the meaning of each criterion through
responding to the accompanying questions.
They are not useful objectives because they offer no indication of what learning you want the
students to achieve. They offer no guidance or focus in the lesson planning process and do not
help you to determine when you have succeeded with your lesson. By beginning every lesson
objective with the phrase: “The student will be able to…” you ensure that you’re driving toward
student achievement, such as
List the roles of daily physical exercise
Execute accurate lay-up shot
Be sure you identify exactly what your students need to accomplish by the end of each class
period and how you will know whether they have, in fact, achieved this goal.
Have you checked whether the objectives you created earlier on activity 1.8 are all
student-achievement-based? Add two more examples that fulfill this criterion.
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In a word, the answer is the verb. By carefully choosing a verb for your objective that lends
itself to assessment, you will greatly enhance your lesson’s efficacy.
Activity 1.9
Given the following three examples of objectives:
1. “The student will be able to understand that bones help the body”
2. “The student will learn about the phases of long jump”
3. “The student will enjoy various exercises”
Dear student, the main thing you should do is to observe the verbs as suggested in bloom’s
taxonomy (table 1.1). The verbs understand, learn, and enjoy used in the three examples are
relatively vague, and are usually used to define broad goals for a year or unit of learning.
On the other hand, you have several options to make each example measurable. As an example,
changing the first to “the student will be able to list three ways bones help the body,” you have
built into the objective a means of knowing when you have reached it. Instead of planning to
help students learn about the phases of the long jump, your objective could be for students to be
able to explain the different phases of long jump.
For objectives to be rigorous they must connect to the big goal and be written at the appropriate
cognitive level.
Connected to the Big Goal - This step requires you to clearly articulate lesson objectives in
terms of its relation to the overall goal. Rigorous objectives should clearly relate to your unit and
course goals and serve as necessary steps towards achieving those ends. Linking objectives to the
big goal not only provides clarity of purpose, but can also help focus and motivate students. This
will help in continually reinforcing the meaning and significance behind classroom activities.
At the appropriate cognitive level - As seen above, measurable, achievement based objectives
contain a carefully chosen verb (such as write, list, measure, evaluate, demonstrate, and
categorize) that helps drive the objective’s focus. In addition, instructional objectives (and their
related instruction and assessments) differ in terms of three general types of human behavior: the
cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. You should be aware that the choice of verb also
affects the cognitive level of the objective.
Dear student, use the following summary stages in writing your instructional objectives.
Suggested template for writing measurable objectives:
Step 1 List the overall goals for a unit or the whole course.
a. Start by asking what (knowledge, skills and attitudes changes) you want the
audience or learners to acquire and demonstrate through participation in the
course (your subject).
b. Describe the expected learner performance or outcomes in measurable terms.
Use action verbs (Refer to Bloom’s Taxonomy).
c. Optionally, specify the conditions under which the performance will take place.
(What data, tools, references and aids will be provided)
d. Optionally, describe the minimum acceptable standards of performance (in terms
of quantity, quantity or completeness, or accuracy).
In the cognitive domain, especially as you move up the levels, it is not always possible to specify
(c) and (d) above.
Assignment 1.2
Pick one unit from a secondary school PE (9-12) and write down the overall
goal(s) for the unit.
a. Classify the objectives of a unit in your syllabus into the domains and levels (in
brackets, you can show the domain and the level for each objective).
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b. Assess the extent to which the objectives incorporate the three domains?
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c. Reflect on the extent to which verbs are amenable to assessment?
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d. Write down a set of objectives for the same unit (or modify the current) in a way
you think it is appropriate in the future. Organize your objectives from simple to
complex, or from first to end.
When you have written your objective check (see table 1.2) if you have described what
the learner will be doing using an action verb, described any important conditions
under which the learning must occur and minimally acceptable standards of
performance.
Optionally, share your objectives with a peer for comments
Does the objective focus on learner performance, explicitly stating what the
learner will be able to do as a result of instruction?
Does the objective describe the intended outcome of instruction, not the
instructional process or procedure?
Does the objective describe explicit behavior that is observable and measurable?
Is there a clear link between the objectives and the activities and assignments on
which the learner's assessment is based?
Are objectives framed so they go beyond recall of information to integrating and
applying concepts to solve realistic problems?
Avoid words like appreciate, understand, learn, and know because they are not
measurable.
Activity 1.10
Complete the questions below in small groups and present your answers to the class.
1. Describe the various forms of assessment commonly used in education.
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2. Give sufficient reasons for why you should assess students.
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Why should you assess students? Which of the above is relevant to PE?
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In addition to being helpful as a planning tool, assessment is the means by which you measure
student progress. When you are better informed of the learning progress and difficulties of
students, you can make better decisions about what a student needs to learn next and how to
teach that material in a manner that will maximize the student's learning. You make at least three
types of decisions using assessment results:
1. Instructional placement decisions: what the student knows and where he or she should
be in the instructional sequence.
2. Formative evaluation decisions: information to monitor a student's learning while an
instructional program is underway--how quickly progress is being made, whether the
instructional program is effective, and whether a change in instructional program is
needed to promote the student's learning.
3. Diagnostic decisions: which specific difficulties account for the student's inadequate
progress so the teacher can remediate learning progress and design more effective
instructional plans.
To what extent do the above three decisions vary in terms of content and assessment
tools to be used?
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Assessment techniques
There are a variety of ways to assess students learning, from tests and papers to projects and
presentations. Paper-and-pencil tests cannot measure every skill, nor would an extended
interview (or practical) be helpful to gauge all learning. When designing an assessment it is
important to understand the two main categories or types of assessment questions: objective and
non-objective. At the most basic level “objective” assessment questions are items that are
generally not open to interpretation (e.g. multiple choice) while “non-objective” assessment
questions are more open-ended and allow greater room for interpretation (e.g. essays).
When creating your assessment, it is essential to select or design a tool that is best suited to seek
the evidence you need from students. Below are varieties of commonly used assessment tools.
Tests and quizzes are, of course, a tried and true method of assessing student progress.
Tests and quizzes are an excellent means of generating quantifiable data that can be
compared across your classroom or across your school, district, or national.
Performance assessments require students to demonstrate a task rather than simply
answer questions. Performance tasks require students to use higher-order thinking skills,
such as judging, innovating, and creating rather than reciting, responding, or listing.
Performance assessments are often termed “authentic” assessments because they ask
students to perform tasks in a real-world-like context – for a specific purpose under
realistic constraints. Since they require students to actively apply knowledge and skills in
a natural situation, authentic assessments can reveal the highest possible level of student
mastery.
Portfolios, which contain a variety of student work can be used both to help students
identify areas for improvement and to present a summative picture of students’ progress.
Students identify appropriate work samples to include in portfolios—either to reflect on
one’s best work, or to show steady progress over time. This process encourages students
to reflect upon and assess their own accomplishments.
To what extent do the above three decisions vary in terms of content and assessment
tools to be used?
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What types of assessment techniques are mostly used in physical education?
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Activity 1.11
1. Describe objective and non-objective assessment tools commonly used in PE
with their respective purposes.
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2. What are the criteria used to select a given assessment tool over another?
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Every single question format could be appropriate at some point, depending on your intention,
and mostly both objective and non-objective tools are combined into one single assessment.
While all question types may be appropriate at different times, non-objective tasks that require
in-depth student responses generally produce more valid information about student
understanding. Thus, you should attempt to use these types of items when possible.
To aide your selection of the appropriate assessment method, consider the following factors:
Content– what exactly are you trying to assess and what questions would be best suited
to measure understanding of this content?
Efficiency – what types of assessment will simplify the creation, administration, and
grading of the assessment?
Breadth of material – how suited is the assessment to cover different quantities of
material?
Depth of knowledge – how much will your assessment reveal about student
understanding/misunderstandings?
Activity 1.12
Read additional material to answer the questions below.
1. What does assessment validity means and how can it be achieved?
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2. What does assessment reliability means and how can it be achieved?
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3. What are the strategies used to ensure assessment efficiency?
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Here are a number of concrete strategies for designing assessments to ensure they are effective
measurements of progress:
1. It must be valid
2. It must be reliable
3. It must be efficient
1. Assessment must be valid
In order for your assessment to be valid, it must test what it is designed to test and allow students
to demonstrate true mastery. To create an assessment that will give you valid information, you
must create assessment items (questions, tasks, prompts etc) that (a) align with your learning
goals and (b) allow students to demonstrate their true mastery of the learning goals.
How can assessment be aligned to goals/objectives? Can you give examples?
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a. Assessment items must align to learning goals: make sure that there are no items on your
test that are not required by your learning goal. Further, you also need to craft items that match
the exact action or performance that is required by the learning goal.
For example, if a learning goal requires students to identify, describe, and compare flexibility
exercises suitable to the different types of body joint, you should make sure that your assessment
tests students’ ability to perform all three actions. To ensure that your assessment is a valid test
of student mastery, always create items that accurately (and exclusively) match the actions or
performances required by your learning goals.
b. Assessment items must allow students to demonstrate true mastery of goals: a valid
assessment must allow students to show their genuine understanding of the content you are
testing. Thus, you will also need to include multiple items that progress from simpler to
increasingly more complex levels. This provides you with more detailed information about
student mastery, which in turn allows you to make more informed and effective instructional
decisions.
Can you give an example where the assessment doesn’t allow students to show mastery
of learning goals/objectives?
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2. Assessment must be reliable
A. Include multiple items and varied ways to assess each learning goal. Provide each
student with multiple opportunities to demonstrate competence on each learning goal.
Remember that the goal of any assessment is to gather evidence of a student’s mastery.
Including multiple opportunities and a variety of ways to elicit understanding increases
the validity of assessments by enabling students to demonstrate their true mastery of your
learning goals.
B. Be clear about the directions on the assessment, portfolio, or performance assessment,
and give an example of how to follow those instructions correctly. For a performance
assessment you might give a sample final product against which other students can
compare their work.
C. Develop a standard grading system. To ensure that a student’s score does not rest on
your own particular feelings about her/him, or on your mood or inclination that day, use a
systematic procedure to assign quality ratings or marks for every student. This will
enhance the detail and reliability of your grading system and provide you with more
valuable information to inform instruction. Further, be sure to assign a proportionate
number of points to items of a different nature.
D. Be fair in the administration of your assessment. Most students should be given the
same amount of time and take the assessment under similar conditions. At the same time,
however, be mindful of your students’ special needs. Students with special needs may
require extra time; fewer answer choices, or an oral assessment, to name just a few
potential modifications and accommodations. The fact that a student has special needs
does not mean that you do not assess them. Rather, you determine the appropriate
adjustments in the assessment process.
A. Take time to prioritize those items that truly represent content of great value to a
student’s learning; otherwise, you could write questions for every single concept.
B. Order items from easier to harder so students do not spend all of their time on
questions with which they may struggle.
C. Consider how long the test will take to administer. Of course, certain test items take
longer to complete than others. Take the test beforehand, and assume that you can
complete it three to four times faster than the average student. Taking the test ahead of
time also helps you catch mistakes and confusing questions.
D. Consider how often your students are being tested. There are simply too many skills
to teach to spend all of your time testing. Plus, students lose concentration, focus, and
motivation when they are tested too long or too often.
E. Consider how long the test will take to grade. Checking 150 short answers takes much
longer than it takes a row of multiple-choice answers. It is, of course, your professional
responsibility to create tests that can accurately reflect student understanding, which
could rarely occur through multiple-choice questions alone. Yet when two different types
of test questions could serve the same purpose, it is acceptable to use efficiency as a
deciding factor.
In drafting assessment items, it is important to remember that there are no “perfect” assessments.
For instance, an extremely valid assessment may be inefficient to administer and less reliable to
grade. It is your job to select or design an assessment that strikes the best balance between these
values given your instructional goals and student needs. Well-designed summative assessments
also will help generate accurate and useful data for students, parents, and school officials about a
student’s achievement and progress.
Assignment 1.3
Taking one of the units you identified from secondary school PE in the previous
sections, answer the questions below:
A. Evaluate the assessments suggested relative to objectives of the unit based on the
criteria you have learned in this section.
B. Construct alternative assessment for the unit using both objective and non-
objective tools.
Activity 1.13
1. Explain the difference between content and learning experience?
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2. Identify the characteristics of suitable content/learning experience?
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One of the essential skills in planning instruction is to break down the content and sequence it
into appropriate learning experiences. Learning experience is defined as “a set of instructional
conditions and events that gives structure to student experience and is related to a particular set
of teacher objectives” (Rink, 1998, p.10). Learning experiences engage the learners to
experience the curriculum content. It is through these various learning activities that the learners
are allowed to interact with content/material of the curriculum and the environment. The more
active the learning experience of the student, the more learning will occur. Therefore careful
consideration should be given in the selection of learning experiences to fit the content as well as
interest and ability of the learner.
Two kinds of factors: internal and external, can affect the design of physical tasks. The intrinsic
factors are part of the given task’s structure. The external factors are superimposed on the
performance of the task. Both kinds of factors affect the degree of difficulty of the given task;
any one of the factors can be manipulated to vary the degree of difficulty.
Table 1.5: Examples of internal & external factors affecting task difficulty
Internal Factors External Factors
____Distance ____Number of Repetitions:
____Height ____Time:
____Weight of Implements
____Size of Implements
____Size of Targets
____Speed
____Posture/position of body
Etc
Sometimes tasks are affected by two or more of these factors. For example, throwing a ball at a
target with an overhead throw suggests “size of the target” and “distance from the target” as
possible key factors. Keeping the objective in mind, decide which will serve as the key factor in
planning and which will be the supporting factor for the given task.
Figure 1.1: Factors affecting the degree of difficulty of shooting a ball into a basket.
Now, you should work independently on how these factors affect movement tasks.
Activity 1.14
1. Give examples of movement tasks that show different degrees of difficulty for the
internal and external factors in table 1.5 above?
_____________________________________________________________________
An instructional strategy, on the other hand, is a set of learning activities, arranged in a particular
sequence.
The idea underlying selection of method: you should choose a teaching method suited to the
learner. In making the selection, you consider the ways people learn: by doing, by discussing, by
listening, by observing, by participating. You should select the instructional method that will
most effectively guide students toward desired learning outcomes. Your role is to select the
method and the techniques that will result in a meaningful learning experience.
The Selection Process: No one method is suitable for all teaching situations, because no single
method is sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of students in every learning situation. In
general, as you have seen, the nature of a learning outcome suggests the type of activity that will
be most helpful to the students in achieving that outcome. If, for example, we want students to
gain skill in performing a certain task, one of the activities should be practice in performing the
task. If the desired outcome is knowledge, students should observe, listen, or read so they can
relate what they are learning to their own experience. If students must learn to apply a principle,
you should ask them to solve problems or perform tasks requiring an application of that
principle.
The instructional approach you choose for one learning outcome may be different from the
approaches that you select for other outcomes in the same lesson. Your primary concern is to
plan and select the most appropriate approach for students to achieve each outcome.
When selecting a teaching method, answer the following questions:
Is this method appropriate for the objectives? If the objectives are in the knowledge area,
selecting a method related to the skill area may be inappropriate.
Are resources available to suit the preferred method? Which materials, supplies and
equipment can I prepare locally?
Are practical facilities required? Are there adequate quantities of equipment and
supplies?
What is the projected size of student group? Some methods are more appropriate for a
small group than for a larger group. This is an important consideration, because selection
of an inappropriate method can have an impact on the learning environment.
Is a special classroom arrangement required? Some methods require a special classroom
arrangement.
Is this method appropriate for group learning, individualized learning or both? A method
must be appropriate either for a desired purpose.
What is the background of the learners?
Will the methods selected stimulate interest and provide variety? Even the most exciting
method becomes boring if it is used all the time.
Instructional Aids
What are instructional aids” suitable to PE?
________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
Issues related to materials and equipment will be highlighted in unit three. However, as a basic
component of instructional plan, both issues should be considered early at the stage of long-term
plan.
A major factor determining planning of a lesson is the kind of support material we decide to use,
as materials are critical in effective facilitation of learning. While the organization of ideas forms
the basic structure of any lesson, almost all ideas need some form of clarification or proof if the
student is to learn. Integrating different types of materials into teaching will help maintain the
interest and attention of learners. Also, every student will have a different learning style. By
using a variety of teaching aids, you are more likely to meet the needs of all participants. Some
concepts and principles are best presented through the use of specific materials. When selecting
materials you should keep in mind that, just as for methods, the excessive use of anyone type of
material will decrease its effectiveness. The subject/topic, the method, the ability of students, the
size of the class, and similar factors will help determine the amount and kinds of support material
you need.
Too often instructional decisions are based on the materials available, rather than insightfully
selecting materials that are the most appropriate for the educational goals of the students being
taught. Educational materials take a lot of work and often need to be cut, shaped, strengthened
and polished. It is rarely possible to purchase a program that would be an exact match for the
curriculum in any discipline.
Assignment 1.4
1. Prepare a list of activities, active learning methods, & materials that will
best help you meet your individual lesson objectives for the whole unit
you have been working with so far.
2. Review the alignment among basic components of the whole unit using the
template given below. Then give summary of your reflection at the end.
Sample Unit Plan template
Reflection on alignment:
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
____
To help you understand the essence of this section, reflect on the questions below and contrast
your ideas with descriptions that follow as well as ideas that emerge during classroom
discussions.
Activity 1.15
1. Identify the main components and features of a successful lesson structure?
_____________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
2. What purpose does different parts of a lesson serve?
_____________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
There are numerous lesson plan formats that are accepted and used; their major variations often
are different terminology and presentation styles. Regardless of the particular format your school
might require, you will need to be sure that you are making the format work for you, and that
you are writing the plan not in order to meet a particular requirement but rather to ensure that
your students actually accomplish the objective.
In this section, we will look at lesson planning through a generic lens of:
A. A clear beginning, where you first should ensure your students know what they are
about to learn and how that relates to what they know and where they are heading.
B. Middle, where you engage students in activities around the main concept or skill and
provide them with multiple opportunities to practice. As this stage is commonly known as
“the heart of the lesson”, it should be seen as having three major elements:
I. Introduction to New Material – you first show or model for students what
they need to know or be able to do
II. Guided Practice - students are given adequate time to practice together with
your assistance and their peers assistance
III. Independent Practice - students attempt to demonstrate mastery of the
knowledge and skills on their own
C. End, where you should pull everything together and summarize what was learned, so that
students leave with a clear understanding of the main concept of the lesson and how they
can apply the concept to future situations.
Altogether, the Five-Step framework serves as the basis for one of the most common lesson
structures (see the table). This framework is effective because it has many of the features
common to all effective lesson formats. It is important to note that this is only one model that
aligns with the qualities of effective lesson planning and serves the principles of effective
learning. No matter what format you end up using, you should always ensure that it serves the
purpose of a quality lesson by effectively leading students to reach your instructional goals.
4. Independent Practice
End 5. lesson closing
Dear student, what do you think are the particular purposes of these different parts of a lesson?
The following activity helps you to answer it.
Activity 1.16
1. Go to a nearby school and observe a PE teacher while he/she is teaching a lesson.
Based on your observation:
A. Identify whether the above five components are visible.
B. Describe what the teacher did at each stage and the methods he/she used.
It is essential that you carefully consider what you and your students will be doing during each of
these steps as you develop your lesson plan.
While it may not always be applicable to articulate how the learning will occur at the start of
your lesson, you should integrate as many of the above criteria as possible into every opening.
As part of preparation before the core lesson begins, most PE instructions involving movement
tasks require warming-up exercises. Why is that so? Or what are the criteria used to select
appropriate tasks?
________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
Activity 1.17
In small group, read relevant references and prepare a presentation on the following
issue:
A. Why should a "warm-up" exercise at the beginning and "cool-down" exercises at
the end of a PE lesson are used.
B. what is the principles and guidelines to be used for effective "warming-up" and
"cooling-down"?
Warming-up: The body needs to be well prepared for physical exercise. It is not such a good
idea to suddenly begin strenuous activity and expect the body’s systems to adapt instantly
without injury. As part of this preparation we need to ensure the following:
Pulse rate should be gradually raised.
Joint flexibility should be addressed through a series of moderate stretching and mobility
exercises.
Activities that are part of (or related to) the core lesson can be part of your warm up.
Students to become mentally focused on the activity.
Walking, jogging, cycling, and slow rope jumping are commonly used. Other activities might
include dribbling a ball, calisthenics, and games. When possible, the warm-up exercises
should involve large muscle groups that will be used during activity. A complete warm-up
and dynamic stretch can typically be performed in five to ten minutes.
After a warm-up, a static or dynamic stretch is performed to prepare the body for the
workout. Stretching is not warming up. It is an important part of warming up, however.
Dynamic stretching consists of controlled leg and arm movements that take you gently to the
limits of your range of motion.
It is very important that you perform the general warm-up before you stretch. Cold muscles
do not stretch very well, so it is not a good idea to attempt to stretch before your muscles are
warm. Warm muscles that are stretched are less likely to be injured.
(2) Introduction to New Material – The Explicit Explanation
The Introduction to New Material phase of the lesson plan is the time when the teacher takes
center stage and actually explains models, demonstrates and illustrates the concepts, ideas, skills
or processes that students will eventually internalize.
In addition to deciding what to present, you must also choose how to deliver this information.
Of course, what you present and how you choose to present your material are only two key parts
of your instruction. While you may feel that you have a lot of content to deliver, this step should
not be the bulk of your lesson. Always remember to leave plenty of time for students to practice
with the new material.
Effective presentations do not simply involve the teacher talking. They use visual cues (such as
underlining or using different colors on the board), vocal cues (changing the volume of your
voice – either suddenly softer or louder), signal phrases (“The fourth and final point is…”), and
body language (through the use of gestures or position in the classroom) to highlight key
concepts.
While introducing new material is important, this stage in the lesson cycle should not dominate
your lesson plan and execution. You always need to give students plenty of time and
opportunities to engage with and practice the key ideas.
Of course, “student practice” does not mean that you are not actively involved in the classroom’s
activities. The effectiveness of assignments is enhanced when you explain the work and go over
practice examples with students before releasing them to work independently, and then circulate
to monitor progress and provide help when needed.
Thus, there are two stages to the practice process. If the Introduction to New Material was the
section in which the teacher modeled, demonstrated, illustrated and explained, the Guided
Practice stage is where teachers share the wheel – gauging student practice of the new material
and clarifying steps and points.
Guided practice may occur in groups or as a whole class. When dealing with knowledge
objectives, the Guided Practice may be the time for students to put away their notes, attempt to
recall the facts or concepts taught, or work with the ideas they’ve been taught in a slightly new
way. When practicing skill-based objectives, teachers may provide a series of practice problems.
Because of the principal importance of practice for student learning, it is imperative to carefully
plan all parts of your guided practice to ensure successful instruction. As with the Introduction to
New Material, there are a number of ways to plan the phase of Guided Practice.
The activity should focus on the achievement of the objective. Just like in guided
practice, make sure that your activity aligns with all parts of the objective. If your
objective includes more than one part, then your practice should cover the entire
objective, not just one section.
All students should have to master the skill or knowledge independently. Not only
should the activity reflect achievement of the entire objective, but every student should be
responsible for demonstrating mastery. You could plan group activities that assign roles
to different students for different tasks. There are legitimate reasons for doing so, but by
the end of the lesson, every student should have completed a task or series of questions
that measures his or her level of achievement on the lesson objective. Only by doing this
will you be able to know whether all students truly understand or are able to do what the
objective requires. You may collect the Independent Practice and provide feedback on it.
Your independent practice should give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate
their understanding. Include more than one example or problem in your practice,
especially if it serves as your formative assessment. This will provide you with a more
complete view of whether your students truly have mastered the material.
As you plan your lesson, it is extremely important to reflect on the time you allot for
each step of lesson cycle. Without carefully planning your lesson pacing your class will
be less likely to meet the lesson’s objective. At a basic level, your pacing should allow
your class to complete all parts of the lesson in the time available. To be truly effective,
however, your lesson pacing should support student learning. This means that you should
allot the majority of instructional time to the activities that best promote student mastery
of the objective. As previously discussed, practice is the most important part of a lesson
for allowing students to internalize and master the key points. Therefore, effective
lessons almost always allocate the most time to guided and independent practice—
the place where students demonstrate and further develop their understanding of what
you are teaching. Make sure that your lesson plan prioritizes what is most important by
scheduling ample time for guided and independent practice.
Since it is easy to feel rushed or run out of time at the end of the lesson, it is crucial that you
explicitly set time aside for the closure. Teachers might set a timer or ask students to remind
them when to transition into the lesson closing.
An effective lesson closing does not take much time. In fact, your closing should usually take
between five and ten minutes. An effective closing, at a minimum, does the following:
(1) Reemphasizes and clarifies the objective that the students have learned.
(2) Reemphasizes the significance of that objective.
(3) Assesses students’ mastery of—or progress toward—that objective (if not done earlier).
Always administer a lesson assessment by the end of the lesson to determine what your class
knows and what it needs additional help in understanding.
As part of closing, you may need to incorporate “Cooling-down” tasks for practical sessions
Cooling-down: The purpose of the cool down is, in many respects, the exact opposite of the
warm up. The body has been working at a maximum level and must be allowed to return
gradually to its normal resting rate. During exercise, the heart rate is much faster than normal and
blood is being pumped around the body at a higher rate. Suddenly stopping this physical activity
will cause blood to pool in the body tissues, which effectively then has nowhere to go. If the
heart slows down too quickly, this can also slow down the removal of lactic acid from the muscle
tissues and can cause muscle soreness when the body finally cools down.
Assignment 1.5
Requirements of a peer teaching assignment
1. A session plan
You are expected to submit your session plan a head of teaching. Your plan should
detail what exactly will happen in the classroom/field. The lesson must possess an
introduction, main body/activity, and a closure.
You are also required to complete a reflection on session evaluation using the lesson
format provided in this document. Lesson evaluation checklist is also provided below
(table 1.8).
2. Peer teaching
You will teach the lesson (40-50 minutes long) designed for high school students. The
rubric on how your teaching will be assessed is included (table 1.9).
Session Core
Introduction to new material
Guided practice
Independent practice
Lesson Closing
Teaching Aids / Resources
Description of Assessment to be used
SESSION EVALUATION
Successful things about the session and why they were successful
Unit Summary
In this first unit, we have worked through the basic issues in planning instruction as it is the
phase upon which all other decisions rest. The first thing you should do when designing
instructional plan is to size up the situation carefully. Another important consideration of
instructional planning is the “what” of student learning. Clear understanding of the purposes for
teaching a subject matter is the basis for making decision about what to teach. This requires you
to closely analyze your national curriculum guide and the general purposes, scope and
representation of your subject.
The process of effective instructional plan begins with the end in mind first, which is, initially
formulating the learning outcomes and assessment procedures. Once these decisions are made,
you determine how you instruct your students so they can reach that level of mastery.
When objectives are determined at the beginning of a course, they provide you direction
for selecting the instructional activities that promote achievement of the desired behavior.
Objectives designate learning outcomes in terms of three general types of human
behavior: the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. You must ensure that your
lesson objectives meet three all-important criteria: must be student-achievement based,
measurable, and rigorous.
When writing summative assessments as planning tools, be sure to determine the
evidence you need to see from students to judge their mastery and which methods or
assessment types are best for your content area and learning goals. Your summative
assessments must be valid, reliable, and efficient in order to serve as valuable tools for
determining whether you have met your instructional goals.
At the heart of effective instruction is a situation where students are engaged with the
content at an appropriate level of difficulty. Therefore, one of the essential requirements in
planning instruction is to break down the content and sequence it into appropriate
learning experiences. The more active the learning experience of the student, the more
learning will occur.
Check List
Direction: Put a tick mark (√) in the boxes for the ‘YES’ column for activities you can
confidently perform and Put a tick mark (√) for those you cannot perform in the ‘NO’
column.
No. Can you … Ye No
s
1 Give reasons for why planning instruction is required
2 Identify the main prerequisites for planning instruction
3 Outline the basic components of instructional plan
4 Explain the purposes and scope of secondary school PE
5 Prepare appropriate plan for instruction of a secondary school PE
6 Integrate appropriately instructional objectives, assessment and
teaching-learning activities for teaching a particular group of
students.
Self-Test
Feedback
1. Planning helps you to be successful due to some of the following basic ways:
Objective should be stated in terms of what the student is to learn from instruction.
Objectives should be student-achievement based, measurable, and rigorous.
They relate directly to the students in your classroom.
They are attainable by the students in your classes.
They are meaningful in terms of content, skills, abilities, attitudes and values to be
developed.
Diagnostic assessment tools reveal what your students know coming into a lesson, unit,
or course. Formative assessment tools monitor students’ understanding of the material
during your lessons and throughout the course of a unit. Summative assessment tools
measure students’ understanding of concepts that you have already taught, and occur at
the end of a unit or the year. Summative assessments can be tests and quizzes,
performance tasks, portfolios or journals.
Active learning can be described as involving students in doing and thinking about the
things they are doing. An effective set of learning activities is one that: involve students in
different ways of gaining fundamental knowledge and ideas of the subject; allow students
to acquire several kinds of significant learning simultaneously through different activities
such as debates, inquiry, observations, modeling, independent projects, etc.; and giving
students time and encouragement to reflect on the meaning of their learning experience.
The following assessment strategies will be used to check student progress toward the unit
outcomes, so that decisions on their learning and necessary support (feedback) could be made.
Siedentop, D., & Tannehill, D. (2000). Developing teaching skills in physical education (4th ed).
Mountain View: CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.
Stillwell, J.L., & Willgoose, C.E. (1997). The physical education curriculum (5th ed). Needham
Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Melograno, V. J. (1996). Designing the physical education curriculum (3rd ed). USA: Human
kinetics.
Mosston, M. & Ashworth, S. (2002) Teaching physical education (5th ed). (London, Benjamin
Cummings).