PE Metrics
Assessing Student Performance Using the National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education
by SHAPE America - Society of Health and Physical Educators
Series: SHAPE America set the Standard
360 Pages
If you are looking for the definitive resource to help you measure your students’ achievement, your search is over.
PE Metrics: Assessing Student Performance Using the National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education, Third Edition, aligns with SHAPE America’s National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education, was created by SHAPE America and its writing team, and was reviewed by researchers and teachers with expertise in assessment. The result is a text that you can use with confidence as you help develop physical literacy in your students.
Written for physical educators, administrators, and curriculum writers (and for physical education majors and minors), this latest edition offers the following:
• 130 ready-to-use assessments for kindergarten through grade 12 (65 elementary, 43 middle school, and 22 high school)
• Worksheets, checklists, and rubrics that support the assessments
• Guidance on creating your own assessments for any lesson or unit
These assessments are aligned with the three SHAPE America lesson planning books for elementary, middle, and secondary school and dovetail with SHAPE America’s The Essentials of Teaching Physical Education. The assessments can be used as they are, or you can modify them or use them as samples in creating assessments that are best suited to your needs.
PE Metrics, now in a four-color design, is organized into four main parts: Part I introduces the purpose and uses of assessment, how to develop an assessment plan, and the various types of assessments and tools you can use. Part II contains sample assessments for students in grades K-5, focusing on fundamental motor skills; as such, the elementary-level assessments center heavily on Standard 1. In part III, the emphasis shifts to middle school assessments, with a concentration on Standard 2 and on the categories of dance and rhythms, invasion games, net/wall games, fielding/striking games, outdoor pursuits, aquatics, and individual-performance activities. Part IV offers sample assessments for high school students, with a priority on providing evidence of the knowledge and skills students will need to remain active and fit after they leave high school.
This resource provides a comprehensive, performance-based assessment system that enables you to incorporate assessment into every facet of your teaching, create assessments that are unique to your program, and measure your students’ performance against the grade-level outcomes. The assessments are process focused and are designed to measure multiple constructs as well as provide meaningful feedback to students—ultimately helping them to develop holistically across all three learning domains (psychomotor, cognitive, and affective).
PE Metrics will help you instill in students the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to enjoy a lifetime of healthful physical activity.
Part I. Assessment for the 21st Century
Using PE Metrics
Aligning PE Metrics With the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes
Assessing 21st Century Skills in Physical Education
Providing Student Choice
Organization of This Edition of PE Metrics
Using PE Metrics in Your Program
Final Thoughts
Assessment Essentials
The Role of Assessment in Today’s Schools
Purposes of Assessment
Using Observation for Assessment
Categories of Assessments
Assessment Tools
Assessing Complex Assignments (Projects or Portfolios)
Developing an Assessment Plan
Summary
Part II. Sample Assessments for Elementary School Physical Education
Standard 1 Sample Assessments
Hopping (Grade 1)
Sliding (Grade 1)
Galloping (Grade 1)
Skipping (Grade 2)
Running (Grade 2)
Throwing With an Underhand Pattern (Grade 2)
Jumping Rope (Grade 2)
Leaping (Grade 3)
Jumping and Landing – Horizontal Plane (Grade 3)
Jumping and Landing – Vertical Plane (Grade 3)
Balance in Gymnastics (Grade 3)
Transferring Weight in Gymnastics (Grade 3)
Throwing – Overhand Pattern (Grade 4)
Catching (Grade 4)
Dribbling With Hands (Grade 4)
Kicking Along the Ground (Grade 4)
Kicking in the Air (Grade 4)
Punting (Grade 4)
Volleying – Underhand Pattern (Grade 4)
Striking With Short-Handled Implements, Sidearm Pattern (Grade 4)
Striking a Pitched Ball With a Long-Handled Implement (Grade 5)
Balances and Weight Transfer in a Gymnastics Sequence (Grade 5)
Dance – Design and Performance (Grade 5)
Passing and Receiving With Feet (Grade 5)
Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Space Awareness, Levels (Grade K)
Pathways (Grade K)
Directions (Grade K)
Levels With Travel (Grade 1)
Speed With Travel (Grade 1)
Force (Grade 1)
Combining Shapes, Levels, Pathways in a Sequence (Grade 2)
Recognizing and Moving Into Open Spaces Using Pathways and Speed (Grade 3)
Identifying Locomotors in a Physical Activity (Grade 3)
Applying the Concept of Open Spaces to Dribbling (Grade 4)
Applying Concepts of Direction and Force When Striking With a Short-Handled Implement (Grade 4)
Applying Movement Concepts to Strategy in Game Situations (Grade 5)
Applying Concepts of Directions and Force to Striking With a Long-Handled Implement (Grade 5)
Combining Spatial Concepts With Locomotor and Nonlocomotor Movements in Dance (Grade 5)
Combining Movement Concepts With Skills in Gymnastics (Grade 5)
Standard 3 Sample Assessments
Physical Activity Knowledge (Grades K-1)
Fitness Knowledge (Grade 2)
Fitness Knowledge (Grade 3)
Pre-Assessment of Fitness Knowledge (Grade 3)
Physical Activity Opportunities (Grade 4)
Fitness Assessment – Knowledge (Grade 4)
Using Fitness Assessment Results to Identify Improvement Strategies (Grade 4)
Fitness Knowledge (Grade 5)
Designing a Personal Fitness Plan (Grade 5)
Standard 4 Sample Assessments
Personal Responsibility (Grades K-1)
Personal and Social Responsibility – Working With a Partner (Grade 2)
Personal Responsibility – Safety (Grade 3)
Personal Responsibility – Safety (Grade 3)
Personal and Social Responsibility – Safety (Grade 4)
Personal Responsibility (Grade 4)
Personal and Social Responsibility – Safety (Grade 4)
Personal and Social Responsibility (Grade 5)
Striking With a Long Implement (Grade 5)
Gymnastics Sequence (Grade 5)
Dance (Grade 5)
Games Strategy (Grade 5)
Standard 5 Sample Assessments
Enjoyment (Grades K-1)
Enjoyment, Challenge (Grade 2)
Challenge, Enjoyment (Grade 3)
Examining Health Benefits and Social Interaction in Physical Activity (Grade 4)
Enjoyment, Challenge, Self-Expression, Social Interaction (Grade 5)
Part III. Sample Assessments for Middle School Physical Education
Standard 1 Sample Assessments
Throwing in Invasion and Fielding/Striking Games (Grade 6)
Passing and Receiving (Grade 6)
Offensive Skills in Invasion Games (Grade 6)
Offensive Skills in Invasion Games (Grades 6-8)
Dribbling and Passing With Foot in Invasion Games (Grades 6-7)
Invasion Games – Shooting on Goal (Grade 8)
Invasion Games – Defensive Skills (Grade 6)
Invasion Games – Defensive Skills (Grade 7)
Invasion Games – Defensive Skills (Grade 8)
Net/Wall Games – Striking (Grade 7)
Striking in Net/Wall Games (Grade 7)
Net/Wall Games – Forehand and Backhand (Grade 8)
Net/Wall Games – Weight Transfer (Grade 6)
Net/Wall Games – Weight Transfer (Grade 7)
Net/Wall Games – Weight Transfer (Grade 8)
Net/Wall Games – Underhand Throw (Grade 8)
Fielding/Striking Games – Catching (Grade 8)
Outdoor Pursuits (Grade 8)
Individual-Performance Activities (Grade 8)
Dance and Rhythms (Grade 6)
Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Invasion Games – Creating Space With Movement (Grade 8)
Invasion Games – Creating Space With Offensive Tactics (Grade 8)
Invasion Games – Transitions (Grade 8)
Net/Wall Games – Using Tactics and Shots (Grade 8)
Target Games – Shot Selection (Grade 8)
Fielding/Striking Games – Reducing Space (Grade 8)
Individual-Performance Activities, Dance and Rhythms – Movement Concepts (Grade 8)
Outdoor Pursuits – Movement Concepts (Grade 6)
Standard 3 Sample Assessments
Physical Activity Knowledge (Grade 8)
Engages in Physical Activity (Grade 8)
Engages in Physical Activity (Grades 6-8)
Fitness Knowledge (Grade 8)
Fitness Knowledge (Grade 7)
Fitness Knowledge (Grade 6)
Fitness Knowledge (Grade 6)
Assessment and Program Planning (Grade 8)
Standard 4 Sample Assessments
Working With Others (Grade 6)
Working With Others (Grade 8)
Personal Responsibility (Grade 6)
Rules and Etiquette (Grade 8)
Standard 5 Sample Assessments
Health (Grade 7)
Challenge (Grade 8)
Self-Expression and Enjoyment (Grade 8)
Part IV. Sample Assessments for High School Physical Education
Standard 1 Sample Assessments
Lifetime Activity – Tennis (Level 1)
Lifetime Activity – Tennis (Level 1)
Lifetime Activity – Golf (Level 1)
Lifetime Activity – 2 v 2 or 3 v 3 Volleyball (Level 1)
Dance and Rhythms – Creative or Modern Dance (Level 1)
Dance and Rhythms – Folk, Square, and Line Dance (Level 1)
Fitness Activities – Yoga (Level 1)
Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Movement Concepts, Principles and Knowledge (Level 1)
Movement Concepts, Principles and Knowledge (Level 1)
Movement Concepts, Principles and Knowledge (Level 1)
Movement Concepts, Principles and Knowledge (Level 1)
Standard 3 Sample Assessments
Assessment and Program Planning (Level 2)
Assessment and Program Planning (Level 1)
Engages in Physical Activity (Level 1)
Nutrition (Level 1)
Assessment and Program Planning (Level 1)
Standard 4 Sample Assessments
Rules and Etiquette, Working With Others (Level 1)
Working With Others (Level 1)
Working With Others (Level 1)
Standard 5 Sample Assessments
Health (Level 1)
Self-Expression and Enjoyment (Level 1)
Self-Expression and Enjoyment (Level 1)
Appendixes
Appendix A: National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes
Appendix B: Rubric With Weighted Values by Level
Appendix C: Rubric With Weighted Values by Indicator
Appendix D: Analytic Rubric With More Than One Standard (Embedded Assessment)
Appendix E: Suite of Assessments for Fitness Portfolio
Appendix F: Sample Score Sheets
Appendix G: Pre-Assessment With Wordle
Appendix H: Exit Slip Examples
Appendix I: Identifying Locomotors in Physical Activities
Appendix J: Embedded Analytic Rubric With Passing and Receiving and Game Strategy
Appendix K: Peer Assessment for Striking With Force and Direction
Appendix L: Exit Slip
Appendix M: Self-Assessment of Physical Activity Patterns
Appendix N: Elementary Personal Fitness Plan
Appendix O: Self-Assessment of Physical Activity Rating Scale
Appendix P: Analysis of Physical Activity at the Elementary Level (S5.E3.5)
Appendix Q: Frequency Count for Striking – Middle School
Appendix R: Peer Assessment for Shot Selection and Location – Middle School
Appendix S: Physical Activity Log Time Recording – Middle School
Appendix T: Physical Activity Log for Step Count – Middle School
Appendix U: Worksheets on Fitness – High School
Appendix V: Nutrition Log – High School
Appendix W: Fitness Plan Template – High School
Appendix X: Written Examination Sample – High School
Appendix Y: Fitness Contract – High School
Appendix Z: Goal Setting – High School
SHAPE America—Society of Health and Physical Educators is the nation’s largest membership organization of health and physical education professionals. Since being founded in 1885, the organization has defined excellence in physical education, and its National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education serve as the foundation for well-designed physical education programs across the country.
SHAPE America provides programs and resources to support health and physical educators at every level and, through state and national advocacy efforts, works to make a positive impact on school health and physical education. SHAPE America has 50 state affiliates and is a founding partner of national initiatives such as the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, Active Schools, and the Jump Rope For Heart and Hoops For Heart programs.
Using PE Metrics in Your Program
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency.
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency. The rubrics guide your evaluation by allowing you to assign students to one of three levels: Developing, Competent or Proficient. All rubrics include an "indicator," which is an outcome statement against which you can assess student performance using the performance criteria in each of the three levels (Developing, Competent and Proficient). For example, an indicator in a sample assessment for high school students on creating and maintaining a fitness plan, in Part IV of this book, states: "Goals meet the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria." The indicator within that assessment's scoring rubric is intended to help teachers measure a student's ability to set and pursue personal fitness goals. At the elementary school level, Standard 1 indicators are specific to the critical elements for the skill. The indicator column states, simply, "Critical Elements," and students must demonstrate the critical elements of that particular skill to be scored as Competent in the skill. The indicators are similar to student learning outcomes, and you can think of them as an "indication" of how students demonstrate their mastery of a skill.
Each performance level in the rubric is defined by criteria linked specifically to critical elements. At the Developing level, students are moving toward competency and mastery of the identified critical elements. At the Developing level, then, a student's competency is emerging and needs further development. With deliberate practice, students can move from the Developing level to the Competent level. Students at the Competent level demonstrate all of the critical elements of the skill, exhibiting mastery of the indicator. The Competent level defines the minimal level of performance required for meeting the indicator. Students at the Proficient level not only demonstrate all the required critical elements of the skill during assessment, but their performance also meets additional criteria and/or displays a level of performance that goes beyond Competent. For example, a student could display all of the critical elements while throwing overhand, while another student adds the wrist snap at the end of the throw or increases their stride length to generate more power. The first student demonstrated competency while the second student demonstrated proficiency by showing a more advanced level of performance.
Throughout this book, we use the term "sample" assessment purposefully. We do not recommend any of the assessments as exemplars, but only as samples of assessments that are aligned with the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. They represent SHAPE America's attempt to provide you with a way of thinking about developing assessments that is unique to your teaching environment. The purposes of assessment are to improve instruction, track student progress, and provide feedback to students on their progress toward intended outcomes. Therefore, the assessments you use must meet the needs of your students and your program.
We encourage you to modify any and all sample assessments in this book to fit your teaching environment, to use them as guidelines for developing your own assessments, and to combine or modify the assessments to align with your school or district outcomes. You will also want to modify the sample assessments to meet the needs of students with disabilities. For specific guidance in this area, we recommend Assessment for Everyone: Modifying NASPE Assessments to Include All Elementary School Children (Lieberman, Kowalski, et al., 2011).
While all the sample rubrics in this version of PE Metrics denote levels of competency and not point values for each level, you can modify the samples to assign point values and assign different weights to various indicators on the rubric. The sample assessments simply provide you with some suggestions. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for each level can be found in Appendix B. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for indicators can be found in Appendix C. You can change a rubric to a checklist or a checklist to a rubric if doing so better fits your needs. While the sample assessment for evaluating students' reflections or journal entries might be an analytic rubric, you might find that a general rubric works better for you. In many cases, you may want to alter a sample assessment by replacing some of the language to match the cues you have been using in your classes. That way, the assessment process and feedback from the rubric will be more meaningful to your students. Think of the sample assessments in PE Metrics as building blocks and tools for you to use in developing an assessment plan that is unique to your program and the needs of your students.
As you review the various samples of assessments and assignments in this book, keep in mind that you can use a single assessment to measure more than one Grade-Level Outcome, even if the outcomes are aligned under different standards. You can combine a sample assessment suggested for one National Standard and Grade-Level Outcome with another assessment for a different Grade-Level Outcome under a different National Standard to create an analytic rubric. This is particularly true for assessments under Standards 1, 4 and 5. For example, you can assess middle school students creating a line dance on their skill competency in dance & rhythms (Outcome S1.M1.8) while also assessing them on their collaboration skills (Outcome S4.M6.8) and their enjoyment of activity and their self-expression (Outcome S5.M5.8). You can assess students under all three outcomes in one assignment, using one comprehensive analytic rubric. An example of an analytic rubric assessing more than one standard can be found in Appendix D. These types of assessments have "embedded" within them opportunities to assess multiple standards. Another assessment strategy is to use a suite of assessments to provide a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of student achievement throughout a unit or school year. A suite of assessments would include several forms of assessment, including rubrics, checklists, peer and self-assessments, exit slips and worksheets. An example of a suite of assessments can be found in Appendix E.
Please note that many of the sample assessments encourage students to demonstrate their competency in specific outcomes through the use of technology. Video blogs, slide presentations, flipped classrooms and electronic postings are some of the examples provided. In addition, you might use software to track student progress, collect data and report results to various stakeholders. As physical educators, we need to be part of the digital revolution!
When the time comes to implement your assessments, you will have to think about the practicality of using a rubric while watching students who are moving. This is true especially when evaluating students in activities under Standards 1 and 2. You might want to place a streamlined copy of your rubric on a clipboard or tablet for quick reference while observing students. You can simplify the rubric by highlighting key words in the descriptors or by abbreviating the descriptors in a way that makes sense to you. After you've used the rubric a few times, it will become quite familiar and you will find yourself referring to the rubric far less frequently; it will be in your head. You also will need a simple score sheet for recording students' final scores in an efficient manner. An example of a simple score sheet for locomotor skills at the elementary level and a score sheet for backhand stroke in badminton at the middle or high school level can be found in Appendix F.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
The Role of Assessment in Today's Schools
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement.
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement. Assessment can be defined as "the gathering of evidence about student achievement and making inferences about student progress based on that evidence" (Society of Health and Physical Educators, 2015). Many policymakers, parents and administrators assume that assessment occurs every day in every classroom, and that assessments produce evidence of student learning. While assessment does provide such evidence, student learning is only one of many roles assessment plays in education. Assessments must provide ongoing measures of student performance using more than one method, be aligned with student learning outcomes, and allow students to demonstrate competency in a variety of ways. No longer can just one assessment at one point in time provide adequate evidence of student learning. To get a complete, nuanced picture of a student's learning requires multiple assessments dispersed over time.
Purposes of Assessment
Just as the role of assessment has evolved, so have the uses of assessment. While the focus remains on measuring student learning, using assessment to provide feedback on student performance, make instruction-related decisions, and inform teaching is just as important. Assessment information and data should inform teachers and teaching in every part of the instruction process. Student performance and improvement are determined by the interaction of student learning and teachers teaching. It is part of the ongoing instruction process, just as planning learning experiences, establishing student outcomes and managing a classroom. Assessment is as multidimensional as teaching and serves multiple purposes in the instruction and learning processes.
The primary purpose of assessment in physical education is to provide stakeholders with evidence of students' learning as well as their attainment of National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. Collecting and reporting on data specific to outcomes allow you to document student progress, communicate your teaching effectiveness to students, parents and administrators, and make the case for additional time and funding for your program. Part of the accountability movement in education reform is data-driven decision-making. As physical educators, we must improve our ability to collect, analyze and use data for program improvement and demonstrate the use of data to ensure that all students are physically literate. Without the use of data generated by a matrix of assessments, we cannot make our case for the continued inclusion in the school curriculum.
A second purpose of assessment is to provide students with feedback on their progress. Effective assessments go beyond assigning a number, percentage or grade to student performance by providing specific, corrective feedback through the assessment itself. The most common example of providing specific feedback through an assessment is the use of analytic rubrics to assess assignments or performance (see Appendix D). Well-developed analytic rubrics identify critical elements of the performance at various levels and dimensions and allow you to provide detailed feedback to students on their performance simply by having them complete the assessment. Analytic rubrics often are used when assessing complex skills, the application of knowledge, or a multipart performance or assignment. By using an analytic rubric, you can facilitate students' self-assessment of their performance, define performance expectations, and evaluate relative strengths and weaknesses for each student.
A third purpose of assessment is to gather information and data that drive instructional decision-making. All students enter your gymnasium with a wide variety of prior knowledge, experience, and skill that you must account for in designing their learning experiences. Before teaching any unit or lesson, you must determine starting points for each individual student in your class by conducting some form of pre-assessment. The information or data could come from records kept from the previous year, from pretest data, from observing students, or from simply asking students about their experience levels through a survey, self-assessment or even a wordle. For an example of a wordle as a pre-assessment, see Appendix G. In addition to determining individual starting points, pre-assessment gives you the information you need for differentiating instruction, assigning partners or groups, and setting expectations. Without assessment information or data, you are simply guessing about students' competency levels or teaching as if all students are the same, rather than teaching and assessing individuals.
Once you begin an instructional unit, assessment is key for determining your next steps, adapting or modifying learning experiences and, potentially, identifying the need to re-teach. Methods for gathering this information or data can range from peer assessments to quizzes and project updates. Assessment should occur each day in some manner and the results should always inform the next day's instruction and design, but to use the results most effectively, you need an established method for tracking assessment data. One solution is adopting one or more forms of technology, which can facilitate the gathering, analyzing, and tracking of student data, making the process much more manageable than in the past. A good resource for using technology in a physical education setting is Chapter 8 in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014).
The final purpose of assessment is to inform your teaching. Throughout the unit of instruction, you use informal and formal assessments to make decisions about your instruction. At the end of a unit of instruction, you must review the information or data from these assessments to determine strengths and challenges for student learning. Based on a summative assessment, you can determine what skills and knowledge students have mastered and what you will need to review or repeat. You also can use data to determine what worked best during the unit of instruction and what you might need to change in the future. Assessment data allow you to self-evaluate your teaching effectiveness based on the performance of your students. Assessment and instruction are inseparable in the planning and teaching process.
While assessment data often are used for determining grades, grades and assessments have different purposes. The goal of grading is to evaluate individual students' learning and performance based on indirect and direct measures. For example, a range of indirect measures, such as attendance, participation and effort, often have been part of the grading process. While those constructs are important, they are not direct measures of learning. Paul Dressell from the Michigan State University describes a grade "as an inadequate report of an imprecise judgment of a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of materials" (Miller, Imrie & Cox, 1998, p. 24). While grading can play a role in assessment, assessment is a much broader measure of student learning and includes many ungraded measures, such as worksheets, discussion and concept maps. A grade is one data point, not linked to any particular learning outcome, and it does not allow for any systematic examination of learning. A matrix of assessments (formal and informal) allows you to examine data to determine learning patterns and guide instructional decision-making.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
The Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 focus on applying knowledge in physical activities that students can use over a lifetime. Students should leave high school knowing the terminology, rules and etiquette of the activities that they are likely to pursue over their lifetimes. They also should be able to use biomechanical principles to analyze their skills and techniques, and demonstrate the ability to devise and implement practice plans for improving their performance in those activities. Those skills are essential if students are to maintain and improve long-term personal health and realize longer life expectancies. As the teacher, you will need to teach related lifetime career- and college-readiness skills such as problem solving, analyzing resources critically, and demonstrating effective written and oral communication skills. The sample assessments provided here will help you measure those transferable skills, in addition to students' knowledge and understanding of selected lifetime activities.
Research conducted over the past two decades is clear: the best indicator of continued participation in a movement activity over a lifetime is the perception of competency (Barnett et al., 2008; Stodden et al., 2009; Stuart et al., 2005). By high school, students recognize which activities they enjoy and want to become better at through practice and continued instruction. Student choice, then, is an essential component of any high school physical education curriculum. Not only do students need the freedom to choose the activities in which they want to improve their competency, but they also should be able to choose how they wish to demonstrate their competency.
Assessments intended to measure high school students' progress toward the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 require students to apply their knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics to demonstrate their command of a self-selected lifetime activity, dance or fitness activity. The sample assessments for Standard 2 are comprehensive, requiring students to solve problems and think critically, and some involve others in group assignments and/or projects. You also can employ more traditional assessment tasks such as quizzes, end-of-unit examinations, worksheets, activity logs, and student reflections or journals. All are appropriate assessments and can provide valuable insights about what your students are learning and are able to apply to the activities they pursue after leaving high school.
We suggest providing students with a list of options for demonstrating competency and allowing students to select the assessment that they believe would best demonstrate their competency. The suggested assessments include group projects as well as individual projects, providing students with a range of choices. Research (Assor et al., 2002; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Fisher et al., 1975; Ryan & Deci, 2000) has shown that providing some student choice increases student engagement and sense of autonomy.
Pre-Assessment
We recommend that you conduct pre-assessments for all lifetime, dance and rhythm, and fitness activities. This will provide you and the students with baseline levels of competency and allow for differentiation of instruction, communication of student progress over time, and instructional decision-making. Students can use the baseline data to determine their progress, determine areas of strengths and weaknesses, and set performance goals for each unit of instruction.
- You can use surveys or other forms of written pre-assessments. Gathering data before beginning the unit will guide instructional decision-making specific to scope and sequence, determining ability groupings, and designing differentiated practice tasks. You can survey students on their experience with the activity or their foundational knowledge of it. For example, students who have participated in weight-training activities through competitive sport will have a higher baseline of performance than students who have not participated in weight training. Likewise, students who have aquatics certifications through American Red Cross, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, or the YMCA will have a higher baseline of performance than those students who don't pursue those certifications. You can use written pre-assessments to determine students' knowledge in the upcoming unit. For example, you could ask students to match dance steps or yoga positions to the names of the steps or positions. For a weight-training unit, you could ask students to match weight-lifting techniques to the muscle groups that they target. That will provide you with valuable information on students' baseline knowledge.
- Examples of skill pre-assessments are provided under Standard 1.
Formative Assessments
- Quizzes allow you to have checks for understanding throughout the unit. Quizzes cover topics such as rules and etiquette for the activity, terminology, and/or concepts and principles related to the activity.
- Checklists are valuable as formative assessments. Checklists allow students to self-evaluate their performance by identifying essential criteria for movement competency. Checklists are also constructive in identifying key elements to be included in a summative project or assignment. This allows students to "check" that they have included key parts of a comprehensive project or assignment. In addition, peers can provide specific, corrective feedback based on identified criteria on a peer evaluation checklist. This allows students to provide each other feedback on performance using objective criteria based on critical elements of the skill or technique. Examples of peer checklists are found under Standard 1.
- Checks for understanding should occur during each class. These are quick checks on the students' comprehension and provide students with the opportunity to ask questions and seek clarifications. The advantage of using checks for understanding is that it takes place in real time, allowing you to adjust or modify practice tasks or instruction based on student needs.
- Worksheets are another type of formative assessment and can take many forms. Worksheets can be used to assess students' understanding of scoring in tennis, identify poses in yoga, or calculate target heart rate, to name just a few. An example of how to calculate target heart rate can be found under Standard 3. Additional examples can be found in Appendix U specific to target heart rate and FitnessGram results.
- Logs are useful to students for tracking such things as amount and length of time spent in physical activity, food intake, number of repetitions and lifts during a fitness unit, scores over time in target activities such as archery and bowling. Logs provide both you and your students a record of their progress over time. A sample nutrition log is provided in Appendix V.
Note: Units at the high school level will involve many combinations of formative assessments. Developing competency in a specific lifetime, dance, or fitness activity is a complex process crossing all learning domains. Using just one type of formative assessment provides you with a limited picture of student progress; therefore, a variety of assessments should be used. This requires multiple assessments that include all learning domains.
Individual Summative Assessments
- Portfolio: This is a comprehensive assessment that has multiple parts. Students can select examples of their work and include them in their portfolio specific to their self-selected lifetime, dance and rhythm, or fitness activity. Each section of the portfolio is assessed and aligned to goals or objectives of the overall unit. Formative assessments (listed above) could be included in the portfolio as evidence. Assessment rubrics for a portfolio assignment align with a complete description of the assignment. It is essential that students have a clear outline of specific requirements for their portfolio. An example of a fitness portfolio is provided under Standard 3.
- Develop and implement an improvement plan: For Standards 2 or 3, students develop and implement an improvement plan specific to their self-selected activity. All improvement plans should have goals, pre-, mid- and post-measures, and specific practice tasks. Students create a plan based on their pre-assessment data. This includes any of the lifetime activities or the development of a fitness plan for a specific sport based on the demands of the activity. A description of the assignment provides specific requirements and a rubric would align with the requirements identified in the description of the assignment. A sample of a description of the assignment along with the assessment rubric are found under Standard 2. For an example of a fitness plan format see Appendix W.
- Journals provide you with insight on how students are feeling about their participation in the unit, specific challenges they are facing, and their social interactions within the context of the unit. Journals provide you with a deeper understanding of the social and emotional context of the student's experiences in the unit. Guidance on the use of journals is provided under Standard 4.
- Final examination: Students take a comprehensive written final examination specific to terminology, rules and etiquette, application of concepts and movement principles, and tactics and strategies. See Appendix X for sample written examination questions.
- Research paper or biomechanical analysis: Students select a movement skill or sequence to analyze using principles from biomechanics and physics. In a research paper, students present their findings. This assignment requires students to investigate research findings and apply this research to human movement. Specific parameters identified on the description of the assignment are aligned with the rubric used to assess the project. A sample description of assignment and rubric are provided under Standard 2.
Group Summative Assessments
- Flipped classroom: One way students can demonstrate their understanding and competency in self-selected activities is through a flipped classroom assignment. Students in small groups (no more than 3 students) would create instructional videos on selected skills and/or techniques for self-selected activities. These videos are posted on the physical education website and used by other students to refine their skills. An example of a flipped classroom assignment and assessment rubric are provided under Standard 2.
- Creation of dance, yoga, or fitness routines: Based on a description of the assignment, students in small groups (no more than four) create a routine. The created routine follows the parameters established in the description of the assignment. For example, students could demonstrate their competency in square dance by creating a square dance using hip hop or break dance movements in combination with more traditional steps such as do-si-do and promenade. The parameters for the dance would be set based on traditional squares (eight in a set, everyone must start and end with the same partner, everyone must switch partners at least twice, etc.). This will require students to apply their knowledge in the creation of the dance. Students could either create a video demonstrating the dance or teach the dance to classmates. The same type of assignment could be used in the creation of routines for step aerobics, kickboxing, yoga, etc.
At the high school level, students should have a choice of how they demonstrate their competency regarding the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2. You can provide them with two or three choices and let them select the assessment that works best for them. For example, you might have a group of students who want to flip a classroom, while others are more interested in completing a research paper and biomechanical analysis. As you provide students with choice, ensure the projects are equal in rigor. You also can have one required assessment and a second assessment that provides choice. For example, all students might take the written examination, but the second assessment can be one of three choices.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Using PE Metrics in Your Program
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency.
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency. The rubrics guide your evaluation by allowing you to assign students to one of three levels: Developing, Competent or Proficient. All rubrics include an "indicator," which is an outcome statement against which you can assess student performance using the performance criteria in each of the three levels (Developing, Competent and Proficient). For example, an indicator in a sample assessment for high school students on creating and maintaining a fitness plan, in Part IV of this book, states: "Goals meet the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria." The indicator within that assessment's scoring rubric is intended to help teachers measure a student's ability to set and pursue personal fitness goals. At the elementary school level, Standard 1 indicators are specific to the critical elements for the skill. The indicator column states, simply, "Critical Elements," and students must demonstrate the critical elements of that particular skill to be scored as Competent in the skill. The indicators are similar to student learning outcomes, and you can think of them as an "indication" of how students demonstrate their mastery of a skill.
Each performance level in the rubric is defined by criteria linked specifically to critical elements. At the Developing level, students are moving toward competency and mastery of the identified critical elements. At the Developing level, then, a student's competency is emerging and needs further development. With deliberate practice, students can move from the Developing level to the Competent level. Students at the Competent level demonstrate all of the critical elements of the skill, exhibiting mastery of the indicator. The Competent level defines the minimal level of performance required for meeting the indicator. Students at the Proficient level not only demonstrate all the required critical elements of the skill during assessment, but their performance also meets additional criteria and/or displays a level of performance that goes beyond Competent. For example, a student could display all of the critical elements while throwing overhand, while another student adds the wrist snap at the end of the throw or increases their stride length to generate more power. The first student demonstrated competency while the second student demonstrated proficiency by showing a more advanced level of performance.
Throughout this book, we use the term "sample" assessment purposefully. We do not recommend any of the assessments as exemplars, but only as samples of assessments that are aligned with the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. They represent SHAPE America's attempt to provide you with a way of thinking about developing assessments that is unique to your teaching environment. The purposes of assessment are to improve instruction, track student progress, and provide feedback to students on their progress toward intended outcomes. Therefore, the assessments you use must meet the needs of your students and your program.
We encourage you to modify any and all sample assessments in this book to fit your teaching environment, to use them as guidelines for developing your own assessments, and to combine or modify the assessments to align with your school or district outcomes. You will also want to modify the sample assessments to meet the needs of students with disabilities. For specific guidance in this area, we recommend Assessment for Everyone: Modifying NASPE Assessments to Include All Elementary School Children (Lieberman, Kowalski, et al., 2011).
While all the sample rubrics in this version of PE Metrics denote levels of competency and not point values for each level, you can modify the samples to assign point values and assign different weights to various indicators on the rubric. The sample assessments simply provide you with some suggestions. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for each level can be found in Appendix B. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for indicators can be found in Appendix C. You can change a rubric to a checklist or a checklist to a rubric if doing so better fits your needs. While the sample assessment for evaluating students' reflections or journal entries might be an analytic rubric, you might find that a general rubric works better for you. In many cases, you may want to alter a sample assessment by replacing some of the language to match the cues you have been using in your classes. That way, the assessment process and feedback from the rubric will be more meaningful to your students. Think of the sample assessments in PE Metrics as building blocks and tools for you to use in developing an assessment plan that is unique to your program and the needs of your students.
As you review the various samples of assessments and assignments in this book, keep in mind that you can use a single assessment to measure more than one Grade-Level Outcome, even if the outcomes are aligned under different standards. You can combine a sample assessment suggested for one National Standard and Grade-Level Outcome with another assessment for a different Grade-Level Outcome under a different National Standard to create an analytic rubric. This is particularly true for assessments under Standards 1, 4 and 5. For example, you can assess middle school students creating a line dance on their skill competency in dance & rhythms (Outcome S1.M1.8) while also assessing them on their collaboration skills (Outcome S4.M6.8) and their enjoyment of activity and their self-expression (Outcome S5.M5.8). You can assess students under all three outcomes in one assignment, using one comprehensive analytic rubric. An example of an analytic rubric assessing more than one standard can be found in Appendix D. These types of assessments have "embedded" within them opportunities to assess multiple standards. Another assessment strategy is to use a suite of assessments to provide a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of student achievement throughout a unit or school year. A suite of assessments would include several forms of assessment, including rubrics, checklists, peer and self-assessments, exit slips and worksheets. An example of a suite of assessments can be found in Appendix E.
Please note that many of the sample assessments encourage students to demonstrate their competency in specific outcomes through the use of technology. Video blogs, slide presentations, flipped classrooms and electronic postings are some of the examples provided. In addition, you might use software to track student progress, collect data and report results to various stakeholders. As physical educators, we need to be part of the digital revolution!
When the time comes to implement your assessments, you will have to think about the practicality of using a rubric while watching students who are moving. This is true especially when evaluating students in activities under Standards 1 and 2. You might want to place a streamlined copy of your rubric on a clipboard or tablet for quick reference while observing students. You can simplify the rubric by highlighting key words in the descriptors or by abbreviating the descriptors in a way that makes sense to you. After you've used the rubric a few times, it will become quite familiar and you will find yourself referring to the rubric far less frequently; it will be in your head. You also will need a simple score sheet for recording students' final scores in an efficient manner. An example of a simple score sheet for locomotor skills at the elementary level and a score sheet for backhand stroke in badminton at the middle or high school level can be found in Appendix F.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
The Role of Assessment in Today's Schools
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement.
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement. Assessment can be defined as "the gathering of evidence about student achievement and making inferences about student progress based on that evidence" (Society of Health and Physical Educators, 2015). Many policymakers, parents and administrators assume that assessment occurs every day in every classroom, and that assessments produce evidence of student learning. While assessment does provide such evidence, student learning is only one of many roles assessment plays in education. Assessments must provide ongoing measures of student performance using more than one method, be aligned with student learning outcomes, and allow students to demonstrate competency in a variety of ways. No longer can just one assessment at one point in time provide adequate evidence of student learning. To get a complete, nuanced picture of a student's learning requires multiple assessments dispersed over time.
Purposes of Assessment
Just as the role of assessment has evolved, so have the uses of assessment. While the focus remains on measuring student learning, using assessment to provide feedback on student performance, make instruction-related decisions, and inform teaching is just as important. Assessment information and data should inform teachers and teaching in every part of the instruction process. Student performance and improvement are determined by the interaction of student learning and teachers teaching. It is part of the ongoing instruction process, just as planning learning experiences, establishing student outcomes and managing a classroom. Assessment is as multidimensional as teaching and serves multiple purposes in the instruction and learning processes.
The primary purpose of assessment in physical education is to provide stakeholders with evidence of students' learning as well as their attainment of National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. Collecting and reporting on data specific to outcomes allow you to document student progress, communicate your teaching effectiveness to students, parents and administrators, and make the case for additional time and funding for your program. Part of the accountability movement in education reform is data-driven decision-making. As physical educators, we must improve our ability to collect, analyze and use data for program improvement and demonstrate the use of data to ensure that all students are physically literate. Without the use of data generated by a matrix of assessments, we cannot make our case for the continued inclusion in the school curriculum.
A second purpose of assessment is to provide students with feedback on their progress. Effective assessments go beyond assigning a number, percentage or grade to student performance by providing specific, corrective feedback through the assessment itself. The most common example of providing specific feedback through an assessment is the use of analytic rubrics to assess assignments or performance (see Appendix D). Well-developed analytic rubrics identify critical elements of the performance at various levels and dimensions and allow you to provide detailed feedback to students on their performance simply by having them complete the assessment. Analytic rubrics often are used when assessing complex skills, the application of knowledge, or a multipart performance or assignment. By using an analytic rubric, you can facilitate students' self-assessment of their performance, define performance expectations, and evaluate relative strengths and weaknesses for each student.
A third purpose of assessment is to gather information and data that drive instructional decision-making. All students enter your gymnasium with a wide variety of prior knowledge, experience, and skill that you must account for in designing their learning experiences. Before teaching any unit or lesson, you must determine starting points for each individual student in your class by conducting some form of pre-assessment. The information or data could come from records kept from the previous year, from pretest data, from observing students, or from simply asking students about their experience levels through a survey, self-assessment or even a wordle. For an example of a wordle as a pre-assessment, see Appendix G. In addition to determining individual starting points, pre-assessment gives you the information you need for differentiating instruction, assigning partners or groups, and setting expectations. Without assessment information or data, you are simply guessing about students' competency levels or teaching as if all students are the same, rather than teaching and assessing individuals.
Once you begin an instructional unit, assessment is key for determining your next steps, adapting or modifying learning experiences and, potentially, identifying the need to re-teach. Methods for gathering this information or data can range from peer assessments to quizzes and project updates. Assessment should occur each day in some manner and the results should always inform the next day's instruction and design, but to use the results most effectively, you need an established method for tracking assessment data. One solution is adopting one or more forms of technology, which can facilitate the gathering, analyzing, and tracking of student data, making the process much more manageable than in the past. A good resource for using technology in a physical education setting is Chapter 8 in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014).
The final purpose of assessment is to inform your teaching. Throughout the unit of instruction, you use informal and formal assessments to make decisions about your instruction. At the end of a unit of instruction, you must review the information or data from these assessments to determine strengths and challenges for student learning. Based on a summative assessment, you can determine what skills and knowledge students have mastered and what you will need to review or repeat. You also can use data to determine what worked best during the unit of instruction and what you might need to change in the future. Assessment data allow you to self-evaluate your teaching effectiveness based on the performance of your students. Assessment and instruction are inseparable in the planning and teaching process.
While assessment data often are used for determining grades, grades and assessments have different purposes. The goal of grading is to evaluate individual students' learning and performance based on indirect and direct measures. For example, a range of indirect measures, such as attendance, participation and effort, often have been part of the grading process. While those constructs are important, they are not direct measures of learning. Paul Dressell from the Michigan State University describes a grade "as an inadequate report of an imprecise judgment of a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of materials" (Miller, Imrie & Cox, 1998, p. 24). While grading can play a role in assessment, assessment is a much broader measure of student learning and includes many ungraded measures, such as worksheets, discussion and concept maps. A grade is one data point, not linked to any particular learning outcome, and it does not allow for any systematic examination of learning. A matrix of assessments (formal and informal) allows you to examine data to determine learning patterns and guide instructional decision-making.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
The Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 focus on applying knowledge in physical activities that students can use over a lifetime. Students should leave high school knowing the terminology, rules and etiquette of the activities that they are likely to pursue over their lifetimes. They also should be able to use biomechanical principles to analyze their skills and techniques, and demonstrate the ability to devise and implement practice plans for improving their performance in those activities. Those skills are essential if students are to maintain and improve long-term personal health and realize longer life expectancies. As the teacher, you will need to teach related lifetime career- and college-readiness skills such as problem solving, analyzing resources critically, and demonstrating effective written and oral communication skills. The sample assessments provided here will help you measure those transferable skills, in addition to students' knowledge and understanding of selected lifetime activities.
Research conducted over the past two decades is clear: the best indicator of continued participation in a movement activity over a lifetime is the perception of competency (Barnett et al., 2008; Stodden et al., 2009; Stuart et al., 2005). By high school, students recognize which activities they enjoy and want to become better at through practice and continued instruction. Student choice, then, is an essential component of any high school physical education curriculum. Not only do students need the freedom to choose the activities in which they want to improve their competency, but they also should be able to choose how they wish to demonstrate their competency.
Assessments intended to measure high school students' progress toward the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 require students to apply their knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics to demonstrate their command of a self-selected lifetime activity, dance or fitness activity. The sample assessments for Standard 2 are comprehensive, requiring students to solve problems and think critically, and some involve others in group assignments and/or projects. You also can employ more traditional assessment tasks such as quizzes, end-of-unit examinations, worksheets, activity logs, and student reflections or journals. All are appropriate assessments and can provide valuable insights about what your students are learning and are able to apply to the activities they pursue after leaving high school.
We suggest providing students with a list of options for demonstrating competency and allowing students to select the assessment that they believe would best demonstrate their competency. The suggested assessments include group projects as well as individual projects, providing students with a range of choices. Research (Assor et al., 2002; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Fisher et al., 1975; Ryan & Deci, 2000) has shown that providing some student choice increases student engagement and sense of autonomy.
Pre-Assessment
We recommend that you conduct pre-assessments for all lifetime, dance and rhythm, and fitness activities. This will provide you and the students with baseline levels of competency and allow for differentiation of instruction, communication of student progress over time, and instructional decision-making. Students can use the baseline data to determine their progress, determine areas of strengths and weaknesses, and set performance goals for each unit of instruction.
- You can use surveys or other forms of written pre-assessments. Gathering data before beginning the unit will guide instructional decision-making specific to scope and sequence, determining ability groupings, and designing differentiated practice tasks. You can survey students on their experience with the activity or their foundational knowledge of it. For example, students who have participated in weight-training activities through competitive sport will have a higher baseline of performance than students who have not participated in weight training. Likewise, students who have aquatics certifications through American Red Cross, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, or the YMCA will have a higher baseline of performance than those students who don't pursue those certifications. You can use written pre-assessments to determine students' knowledge in the upcoming unit. For example, you could ask students to match dance steps or yoga positions to the names of the steps or positions. For a weight-training unit, you could ask students to match weight-lifting techniques to the muscle groups that they target. That will provide you with valuable information on students' baseline knowledge.
- Examples of skill pre-assessments are provided under Standard 1.
Formative Assessments
- Quizzes allow you to have checks for understanding throughout the unit. Quizzes cover topics such as rules and etiquette for the activity, terminology, and/or concepts and principles related to the activity.
- Checklists are valuable as formative assessments. Checklists allow students to self-evaluate their performance by identifying essential criteria for movement competency. Checklists are also constructive in identifying key elements to be included in a summative project or assignment. This allows students to "check" that they have included key parts of a comprehensive project or assignment. In addition, peers can provide specific, corrective feedback based on identified criteria on a peer evaluation checklist. This allows students to provide each other feedback on performance using objective criteria based on critical elements of the skill or technique. Examples of peer checklists are found under Standard 1.
- Checks for understanding should occur during each class. These are quick checks on the students' comprehension and provide students with the opportunity to ask questions and seek clarifications. The advantage of using checks for understanding is that it takes place in real time, allowing you to adjust or modify practice tasks or instruction based on student needs.
- Worksheets are another type of formative assessment and can take many forms. Worksheets can be used to assess students' understanding of scoring in tennis, identify poses in yoga, or calculate target heart rate, to name just a few. An example of how to calculate target heart rate can be found under Standard 3. Additional examples can be found in Appendix U specific to target heart rate and FitnessGram results.
- Logs are useful to students for tracking such things as amount and length of time spent in physical activity, food intake, number of repetitions and lifts during a fitness unit, scores over time in target activities such as archery and bowling. Logs provide both you and your students a record of their progress over time. A sample nutrition log is provided in Appendix V.
Note: Units at the high school level will involve many combinations of formative assessments. Developing competency in a specific lifetime, dance, or fitness activity is a complex process crossing all learning domains. Using just one type of formative assessment provides you with a limited picture of student progress; therefore, a variety of assessments should be used. This requires multiple assessments that include all learning domains.
Individual Summative Assessments
- Portfolio: This is a comprehensive assessment that has multiple parts. Students can select examples of their work and include them in their portfolio specific to their self-selected lifetime, dance and rhythm, or fitness activity. Each section of the portfolio is assessed and aligned to goals or objectives of the overall unit. Formative assessments (listed above) could be included in the portfolio as evidence. Assessment rubrics for a portfolio assignment align with a complete description of the assignment. It is essential that students have a clear outline of specific requirements for their portfolio. An example of a fitness portfolio is provided under Standard 3.
- Develop and implement an improvement plan: For Standards 2 or 3, students develop and implement an improvement plan specific to their self-selected activity. All improvement plans should have goals, pre-, mid- and post-measures, and specific practice tasks. Students create a plan based on their pre-assessment data. This includes any of the lifetime activities or the development of a fitness plan for a specific sport based on the demands of the activity. A description of the assignment provides specific requirements and a rubric would align with the requirements identified in the description of the assignment. A sample of a description of the assignment along with the assessment rubric are found under Standard 2. For an example of a fitness plan format see Appendix W.
- Journals provide you with insight on how students are feeling about their participation in the unit, specific challenges they are facing, and their social interactions within the context of the unit. Journals provide you with a deeper understanding of the social and emotional context of the student's experiences in the unit. Guidance on the use of journals is provided under Standard 4.
- Final examination: Students take a comprehensive written final examination specific to terminology, rules and etiquette, application of concepts and movement principles, and tactics and strategies. See Appendix X for sample written examination questions.
- Research paper or biomechanical analysis: Students select a movement skill or sequence to analyze using principles from biomechanics and physics. In a research paper, students present their findings. This assignment requires students to investigate research findings and apply this research to human movement. Specific parameters identified on the description of the assignment are aligned with the rubric used to assess the project. A sample description of assignment and rubric are provided under Standard 2.
Group Summative Assessments
- Flipped classroom: One way students can demonstrate their understanding and competency in self-selected activities is through a flipped classroom assignment. Students in small groups (no more than 3 students) would create instructional videos on selected skills and/or techniques for self-selected activities. These videos are posted on the physical education website and used by other students to refine their skills. An example of a flipped classroom assignment and assessment rubric are provided under Standard 2.
- Creation of dance, yoga, or fitness routines: Based on a description of the assignment, students in small groups (no more than four) create a routine. The created routine follows the parameters established in the description of the assignment. For example, students could demonstrate their competency in square dance by creating a square dance using hip hop or break dance movements in combination with more traditional steps such as do-si-do and promenade. The parameters for the dance would be set based on traditional squares (eight in a set, everyone must start and end with the same partner, everyone must switch partners at least twice, etc.). This will require students to apply their knowledge in the creation of the dance. Students could either create a video demonstrating the dance or teach the dance to classmates. The same type of assignment could be used in the creation of routines for step aerobics, kickboxing, yoga, etc.
At the high school level, students should have a choice of how they demonstrate their competency regarding the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2. You can provide them with two or three choices and let them select the assessment that works best for them. For example, you might have a group of students who want to flip a classroom, while others are more interested in completing a research paper and biomechanical analysis. As you provide students with choice, ensure the projects are equal in rigor. You also can have one required assessment and a second assessment that provides choice. For example, all students might take the written examination, but the second assessment can be one of three choices.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Using PE Metrics in Your Program
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency.
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency. The rubrics guide your evaluation by allowing you to assign students to one of three levels: Developing, Competent or Proficient. All rubrics include an "indicator," which is an outcome statement against which you can assess student performance using the performance criteria in each of the three levels (Developing, Competent and Proficient). For example, an indicator in a sample assessment for high school students on creating and maintaining a fitness plan, in Part IV of this book, states: "Goals meet the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria." The indicator within that assessment's scoring rubric is intended to help teachers measure a student's ability to set and pursue personal fitness goals. At the elementary school level, Standard 1 indicators are specific to the critical elements for the skill. The indicator column states, simply, "Critical Elements," and students must demonstrate the critical elements of that particular skill to be scored as Competent in the skill. The indicators are similar to student learning outcomes, and you can think of them as an "indication" of how students demonstrate their mastery of a skill.
Each performance level in the rubric is defined by criteria linked specifically to critical elements. At the Developing level, students are moving toward competency and mastery of the identified critical elements. At the Developing level, then, a student's competency is emerging and needs further development. With deliberate practice, students can move from the Developing level to the Competent level. Students at the Competent level demonstrate all of the critical elements of the skill, exhibiting mastery of the indicator. The Competent level defines the minimal level of performance required for meeting the indicator. Students at the Proficient level not only demonstrate all the required critical elements of the skill during assessment, but their performance also meets additional criteria and/or displays a level of performance that goes beyond Competent. For example, a student could display all of the critical elements while throwing overhand, while another student adds the wrist snap at the end of the throw or increases their stride length to generate more power. The first student demonstrated competency while the second student demonstrated proficiency by showing a more advanced level of performance.
Throughout this book, we use the term "sample" assessment purposefully. We do not recommend any of the assessments as exemplars, but only as samples of assessments that are aligned with the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. They represent SHAPE America's attempt to provide you with a way of thinking about developing assessments that is unique to your teaching environment. The purposes of assessment are to improve instruction, track student progress, and provide feedback to students on their progress toward intended outcomes. Therefore, the assessments you use must meet the needs of your students and your program.
We encourage you to modify any and all sample assessments in this book to fit your teaching environment, to use them as guidelines for developing your own assessments, and to combine or modify the assessments to align with your school or district outcomes. You will also want to modify the sample assessments to meet the needs of students with disabilities. For specific guidance in this area, we recommend Assessment for Everyone: Modifying NASPE Assessments to Include All Elementary School Children (Lieberman, Kowalski, et al., 2011).
While all the sample rubrics in this version of PE Metrics denote levels of competency and not point values for each level, you can modify the samples to assign point values and assign different weights to various indicators on the rubric. The sample assessments simply provide you with some suggestions. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for each level can be found in Appendix B. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for indicators can be found in Appendix C. You can change a rubric to a checklist or a checklist to a rubric if doing so better fits your needs. While the sample assessment for evaluating students' reflections or journal entries might be an analytic rubric, you might find that a general rubric works better for you. In many cases, you may want to alter a sample assessment by replacing some of the language to match the cues you have been using in your classes. That way, the assessment process and feedback from the rubric will be more meaningful to your students. Think of the sample assessments in PE Metrics as building blocks and tools for you to use in developing an assessment plan that is unique to your program and the needs of your students.
As you review the various samples of assessments and assignments in this book, keep in mind that you can use a single assessment to measure more than one Grade-Level Outcome, even if the outcomes are aligned under different standards. You can combine a sample assessment suggested for one National Standard and Grade-Level Outcome with another assessment for a different Grade-Level Outcome under a different National Standard to create an analytic rubric. This is particularly true for assessments under Standards 1, 4 and 5. For example, you can assess middle school students creating a line dance on their skill competency in dance & rhythms (Outcome S1.M1.8) while also assessing them on their collaboration skills (Outcome S4.M6.8) and their enjoyment of activity and their self-expression (Outcome S5.M5.8). You can assess students under all three outcomes in one assignment, using one comprehensive analytic rubric. An example of an analytic rubric assessing more than one standard can be found in Appendix D. These types of assessments have "embedded" within them opportunities to assess multiple standards. Another assessment strategy is to use a suite of assessments to provide a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of student achievement throughout a unit or school year. A suite of assessments would include several forms of assessment, including rubrics, checklists, peer and self-assessments, exit slips and worksheets. An example of a suite of assessments can be found in Appendix E.
Please note that many of the sample assessments encourage students to demonstrate their competency in specific outcomes through the use of technology. Video blogs, slide presentations, flipped classrooms and electronic postings are some of the examples provided. In addition, you might use software to track student progress, collect data and report results to various stakeholders. As physical educators, we need to be part of the digital revolution!
When the time comes to implement your assessments, you will have to think about the practicality of using a rubric while watching students who are moving. This is true especially when evaluating students in activities under Standards 1 and 2. You might want to place a streamlined copy of your rubric on a clipboard or tablet for quick reference while observing students. You can simplify the rubric by highlighting key words in the descriptors or by abbreviating the descriptors in a way that makes sense to you. After you've used the rubric a few times, it will become quite familiar and you will find yourself referring to the rubric far less frequently; it will be in your head. You also will need a simple score sheet for recording students' final scores in an efficient manner. An example of a simple score sheet for locomotor skills at the elementary level and a score sheet for backhand stroke in badminton at the middle or high school level can be found in Appendix F.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
The Role of Assessment in Today's Schools
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement.
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement. Assessment can be defined as "the gathering of evidence about student achievement and making inferences about student progress based on that evidence" (Society of Health and Physical Educators, 2015). Many policymakers, parents and administrators assume that assessment occurs every day in every classroom, and that assessments produce evidence of student learning. While assessment does provide such evidence, student learning is only one of many roles assessment plays in education. Assessments must provide ongoing measures of student performance using more than one method, be aligned with student learning outcomes, and allow students to demonstrate competency in a variety of ways. No longer can just one assessment at one point in time provide adequate evidence of student learning. To get a complete, nuanced picture of a student's learning requires multiple assessments dispersed over time.
Purposes of Assessment
Just as the role of assessment has evolved, so have the uses of assessment. While the focus remains on measuring student learning, using assessment to provide feedback on student performance, make instruction-related decisions, and inform teaching is just as important. Assessment information and data should inform teachers and teaching in every part of the instruction process. Student performance and improvement are determined by the interaction of student learning and teachers teaching. It is part of the ongoing instruction process, just as planning learning experiences, establishing student outcomes and managing a classroom. Assessment is as multidimensional as teaching and serves multiple purposes in the instruction and learning processes.
The primary purpose of assessment in physical education is to provide stakeholders with evidence of students' learning as well as their attainment of National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. Collecting and reporting on data specific to outcomes allow you to document student progress, communicate your teaching effectiveness to students, parents and administrators, and make the case for additional time and funding for your program. Part of the accountability movement in education reform is data-driven decision-making. As physical educators, we must improve our ability to collect, analyze and use data for program improvement and demonstrate the use of data to ensure that all students are physically literate. Without the use of data generated by a matrix of assessments, we cannot make our case for the continued inclusion in the school curriculum.
A second purpose of assessment is to provide students with feedback on their progress. Effective assessments go beyond assigning a number, percentage or grade to student performance by providing specific, corrective feedback through the assessment itself. The most common example of providing specific feedback through an assessment is the use of analytic rubrics to assess assignments or performance (see Appendix D). Well-developed analytic rubrics identify critical elements of the performance at various levels and dimensions and allow you to provide detailed feedback to students on their performance simply by having them complete the assessment. Analytic rubrics often are used when assessing complex skills, the application of knowledge, or a multipart performance or assignment. By using an analytic rubric, you can facilitate students' self-assessment of their performance, define performance expectations, and evaluate relative strengths and weaknesses for each student.
A third purpose of assessment is to gather information and data that drive instructional decision-making. All students enter your gymnasium with a wide variety of prior knowledge, experience, and skill that you must account for in designing their learning experiences. Before teaching any unit or lesson, you must determine starting points for each individual student in your class by conducting some form of pre-assessment. The information or data could come from records kept from the previous year, from pretest data, from observing students, or from simply asking students about their experience levels through a survey, self-assessment or even a wordle. For an example of a wordle as a pre-assessment, see Appendix G. In addition to determining individual starting points, pre-assessment gives you the information you need for differentiating instruction, assigning partners or groups, and setting expectations. Without assessment information or data, you are simply guessing about students' competency levels or teaching as if all students are the same, rather than teaching and assessing individuals.
Once you begin an instructional unit, assessment is key for determining your next steps, adapting or modifying learning experiences and, potentially, identifying the need to re-teach. Methods for gathering this information or data can range from peer assessments to quizzes and project updates. Assessment should occur each day in some manner and the results should always inform the next day's instruction and design, but to use the results most effectively, you need an established method for tracking assessment data. One solution is adopting one or more forms of technology, which can facilitate the gathering, analyzing, and tracking of student data, making the process much more manageable than in the past. A good resource for using technology in a physical education setting is Chapter 8 in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014).
The final purpose of assessment is to inform your teaching. Throughout the unit of instruction, you use informal and formal assessments to make decisions about your instruction. At the end of a unit of instruction, you must review the information or data from these assessments to determine strengths and challenges for student learning. Based on a summative assessment, you can determine what skills and knowledge students have mastered and what you will need to review or repeat. You also can use data to determine what worked best during the unit of instruction and what you might need to change in the future. Assessment data allow you to self-evaluate your teaching effectiveness based on the performance of your students. Assessment and instruction are inseparable in the planning and teaching process.
While assessment data often are used for determining grades, grades and assessments have different purposes. The goal of grading is to evaluate individual students' learning and performance based on indirect and direct measures. For example, a range of indirect measures, such as attendance, participation and effort, often have been part of the grading process. While those constructs are important, they are not direct measures of learning. Paul Dressell from the Michigan State University describes a grade "as an inadequate report of an imprecise judgment of a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of materials" (Miller, Imrie & Cox, 1998, p. 24). While grading can play a role in assessment, assessment is a much broader measure of student learning and includes many ungraded measures, such as worksheets, discussion and concept maps. A grade is one data point, not linked to any particular learning outcome, and it does not allow for any systematic examination of learning. A matrix of assessments (formal and informal) allows you to examine data to determine learning patterns and guide instructional decision-making.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
The Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 focus on applying knowledge in physical activities that students can use over a lifetime. Students should leave high school knowing the terminology, rules and etiquette of the activities that they are likely to pursue over their lifetimes. They also should be able to use biomechanical principles to analyze their skills and techniques, and demonstrate the ability to devise and implement practice plans for improving their performance in those activities. Those skills are essential if students are to maintain and improve long-term personal health and realize longer life expectancies. As the teacher, you will need to teach related lifetime career- and college-readiness skills such as problem solving, analyzing resources critically, and demonstrating effective written and oral communication skills. The sample assessments provided here will help you measure those transferable skills, in addition to students' knowledge and understanding of selected lifetime activities.
Research conducted over the past two decades is clear: the best indicator of continued participation in a movement activity over a lifetime is the perception of competency (Barnett et al., 2008; Stodden et al., 2009; Stuart et al., 2005). By high school, students recognize which activities they enjoy and want to become better at through practice and continued instruction. Student choice, then, is an essential component of any high school physical education curriculum. Not only do students need the freedom to choose the activities in which they want to improve their competency, but they also should be able to choose how they wish to demonstrate their competency.
Assessments intended to measure high school students' progress toward the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 require students to apply their knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics to demonstrate their command of a self-selected lifetime activity, dance or fitness activity. The sample assessments for Standard 2 are comprehensive, requiring students to solve problems and think critically, and some involve others in group assignments and/or projects. You also can employ more traditional assessment tasks such as quizzes, end-of-unit examinations, worksheets, activity logs, and student reflections or journals. All are appropriate assessments and can provide valuable insights about what your students are learning and are able to apply to the activities they pursue after leaving high school.
We suggest providing students with a list of options for demonstrating competency and allowing students to select the assessment that they believe would best demonstrate their competency. The suggested assessments include group projects as well as individual projects, providing students with a range of choices. Research (Assor et al., 2002; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Fisher et al., 1975; Ryan & Deci, 2000) has shown that providing some student choice increases student engagement and sense of autonomy.
Pre-Assessment
We recommend that you conduct pre-assessments for all lifetime, dance and rhythm, and fitness activities. This will provide you and the students with baseline levels of competency and allow for differentiation of instruction, communication of student progress over time, and instructional decision-making. Students can use the baseline data to determine their progress, determine areas of strengths and weaknesses, and set performance goals for each unit of instruction.
- You can use surveys or other forms of written pre-assessments. Gathering data before beginning the unit will guide instructional decision-making specific to scope and sequence, determining ability groupings, and designing differentiated practice tasks. You can survey students on their experience with the activity or their foundational knowledge of it. For example, students who have participated in weight-training activities through competitive sport will have a higher baseline of performance than students who have not participated in weight training. Likewise, students who have aquatics certifications through American Red Cross, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, or the YMCA will have a higher baseline of performance than those students who don't pursue those certifications. You can use written pre-assessments to determine students' knowledge in the upcoming unit. For example, you could ask students to match dance steps or yoga positions to the names of the steps or positions. For a weight-training unit, you could ask students to match weight-lifting techniques to the muscle groups that they target. That will provide you with valuable information on students' baseline knowledge.
- Examples of skill pre-assessments are provided under Standard 1.
Formative Assessments
- Quizzes allow you to have checks for understanding throughout the unit. Quizzes cover topics such as rules and etiquette for the activity, terminology, and/or concepts and principles related to the activity.
- Checklists are valuable as formative assessments. Checklists allow students to self-evaluate their performance by identifying essential criteria for movement competency. Checklists are also constructive in identifying key elements to be included in a summative project or assignment. This allows students to "check" that they have included key parts of a comprehensive project or assignment. In addition, peers can provide specific, corrective feedback based on identified criteria on a peer evaluation checklist. This allows students to provide each other feedback on performance using objective criteria based on critical elements of the skill or technique. Examples of peer checklists are found under Standard 1.
- Checks for understanding should occur during each class. These are quick checks on the students' comprehension and provide students with the opportunity to ask questions and seek clarifications. The advantage of using checks for understanding is that it takes place in real time, allowing you to adjust or modify practice tasks or instruction based on student needs.
- Worksheets are another type of formative assessment and can take many forms. Worksheets can be used to assess students' understanding of scoring in tennis, identify poses in yoga, or calculate target heart rate, to name just a few. An example of how to calculate target heart rate can be found under Standard 3. Additional examples can be found in Appendix U specific to target heart rate and FitnessGram results.
- Logs are useful to students for tracking such things as amount and length of time spent in physical activity, food intake, number of repetitions and lifts during a fitness unit, scores over time in target activities such as archery and bowling. Logs provide both you and your students a record of their progress over time. A sample nutrition log is provided in Appendix V.
Note: Units at the high school level will involve many combinations of formative assessments. Developing competency in a specific lifetime, dance, or fitness activity is a complex process crossing all learning domains. Using just one type of formative assessment provides you with a limited picture of student progress; therefore, a variety of assessments should be used. This requires multiple assessments that include all learning domains.
Individual Summative Assessments
- Portfolio: This is a comprehensive assessment that has multiple parts. Students can select examples of their work and include them in their portfolio specific to their self-selected lifetime, dance and rhythm, or fitness activity. Each section of the portfolio is assessed and aligned to goals or objectives of the overall unit. Formative assessments (listed above) could be included in the portfolio as evidence. Assessment rubrics for a portfolio assignment align with a complete description of the assignment. It is essential that students have a clear outline of specific requirements for their portfolio. An example of a fitness portfolio is provided under Standard 3.
- Develop and implement an improvement plan: For Standards 2 or 3, students develop and implement an improvement plan specific to their self-selected activity. All improvement plans should have goals, pre-, mid- and post-measures, and specific practice tasks. Students create a plan based on their pre-assessment data. This includes any of the lifetime activities or the development of a fitness plan for a specific sport based on the demands of the activity. A description of the assignment provides specific requirements and a rubric would align with the requirements identified in the description of the assignment. A sample of a description of the assignment along with the assessment rubric are found under Standard 2. For an example of a fitness plan format see Appendix W.
- Journals provide you with insight on how students are feeling about their participation in the unit, specific challenges they are facing, and their social interactions within the context of the unit. Journals provide you with a deeper understanding of the social and emotional context of the student's experiences in the unit. Guidance on the use of journals is provided under Standard 4.
- Final examination: Students take a comprehensive written final examination specific to terminology, rules and etiquette, application of concepts and movement principles, and tactics and strategies. See Appendix X for sample written examination questions.
- Research paper or biomechanical analysis: Students select a movement skill or sequence to analyze using principles from biomechanics and physics. In a research paper, students present their findings. This assignment requires students to investigate research findings and apply this research to human movement. Specific parameters identified on the description of the assignment are aligned with the rubric used to assess the project. A sample description of assignment and rubric are provided under Standard 2.
Group Summative Assessments
- Flipped classroom: One way students can demonstrate their understanding and competency in self-selected activities is through a flipped classroom assignment. Students in small groups (no more than 3 students) would create instructional videos on selected skills and/or techniques for self-selected activities. These videos are posted on the physical education website and used by other students to refine their skills. An example of a flipped classroom assignment and assessment rubric are provided under Standard 2.
- Creation of dance, yoga, or fitness routines: Based on a description of the assignment, students in small groups (no more than four) create a routine. The created routine follows the parameters established in the description of the assignment. For example, students could demonstrate their competency in square dance by creating a square dance using hip hop or break dance movements in combination with more traditional steps such as do-si-do and promenade. The parameters for the dance would be set based on traditional squares (eight in a set, everyone must start and end with the same partner, everyone must switch partners at least twice, etc.). This will require students to apply their knowledge in the creation of the dance. Students could either create a video demonstrating the dance or teach the dance to classmates. The same type of assignment could be used in the creation of routines for step aerobics, kickboxing, yoga, etc.
At the high school level, students should have a choice of how they demonstrate their competency regarding the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2. You can provide them with two or three choices and let them select the assessment that works best for them. For example, you might have a group of students who want to flip a classroom, while others are more interested in completing a research paper and biomechanical analysis. As you provide students with choice, ensure the projects are equal in rigor. You also can have one required assessment and a second assessment that provides choice. For example, all students might take the written examination, but the second assessment can be one of three choices.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Using PE Metrics in Your Program
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency.
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency. The rubrics guide your evaluation by allowing you to assign students to one of three levels: Developing, Competent or Proficient. All rubrics include an "indicator," which is an outcome statement against which you can assess student performance using the performance criteria in each of the three levels (Developing, Competent and Proficient). For example, an indicator in a sample assessment for high school students on creating and maintaining a fitness plan, in Part IV of this book, states: "Goals meet the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria." The indicator within that assessment's scoring rubric is intended to help teachers measure a student's ability to set and pursue personal fitness goals. At the elementary school level, Standard 1 indicators are specific to the critical elements for the skill. The indicator column states, simply, "Critical Elements," and students must demonstrate the critical elements of that particular skill to be scored as Competent in the skill. The indicators are similar to student learning outcomes, and you can think of them as an "indication" of how students demonstrate their mastery of a skill.
Each performance level in the rubric is defined by criteria linked specifically to critical elements. At the Developing level, students are moving toward competency and mastery of the identified critical elements. At the Developing level, then, a student's competency is emerging and needs further development. With deliberate practice, students can move from the Developing level to the Competent level. Students at the Competent level demonstrate all of the critical elements of the skill, exhibiting mastery of the indicator. The Competent level defines the minimal level of performance required for meeting the indicator. Students at the Proficient level not only demonstrate all the required critical elements of the skill during assessment, but their performance also meets additional criteria and/or displays a level of performance that goes beyond Competent. For example, a student could display all of the critical elements while throwing overhand, while another student adds the wrist snap at the end of the throw or increases their stride length to generate more power. The first student demonstrated competency while the second student demonstrated proficiency by showing a more advanced level of performance.
Throughout this book, we use the term "sample" assessment purposefully. We do not recommend any of the assessments as exemplars, but only as samples of assessments that are aligned with the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. They represent SHAPE America's attempt to provide you with a way of thinking about developing assessments that is unique to your teaching environment. The purposes of assessment are to improve instruction, track student progress, and provide feedback to students on their progress toward intended outcomes. Therefore, the assessments you use must meet the needs of your students and your program.
We encourage you to modify any and all sample assessments in this book to fit your teaching environment, to use them as guidelines for developing your own assessments, and to combine or modify the assessments to align with your school or district outcomes. You will also want to modify the sample assessments to meet the needs of students with disabilities. For specific guidance in this area, we recommend Assessment for Everyone: Modifying NASPE Assessments to Include All Elementary School Children (Lieberman, Kowalski, et al., 2011).
While all the sample rubrics in this version of PE Metrics denote levels of competency and not point values for each level, you can modify the samples to assign point values and assign different weights to various indicators on the rubric. The sample assessments simply provide you with some suggestions. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for each level can be found in Appendix B. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for indicators can be found in Appendix C. You can change a rubric to a checklist or a checklist to a rubric if doing so better fits your needs. While the sample assessment for evaluating students' reflections or journal entries might be an analytic rubric, you might find that a general rubric works better for you. In many cases, you may want to alter a sample assessment by replacing some of the language to match the cues you have been using in your classes. That way, the assessment process and feedback from the rubric will be more meaningful to your students. Think of the sample assessments in PE Metrics as building blocks and tools for you to use in developing an assessment plan that is unique to your program and the needs of your students.
As you review the various samples of assessments and assignments in this book, keep in mind that you can use a single assessment to measure more than one Grade-Level Outcome, even if the outcomes are aligned under different standards. You can combine a sample assessment suggested for one National Standard and Grade-Level Outcome with another assessment for a different Grade-Level Outcome under a different National Standard to create an analytic rubric. This is particularly true for assessments under Standards 1, 4 and 5. For example, you can assess middle school students creating a line dance on their skill competency in dance & rhythms (Outcome S1.M1.8) while also assessing them on their collaboration skills (Outcome S4.M6.8) and their enjoyment of activity and their self-expression (Outcome S5.M5.8). You can assess students under all three outcomes in one assignment, using one comprehensive analytic rubric. An example of an analytic rubric assessing more than one standard can be found in Appendix D. These types of assessments have "embedded" within them opportunities to assess multiple standards. Another assessment strategy is to use a suite of assessments to provide a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of student achievement throughout a unit or school year. A suite of assessments would include several forms of assessment, including rubrics, checklists, peer and self-assessments, exit slips and worksheets. An example of a suite of assessments can be found in Appendix E.
Please note that many of the sample assessments encourage students to demonstrate their competency in specific outcomes through the use of technology. Video blogs, slide presentations, flipped classrooms and electronic postings are some of the examples provided. In addition, you might use software to track student progress, collect data and report results to various stakeholders. As physical educators, we need to be part of the digital revolution!
When the time comes to implement your assessments, you will have to think about the practicality of using a rubric while watching students who are moving. This is true especially when evaluating students in activities under Standards 1 and 2. You might want to place a streamlined copy of your rubric on a clipboard or tablet for quick reference while observing students. You can simplify the rubric by highlighting key words in the descriptors or by abbreviating the descriptors in a way that makes sense to you. After you've used the rubric a few times, it will become quite familiar and you will find yourself referring to the rubric far less frequently; it will be in your head. You also will need a simple score sheet for recording students' final scores in an efficient manner. An example of a simple score sheet for locomotor skills at the elementary level and a score sheet for backhand stroke in badminton at the middle or high school level can be found in Appendix F.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
The Role of Assessment in Today's Schools
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement.
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement. Assessment can be defined as "the gathering of evidence about student achievement and making inferences about student progress based on that evidence" (Society of Health and Physical Educators, 2015). Many policymakers, parents and administrators assume that assessment occurs every day in every classroom, and that assessments produce evidence of student learning. While assessment does provide such evidence, student learning is only one of many roles assessment plays in education. Assessments must provide ongoing measures of student performance using more than one method, be aligned with student learning outcomes, and allow students to demonstrate competency in a variety of ways. No longer can just one assessment at one point in time provide adequate evidence of student learning. To get a complete, nuanced picture of a student's learning requires multiple assessments dispersed over time.
Purposes of Assessment
Just as the role of assessment has evolved, so have the uses of assessment. While the focus remains on measuring student learning, using assessment to provide feedback on student performance, make instruction-related decisions, and inform teaching is just as important. Assessment information and data should inform teachers and teaching in every part of the instruction process. Student performance and improvement are determined by the interaction of student learning and teachers teaching. It is part of the ongoing instruction process, just as planning learning experiences, establishing student outcomes and managing a classroom. Assessment is as multidimensional as teaching and serves multiple purposes in the instruction and learning processes.
The primary purpose of assessment in physical education is to provide stakeholders with evidence of students' learning as well as their attainment of National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. Collecting and reporting on data specific to outcomes allow you to document student progress, communicate your teaching effectiveness to students, parents and administrators, and make the case for additional time and funding for your program. Part of the accountability movement in education reform is data-driven decision-making. As physical educators, we must improve our ability to collect, analyze and use data for program improvement and demonstrate the use of data to ensure that all students are physically literate. Without the use of data generated by a matrix of assessments, we cannot make our case for the continued inclusion in the school curriculum.
A second purpose of assessment is to provide students with feedback on their progress. Effective assessments go beyond assigning a number, percentage or grade to student performance by providing specific, corrective feedback through the assessment itself. The most common example of providing specific feedback through an assessment is the use of analytic rubrics to assess assignments or performance (see Appendix D). Well-developed analytic rubrics identify critical elements of the performance at various levels and dimensions and allow you to provide detailed feedback to students on their performance simply by having them complete the assessment. Analytic rubrics often are used when assessing complex skills, the application of knowledge, or a multipart performance or assignment. By using an analytic rubric, you can facilitate students' self-assessment of their performance, define performance expectations, and evaluate relative strengths and weaknesses for each student.
A third purpose of assessment is to gather information and data that drive instructional decision-making. All students enter your gymnasium with a wide variety of prior knowledge, experience, and skill that you must account for in designing their learning experiences. Before teaching any unit or lesson, you must determine starting points for each individual student in your class by conducting some form of pre-assessment. The information or data could come from records kept from the previous year, from pretest data, from observing students, or from simply asking students about their experience levels through a survey, self-assessment or even a wordle. For an example of a wordle as a pre-assessment, see Appendix G. In addition to determining individual starting points, pre-assessment gives you the information you need for differentiating instruction, assigning partners or groups, and setting expectations. Without assessment information or data, you are simply guessing about students' competency levels or teaching as if all students are the same, rather than teaching and assessing individuals.
Once you begin an instructional unit, assessment is key for determining your next steps, adapting or modifying learning experiences and, potentially, identifying the need to re-teach. Methods for gathering this information or data can range from peer assessments to quizzes and project updates. Assessment should occur each day in some manner and the results should always inform the next day's instruction and design, but to use the results most effectively, you need an established method for tracking assessment data. One solution is adopting one or more forms of technology, which can facilitate the gathering, analyzing, and tracking of student data, making the process much more manageable than in the past. A good resource for using technology in a physical education setting is Chapter 8 in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014).
The final purpose of assessment is to inform your teaching. Throughout the unit of instruction, you use informal and formal assessments to make decisions about your instruction. At the end of a unit of instruction, you must review the information or data from these assessments to determine strengths and challenges for student learning. Based on a summative assessment, you can determine what skills and knowledge students have mastered and what you will need to review or repeat. You also can use data to determine what worked best during the unit of instruction and what you might need to change in the future. Assessment data allow you to self-evaluate your teaching effectiveness based on the performance of your students. Assessment and instruction are inseparable in the planning and teaching process.
While assessment data often are used for determining grades, grades and assessments have different purposes. The goal of grading is to evaluate individual students' learning and performance based on indirect and direct measures. For example, a range of indirect measures, such as attendance, participation and effort, often have been part of the grading process. While those constructs are important, they are not direct measures of learning. Paul Dressell from the Michigan State University describes a grade "as an inadequate report of an imprecise judgment of a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of materials" (Miller, Imrie & Cox, 1998, p. 24). While grading can play a role in assessment, assessment is a much broader measure of student learning and includes many ungraded measures, such as worksheets, discussion and concept maps. A grade is one data point, not linked to any particular learning outcome, and it does not allow for any systematic examination of learning. A matrix of assessments (formal and informal) allows you to examine data to determine learning patterns and guide instructional decision-making.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
The Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 focus on applying knowledge in physical activities that students can use over a lifetime. Students should leave high school knowing the terminology, rules and etiquette of the activities that they are likely to pursue over their lifetimes. They also should be able to use biomechanical principles to analyze their skills and techniques, and demonstrate the ability to devise and implement practice plans for improving their performance in those activities. Those skills are essential if students are to maintain and improve long-term personal health and realize longer life expectancies. As the teacher, you will need to teach related lifetime career- and college-readiness skills such as problem solving, analyzing resources critically, and demonstrating effective written and oral communication skills. The sample assessments provided here will help you measure those transferable skills, in addition to students' knowledge and understanding of selected lifetime activities.
Research conducted over the past two decades is clear: the best indicator of continued participation in a movement activity over a lifetime is the perception of competency (Barnett et al., 2008; Stodden et al., 2009; Stuart et al., 2005). By high school, students recognize which activities they enjoy and want to become better at through practice and continued instruction. Student choice, then, is an essential component of any high school physical education curriculum. Not only do students need the freedom to choose the activities in which they want to improve their competency, but they also should be able to choose how they wish to demonstrate their competency.
Assessments intended to measure high school students' progress toward the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 require students to apply their knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics to demonstrate their command of a self-selected lifetime activity, dance or fitness activity. The sample assessments for Standard 2 are comprehensive, requiring students to solve problems and think critically, and some involve others in group assignments and/or projects. You also can employ more traditional assessment tasks such as quizzes, end-of-unit examinations, worksheets, activity logs, and student reflections or journals. All are appropriate assessments and can provide valuable insights about what your students are learning and are able to apply to the activities they pursue after leaving high school.
We suggest providing students with a list of options for demonstrating competency and allowing students to select the assessment that they believe would best demonstrate their competency. The suggested assessments include group projects as well as individual projects, providing students with a range of choices. Research (Assor et al., 2002; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Fisher et al., 1975; Ryan & Deci, 2000) has shown that providing some student choice increases student engagement and sense of autonomy.
Pre-Assessment
We recommend that you conduct pre-assessments for all lifetime, dance and rhythm, and fitness activities. This will provide you and the students with baseline levels of competency and allow for differentiation of instruction, communication of student progress over time, and instructional decision-making. Students can use the baseline data to determine their progress, determine areas of strengths and weaknesses, and set performance goals for each unit of instruction.
- You can use surveys or other forms of written pre-assessments. Gathering data before beginning the unit will guide instructional decision-making specific to scope and sequence, determining ability groupings, and designing differentiated practice tasks. You can survey students on their experience with the activity or their foundational knowledge of it. For example, students who have participated in weight-training activities through competitive sport will have a higher baseline of performance than students who have not participated in weight training. Likewise, students who have aquatics certifications through American Red Cross, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, or the YMCA will have a higher baseline of performance than those students who don't pursue those certifications. You can use written pre-assessments to determine students' knowledge in the upcoming unit. For example, you could ask students to match dance steps or yoga positions to the names of the steps or positions. For a weight-training unit, you could ask students to match weight-lifting techniques to the muscle groups that they target. That will provide you with valuable information on students' baseline knowledge.
- Examples of skill pre-assessments are provided under Standard 1.
Formative Assessments
- Quizzes allow you to have checks for understanding throughout the unit. Quizzes cover topics such as rules and etiquette for the activity, terminology, and/or concepts and principles related to the activity.
- Checklists are valuable as formative assessments. Checklists allow students to self-evaluate their performance by identifying essential criteria for movement competency. Checklists are also constructive in identifying key elements to be included in a summative project or assignment. This allows students to "check" that they have included key parts of a comprehensive project or assignment. In addition, peers can provide specific, corrective feedback based on identified criteria on a peer evaluation checklist. This allows students to provide each other feedback on performance using objective criteria based on critical elements of the skill or technique. Examples of peer checklists are found under Standard 1.
- Checks for understanding should occur during each class. These are quick checks on the students' comprehension and provide students with the opportunity to ask questions and seek clarifications. The advantage of using checks for understanding is that it takes place in real time, allowing you to adjust or modify practice tasks or instruction based on student needs.
- Worksheets are another type of formative assessment and can take many forms. Worksheets can be used to assess students' understanding of scoring in tennis, identify poses in yoga, or calculate target heart rate, to name just a few. An example of how to calculate target heart rate can be found under Standard 3. Additional examples can be found in Appendix U specific to target heart rate and FitnessGram results.
- Logs are useful to students for tracking such things as amount and length of time spent in physical activity, food intake, number of repetitions and lifts during a fitness unit, scores over time in target activities such as archery and bowling. Logs provide both you and your students a record of their progress over time. A sample nutrition log is provided in Appendix V.
Note: Units at the high school level will involve many combinations of formative assessments. Developing competency in a specific lifetime, dance, or fitness activity is a complex process crossing all learning domains. Using just one type of formative assessment provides you with a limited picture of student progress; therefore, a variety of assessments should be used. This requires multiple assessments that include all learning domains.
Individual Summative Assessments
- Portfolio: This is a comprehensive assessment that has multiple parts. Students can select examples of their work and include them in their portfolio specific to their self-selected lifetime, dance and rhythm, or fitness activity. Each section of the portfolio is assessed and aligned to goals or objectives of the overall unit. Formative assessments (listed above) could be included in the portfolio as evidence. Assessment rubrics for a portfolio assignment align with a complete description of the assignment. It is essential that students have a clear outline of specific requirements for their portfolio. An example of a fitness portfolio is provided under Standard 3.
- Develop and implement an improvement plan: For Standards 2 or 3, students develop and implement an improvement plan specific to their self-selected activity. All improvement plans should have goals, pre-, mid- and post-measures, and specific practice tasks. Students create a plan based on their pre-assessment data. This includes any of the lifetime activities or the development of a fitness plan for a specific sport based on the demands of the activity. A description of the assignment provides specific requirements and a rubric would align with the requirements identified in the description of the assignment. A sample of a description of the assignment along with the assessment rubric are found under Standard 2. For an example of a fitness plan format see Appendix W.
- Journals provide you with insight on how students are feeling about their participation in the unit, specific challenges they are facing, and their social interactions within the context of the unit. Journals provide you with a deeper understanding of the social and emotional context of the student's experiences in the unit. Guidance on the use of journals is provided under Standard 4.
- Final examination: Students take a comprehensive written final examination specific to terminology, rules and etiquette, application of concepts and movement principles, and tactics and strategies. See Appendix X for sample written examination questions.
- Research paper or biomechanical analysis: Students select a movement skill or sequence to analyze using principles from biomechanics and physics. In a research paper, students present their findings. This assignment requires students to investigate research findings and apply this research to human movement. Specific parameters identified on the description of the assignment are aligned with the rubric used to assess the project. A sample description of assignment and rubric are provided under Standard 2.
Group Summative Assessments
- Flipped classroom: One way students can demonstrate their understanding and competency in self-selected activities is through a flipped classroom assignment. Students in small groups (no more than 3 students) would create instructional videos on selected skills and/or techniques for self-selected activities. These videos are posted on the physical education website and used by other students to refine their skills. An example of a flipped classroom assignment and assessment rubric are provided under Standard 2.
- Creation of dance, yoga, or fitness routines: Based on a description of the assignment, students in small groups (no more than four) create a routine. The created routine follows the parameters established in the description of the assignment. For example, students could demonstrate their competency in square dance by creating a square dance using hip hop or break dance movements in combination with more traditional steps such as do-si-do and promenade. The parameters for the dance would be set based on traditional squares (eight in a set, everyone must start and end with the same partner, everyone must switch partners at least twice, etc.). This will require students to apply their knowledge in the creation of the dance. Students could either create a video demonstrating the dance or teach the dance to classmates. The same type of assignment could be used in the creation of routines for step aerobics, kickboxing, yoga, etc.
At the high school level, students should have a choice of how they demonstrate their competency regarding the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2. You can provide them with two or three choices and let them select the assessment that works best for them. For example, you might have a group of students who want to flip a classroom, while others are more interested in completing a research paper and biomechanical analysis. As you provide students with choice, ensure the projects are equal in rigor. You also can have one required assessment and a second assessment that provides choice. For example, all students might take the written examination, but the second assessment can be one of three choices.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Using PE Metrics in Your Program
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency.
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency. The rubrics guide your evaluation by allowing you to assign students to one of three levels: Developing, Competent or Proficient. All rubrics include an "indicator," which is an outcome statement against which you can assess student performance using the performance criteria in each of the three levels (Developing, Competent and Proficient). For example, an indicator in a sample assessment for high school students on creating and maintaining a fitness plan, in Part IV of this book, states: "Goals meet the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria." The indicator within that assessment's scoring rubric is intended to help teachers measure a student's ability to set and pursue personal fitness goals. At the elementary school level, Standard 1 indicators are specific to the critical elements for the skill. The indicator column states, simply, "Critical Elements," and students must demonstrate the critical elements of that particular skill to be scored as Competent in the skill. The indicators are similar to student learning outcomes, and you can think of them as an "indication" of how students demonstrate their mastery of a skill.
Each performance level in the rubric is defined by criteria linked specifically to critical elements. At the Developing level, students are moving toward competency and mastery of the identified critical elements. At the Developing level, then, a student's competency is emerging and needs further development. With deliberate practice, students can move from the Developing level to the Competent level. Students at the Competent level demonstrate all of the critical elements of the skill, exhibiting mastery of the indicator. The Competent level defines the minimal level of performance required for meeting the indicator. Students at the Proficient level not only demonstrate all the required critical elements of the skill during assessment, but their performance also meets additional criteria and/or displays a level of performance that goes beyond Competent. For example, a student could display all of the critical elements while throwing overhand, while another student adds the wrist snap at the end of the throw or increases their stride length to generate more power. The first student demonstrated competency while the second student demonstrated proficiency by showing a more advanced level of performance.
Throughout this book, we use the term "sample" assessment purposefully. We do not recommend any of the assessments as exemplars, but only as samples of assessments that are aligned with the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. They represent SHAPE America's attempt to provide you with a way of thinking about developing assessments that is unique to your teaching environment. The purposes of assessment are to improve instruction, track student progress, and provide feedback to students on their progress toward intended outcomes. Therefore, the assessments you use must meet the needs of your students and your program.
We encourage you to modify any and all sample assessments in this book to fit your teaching environment, to use them as guidelines for developing your own assessments, and to combine or modify the assessments to align with your school or district outcomes. You will also want to modify the sample assessments to meet the needs of students with disabilities. For specific guidance in this area, we recommend Assessment for Everyone: Modifying NASPE Assessments to Include All Elementary School Children (Lieberman, Kowalski, et al., 2011).
While all the sample rubrics in this version of PE Metrics denote levels of competency and not point values for each level, you can modify the samples to assign point values and assign different weights to various indicators on the rubric. The sample assessments simply provide you with some suggestions. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for each level can be found in Appendix B. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for indicators can be found in Appendix C. You can change a rubric to a checklist or a checklist to a rubric if doing so better fits your needs. While the sample assessment for evaluating students' reflections or journal entries might be an analytic rubric, you might find that a general rubric works better for you. In many cases, you may want to alter a sample assessment by replacing some of the language to match the cues you have been using in your classes. That way, the assessment process and feedback from the rubric will be more meaningful to your students. Think of the sample assessments in PE Metrics as building blocks and tools for you to use in developing an assessment plan that is unique to your program and the needs of your students.
As you review the various samples of assessments and assignments in this book, keep in mind that you can use a single assessment to measure more than one Grade-Level Outcome, even if the outcomes are aligned under different standards. You can combine a sample assessment suggested for one National Standard and Grade-Level Outcome with another assessment for a different Grade-Level Outcome under a different National Standard to create an analytic rubric. This is particularly true for assessments under Standards 1, 4 and 5. For example, you can assess middle school students creating a line dance on their skill competency in dance & rhythms (Outcome S1.M1.8) while also assessing them on their collaboration skills (Outcome S4.M6.8) and their enjoyment of activity and their self-expression (Outcome S5.M5.8). You can assess students under all three outcomes in one assignment, using one comprehensive analytic rubric. An example of an analytic rubric assessing more than one standard can be found in Appendix D. These types of assessments have "embedded" within them opportunities to assess multiple standards. Another assessment strategy is to use a suite of assessments to provide a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of student achievement throughout a unit or school year. A suite of assessments would include several forms of assessment, including rubrics, checklists, peer and self-assessments, exit slips and worksheets. An example of a suite of assessments can be found in Appendix E.
Please note that many of the sample assessments encourage students to demonstrate their competency in specific outcomes through the use of technology. Video blogs, slide presentations, flipped classrooms and electronic postings are some of the examples provided. In addition, you might use software to track student progress, collect data and report results to various stakeholders. As physical educators, we need to be part of the digital revolution!
When the time comes to implement your assessments, you will have to think about the practicality of using a rubric while watching students who are moving. This is true especially when evaluating students in activities under Standards 1 and 2. You might want to place a streamlined copy of your rubric on a clipboard or tablet for quick reference while observing students. You can simplify the rubric by highlighting key words in the descriptors or by abbreviating the descriptors in a way that makes sense to you. After you've used the rubric a few times, it will become quite familiar and you will find yourself referring to the rubric far less frequently; it will be in your head. You also will need a simple score sheet for recording students' final scores in an efficient manner. An example of a simple score sheet for locomotor skills at the elementary level and a score sheet for backhand stroke in badminton at the middle or high school level can be found in Appendix F.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
The Role of Assessment in Today's Schools
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement.
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement. Assessment can be defined as "the gathering of evidence about student achievement and making inferences about student progress based on that evidence" (Society of Health and Physical Educators, 2015). Many policymakers, parents and administrators assume that assessment occurs every day in every classroom, and that assessments produce evidence of student learning. While assessment does provide such evidence, student learning is only one of many roles assessment plays in education. Assessments must provide ongoing measures of student performance using more than one method, be aligned with student learning outcomes, and allow students to demonstrate competency in a variety of ways. No longer can just one assessment at one point in time provide adequate evidence of student learning. To get a complete, nuanced picture of a student's learning requires multiple assessments dispersed over time.
Purposes of Assessment
Just as the role of assessment has evolved, so have the uses of assessment. While the focus remains on measuring student learning, using assessment to provide feedback on student performance, make instruction-related decisions, and inform teaching is just as important. Assessment information and data should inform teachers and teaching in every part of the instruction process. Student performance and improvement are determined by the interaction of student learning and teachers teaching. It is part of the ongoing instruction process, just as planning learning experiences, establishing student outcomes and managing a classroom. Assessment is as multidimensional as teaching and serves multiple purposes in the instruction and learning processes.
The primary purpose of assessment in physical education is to provide stakeholders with evidence of students' learning as well as their attainment of National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. Collecting and reporting on data specific to outcomes allow you to document student progress, communicate your teaching effectiveness to students, parents and administrators, and make the case for additional time and funding for your program. Part of the accountability movement in education reform is data-driven decision-making. As physical educators, we must improve our ability to collect, analyze and use data for program improvement and demonstrate the use of data to ensure that all students are physically literate. Without the use of data generated by a matrix of assessments, we cannot make our case for the continued inclusion in the school curriculum.
A second purpose of assessment is to provide students with feedback on their progress. Effective assessments go beyond assigning a number, percentage or grade to student performance by providing specific, corrective feedback through the assessment itself. The most common example of providing specific feedback through an assessment is the use of analytic rubrics to assess assignments or performance (see Appendix D). Well-developed analytic rubrics identify critical elements of the performance at various levels and dimensions and allow you to provide detailed feedback to students on their performance simply by having them complete the assessment. Analytic rubrics often are used when assessing complex skills, the application of knowledge, or a multipart performance or assignment. By using an analytic rubric, you can facilitate students' self-assessment of their performance, define performance expectations, and evaluate relative strengths and weaknesses for each student.
A third purpose of assessment is to gather information and data that drive instructional decision-making. All students enter your gymnasium with a wide variety of prior knowledge, experience, and skill that you must account for in designing their learning experiences. Before teaching any unit or lesson, you must determine starting points for each individual student in your class by conducting some form of pre-assessment. The information or data could come from records kept from the previous year, from pretest data, from observing students, or from simply asking students about their experience levels through a survey, self-assessment or even a wordle. For an example of a wordle as a pre-assessment, see Appendix G. In addition to determining individual starting points, pre-assessment gives you the information you need for differentiating instruction, assigning partners or groups, and setting expectations. Without assessment information or data, you are simply guessing about students' competency levels or teaching as if all students are the same, rather than teaching and assessing individuals.
Once you begin an instructional unit, assessment is key for determining your next steps, adapting or modifying learning experiences and, potentially, identifying the need to re-teach. Methods for gathering this information or data can range from peer assessments to quizzes and project updates. Assessment should occur each day in some manner and the results should always inform the next day's instruction and design, but to use the results most effectively, you need an established method for tracking assessment data. One solution is adopting one or more forms of technology, which can facilitate the gathering, analyzing, and tracking of student data, making the process much more manageable than in the past. A good resource for using technology in a physical education setting is Chapter 8 in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014).
The final purpose of assessment is to inform your teaching. Throughout the unit of instruction, you use informal and formal assessments to make decisions about your instruction. At the end of a unit of instruction, you must review the information or data from these assessments to determine strengths and challenges for student learning. Based on a summative assessment, you can determine what skills and knowledge students have mastered and what you will need to review or repeat. You also can use data to determine what worked best during the unit of instruction and what you might need to change in the future. Assessment data allow you to self-evaluate your teaching effectiveness based on the performance of your students. Assessment and instruction are inseparable in the planning and teaching process.
While assessment data often are used for determining grades, grades and assessments have different purposes. The goal of grading is to evaluate individual students' learning and performance based on indirect and direct measures. For example, a range of indirect measures, such as attendance, participation and effort, often have been part of the grading process. While those constructs are important, they are not direct measures of learning. Paul Dressell from the Michigan State University describes a grade "as an inadequate report of an imprecise judgment of a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of materials" (Miller, Imrie & Cox, 1998, p. 24). While grading can play a role in assessment, assessment is a much broader measure of student learning and includes many ungraded measures, such as worksheets, discussion and concept maps. A grade is one data point, not linked to any particular learning outcome, and it does not allow for any systematic examination of learning. A matrix of assessments (formal and informal) allows you to examine data to determine learning patterns and guide instructional decision-making.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
The Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 focus on applying knowledge in physical activities that students can use over a lifetime. Students should leave high school knowing the terminology, rules and etiquette of the activities that they are likely to pursue over their lifetimes. They also should be able to use biomechanical principles to analyze their skills and techniques, and demonstrate the ability to devise and implement practice plans for improving their performance in those activities. Those skills are essential if students are to maintain and improve long-term personal health and realize longer life expectancies. As the teacher, you will need to teach related lifetime career- and college-readiness skills such as problem solving, analyzing resources critically, and demonstrating effective written and oral communication skills. The sample assessments provided here will help you measure those transferable skills, in addition to students' knowledge and understanding of selected lifetime activities.
Research conducted over the past two decades is clear: the best indicator of continued participation in a movement activity over a lifetime is the perception of competency (Barnett et al., 2008; Stodden et al., 2009; Stuart et al., 2005). By high school, students recognize which activities they enjoy and want to become better at through practice and continued instruction. Student choice, then, is an essential component of any high school physical education curriculum. Not only do students need the freedom to choose the activities in which they want to improve their competency, but they also should be able to choose how they wish to demonstrate their competency.
Assessments intended to measure high school students' progress toward the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 require students to apply their knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics to demonstrate their command of a self-selected lifetime activity, dance or fitness activity. The sample assessments for Standard 2 are comprehensive, requiring students to solve problems and think critically, and some involve others in group assignments and/or projects. You also can employ more traditional assessment tasks such as quizzes, end-of-unit examinations, worksheets, activity logs, and student reflections or journals. All are appropriate assessments and can provide valuable insights about what your students are learning and are able to apply to the activities they pursue after leaving high school.
We suggest providing students with a list of options for demonstrating competency and allowing students to select the assessment that they believe would best demonstrate their competency. The suggested assessments include group projects as well as individual projects, providing students with a range of choices. Research (Assor et al., 2002; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Fisher et al., 1975; Ryan & Deci, 2000) has shown that providing some student choice increases student engagement and sense of autonomy.
Pre-Assessment
We recommend that you conduct pre-assessments for all lifetime, dance and rhythm, and fitness activities. This will provide you and the students with baseline levels of competency and allow for differentiation of instruction, communication of student progress over time, and instructional decision-making. Students can use the baseline data to determine their progress, determine areas of strengths and weaknesses, and set performance goals for each unit of instruction.
- You can use surveys or other forms of written pre-assessments. Gathering data before beginning the unit will guide instructional decision-making specific to scope and sequence, determining ability groupings, and designing differentiated practice tasks. You can survey students on their experience with the activity or their foundational knowledge of it. For example, students who have participated in weight-training activities through competitive sport will have a higher baseline of performance than students who have not participated in weight training. Likewise, students who have aquatics certifications through American Red Cross, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, or the YMCA will have a higher baseline of performance than those students who don't pursue those certifications. You can use written pre-assessments to determine students' knowledge in the upcoming unit. For example, you could ask students to match dance steps or yoga positions to the names of the steps or positions. For a weight-training unit, you could ask students to match weight-lifting techniques to the muscle groups that they target. That will provide you with valuable information on students' baseline knowledge.
- Examples of skill pre-assessments are provided under Standard 1.
Formative Assessments
- Quizzes allow you to have checks for understanding throughout the unit. Quizzes cover topics such as rules and etiquette for the activity, terminology, and/or concepts and principles related to the activity.
- Checklists are valuable as formative assessments. Checklists allow students to self-evaluate their performance by identifying essential criteria for movement competency. Checklists are also constructive in identifying key elements to be included in a summative project or assignment. This allows students to "check" that they have included key parts of a comprehensive project or assignment. In addition, peers can provide specific, corrective feedback based on identified criteria on a peer evaluation checklist. This allows students to provide each other feedback on performance using objective criteria based on critical elements of the skill or technique. Examples of peer checklists are found under Standard 1.
- Checks for understanding should occur during each class. These are quick checks on the students' comprehension and provide students with the opportunity to ask questions and seek clarifications. The advantage of using checks for understanding is that it takes place in real time, allowing you to adjust or modify practice tasks or instruction based on student needs.
- Worksheets are another type of formative assessment and can take many forms. Worksheets can be used to assess students' understanding of scoring in tennis, identify poses in yoga, or calculate target heart rate, to name just a few. An example of how to calculate target heart rate can be found under Standard 3. Additional examples can be found in Appendix U specific to target heart rate and FitnessGram results.
- Logs are useful to students for tracking such things as amount and length of time spent in physical activity, food intake, number of repetitions and lifts during a fitness unit, scores over time in target activities such as archery and bowling. Logs provide both you and your students a record of their progress over time. A sample nutrition log is provided in Appendix V.
Note: Units at the high school level will involve many combinations of formative assessments. Developing competency in a specific lifetime, dance, or fitness activity is a complex process crossing all learning domains. Using just one type of formative assessment provides you with a limited picture of student progress; therefore, a variety of assessments should be used. This requires multiple assessments that include all learning domains.
Individual Summative Assessments
- Portfolio: This is a comprehensive assessment that has multiple parts. Students can select examples of their work and include them in their portfolio specific to their self-selected lifetime, dance and rhythm, or fitness activity. Each section of the portfolio is assessed and aligned to goals or objectives of the overall unit. Formative assessments (listed above) could be included in the portfolio as evidence. Assessment rubrics for a portfolio assignment align with a complete description of the assignment. It is essential that students have a clear outline of specific requirements for their portfolio. An example of a fitness portfolio is provided under Standard 3.
- Develop and implement an improvement plan: For Standards 2 or 3, students develop and implement an improvement plan specific to their self-selected activity. All improvement plans should have goals, pre-, mid- and post-measures, and specific practice tasks. Students create a plan based on their pre-assessment data. This includes any of the lifetime activities or the development of a fitness plan for a specific sport based on the demands of the activity. A description of the assignment provides specific requirements and a rubric would align with the requirements identified in the description of the assignment. A sample of a description of the assignment along with the assessment rubric are found under Standard 2. For an example of a fitness plan format see Appendix W.
- Journals provide you with insight on how students are feeling about their participation in the unit, specific challenges they are facing, and their social interactions within the context of the unit. Journals provide you with a deeper understanding of the social and emotional context of the student's experiences in the unit. Guidance on the use of journals is provided under Standard 4.
- Final examination: Students take a comprehensive written final examination specific to terminology, rules and etiquette, application of concepts and movement principles, and tactics and strategies. See Appendix X for sample written examination questions.
- Research paper or biomechanical analysis: Students select a movement skill or sequence to analyze using principles from biomechanics and physics. In a research paper, students present their findings. This assignment requires students to investigate research findings and apply this research to human movement. Specific parameters identified on the description of the assignment are aligned with the rubric used to assess the project. A sample description of assignment and rubric are provided under Standard 2.
Group Summative Assessments
- Flipped classroom: One way students can demonstrate their understanding and competency in self-selected activities is through a flipped classroom assignment. Students in small groups (no more than 3 students) would create instructional videos on selected skills and/or techniques for self-selected activities. These videos are posted on the physical education website and used by other students to refine their skills. An example of a flipped classroom assignment and assessment rubric are provided under Standard 2.
- Creation of dance, yoga, or fitness routines: Based on a description of the assignment, students in small groups (no more than four) create a routine. The created routine follows the parameters established in the description of the assignment. For example, students could demonstrate their competency in square dance by creating a square dance using hip hop or break dance movements in combination with more traditional steps such as do-si-do and promenade. The parameters for the dance would be set based on traditional squares (eight in a set, everyone must start and end with the same partner, everyone must switch partners at least twice, etc.). This will require students to apply their knowledge in the creation of the dance. Students could either create a video demonstrating the dance or teach the dance to classmates. The same type of assignment could be used in the creation of routines for step aerobics, kickboxing, yoga, etc.
At the high school level, students should have a choice of how they demonstrate their competency regarding the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2. You can provide them with two or three choices and let them select the assessment that works best for them. For example, you might have a group of students who want to flip a classroom, while others are more interested in completing a research paper and biomechanical analysis. As you provide students with choice, ensure the projects are equal in rigor. You also can have one required assessment and a second assessment that provides choice. For example, all students might take the written examination, but the second assessment can be one of three choices.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Using PE Metrics in Your Program
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency.
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency. The rubrics guide your evaluation by allowing you to assign students to one of three levels: Developing, Competent or Proficient. All rubrics include an "indicator," which is an outcome statement against which you can assess student performance using the performance criteria in each of the three levels (Developing, Competent and Proficient). For example, an indicator in a sample assessment for high school students on creating and maintaining a fitness plan, in Part IV of this book, states: "Goals meet the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria." The indicator within that assessment's scoring rubric is intended to help teachers measure a student's ability to set and pursue personal fitness goals. At the elementary school level, Standard 1 indicators are specific to the critical elements for the skill. The indicator column states, simply, "Critical Elements," and students must demonstrate the critical elements of that particular skill to be scored as Competent in the skill. The indicators are similar to student learning outcomes, and you can think of them as an "indication" of how students demonstrate their mastery of a skill.
Each performance level in the rubric is defined by criteria linked specifically to critical elements. At the Developing level, students are moving toward competency and mastery of the identified critical elements. At the Developing level, then, a student's competency is emerging and needs further development. With deliberate practice, students can move from the Developing level to the Competent level. Students at the Competent level demonstrate all of the critical elements of the skill, exhibiting mastery of the indicator. The Competent level defines the minimal level of performance required for meeting the indicator. Students at the Proficient level not only demonstrate all the required critical elements of the skill during assessment, but their performance also meets additional criteria and/or displays a level of performance that goes beyond Competent. For example, a student could display all of the critical elements while throwing overhand, while another student adds the wrist snap at the end of the throw or increases their stride length to generate more power. The first student demonstrated competency while the second student demonstrated proficiency by showing a more advanced level of performance.
Throughout this book, we use the term "sample" assessment purposefully. We do not recommend any of the assessments as exemplars, but only as samples of assessments that are aligned with the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. They represent SHAPE America's attempt to provide you with a way of thinking about developing assessments that is unique to your teaching environment. The purposes of assessment are to improve instruction, track student progress, and provide feedback to students on their progress toward intended outcomes. Therefore, the assessments you use must meet the needs of your students and your program.
We encourage you to modify any and all sample assessments in this book to fit your teaching environment, to use them as guidelines for developing your own assessments, and to combine or modify the assessments to align with your school or district outcomes. You will also want to modify the sample assessments to meet the needs of students with disabilities. For specific guidance in this area, we recommend Assessment for Everyone: Modifying NASPE Assessments to Include All Elementary School Children (Lieberman, Kowalski, et al., 2011).
While all the sample rubrics in this version of PE Metrics denote levels of competency and not point values for each level, you can modify the samples to assign point values and assign different weights to various indicators on the rubric. The sample assessments simply provide you with some suggestions. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for each level can be found in Appendix B. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for indicators can be found in Appendix C. You can change a rubric to a checklist or a checklist to a rubric if doing so better fits your needs. While the sample assessment for evaluating students' reflections or journal entries might be an analytic rubric, you might find that a general rubric works better for you. In many cases, you may want to alter a sample assessment by replacing some of the language to match the cues you have been using in your classes. That way, the assessment process and feedback from the rubric will be more meaningful to your students. Think of the sample assessments in PE Metrics as building blocks and tools for you to use in developing an assessment plan that is unique to your program and the needs of your students.
As you review the various samples of assessments and assignments in this book, keep in mind that you can use a single assessment to measure more than one Grade-Level Outcome, even if the outcomes are aligned under different standards. You can combine a sample assessment suggested for one National Standard and Grade-Level Outcome with another assessment for a different Grade-Level Outcome under a different National Standard to create an analytic rubric. This is particularly true for assessments under Standards 1, 4 and 5. For example, you can assess middle school students creating a line dance on their skill competency in dance & rhythms (Outcome S1.M1.8) while also assessing them on their collaboration skills (Outcome S4.M6.8) and their enjoyment of activity and their self-expression (Outcome S5.M5.8). You can assess students under all three outcomes in one assignment, using one comprehensive analytic rubric. An example of an analytic rubric assessing more than one standard can be found in Appendix D. These types of assessments have "embedded" within them opportunities to assess multiple standards. Another assessment strategy is to use a suite of assessments to provide a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of student achievement throughout a unit or school year. A suite of assessments would include several forms of assessment, including rubrics, checklists, peer and self-assessments, exit slips and worksheets. An example of a suite of assessments can be found in Appendix E.
Please note that many of the sample assessments encourage students to demonstrate their competency in specific outcomes through the use of technology. Video blogs, slide presentations, flipped classrooms and electronic postings are some of the examples provided. In addition, you might use software to track student progress, collect data and report results to various stakeholders. As physical educators, we need to be part of the digital revolution!
When the time comes to implement your assessments, you will have to think about the practicality of using a rubric while watching students who are moving. This is true especially when evaluating students in activities under Standards 1 and 2. You might want to place a streamlined copy of your rubric on a clipboard or tablet for quick reference while observing students. You can simplify the rubric by highlighting key words in the descriptors or by abbreviating the descriptors in a way that makes sense to you. After you've used the rubric a few times, it will become quite familiar and you will find yourself referring to the rubric far less frequently; it will be in your head. You also will need a simple score sheet for recording students' final scores in an efficient manner. An example of a simple score sheet for locomotor skills at the elementary level and a score sheet for backhand stroke in badminton at the middle or high school level can be found in Appendix F.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
The Role of Assessment in Today's Schools
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement.
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement. Assessment can be defined as "the gathering of evidence about student achievement and making inferences about student progress based on that evidence" (Society of Health and Physical Educators, 2015). Many policymakers, parents and administrators assume that assessment occurs every day in every classroom, and that assessments produce evidence of student learning. While assessment does provide such evidence, student learning is only one of many roles assessment plays in education. Assessments must provide ongoing measures of student performance using more than one method, be aligned with student learning outcomes, and allow students to demonstrate competency in a variety of ways. No longer can just one assessment at one point in time provide adequate evidence of student learning. To get a complete, nuanced picture of a student's learning requires multiple assessments dispersed over time.
Purposes of Assessment
Just as the role of assessment has evolved, so have the uses of assessment. While the focus remains on measuring student learning, using assessment to provide feedback on student performance, make instruction-related decisions, and inform teaching is just as important. Assessment information and data should inform teachers and teaching in every part of the instruction process. Student performance and improvement are determined by the interaction of student learning and teachers teaching. It is part of the ongoing instruction process, just as planning learning experiences, establishing student outcomes and managing a classroom. Assessment is as multidimensional as teaching and serves multiple purposes in the instruction and learning processes.
The primary purpose of assessment in physical education is to provide stakeholders with evidence of students' learning as well as their attainment of National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. Collecting and reporting on data specific to outcomes allow you to document student progress, communicate your teaching effectiveness to students, parents and administrators, and make the case for additional time and funding for your program. Part of the accountability movement in education reform is data-driven decision-making. As physical educators, we must improve our ability to collect, analyze and use data for program improvement and demonstrate the use of data to ensure that all students are physically literate. Without the use of data generated by a matrix of assessments, we cannot make our case for the continued inclusion in the school curriculum.
A second purpose of assessment is to provide students with feedback on their progress. Effective assessments go beyond assigning a number, percentage or grade to student performance by providing specific, corrective feedback through the assessment itself. The most common example of providing specific feedback through an assessment is the use of analytic rubrics to assess assignments or performance (see Appendix D). Well-developed analytic rubrics identify critical elements of the performance at various levels and dimensions and allow you to provide detailed feedback to students on their performance simply by having them complete the assessment. Analytic rubrics often are used when assessing complex skills, the application of knowledge, or a multipart performance or assignment. By using an analytic rubric, you can facilitate students' self-assessment of their performance, define performance expectations, and evaluate relative strengths and weaknesses for each student.
A third purpose of assessment is to gather information and data that drive instructional decision-making. All students enter your gymnasium with a wide variety of prior knowledge, experience, and skill that you must account for in designing their learning experiences. Before teaching any unit or lesson, you must determine starting points for each individual student in your class by conducting some form of pre-assessment. The information or data could come from records kept from the previous year, from pretest data, from observing students, or from simply asking students about their experience levels through a survey, self-assessment or even a wordle. For an example of a wordle as a pre-assessment, see Appendix G. In addition to determining individual starting points, pre-assessment gives you the information you need for differentiating instruction, assigning partners or groups, and setting expectations. Without assessment information or data, you are simply guessing about students' competency levels or teaching as if all students are the same, rather than teaching and assessing individuals.
Once you begin an instructional unit, assessment is key for determining your next steps, adapting or modifying learning experiences and, potentially, identifying the need to re-teach. Methods for gathering this information or data can range from peer assessments to quizzes and project updates. Assessment should occur each day in some manner and the results should always inform the next day's instruction and design, but to use the results most effectively, you need an established method for tracking assessment data. One solution is adopting one or more forms of technology, which can facilitate the gathering, analyzing, and tracking of student data, making the process much more manageable than in the past. A good resource for using technology in a physical education setting is Chapter 8 in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014).
The final purpose of assessment is to inform your teaching. Throughout the unit of instruction, you use informal and formal assessments to make decisions about your instruction. At the end of a unit of instruction, you must review the information or data from these assessments to determine strengths and challenges for student learning. Based on a summative assessment, you can determine what skills and knowledge students have mastered and what you will need to review or repeat. You also can use data to determine what worked best during the unit of instruction and what you might need to change in the future. Assessment data allow you to self-evaluate your teaching effectiveness based on the performance of your students. Assessment and instruction are inseparable in the planning and teaching process.
While assessment data often are used for determining grades, grades and assessments have different purposes. The goal of grading is to evaluate individual students' learning and performance based on indirect and direct measures. For example, a range of indirect measures, such as attendance, participation and effort, often have been part of the grading process. While those constructs are important, they are not direct measures of learning. Paul Dressell from the Michigan State University describes a grade "as an inadequate report of an imprecise judgment of a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of materials" (Miller, Imrie & Cox, 1998, p. 24). While grading can play a role in assessment, assessment is a much broader measure of student learning and includes many ungraded measures, such as worksheets, discussion and concept maps. A grade is one data point, not linked to any particular learning outcome, and it does not allow for any systematic examination of learning. A matrix of assessments (formal and informal) allows you to examine data to determine learning patterns and guide instructional decision-making.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
The Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 focus on applying knowledge in physical activities that students can use over a lifetime. Students should leave high school knowing the terminology, rules and etiquette of the activities that they are likely to pursue over their lifetimes. They also should be able to use biomechanical principles to analyze their skills and techniques, and demonstrate the ability to devise and implement practice plans for improving their performance in those activities. Those skills are essential if students are to maintain and improve long-term personal health and realize longer life expectancies. As the teacher, you will need to teach related lifetime career- and college-readiness skills such as problem solving, analyzing resources critically, and demonstrating effective written and oral communication skills. The sample assessments provided here will help you measure those transferable skills, in addition to students' knowledge and understanding of selected lifetime activities.
Research conducted over the past two decades is clear: the best indicator of continued participation in a movement activity over a lifetime is the perception of competency (Barnett et al., 2008; Stodden et al., 2009; Stuart et al., 2005). By high school, students recognize which activities they enjoy and want to become better at through practice and continued instruction. Student choice, then, is an essential component of any high school physical education curriculum. Not only do students need the freedom to choose the activities in which they want to improve their competency, but they also should be able to choose how they wish to demonstrate their competency.
Assessments intended to measure high school students' progress toward the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 require students to apply their knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics to demonstrate their command of a self-selected lifetime activity, dance or fitness activity. The sample assessments for Standard 2 are comprehensive, requiring students to solve problems and think critically, and some involve others in group assignments and/or projects. You also can employ more traditional assessment tasks such as quizzes, end-of-unit examinations, worksheets, activity logs, and student reflections or journals. All are appropriate assessments and can provide valuable insights about what your students are learning and are able to apply to the activities they pursue after leaving high school.
We suggest providing students with a list of options for demonstrating competency and allowing students to select the assessment that they believe would best demonstrate their competency. The suggested assessments include group projects as well as individual projects, providing students with a range of choices. Research (Assor et al., 2002; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Fisher et al., 1975; Ryan & Deci, 2000) has shown that providing some student choice increases student engagement and sense of autonomy.
Pre-Assessment
We recommend that you conduct pre-assessments for all lifetime, dance and rhythm, and fitness activities. This will provide you and the students with baseline levels of competency and allow for differentiation of instruction, communication of student progress over time, and instructional decision-making. Students can use the baseline data to determine their progress, determine areas of strengths and weaknesses, and set performance goals for each unit of instruction.
- You can use surveys or other forms of written pre-assessments. Gathering data before beginning the unit will guide instructional decision-making specific to scope and sequence, determining ability groupings, and designing differentiated practice tasks. You can survey students on their experience with the activity or their foundational knowledge of it. For example, students who have participated in weight-training activities through competitive sport will have a higher baseline of performance than students who have not participated in weight training. Likewise, students who have aquatics certifications through American Red Cross, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, or the YMCA will have a higher baseline of performance than those students who don't pursue those certifications. You can use written pre-assessments to determine students' knowledge in the upcoming unit. For example, you could ask students to match dance steps or yoga positions to the names of the steps or positions. For a weight-training unit, you could ask students to match weight-lifting techniques to the muscle groups that they target. That will provide you with valuable information on students' baseline knowledge.
- Examples of skill pre-assessments are provided under Standard 1.
Formative Assessments
- Quizzes allow you to have checks for understanding throughout the unit. Quizzes cover topics such as rules and etiquette for the activity, terminology, and/or concepts and principles related to the activity.
- Checklists are valuable as formative assessments. Checklists allow students to self-evaluate their performance by identifying essential criteria for movement competency. Checklists are also constructive in identifying key elements to be included in a summative project or assignment. This allows students to "check" that they have included key parts of a comprehensive project or assignment. In addition, peers can provide specific, corrective feedback based on identified criteria on a peer evaluation checklist. This allows students to provide each other feedback on performance using objective criteria based on critical elements of the skill or technique. Examples of peer checklists are found under Standard 1.
- Checks for understanding should occur during each class. These are quick checks on the students' comprehension and provide students with the opportunity to ask questions and seek clarifications. The advantage of using checks for understanding is that it takes place in real time, allowing you to adjust or modify practice tasks or instruction based on student needs.
- Worksheets are another type of formative assessment and can take many forms. Worksheets can be used to assess students' understanding of scoring in tennis, identify poses in yoga, or calculate target heart rate, to name just a few. An example of how to calculate target heart rate can be found under Standard 3. Additional examples can be found in Appendix U specific to target heart rate and FitnessGram results.
- Logs are useful to students for tracking such things as amount and length of time spent in physical activity, food intake, number of repetitions and lifts during a fitness unit, scores over time in target activities such as archery and bowling. Logs provide both you and your students a record of their progress over time. A sample nutrition log is provided in Appendix V.
Note: Units at the high school level will involve many combinations of formative assessments. Developing competency in a specific lifetime, dance, or fitness activity is a complex process crossing all learning domains. Using just one type of formative assessment provides you with a limited picture of student progress; therefore, a variety of assessments should be used. This requires multiple assessments that include all learning domains.
Individual Summative Assessments
- Portfolio: This is a comprehensive assessment that has multiple parts. Students can select examples of their work and include them in their portfolio specific to their self-selected lifetime, dance and rhythm, or fitness activity. Each section of the portfolio is assessed and aligned to goals or objectives of the overall unit. Formative assessments (listed above) could be included in the portfolio as evidence. Assessment rubrics for a portfolio assignment align with a complete description of the assignment. It is essential that students have a clear outline of specific requirements for their portfolio. An example of a fitness portfolio is provided under Standard 3.
- Develop and implement an improvement plan: For Standards 2 or 3, students develop and implement an improvement plan specific to their self-selected activity. All improvement plans should have goals, pre-, mid- and post-measures, and specific practice tasks. Students create a plan based on their pre-assessment data. This includes any of the lifetime activities or the development of a fitness plan for a specific sport based on the demands of the activity. A description of the assignment provides specific requirements and a rubric would align with the requirements identified in the description of the assignment. A sample of a description of the assignment along with the assessment rubric are found under Standard 2. For an example of a fitness plan format see Appendix W.
- Journals provide you with insight on how students are feeling about their participation in the unit, specific challenges they are facing, and their social interactions within the context of the unit. Journals provide you with a deeper understanding of the social and emotional context of the student's experiences in the unit. Guidance on the use of journals is provided under Standard 4.
- Final examination: Students take a comprehensive written final examination specific to terminology, rules and etiquette, application of concepts and movement principles, and tactics and strategies. See Appendix X for sample written examination questions.
- Research paper or biomechanical analysis: Students select a movement skill or sequence to analyze using principles from biomechanics and physics. In a research paper, students present their findings. This assignment requires students to investigate research findings and apply this research to human movement. Specific parameters identified on the description of the assignment are aligned with the rubric used to assess the project. A sample description of assignment and rubric are provided under Standard 2.
Group Summative Assessments
- Flipped classroom: One way students can demonstrate their understanding and competency in self-selected activities is through a flipped classroom assignment. Students in small groups (no more than 3 students) would create instructional videos on selected skills and/or techniques for self-selected activities. These videos are posted on the physical education website and used by other students to refine their skills. An example of a flipped classroom assignment and assessment rubric are provided under Standard 2.
- Creation of dance, yoga, or fitness routines: Based on a description of the assignment, students in small groups (no more than four) create a routine. The created routine follows the parameters established in the description of the assignment. For example, students could demonstrate their competency in square dance by creating a square dance using hip hop or break dance movements in combination with more traditional steps such as do-si-do and promenade. The parameters for the dance would be set based on traditional squares (eight in a set, everyone must start and end with the same partner, everyone must switch partners at least twice, etc.). This will require students to apply their knowledge in the creation of the dance. Students could either create a video demonstrating the dance or teach the dance to classmates. The same type of assignment could be used in the creation of routines for step aerobics, kickboxing, yoga, etc.
At the high school level, students should have a choice of how they demonstrate their competency regarding the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2. You can provide them with two or three choices and let them select the assessment that works best for them. For example, you might have a group of students who want to flip a classroom, while others are more interested in completing a research paper and biomechanical analysis. As you provide students with choice, ensure the projects are equal in rigor. You also can have one required assessment and a second assessment that provides choice. For example, all students might take the written examination, but the second assessment can be one of three choices.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Using PE Metrics in Your Program
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency.
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency. The rubrics guide your evaluation by allowing you to assign students to one of three levels: Developing, Competent or Proficient. All rubrics include an "indicator," which is an outcome statement against which you can assess student performance using the performance criteria in each of the three levels (Developing, Competent and Proficient). For example, an indicator in a sample assessment for high school students on creating and maintaining a fitness plan, in Part IV of this book, states: "Goals meet the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria." The indicator within that assessment's scoring rubric is intended to help teachers measure a student's ability to set and pursue personal fitness goals. At the elementary school level, Standard 1 indicators are specific to the critical elements for the skill. The indicator column states, simply, "Critical Elements," and students must demonstrate the critical elements of that particular skill to be scored as Competent in the skill. The indicators are similar to student learning outcomes, and you can think of them as an "indication" of how students demonstrate their mastery of a skill.
Each performance level in the rubric is defined by criteria linked specifically to critical elements. At the Developing level, students are moving toward competency and mastery of the identified critical elements. At the Developing level, then, a student's competency is emerging and needs further development. With deliberate practice, students can move from the Developing level to the Competent level. Students at the Competent level demonstrate all of the critical elements of the skill, exhibiting mastery of the indicator. The Competent level defines the minimal level of performance required for meeting the indicator. Students at the Proficient level not only demonstrate all the required critical elements of the skill during assessment, but their performance also meets additional criteria and/or displays a level of performance that goes beyond Competent. For example, a student could display all of the critical elements while throwing overhand, while another student adds the wrist snap at the end of the throw or increases their stride length to generate more power. The first student demonstrated competency while the second student demonstrated proficiency by showing a more advanced level of performance.
Throughout this book, we use the term "sample" assessment purposefully. We do not recommend any of the assessments as exemplars, but only as samples of assessments that are aligned with the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. They represent SHAPE America's attempt to provide you with a way of thinking about developing assessments that is unique to your teaching environment. The purposes of assessment are to improve instruction, track student progress, and provide feedback to students on their progress toward intended outcomes. Therefore, the assessments you use must meet the needs of your students and your program.
We encourage you to modify any and all sample assessments in this book to fit your teaching environment, to use them as guidelines for developing your own assessments, and to combine or modify the assessments to align with your school or district outcomes. You will also want to modify the sample assessments to meet the needs of students with disabilities. For specific guidance in this area, we recommend Assessment for Everyone: Modifying NASPE Assessments to Include All Elementary School Children (Lieberman, Kowalski, et al., 2011).
While all the sample rubrics in this version of PE Metrics denote levels of competency and not point values for each level, you can modify the samples to assign point values and assign different weights to various indicators on the rubric. The sample assessments simply provide you with some suggestions. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for each level can be found in Appendix B. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for indicators can be found in Appendix C. You can change a rubric to a checklist or a checklist to a rubric if doing so better fits your needs. While the sample assessment for evaluating students' reflections or journal entries might be an analytic rubric, you might find that a general rubric works better for you. In many cases, you may want to alter a sample assessment by replacing some of the language to match the cues you have been using in your classes. That way, the assessment process and feedback from the rubric will be more meaningful to your students. Think of the sample assessments in PE Metrics as building blocks and tools for you to use in developing an assessment plan that is unique to your program and the needs of your students.
As you review the various samples of assessments and assignments in this book, keep in mind that you can use a single assessment to measure more than one Grade-Level Outcome, even if the outcomes are aligned under different standards. You can combine a sample assessment suggested for one National Standard and Grade-Level Outcome with another assessment for a different Grade-Level Outcome under a different National Standard to create an analytic rubric. This is particularly true for assessments under Standards 1, 4 and 5. For example, you can assess middle school students creating a line dance on their skill competency in dance & rhythms (Outcome S1.M1.8) while also assessing them on their collaboration skills (Outcome S4.M6.8) and their enjoyment of activity and their self-expression (Outcome S5.M5.8). You can assess students under all three outcomes in one assignment, using one comprehensive analytic rubric. An example of an analytic rubric assessing more than one standard can be found in Appendix D. These types of assessments have "embedded" within them opportunities to assess multiple standards. Another assessment strategy is to use a suite of assessments to provide a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of student achievement throughout a unit or school year. A suite of assessments would include several forms of assessment, including rubrics, checklists, peer and self-assessments, exit slips and worksheets. An example of a suite of assessments can be found in Appendix E.
Please note that many of the sample assessments encourage students to demonstrate their competency in specific outcomes through the use of technology. Video blogs, slide presentations, flipped classrooms and electronic postings are some of the examples provided. In addition, you might use software to track student progress, collect data and report results to various stakeholders. As physical educators, we need to be part of the digital revolution!
When the time comes to implement your assessments, you will have to think about the practicality of using a rubric while watching students who are moving. This is true especially when evaluating students in activities under Standards 1 and 2. You might want to place a streamlined copy of your rubric on a clipboard or tablet for quick reference while observing students. You can simplify the rubric by highlighting key words in the descriptors or by abbreviating the descriptors in a way that makes sense to you. After you've used the rubric a few times, it will become quite familiar and you will find yourself referring to the rubric far less frequently; it will be in your head. You also will need a simple score sheet for recording students' final scores in an efficient manner. An example of a simple score sheet for locomotor skills at the elementary level and a score sheet for backhand stroke in badminton at the middle or high school level can be found in Appendix F.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
The Role of Assessment in Today's Schools
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement.
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement. Assessment can be defined as "the gathering of evidence about student achievement and making inferences about student progress based on that evidence" (Society of Health and Physical Educators, 2015). Many policymakers, parents and administrators assume that assessment occurs every day in every classroom, and that assessments produce evidence of student learning. While assessment does provide such evidence, student learning is only one of many roles assessment plays in education. Assessments must provide ongoing measures of student performance using more than one method, be aligned with student learning outcomes, and allow students to demonstrate competency in a variety of ways. No longer can just one assessment at one point in time provide adequate evidence of student learning. To get a complete, nuanced picture of a student's learning requires multiple assessments dispersed over time.
Purposes of Assessment
Just as the role of assessment has evolved, so have the uses of assessment. While the focus remains on measuring student learning, using assessment to provide feedback on student performance, make instruction-related decisions, and inform teaching is just as important. Assessment information and data should inform teachers and teaching in every part of the instruction process. Student performance and improvement are determined by the interaction of student learning and teachers teaching. It is part of the ongoing instruction process, just as planning learning experiences, establishing student outcomes and managing a classroom. Assessment is as multidimensional as teaching and serves multiple purposes in the instruction and learning processes.
The primary purpose of assessment in physical education is to provide stakeholders with evidence of students' learning as well as their attainment of National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. Collecting and reporting on data specific to outcomes allow you to document student progress, communicate your teaching effectiveness to students, parents and administrators, and make the case for additional time and funding for your program. Part of the accountability movement in education reform is data-driven decision-making. As physical educators, we must improve our ability to collect, analyze and use data for program improvement and demonstrate the use of data to ensure that all students are physically literate. Without the use of data generated by a matrix of assessments, we cannot make our case for the continued inclusion in the school curriculum.
A second purpose of assessment is to provide students with feedback on their progress. Effective assessments go beyond assigning a number, percentage or grade to student performance by providing specific, corrective feedback through the assessment itself. The most common example of providing specific feedback through an assessment is the use of analytic rubrics to assess assignments or performance (see Appendix D). Well-developed analytic rubrics identify critical elements of the performance at various levels and dimensions and allow you to provide detailed feedback to students on their performance simply by having them complete the assessment. Analytic rubrics often are used when assessing complex skills, the application of knowledge, or a multipart performance or assignment. By using an analytic rubric, you can facilitate students' self-assessment of their performance, define performance expectations, and evaluate relative strengths and weaknesses for each student.
A third purpose of assessment is to gather information and data that drive instructional decision-making. All students enter your gymnasium with a wide variety of prior knowledge, experience, and skill that you must account for in designing their learning experiences. Before teaching any unit or lesson, you must determine starting points for each individual student in your class by conducting some form of pre-assessment. The information or data could come from records kept from the previous year, from pretest data, from observing students, or from simply asking students about their experience levels through a survey, self-assessment or even a wordle. For an example of a wordle as a pre-assessment, see Appendix G. In addition to determining individual starting points, pre-assessment gives you the information you need for differentiating instruction, assigning partners or groups, and setting expectations. Without assessment information or data, you are simply guessing about students' competency levels or teaching as if all students are the same, rather than teaching and assessing individuals.
Once you begin an instructional unit, assessment is key for determining your next steps, adapting or modifying learning experiences and, potentially, identifying the need to re-teach. Methods for gathering this information or data can range from peer assessments to quizzes and project updates. Assessment should occur each day in some manner and the results should always inform the next day's instruction and design, but to use the results most effectively, you need an established method for tracking assessment data. One solution is adopting one or more forms of technology, which can facilitate the gathering, analyzing, and tracking of student data, making the process much more manageable than in the past. A good resource for using technology in a physical education setting is Chapter 8 in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014).
The final purpose of assessment is to inform your teaching. Throughout the unit of instruction, you use informal and formal assessments to make decisions about your instruction. At the end of a unit of instruction, you must review the information or data from these assessments to determine strengths and challenges for student learning. Based on a summative assessment, you can determine what skills and knowledge students have mastered and what you will need to review or repeat. You also can use data to determine what worked best during the unit of instruction and what you might need to change in the future. Assessment data allow you to self-evaluate your teaching effectiveness based on the performance of your students. Assessment and instruction are inseparable in the planning and teaching process.
While assessment data often are used for determining grades, grades and assessments have different purposes. The goal of grading is to evaluate individual students' learning and performance based on indirect and direct measures. For example, a range of indirect measures, such as attendance, participation and effort, often have been part of the grading process. While those constructs are important, they are not direct measures of learning. Paul Dressell from the Michigan State University describes a grade "as an inadequate report of an imprecise judgment of a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of materials" (Miller, Imrie & Cox, 1998, p. 24). While grading can play a role in assessment, assessment is a much broader measure of student learning and includes many ungraded measures, such as worksheets, discussion and concept maps. A grade is one data point, not linked to any particular learning outcome, and it does not allow for any systematic examination of learning. A matrix of assessments (formal and informal) allows you to examine data to determine learning patterns and guide instructional decision-making.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
The Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 focus on applying knowledge in physical activities that students can use over a lifetime. Students should leave high school knowing the terminology, rules and etiquette of the activities that they are likely to pursue over their lifetimes. They also should be able to use biomechanical principles to analyze their skills and techniques, and demonstrate the ability to devise and implement practice plans for improving their performance in those activities. Those skills are essential if students are to maintain and improve long-term personal health and realize longer life expectancies. As the teacher, you will need to teach related lifetime career- and college-readiness skills such as problem solving, analyzing resources critically, and demonstrating effective written and oral communication skills. The sample assessments provided here will help you measure those transferable skills, in addition to students' knowledge and understanding of selected lifetime activities.
Research conducted over the past two decades is clear: the best indicator of continued participation in a movement activity over a lifetime is the perception of competency (Barnett et al., 2008; Stodden et al., 2009; Stuart et al., 2005). By high school, students recognize which activities they enjoy and want to become better at through practice and continued instruction. Student choice, then, is an essential component of any high school physical education curriculum. Not only do students need the freedom to choose the activities in which they want to improve their competency, but they also should be able to choose how they wish to demonstrate their competency.
Assessments intended to measure high school students' progress toward the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 require students to apply their knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics to demonstrate their command of a self-selected lifetime activity, dance or fitness activity. The sample assessments for Standard 2 are comprehensive, requiring students to solve problems and think critically, and some involve others in group assignments and/or projects. You also can employ more traditional assessment tasks such as quizzes, end-of-unit examinations, worksheets, activity logs, and student reflections or journals. All are appropriate assessments and can provide valuable insights about what your students are learning and are able to apply to the activities they pursue after leaving high school.
We suggest providing students with a list of options for demonstrating competency and allowing students to select the assessment that they believe would best demonstrate their competency. The suggested assessments include group projects as well as individual projects, providing students with a range of choices. Research (Assor et al., 2002; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Fisher et al., 1975; Ryan & Deci, 2000) has shown that providing some student choice increases student engagement and sense of autonomy.
Pre-Assessment
We recommend that you conduct pre-assessments for all lifetime, dance and rhythm, and fitness activities. This will provide you and the students with baseline levels of competency and allow for differentiation of instruction, communication of student progress over time, and instructional decision-making. Students can use the baseline data to determine their progress, determine areas of strengths and weaknesses, and set performance goals for each unit of instruction.
- You can use surveys or other forms of written pre-assessments. Gathering data before beginning the unit will guide instructional decision-making specific to scope and sequence, determining ability groupings, and designing differentiated practice tasks. You can survey students on their experience with the activity or their foundational knowledge of it. For example, students who have participated in weight-training activities through competitive sport will have a higher baseline of performance than students who have not participated in weight training. Likewise, students who have aquatics certifications through American Red Cross, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, or the YMCA will have a higher baseline of performance than those students who don't pursue those certifications. You can use written pre-assessments to determine students' knowledge in the upcoming unit. For example, you could ask students to match dance steps or yoga positions to the names of the steps or positions. For a weight-training unit, you could ask students to match weight-lifting techniques to the muscle groups that they target. That will provide you with valuable information on students' baseline knowledge.
- Examples of skill pre-assessments are provided under Standard 1.
Formative Assessments
- Quizzes allow you to have checks for understanding throughout the unit. Quizzes cover topics such as rules and etiquette for the activity, terminology, and/or concepts and principles related to the activity.
- Checklists are valuable as formative assessments. Checklists allow students to self-evaluate their performance by identifying essential criteria for movement competency. Checklists are also constructive in identifying key elements to be included in a summative project or assignment. This allows students to "check" that they have included key parts of a comprehensive project or assignment. In addition, peers can provide specific, corrective feedback based on identified criteria on a peer evaluation checklist. This allows students to provide each other feedback on performance using objective criteria based on critical elements of the skill or technique. Examples of peer checklists are found under Standard 1.
- Checks for understanding should occur during each class. These are quick checks on the students' comprehension and provide students with the opportunity to ask questions and seek clarifications. The advantage of using checks for understanding is that it takes place in real time, allowing you to adjust or modify practice tasks or instruction based on student needs.
- Worksheets are another type of formative assessment and can take many forms. Worksheets can be used to assess students' understanding of scoring in tennis, identify poses in yoga, or calculate target heart rate, to name just a few. An example of how to calculate target heart rate can be found under Standard 3. Additional examples can be found in Appendix U specific to target heart rate and FitnessGram results.
- Logs are useful to students for tracking such things as amount and length of time spent in physical activity, food intake, number of repetitions and lifts during a fitness unit, scores over time in target activities such as archery and bowling. Logs provide both you and your students a record of their progress over time. A sample nutrition log is provided in Appendix V.
Note: Units at the high school level will involve many combinations of formative assessments. Developing competency in a specific lifetime, dance, or fitness activity is a complex process crossing all learning domains. Using just one type of formative assessment provides you with a limited picture of student progress; therefore, a variety of assessments should be used. This requires multiple assessments that include all learning domains.
Individual Summative Assessments
- Portfolio: This is a comprehensive assessment that has multiple parts. Students can select examples of their work and include them in their portfolio specific to their self-selected lifetime, dance and rhythm, or fitness activity. Each section of the portfolio is assessed and aligned to goals or objectives of the overall unit. Formative assessments (listed above) could be included in the portfolio as evidence. Assessment rubrics for a portfolio assignment align with a complete description of the assignment. It is essential that students have a clear outline of specific requirements for their portfolio. An example of a fitness portfolio is provided under Standard 3.
- Develop and implement an improvement plan: For Standards 2 or 3, students develop and implement an improvement plan specific to their self-selected activity. All improvement plans should have goals, pre-, mid- and post-measures, and specific practice tasks. Students create a plan based on their pre-assessment data. This includes any of the lifetime activities or the development of a fitness plan for a specific sport based on the demands of the activity. A description of the assignment provides specific requirements and a rubric would align with the requirements identified in the description of the assignment. A sample of a description of the assignment along with the assessment rubric are found under Standard 2. For an example of a fitness plan format see Appendix W.
- Journals provide you with insight on how students are feeling about their participation in the unit, specific challenges they are facing, and their social interactions within the context of the unit. Journals provide you with a deeper understanding of the social and emotional context of the student's experiences in the unit. Guidance on the use of journals is provided under Standard 4.
- Final examination: Students take a comprehensive written final examination specific to terminology, rules and etiquette, application of concepts and movement principles, and tactics and strategies. See Appendix X for sample written examination questions.
- Research paper or biomechanical analysis: Students select a movement skill or sequence to analyze using principles from biomechanics and physics. In a research paper, students present their findings. This assignment requires students to investigate research findings and apply this research to human movement. Specific parameters identified on the description of the assignment are aligned with the rubric used to assess the project. A sample description of assignment and rubric are provided under Standard 2.
Group Summative Assessments
- Flipped classroom: One way students can demonstrate their understanding and competency in self-selected activities is through a flipped classroom assignment. Students in small groups (no more than 3 students) would create instructional videos on selected skills and/or techniques for self-selected activities. These videos are posted on the physical education website and used by other students to refine their skills. An example of a flipped classroom assignment and assessment rubric are provided under Standard 2.
- Creation of dance, yoga, or fitness routines: Based on a description of the assignment, students in small groups (no more than four) create a routine. The created routine follows the parameters established in the description of the assignment. For example, students could demonstrate their competency in square dance by creating a square dance using hip hop or break dance movements in combination with more traditional steps such as do-si-do and promenade. The parameters for the dance would be set based on traditional squares (eight in a set, everyone must start and end with the same partner, everyone must switch partners at least twice, etc.). This will require students to apply their knowledge in the creation of the dance. Students could either create a video demonstrating the dance or teach the dance to classmates. The same type of assignment could be used in the creation of routines for step aerobics, kickboxing, yoga, etc.
At the high school level, students should have a choice of how they demonstrate their competency regarding the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2. You can provide them with two or three choices and let them select the assessment that works best for them. For example, you might have a group of students who want to flip a classroom, while others are more interested in completing a research paper and biomechanical analysis. As you provide students with choice, ensure the projects are equal in rigor. You also can have one required assessment and a second assessment that provides choice. For example, all students might take the written examination, but the second assessment can be one of three choices.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Using PE Metrics in Your Program
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency.
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency. The rubrics guide your evaluation by allowing you to assign students to one of three levels: Developing, Competent or Proficient. All rubrics include an "indicator," which is an outcome statement against which you can assess student performance using the performance criteria in each of the three levels (Developing, Competent and Proficient). For example, an indicator in a sample assessment for high school students on creating and maintaining a fitness plan, in Part IV of this book, states: "Goals meet the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria." The indicator within that assessment's scoring rubric is intended to help teachers measure a student's ability to set and pursue personal fitness goals. At the elementary school level, Standard 1 indicators are specific to the critical elements for the skill. The indicator column states, simply, "Critical Elements," and students must demonstrate the critical elements of that particular skill to be scored as Competent in the skill. The indicators are similar to student learning outcomes, and you can think of them as an "indication" of how students demonstrate their mastery of a skill.
Each performance level in the rubric is defined by criteria linked specifically to critical elements. At the Developing level, students are moving toward competency and mastery of the identified critical elements. At the Developing level, then, a student's competency is emerging and needs further development. With deliberate practice, students can move from the Developing level to the Competent level. Students at the Competent level demonstrate all of the critical elements of the skill, exhibiting mastery of the indicator. The Competent level defines the minimal level of performance required for meeting the indicator. Students at the Proficient level not only demonstrate all the required critical elements of the skill during assessment, but their performance also meets additional criteria and/or displays a level of performance that goes beyond Competent. For example, a student could display all of the critical elements while throwing overhand, while another student adds the wrist snap at the end of the throw or increases their stride length to generate more power. The first student demonstrated competency while the second student demonstrated proficiency by showing a more advanced level of performance.
Throughout this book, we use the term "sample" assessment purposefully. We do not recommend any of the assessments as exemplars, but only as samples of assessments that are aligned with the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. They represent SHAPE America's attempt to provide you with a way of thinking about developing assessments that is unique to your teaching environment. The purposes of assessment are to improve instruction, track student progress, and provide feedback to students on their progress toward intended outcomes. Therefore, the assessments you use must meet the needs of your students and your program.
We encourage you to modify any and all sample assessments in this book to fit your teaching environment, to use them as guidelines for developing your own assessments, and to combine or modify the assessments to align with your school or district outcomes. You will also want to modify the sample assessments to meet the needs of students with disabilities. For specific guidance in this area, we recommend Assessment for Everyone: Modifying NASPE Assessments to Include All Elementary School Children (Lieberman, Kowalski, et al., 2011).
While all the sample rubrics in this version of PE Metrics denote levels of competency and not point values for each level, you can modify the samples to assign point values and assign different weights to various indicators on the rubric. The sample assessments simply provide you with some suggestions. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for each level can be found in Appendix B. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for indicators can be found in Appendix C. You can change a rubric to a checklist or a checklist to a rubric if doing so better fits your needs. While the sample assessment for evaluating students' reflections or journal entries might be an analytic rubric, you might find that a general rubric works better for you. In many cases, you may want to alter a sample assessment by replacing some of the language to match the cues you have been using in your classes. That way, the assessment process and feedback from the rubric will be more meaningful to your students. Think of the sample assessments in PE Metrics as building blocks and tools for you to use in developing an assessment plan that is unique to your program and the needs of your students.
As you review the various samples of assessments and assignments in this book, keep in mind that you can use a single assessment to measure more than one Grade-Level Outcome, even if the outcomes are aligned under different standards. You can combine a sample assessment suggested for one National Standard and Grade-Level Outcome with another assessment for a different Grade-Level Outcome under a different National Standard to create an analytic rubric. This is particularly true for assessments under Standards 1, 4 and 5. For example, you can assess middle school students creating a line dance on their skill competency in dance & rhythms (Outcome S1.M1.8) while also assessing them on their collaboration skills (Outcome S4.M6.8) and their enjoyment of activity and their self-expression (Outcome S5.M5.8). You can assess students under all three outcomes in one assignment, using one comprehensive analytic rubric. An example of an analytic rubric assessing more than one standard can be found in Appendix D. These types of assessments have "embedded" within them opportunities to assess multiple standards. Another assessment strategy is to use a suite of assessments to provide a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of student achievement throughout a unit or school year. A suite of assessments would include several forms of assessment, including rubrics, checklists, peer and self-assessments, exit slips and worksheets. An example of a suite of assessments can be found in Appendix E.
Please note that many of the sample assessments encourage students to demonstrate their competency in specific outcomes through the use of technology. Video blogs, slide presentations, flipped classrooms and electronic postings are some of the examples provided. In addition, you might use software to track student progress, collect data and report results to various stakeholders. As physical educators, we need to be part of the digital revolution!
When the time comes to implement your assessments, you will have to think about the practicality of using a rubric while watching students who are moving. This is true especially when evaluating students in activities under Standards 1 and 2. You might want to place a streamlined copy of your rubric on a clipboard or tablet for quick reference while observing students. You can simplify the rubric by highlighting key words in the descriptors or by abbreviating the descriptors in a way that makes sense to you. After you've used the rubric a few times, it will become quite familiar and you will find yourself referring to the rubric far less frequently; it will be in your head. You also will need a simple score sheet for recording students' final scores in an efficient manner. An example of a simple score sheet for locomotor skills at the elementary level and a score sheet for backhand stroke in badminton at the middle or high school level can be found in Appendix F.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
The Role of Assessment in Today's Schools
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement.
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement. Assessment can be defined as "the gathering of evidence about student achievement and making inferences about student progress based on that evidence" (Society of Health and Physical Educators, 2015). Many policymakers, parents and administrators assume that assessment occurs every day in every classroom, and that assessments produce evidence of student learning. While assessment does provide such evidence, student learning is only one of many roles assessment plays in education. Assessments must provide ongoing measures of student performance using more than one method, be aligned with student learning outcomes, and allow students to demonstrate competency in a variety of ways. No longer can just one assessment at one point in time provide adequate evidence of student learning. To get a complete, nuanced picture of a student's learning requires multiple assessments dispersed over time.
Purposes of Assessment
Just as the role of assessment has evolved, so have the uses of assessment. While the focus remains on measuring student learning, using assessment to provide feedback on student performance, make instruction-related decisions, and inform teaching is just as important. Assessment information and data should inform teachers and teaching in every part of the instruction process. Student performance and improvement are determined by the interaction of student learning and teachers teaching. It is part of the ongoing instruction process, just as planning learning experiences, establishing student outcomes and managing a classroom. Assessment is as multidimensional as teaching and serves multiple purposes in the instruction and learning processes.
The primary purpose of assessment in physical education is to provide stakeholders with evidence of students' learning as well as their attainment of National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. Collecting and reporting on data specific to outcomes allow you to document student progress, communicate your teaching effectiveness to students, parents and administrators, and make the case for additional time and funding for your program. Part of the accountability movement in education reform is data-driven decision-making. As physical educators, we must improve our ability to collect, analyze and use data for program improvement and demonstrate the use of data to ensure that all students are physically literate. Without the use of data generated by a matrix of assessments, we cannot make our case for the continued inclusion in the school curriculum.
A second purpose of assessment is to provide students with feedback on their progress. Effective assessments go beyond assigning a number, percentage or grade to student performance by providing specific, corrective feedback through the assessment itself. The most common example of providing specific feedback through an assessment is the use of analytic rubrics to assess assignments or performance (see Appendix D). Well-developed analytic rubrics identify critical elements of the performance at various levels and dimensions and allow you to provide detailed feedback to students on their performance simply by having them complete the assessment. Analytic rubrics often are used when assessing complex skills, the application of knowledge, or a multipart performance or assignment. By using an analytic rubric, you can facilitate students' self-assessment of their performance, define performance expectations, and evaluate relative strengths and weaknesses for each student.
A third purpose of assessment is to gather information and data that drive instructional decision-making. All students enter your gymnasium with a wide variety of prior knowledge, experience, and skill that you must account for in designing their learning experiences. Before teaching any unit or lesson, you must determine starting points for each individual student in your class by conducting some form of pre-assessment. The information or data could come from records kept from the previous year, from pretest data, from observing students, or from simply asking students about their experience levels through a survey, self-assessment or even a wordle. For an example of a wordle as a pre-assessment, see Appendix G. In addition to determining individual starting points, pre-assessment gives you the information you need for differentiating instruction, assigning partners or groups, and setting expectations. Without assessment information or data, you are simply guessing about students' competency levels or teaching as if all students are the same, rather than teaching and assessing individuals.
Once you begin an instructional unit, assessment is key for determining your next steps, adapting or modifying learning experiences and, potentially, identifying the need to re-teach. Methods for gathering this information or data can range from peer assessments to quizzes and project updates. Assessment should occur each day in some manner and the results should always inform the next day's instruction and design, but to use the results most effectively, you need an established method for tracking assessment data. One solution is adopting one or more forms of technology, which can facilitate the gathering, analyzing, and tracking of student data, making the process much more manageable than in the past. A good resource for using technology in a physical education setting is Chapter 8 in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014).
The final purpose of assessment is to inform your teaching. Throughout the unit of instruction, you use informal and formal assessments to make decisions about your instruction. At the end of a unit of instruction, you must review the information or data from these assessments to determine strengths and challenges for student learning. Based on a summative assessment, you can determine what skills and knowledge students have mastered and what you will need to review or repeat. You also can use data to determine what worked best during the unit of instruction and what you might need to change in the future. Assessment data allow you to self-evaluate your teaching effectiveness based on the performance of your students. Assessment and instruction are inseparable in the planning and teaching process.
While assessment data often are used for determining grades, grades and assessments have different purposes. The goal of grading is to evaluate individual students' learning and performance based on indirect and direct measures. For example, a range of indirect measures, such as attendance, participation and effort, often have been part of the grading process. While those constructs are important, they are not direct measures of learning. Paul Dressell from the Michigan State University describes a grade "as an inadequate report of an imprecise judgment of a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of materials" (Miller, Imrie & Cox, 1998, p. 24). While grading can play a role in assessment, assessment is a much broader measure of student learning and includes many ungraded measures, such as worksheets, discussion and concept maps. A grade is one data point, not linked to any particular learning outcome, and it does not allow for any systematic examination of learning. A matrix of assessments (formal and informal) allows you to examine data to determine learning patterns and guide instructional decision-making.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
The Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 focus on applying knowledge in physical activities that students can use over a lifetime. Students should leave high school knowing the terminology, rules and etiquette of the activities that they are likely to pursue over their lifetimes. They also should be able to use biomechanical principles to analyze their skills and techniques, and demonstrate the ability to devise and implement practice plans for improving their performance in those activities. Those skills are essential if students are to maintain and improve long-term personal health and realize longer life expectancies. As the teacher, you will need to teach related lifetime career- and college-readiness skills such as problem solving, analyzing resources critically, and demonstrating effective written and oral communication skills. The sample assessments provided here will help you measure those transferable skills, in addition to students' knowledge and understanding of selected lifetime activities.
Research conducted over the past two decades is clear: the best indicator of continued participation in a movement activity over a lifetime is the perception of competency (Barnett et al., 2008; Stodden et al., 2009; Stuart et al., 2005). By high school, students recognize which activities they enjoy and want to become better at through practice and continued instruction. Student choice, then, is an essential component of any high school physical education curriculum. Not only do students need the freedom to choose the activities in which they want to improve their competency, but they also should be able to choose how they wish to demonstrate their competency.
Assessments intended to measure high school students' progress toward the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 require students to apply their knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics to demonstrate their command of a self-selected lifetime activity, dance or fitness activity. The sample assessments for Standard 2 are comprehensive, requiring students to solve problems and think critically, and some involve others in group assignments and/or projects. You also can employ more traditional assessment tasks such as quizzes, end-of-unit examinations, worksheets, activity logs, and student reflections or journals. All are appropriate assessments and can provide valuable insights about what your students are learning and are able to apply to the activities they pursue after leaving high school.
We suggest providing students with a list of options for demonstrating competency and allowing students to select the assessment that they believe would best demonstrate their competency. The suggested assessments include group projects as well as individual projects, providing students with a range of choices. Research (Assor et al., 2002; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Fisher et al., 1975; Ryan & Deci, 2000) has shown that providing some student choice increases student engagement and sense of autonomy.
Pre-Assessment
We recommend that you conduct pre-assessments for all lifetime, dance and rhythm, and fitness activities. This will provide you and the students with baseline levels of competency and allow for differentiation of instruction, communication of student progress over time, and instructional decision-making. Students can use the baseline data to determine their progress, determine areas of strengths and weaknesses, and set performance goals for each unit of instruction.
- You can use surveys or other forms of written pre-assessments. Gathering data before beginning the unit will guide instructional decision-making specific to scope and sequence, determining ability groupings, and designing differentiated practice tasks. You can survey students on their experience with the activity or their foundational knowledge of it. For example, students who have participated in weight-training activities through competitive sport will have a higher baseline of performance than students who have not participated in weight training. Likewise, students who have aquatics certifications through American Red Cross, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, or the YMCA will have a higher baseline of performance than those students who don't pursue those certifications. You can use written pre-assessments to determine students' knowledge in the upcoming unit. For example, you could ask students to match dance steps or yoga positions to the names of the steps or positions. For a weight-training unit, you could ask students to match weight-lifting techniques to the muscle groups that they target. That will provide you with valuable information on students' baseline knowledge.
- Examples of skill pre-assessments are provided under Standard 1.
Formative Assessments
- Quizzes allow you to have checks for understanding throughout the unit. Quizzes cover topics such as rules and etiquette for the activity, terminology, and/or concepts and principles related to the activity.
- Checklists are valuable as formative assessments. Checklists allow students to self-evaluate their performance by identifying essential criteria for movement competency. Checklists are also constructive in identifying key elements to be included in a summative project or assignment. This allows students to "check" that they have included key parts of a comprehensive project or assignment. In addition, peers can provide specific, corrective feedback based on identified criteria on a peer evaluation checklist. This allows students to provide each other feedback on performance using objective criteria based on critical elements of the skill or technique. Examples of peer checklists are found under Standard 1.
- Checks for understanding should occur during each class. These are quick checks on the students' comprehension and provide students with the opportunity to ask questions and seek clarifications. The advantage of using checks for understanding is that it takes place in real time, allowing you to adjust or modify practice tasks or instruction based on student needs.
- Worksheets are another type of formative assessment and can take many forms. Worksheets can be used to assess students' understanding of scoring in tennis, identify poses in yoga, or calculate target heart rate, to name just a few. An example of how to calculate target heart rate can be found under Standard 3. Additional examples can be found in Appendix U specific to target heart rate and FitnessGram results.
- Logs are useful to students for tracking such things as amount and length of time spent in physical activity, food intake, number of repetitions and lifts during a fitness unit, scores over time in target activities such as archery and bowling. Logs provide both you and your students a record of their progress over time. A sample nutrition log is provided in Appendix V.
Note: Units at the high school level will involve many combinations of formative assessments. Developing competency in a specific lifetime, dance, or fitness activity is a complex process crossing all learning domains. Using just one type of formative assessment provides you with a limited picture of student progress; therefore, a variety of assessments should be used. This requires multiple assessments that include all learning domains.
Individual Summative Assessments
- Portfolio: This is a comprehensive assessment that has multiple parts. Students can select examples of their work and include them in their portfolio specific to their self-selected lifetime, dance and rhythm, or fitness activity. Each section of the portfolio is assessed and aligned to goals or objectives of the overall unit. Formative assessments (listed above) could be included in the portfolio as evidence. Assessment rubrics for a portfolio assignment align with a complete description of the assignment. It is essential that students have a clear outline of specific requirements for their portfolio. An example of a fitness portfolio is provided under Standard 3.
- Develop and implement an improvement plan: For Standards 2 or 3, students develop and implement an improvement plan specific to their self-selected activity. All improvement plans should have goals, pre-, mid- and post-measures, and specific practice tasks. Students create a plan based on their pre-assessment data. This includes any of the lifetime activities or the development of a fitness plan for a specific sport based on the demands of the activity. A description of the assignment provides specific requirements and a rubric would align with the requirements identified in the description of the assignment. A sample of a description of the assignment along with the assessment rubric are found under Standard 2. For an example of a fitness plan format see Appendix W.
- Journals provide you with insight on how students are feeling about their participation in the unit, specific challenges they are facing, and their social interactions within the context of the unit. Journals provide you with a deeper understanding of the social and emotional context of the student's experiences in the unit. Guidance on the use of journals is provided under Standard 4.
- Final examination: Students take a comprehensive written final examination specific to terminology, rules and etiquette, application of concepts and movement principles, and tactics and strategies. See Appendix X for sample written examination questions.
- Research paper or biomechanical analysis: Students select a movement skill or sequence to analyze using principles from biomechanics and physics. In a research paper, students present their findings. This assignment requires students to investigate research findings and apply this research to human movement. Specific parameters identified on the description of the assignment are aligned with the rubric used to assess the project. A sample description of assignment and rubric are provided under Standard 2.
Group Summative Assessments
- Flipped classroom: One way students can demonstrate their understanding and competency in self-selected activities is through a flipped classroom assignment. Students in small groups (no more than 3 students) would create instructional videos on selected skills and/or techniques for self-selected activities. These videos are posted on the physical education website and used by other students to refine their skills. An example of a flipped classroom assignment and assessment rubric are provided under Standard 2.
- Creation of dance, yoga, or fitness routines: Based on a description of the assignment, students in small groups (no more than four) create a routine. The created routine follows the parameters established in the description of the assignment. For example, students could demonstrate their competency in square dance by creating a square dance using hip hop or break dance movements in combination with more traditional steps such as do-si-do and promenade. The parameters for the dance would be set based on traditional squares (eight in a set, everyone must start and end with the same partner, everyone must switch partners at least twice, etc.). This will require students to apply their knowledge in the creation of the dance. Students could either create a video demonstrating the dance or teach the dance to classmates. The same type of assignment could be used in the creation of routines for step aerobics, kickboxing, yoga, etc.
At the high school level, students should have a choice of how they demonstrate their competency regarding the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2. You can provide them with two or three choices and let them select the assessment that works best for them. For example, you might have a group of students who want to flip a classroom, while others are more interested in completing a research paper and biomechanical analysis. As you provide students with choice, ensure the projects are equal in rigor. You also can have one required assessment and a second assessment that provides choice. For example, all students might take the written examination, but the second assessment can be one of three choices.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
Using PE Metrics in Your Program
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency.
The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency. The rubrics guide your evaluation by allowing you to assign students to one of three levels: Developing, Competent or Proficient. All rubrics include an "indicator," which is an outcome statement against which you can assess student performance using the performance criteria in each of the three levels (Developing, Competent and Proficient). For example, an indicator in a sample assessment for high school students on creating and maintaining a fitness plan, in Part IV of this book, states: "Goals meet the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria." The indicator within that assessment's scoring rubric is intended to help teachers measure a student's ability to set and pursue personal fitness goals. At the elementary school level, Standard 1 indicators are specific to the critical elements for the skill. The indicator column states, simply, "Critical Elements," and students must demonstrate the critical elements of that particular skill to be scored as Competent in the skill. The indicators are similar to student learning outcomes, and you can think of them as an "indication" of how students demonstrate their mastery of a skill.
Each performance level in the rubric is defined by criteria linked specifically to critical elements. At the Developing level, students are moving toward competency and mastery of the identified critical elements. At the Developing level, then, a student's competency is emerging and needs further development. With deliberate practice, students can move from the Developing level to the Competent level. Students at the Competent level demonstrate all of the critical elements of the skill, exhibiting mastery of the indicator. The Competent level defines the minimal level of performance required for meeting the indicator. Students at the Proficient level not only demonstrate all the required critical elements of the skill during assessment, but their performance also meets additional criteria and/or displays a level of performance that goes beyond Competent. For example, a student could display all of the critical elements while throwing overhand, while another student adds the wrist snap at the end of the throw or increases their stride length to generate more power. The first student demonstrated competency while the second student demonstrated proficiency by showing a more advanced level of performance.
Throughout this book, we use the term "sample" assessment purposefully. We do not recommend any of the assessments as exemplars, but only as samples of assessments that are aligned with the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. They represent SHAPE America's attempt to provide you with a way of thinking about developing assessments that is unique to your teaching environment. The purposes of assessment are to improve instruction, track student progress, and provide feedback to students on their progress toward intended outcomes. Therefore, the assessments you use must meet the needs of your students and your program.
We encourage you to modify any and all sample assessments in this book to fit your teaching environment, to use them as guidelines for developing your own assessments, and to combine or modify the assessments to align with your school or district outcomes. You will also want to modify the sample assessments to meet the needs of students with disabilities. For specific guidance in this area, we recommend Assessment for Everyone: Modifying NASPE Assessments to Include All Elementary School Children (Lieberman, Kowalski, et al., 2011).
While all the sample rubrics in this version of PE Metrics denote levels of competency and not point values for each level, you can modify the samples to assign point values and assign different weights to various indicators on the rubric. The sample assessments simply provide you with some suggestions. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for each level can be found in Appendix B. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for indicators can be found in Appendix C. You can change a rubric to a checklist or a checklist to a rubric if doing so better fits your needs. While the sample assessment for evaluating students' reflections or journal entries might be an analytic rubric, you might find that a general rubric works better for you. In many cases, you may want to alter a sample assessment by replacing some of the language to match the cues you have been using in your classes. That way, the assessment process and feedback from the rubric will be more meaningful to your students. Think of the sample assessments in PE Metrics as building blocks and tools for you to use in developing an assessment plan that is unique to your program and the needs of your students.
As you review the various samples of assessments and assignments in this book, keep in mind that you can use a single assessment to measure more than one Grade-Level Outcome, even if the outcomes are aligned under different standards. You can combine a sample assessment suggested for one National Standard and Grade-Level Outcome with another assessment for a different Grade-Level Outcome under a different National Standard to create an analytic rubric. This is particularly true for assessments under Standards 1, 4 and 5. For example, you can assess middle school students creating a line dance on their skill competency in dance & rhythms (Outcome S1.M1.8) while also assessing them on their collaboration skills (Outcome S4.M6.8) and their enjoyment of activity and their self-expression (Outcome S5.M5.8). You can assess students under all three outcomes in one assignment, using one comprehensive analytic rubric. An example of an analytic rubric assessing more than one standard can be found in Appendix D. These types of assessments have "embedded" within them opportunities to assess multiple standards. Another assessment strategy is to use a suite of assessments to provide a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of student achievement throughout a unit or school year. A suite of assessments would include several forms of assessment, including rubrics, checklists, peer and self-assessments, exit slips and worksheets. An example of a suite of assessments can be found in Appendix E.
Please note that many of the sample assessments encourage students to demonstrate their competency in specific outcomes through the use of technology. Video blogs, slide presentations, flipped classrooms and electronic postings are some of the examples provided. In addition, you might use software to track student progress, collect data and report results to various stakeholders. As physical educators, we need to be part of the digital revolution!
When the time comes to implement your assessments, you will have to think about the practicality of using a rubric while watching students who are moving. This is true especially when evaluating students in activities under Standards 1 and 2. You might want to place a streamlined copy of your rubric on a clipboard or tablet for quick reference while observing students. You can simplify the rubric by highlighting key words in the descriptors or by abbreviating the descriptors in a way that makes sense to you. After you've used the rubric a few times, it will become quite familiar and you will find yourself referring to the rubric far less frequently; it will be in your head. You also will need a simple score sheet for recording students' final scores in an efficient manner. An example of a simple score sheet for locomotor skills at the elementary level and a score sheet for backhand stroke in badminton at the middle or high school level can be found in Appendix F.
Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.
The Role of Assessment in Today's Schools
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement.
With increased calls for accountability in public education and the shift to data-driven decision making, the role of assessment has evolved to take center stage in the education reform movement. Assessment can be defined as "the gathering of evidence about student achievement and making inferences about student progress based on that evidence" (Society of Health and Physical Educators, 2015). Many policymakers, parents and administrators assume that assessment occurs every day in every classroom, and that assessments produce evidence of student learning. While assessment does provide such evidence, student learning is only one of many roles assessment plays in education. Assessments must provide ongoing measures of student performance using more than one method, be aligned with student learning outcomes, and allow students to demonstrate competency in a variety of ways. No longer can just one assessment at one point in time provide adequate evidence of student learning. To get a complete, nuanced picture of a student's learning requires multiple assessments dispersed over time.
Purposes of Assessment
Just as the role of assessment has evolved, so have the uses of assessment. While the focus remains on measuring student learning, using assessment to provide feedback on student performance, make instruction-related decisions, and inform teaching is just as important. Assessment information and data should inform teachers and teaching in every part of the instruction process. Student performance and improvement are determined by the interaction of student learning and teachers teaching. It is part of the ongoing instruction process, just as planning learning experiences, establishing student outcomes and managing a classroom. Assessment is as multidimensional as teaching and serves multiple purposes in the instruction and learning processes.
The primary purpose of assessment in physical education is to provide stakeholders with evidence of students' learning as well as their attainment of National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. Collecting and reporting on data specific to outcomes allow you to document student progress, communicate your teaching effectiveness to students, parents and administrators, and make the case for additional time and funding for your program. Part of the accountability movement in education reform is data-driven decision-making. As physical educators, we must improve our ability to collect, analyze and use data for program improvement and demonstrate the use of data to ensure that all students are physically literate. Without the use of data generated by a matrix of assessments, we cannot make our case for the continued inclusion in the school curriculum.
A second purpose of assessment is to provide students with feedback on their progress. Effective assessments go beyond assigning a number, percentage or grade to student performance by providing specific, corrective feedback through the assessment itself. The most common example of providing specific feedback through an assessment is the use of analytic rubrics to assess assignments or performance (see Appendix D). Well-developed analytic rubrics identify critical elements of the performance at various levels and dimensions and allow you to provide detailed feedback to students on their performance simply by having them complete the assessment. Analytic rubrics often are used when assessing complex skills, the application of knowledge, or a multipart performance or assignment. By using an analytic rubric, you can facilitate students' self-assessment of their performance, define performance expectations, and evaluate relative strengths and weaknesses for each student.
A third purpose of assessment is to gather information and data that drive instructional decision-making. All students enter your gymnasium with a wide variety of prior knowledge, experience, and skill that you must account for in designing their learning experiences. Before teaching any unit or lesson, you must determine starting points for each individual student in your class by conducting some form of pre-assessment. The information or data could come from records kept from the previous year, from pretest data, from observing students, or from simply asking students about their experience levels through a survey, self-assessment or even a wordle. For an example of a wordle as a pre-assessment, see Appendix G. In addition to determining individual starting points, pre-assessment gives you the information you need for differentiating instruction, assigning partners or groups, and setting expectations. Without assessment information or data, you are simply guessing about students' competency levels or teaching as if all students are the same, rather than teaching and assessing individuals.
Once you begin an instructional unit, assessment is key for determining your next steps, adapting or modifying learning experiences and, potentially, identifying the need to re-teach. Methods for gathering this information or data can range from peer assessments to quizzes and project updates. Assessment should occur each day in some manner and the results should always inform the next day's instruction and design, but to use the results most effectively, you need an established method for tracking assessment data. One solution is adopting one or more forms of technology, which can facilitate the gathering, analyzing, and tracking of student data, making the process much more manageable than in the past. A good resource for using technology in a physical education setting is Chapter 8 in National Standards & Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (SHAPE America, 2014).
The final purpose of assessment is to inform your teaching. Throughout the unit of instruction, you use informal and formal assessments to make decisions about your instruction. At the end of a unit of instruction, you must review the information or data from these assessments to determine strengths and challenges for student learning. Based on a summative assessment, you can determine what skills and knowledge students have mastered and what you will need to review or repeat. You also can use data to determine what worked best during the unit of instruction and what you might need to change in the future. Assessment data allow you to self-evaluate your teaching effectiveness based on the performance of your students. Assessment and instruction are inseparable in the planning and teaching process.
While assessment data often are used for determining grades, grades and assessments have different purposes. The goal of grading is to evaluate individual students' learning and performance based on indirect and direct measures. For example, a range of indirect measures, such as attendance, participation and effort, often have been part of the grading process. While those constructs are important, they are not direct measures of learning. Paul Dressell from the Michigan State University describes a grade "as an inadequate report of an imprecise judgment of a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of materials" (Miller, Imrie & Cox, 1998, p. 24). While grading can play a role in assessment, assessment is a much broader measure of student learning and includes many ungraded measures, such as worksheets, discussion and concept maps. A grade is one data point, not linked to any particular learning outcome, and it does not allow for any systematic examination of learning. A matrix of assessments (formal and informal) allows you to examine data to determine learning patterns and guide instructional decision-making.
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Standard 2 Sample Assessments
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Standard 2: The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
The Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 focus on applying knowledge in physical activities that students can use over a lifetime. Students should leave high school knowing the terminology, rules and etiquette of the activities that they are likely to pursue over their lifetimes. They also should be able to use biomechanical principles to analyze their skills and techniques, and demonstrate the ability to devise and implement practice plans for improving their performance in those activities. Those skills are essential if students are to maintain and improve long-term personal health and realize longer life expectancies. As the teacher, you will need to teach related lifetime career- and college-readiness skills such as problem solving, analyzing resources critically, and demonstrating effective written and oral communication skills. The sample assessments provided here will help you measure those transferable skills, in addition to students' knowledge and understanding of selected lifetime activities.
Research conducted over the past two decades is clear: the best indicator of continued participation in a movement activity over a lifetime is the perception of competency (Barnett et al., 2008; Stodden et al., 2009; Stuart et al., 2005). By high school, students recognize which activities they enjoy and want to become better at through practice and continued instruction. Student choice, then, is an essential component of any high school physical education curriculum. Not only do students need the freedom to choose the activities in which they want to improve their competency, but they also should be able to choose how they wish to demonstrate their competency.
Assessments intended to measure high school students' progress toward the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2 require students to apply their knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics to demonstrate their command of a self-selected lifetime activity, dance or fitness activity. The sample assessments for Standard 2 are comprehensive, requiring students to solve problems and think critically, and some involve others in group assignments and/or projects. You also can employ more traditional assessment tasks such as quizzes, end-of-unit examinations, worksheets, activity logs, and student reflections or journals. All are appropriate assessments and can provide valuable insights about what your students are learning and are able to apply to the activities they pursue after leaving high school.
We suggest providing students with a list of options for demonstrating competency and allowing students to select the assessment that they believe would best demonstrate their competency. The suggested assessments include group projects as well as individual projects, providing students with a range of choices. Research (Assor et al., 2002; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Fisher et al., 1975; Ryan & Deci, 2000) has shown that providing some student choice increases student engagement and sense of autonomy.
Pre-Assessment
We recommend that you conduct pre-assessments for all lifetime, dance and rhythm, and fitness activities. This will provide you and the students with baseline levels of competency and allow for differentiation of instruction, communication of student progress over time, and instructional decision-making. Students can use the baseline data to determine their progress, determine areas of strengths and weaknesses, and set performance goals for each unit of instruction.
- You can use surveys or other forms of written pre-assessments. Gathering data before beginning the unit will guide instructional decision-making specific to scope and sequence, determining ability groupings, and designing differentiated practice tasks. You can survey students on their experience with the activity or their foundational knowledge of it. For example, students who have participated in weight-training activities through competitive sport will have a higher baseline of performance than students who have not participated in weight training. Likewise, students who have aquatics certifications through American Red Cross, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, or the YMCA will have a higher baseline of performance than those students who don't pursue those certifications. You can use written pre-assessments to determine students' knowledge in the upcoming unit. For example, you could ask students to match dance steps or yoga positions to the names of the steps or positions. For a weight-training unit, you could ask students to match weight-lifting techniques to the muscle groups that they target. That will provide you with valuable information on students' baseline knowledge.
- Examples of skill pre-assessments are provided under Standard 1.
Formative Assessments
- Quizzes allow you to have checks for understanding throughout the unit. Quizzes cover topics such as rules and etiquette for the activity, terminology, and/or concepts and principles related to the activity.
- Checklists are valuable as formative assessments. Checklists allow students to self-evaluate their performance by identifying essential criteria for movement competency. Checklists are also constructive in identifying key elements to be included in a summative project or assignment. This allows students to "check" that they have included key parts of a comprehensive project or assignment. In addition, peers can provide specific, corrective feedback based on identified criteria on a peer evaluation checklist. This allows students to provide each other feedback on performance using objective criteria based on critical elements of the skill or technique. Examples of peer checklists are found under Standard 1.
- Checks for understanding should occur during each class. These are quick checks on the students' comprehension and provide students with the opportunity to ask questions and seek clarifications. The advantage of using checks for understanding is that it takes place in real time, allowing you to adjust or modify practice tasks or instruction based on student needs.
- Worksheets are another type of formative assessment and can take many forms. Worksheets can be used to assess students' understanding of scoring in tennis, identify poses in yoga, or calculate target heart rate, to name just a few. An example of how to calculate target heart rate can be found under Standard 3. Additional examples can be found in Appendix U specific to target heart rate and FitnessGram results.
- Logs are useful to students for tracking such things as amount and length of time spent in physical activity, food intake, number of repetitions and lifts during a fitness unit, scores over time in target activities such as archery and bowling. Logs provide both you and your students a record of their progress over time. A sample nutrition log is provided in Appendix V.
Note: Units at the high school level will involve many combinations of formative assessments. Developing competency in a specific lifetime, dance, or fitness activity is a complex process crossing all learning domains. Using just one type of formative assessment provides you with a limited picture of student progress; therefore, a variety of assessments should be used. This requires multiple assessments that include all learning domains.
Individual Summative Assessments
- Portfolio: This is a comprehensive assessment that has multiple parts. Students can select examples of their work and include them in their portfolio specific to their self-selected lifetime, dance and rhythm, or fitness activity. Each section of the portfolio is assessed and aligned to goals or objectives of the overall unit. Formative assessments (listed above) could be included in the portfolio as evidence. Assessment rubrics for a portfolio assignment align with a complete description of the assignment. It is essential that students have a clear outline of specific requirements for their portfolio. An example of a fitness portfolio is provided under Standard 3.
- Develop and implement an improvement plan: For Standards 2 or 3, students develop and implement an improvement plan specific to their self-selected activity. All improvement plans should have goals, pre-, mid- and post-measures, and specific practice tasks. Students create a plan based on their pre-assessment data. This includes any of the lifetime activities or the development of a fitness plan for a specific sport based on the demands of the activity. A description of the assignment provides specific requirements and a rubric would align with the requirements identified in the description of the assignment. A sample of a description of the assignment along with the assessment rubric are found under Standard 2. For an example of a fitness plan format see Appendix W.
- Journals provide you with insight on how students are feeling about their participation in the unit, specific challenges they are facing, and their social interactions within the context of the unit. Journals provide you with a deeper understanding of the social and emotional context of the student's experiences in the unit. Guidance on the use of journals is provided under Standard 4.
- Final examination: Students take a comprehensive written final examination specific to terminology, rules and etiquette, application of concepts and movement principles, and tactics and strategies. See Appendix X for sample written examination questions.
- Research paper or biomechanical analysis: Students select a movement skill or sequence to analyze using principles from biomechanics and physics. In a research paper, students present their findings. This assignment requires students to investigate research findings and apply this research to human movement. Specific parameters identified on the description of the assignment are aligned with the rubric used to assess the project. A sample description of assignment and rubric are provided under Standard 2.
Group Summative Assessments
- Flipped classroom: One way students can demonstrate their understanding and competency in self-selected activities is through a flipped classroom assignment. Students in small groups (no more than 3 students) would create instructional videos on selected skills and/or techniques for self-selected activities. These videos are posted on the physical education website and used by other students to refine their skills. An example of a flipped classroom assignment and assessment rubric are provided under Standard 2.
- Creation of dance, yoga, or fitness routines: Based on a description of the assignment, students in small groups (no more than four) create a routine. The created routine follows the parameters established in the description of the assignment. For example, students could demonstrate their competency in square dance by creating a square dance using hip hop or break dance movements in combination with more traditional steps such as do-si-do and promenade. The parameters for the dance would be set based on traditional squares (eight in a set, everyone must start and end with the same partner, everyone must switch partners at least twice, etc.). This will require students to apply their knowledge in the creation of the dance. Students could either create a video demonstrating the dance or teach the dance to classmates. The same type of assignment could be used in the creation of routines for step aerobics, kickboxing, yoga, etc.
At the high school level, students should have a choice of how they demonstrate their competency regarding the Grade-Level Outcomes under Standard 2. You can provide them with two or three choices and let them select the assessment that works best for them. For example, you might have a group of students who want to flip a classroom, while others are more interested in completing a research paper and biomechanical analysis. As you provide students with choice, ensure the projects are equal in rigor. You also can have one required assessment and a second assessment that provides choice. For example, all students might take the written examination, but the second assessment can be one of three choices.
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