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- Complete Guide to Sport Education
Lead author Siedentop first articulated his Sport Education model back in the late 1970s; it has evolved ever since and has been expressed through three editions of this book. This third edition is backed by substantial research that supports the idea that Sport Education is a valuable and motivating approach to delivering quality physical education experiences for students from the early elementary grades through the university years.
New and Revised Material
Complete Guide to Sport Education, Third Edition, offers readers a significant amount of revised and new material, including enhanced guidance for Sport Education programming across a year. Also noteworthy is the updated alignment of Sport Education’s goals and objectives with the SHAPE America standards and the national learning objectives from other countries.
In addition, the text provides six brand-new chapters on the following topics:
- Including students with special needs
- Implementing Sport Education beyond physical education (e.g., school-based after-school programs, intramurals, community-based programs, and university basic instruction programs)
- Evidence-based research on Sport Education
- Developing effective program-level policies and procedures
- Managing equipment, facilities, and supplies
- Sport Education’s link with international objectives
Complete Guide to Sport Education represents a departure from traditional curriculum and instruction (C&I) models because it takes an effective student-centered approach, providing students with opportunities to take ownership and responsibility for various aspects of their class experiences. This approach better prepares students to be lifelong participants in healthy physical activity and sport—and to be more engaged in class.
The text targets more in-depth and authentic learning experiences than most C&I models, giving students time to develop the skills they need and to learn to fulfill the team roles required for successful seasons. This latest edition introduces new readers to the idea of Sport Education and gives previous users of the model some fresh ways to expand their seasons and make them even more engaging and attractive to their students. Through Sport Education, students are shown effective and meaningful ways to learn about sport, to take part in sport, and to view sport as something they can connect with and find meaning in.
Updated Ancillaries
Complete Guide to Sport Education comes with several useful and updated ancillaries:
- A web resource that provides a wealth of examples to support the book content; this resource includes forms, charts, assessments, and other tools
- A test package that houses 447 multiple-choice and short-answer questions
- A presentation package with 225 slides outlining the book’s content, including select tables and illustrations from the book
- An instructor guide that includes course syllabus templates for instructors of undergraduate and graduate students, and provides core course assignments, optional course assignments, graduate student course assignments, and signature assignments
The text is organized into three parts, with part I outlining the essential features of the Sport Education model and identifying the key aspects upon which the model is based. The importance of sport as a cultural phenomenon is then introduced to explain why it should be a part of school physical education programs. This part also addresses how to identify and select season outcomes, how to use instructional alignment to gain quality season experiences, and how to promote physical activity beyond physical education.
Part II explores all the important considerations in designing and implementing Sport Education seasons. This includes modifying games and activities, designing competition formats, selecting teams and roles, teaching fair play, developing competent players, and more.
Part III delves into key program design considerations, showing the links between Sport Education and U.S. content standards as well as learning objectives from a number of other countries, guiding readers through the assessment process, and examining the various aspects involved in managing a physical education program based on Sport Education. It also shows how to integrate classroom content with Sport Education.
Authoritative and Affordable
This popular text, whose first edition was published in 1994, is very affordable compared to similar texts. But the greatest benefit is the enduring quality of an evidence-based, student-centered text that has proven to be of high value to instructors and students alike. Through the book’s Sport Education model, students develop sport skills, grow in leadership and responsibility, and learn about the nonplaying roles of the sport experience (e.g., coach, trainer, publicist, equipment manager, choreographer). All of this leads to being more engaged in class—and to continuing a healthy physical activity engagement beyond the school years.
Chapter 1. Key Features of the Sport Education Model
What Sport Education Looks Like
The Sport in Sport Education
How Sport Education Differs From Youth or Interscholastic Sport
The Goal of Sport Education
The Nature of Competition in Sport Education
Getting Started With Sport Education
Chapter 2. Curriculum and Instruction Foundations of Sport Education
How Sport Education Fits With Current Educational Thought
The Curricular Role of the Teacher in Sport Education
The Instructional Role of the Teacher in Sport Education
Summary
Chapter 3. Why Sport Education in Today’s Context
Sport as a Form of Play
The Evolution and Dominance of Sport
Problems and Critical Issues in Sport
Why Sport Should Be Central in School Physical Education
Technology and Developing Play Behavior
Summary
Chapter 4. Identifying and Selecting Season Outcomes
First Steps in Season Design
Selecting Season Outcomes
Sport Education’s Competence Objectives
Sport Education’s Literacy Objectives
Sport Education’s Enthusiasm Objectives
Summary
Chapter 5. Instructional Alignment as the Road Map to Quality Season Experiences
Alignment Across Levels
Season-Level Instructional Alignment
Lesson-Level Instructional Alignment
Additional Considerations for Establishing Instructional Alignment
Identifying Weak or Absent Instructional Alignment
Summary
Chapter 6. Promoting Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
Comprehensive Physical Activity Programs in Schools
The National Focus on Promoting Physical Activity
Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
Sport Education in Settings Other Than Physical Education and Schools
Summary
Part II. The How of Sport Education
Chapter 7. Modifying Games and Activities
Key Strategies for Modifying Games
Game Modifications: Event and Performance Sports
Game Modifications: Target Games
Game Modifications: Wall and Net Court Games
Game Modifications: Striking and Fielding Games
Game Modifications: Invasion Games
Student-Designed Modifications
Modifications to Include Students With Disabilities
Graded Competition
Summary
Chapter 8. Designing Competition Formats
Progressive Competition
Event Model
Setting Up a League Scoring System
Summary
Chapter 9. Selecting Teams and Roles
Deciding on the Number of Teams and Team Size
Selecting Students for Teams
Placing Students Into Teams
Student Roles
Important Considerations When Using Roles
Summary
Chapter 10. Teaching Protocols and Building Fair Play
Class Entry and First Activity
From Practice to Games
End of Games
Class Closure
Developing Positive Behavior Within a Culture of Fair Play
Strategies for Teaching Fair Play and Responsibility
Summary
Chapter 11. Developing Competent Players
The Teacher: Early Lessons
The Student Coach: Early Lessons
The Teacher: Early Independent Team Practices
The Student Coach: Early Independent Team Practices
The Teacher: Later Lessons
The Student Coach: Later Lessons
Summary
Chapter 12. Learning to Officiate, Keep Score, and Assess Fair Play
Developing Quality Officials
Practicing Duty Roles
Assessing Fair Play
Summary
Chapter 13. Making Sport Education Festive
Teams
Team Portfolios
Awards
Culminating Events
Developing Culminating Events
Summary
Chapter 14. Meaningful Inclusion of Students With Special Needs
Access to Education for Students With Disabilities
The Use of IEPs and the Role That Physical Educators Play
The Role of Paraeducators
Knowing the Disabilities
Facilitating an Inclusive Sport Education Setting
Behavior Management Considerations
Meaningful Participation in Sport Education for Students With Disabilities
The Role of Typically Developing Peers Within Sport Education
Adapted Sport
Summary
Chapter 15. Promoting Student Voice and Choice
Sport Board
A Sport Education Season Developed by Committees
A Sport Education Season Created Exclusively by Students
The Teacher’s Role in Creating Autonomy-Supportive Environments
Summary
Part III. Key Program Design Considerations
Chapter 16. Sport Education’s Link With U.S. Content Standards
How Sport Education’s Objectives Link With U.S. Content Standards
Standard 1: Demonstrates Competency in a Variety of Motor Skills and Movement Patterns
Standard 2: Applies Knowledge of Concepts, Principles, Strategies, and Tactics Related to Movement and Performance
Standard 3: Demonstrates the Knowledge and Skills to Achieve and Maintain a Health-Enhancing Level of Physical Activity and Fitness
Standard 4: Exhibits Responsible Personal and Social Behavior That Respects Self and Others
Standard 5: Recognizes the Value of Physical Activity for Health, Enjoyment, Challenge, Self-Expression, and Social Interaction
Sport Education’s Objectives and Grade-Level Outcomes
How Important Is the Link Between Content Standards and Sport Education’s Objectives?
Summary
Chapter 17. Sport Education’s Link With International Outcomes
Australia
England
Ireland
New Zealand
Portugal
Scotland
Spain
Summary
Chapter 18. Building Program Credibility and Legitimacy Through Assessment
Assessment Defined
Assessment in Sport Education
Infusing Authentic and Workable Assessments Into Seasons
Types of Assessment Tools
Assessing In-Class Physical Activity
Assessing Out-of-Class Physical Activity
Making a Case for Your Program
Summary
Chapter 19. Organizing a Sport Education-Themed Physical Education Program
Developing a Program Mission Statement
Establishing a Distinct Program Theme
Selecting and Organizing the Program Content
Developing a Yearly Block Plan
Summary
Chapter 20. Managing a Sport Education Program
Developing Program Policies and Procedures
Management of Equipment, Facilities, and Supplies
Program Budgeting
Supervision, Safety, and Liability
Summary
Chapter 21. Integrating Classroom Content With Sport Education
The Concept of Parallel Design
A School-Wide Parallel Sport Education Season
An Olympic Values Curriculum
Using Sport Education Resources to Enhance Classroom Learning
Summary
Daryl Siedentop, PED, is a professor emeritus at The Ohio State University. He created the Sport Education model in the 1980s and published his first book on the subject, Sport Education, in 1994. He is also the author of several books on physical education, curriculum planning, and sport coaching. Dr. Siedentop earned the 1984 International Olympic Committee President’s Award (Samaranch Award), which is the highest honor for work in sport pedagogy. He is a fellow in the National Academy of Kinesiology and has received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Alumni Award from Hope College in 1991; the Alliance Scholar Award from American Alliance for Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) in 1994; the Curriculum and Instruction Academy Honor Award from the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) in 1994; the School of HPER Distinguished Alumni Award from Indiana University in 1996; and the McCloy Award from the AAHPERD Research Consortium in 1998.
Peter A. Hastie, PhD, is a professor at Auburn University and has conducted numerous seasons of Sport Education in schools. He also has published more than 40 papers on the topic. He completed the first series of empirical studies on the Sport Education model and has presented keynote speeches on the topic at the conferences in the United States and throughout the world. Dr. Hastie is a fellow in the National Academy of Kinesiology as well as the International Association for Physical Education in Higher Education (AIESEP).
Hans van der Mars, PhD, is a professor of physical education at Arizona State University. He also taught at the University of Maine and Oregon State University. He has published extensively on teaching and teacher education in physical education, coauthoring 100 research and professional papers, books, and book chapters. He also has made over 220 invited, keynote, research, and professional development presentations at international-, national-, regional-, and state-level conferences. Dr. van der Mars is a fellow of the National Academy of Kinesiology and a research fellow of SHAPE America.
Developing Positive Behavior Within a Culture of Fair Play
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs.
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs. Fortunately, the Sport Education model provides the context within which these goals can be achieved. But for Sport Education to be a site of positive responsibility, inclusion, and equitable learning environments, we need to produce season plans and individual lessons that have a democratic, inclusive, and participatory focus. Further, within these lessons there must be opportunities where fair play behaviors are addressed, together with the social (i.e., responsibility, perseverance, loyalty, and teamwork) and moral (i.e., honesty and mutual respect) properties of the sporting experience (Harvey, Kirk, & O'Donovan, 2014).
At a structural level, the basic Sport Education format of longer seasons and team membership for the duration of the season provides the motivational context within which students can learn to be good leaders, good teammates, and good competitors. They learn exactly what fair play means in the context of specific sports and other physical activities. They learn about fair play when they fulfill their roles as referees, judges, or umpires. They learn to appreciate participating in a series of good games, played hard and fairly by both teams. Good games are those where they can gradually learn the value of perseverance, the satisfaction of improvement, and the fulfillment that comes from contributing to a team effort and having that contribution recognized. None of these outcomes accrues automatically; teachers and students have to work together to ensure that these outcomes prevail.
Our approach to positive responsibility is grounded in the concept of fair play. We chose this approach because fair play is recognized throughout the world as the central concept for social development in children's and youth sport. Fair play has a much broader meaning than just playing by the rules. It also means having respect for opponents, participating with the right spirit and attitude, valuing equal opportunity, and behaving responsibly as a teammate and as a player. Table 10.1 provides a list of the characteristics of fair and unfair play, while figure 10.2 gives examples of prestigious awards given by sports governing bodies. This chapter's web resource includes numerous supporting resources aimed specifically at developing students' fair play skills.
Strategies for Teaching Fair Play and Responsibility
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved. The affiliation of students with teams and the multiple roles students have to fulfill for a season to be successful create endless opportunities for teachers to emphasize these goals and for students to learn what it means to achieve the goals. Teams meet regularly to make decisions together, and they compete for a seasonal championship. Student referees are put in situations where they make judgments to which competitors react. These situations have the potential to create tensions, disagreements, and even confrontations, all of which become teachable moments for students not only to learn what constitutes fair play but also to come to value it.
Strategies for teaching fair play differ somewhat depending on the age and experience of the students. The overall strategy is to make fair play an important and pervasive part of all that is done throughout a Sport Education season. Farias (2017) has provided a number of useful pedagogical strategies teachers can use to promote inclusion, equity, and positive responsibility. These include (1) developing positive and responsible membership, (2) developing positive and responsible peer leadership, and (3) reshaping the meaning of winning for legitimating different levels of participation and membership.
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved.
Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades.
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades. As noted in chapter 3, the historic dominance of sport in the physical education curriculum has been pointed to as one of the main causes for many of the field's problems. This resulted in efforts to de-emphasize this focus on sport and increase the focus on fitness-related content. But there is no evidence that sport as program content in itself is the problem. Rather, we regard the manner in which sports have been taught in school physical education as the central cause. In this section, we show how Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
The ultimate goal for physical educators is to have their students seek out opportunities to engage in activities practiced (and learned) in physical education at times and in settings beyond the physical education lessons. For example, if students who learn to play badminton in physical education through Sport Education then go and seek out badminton before or during school (or at home), we can say that transfer has occurred.
Such transfer, however, does not happen automatically; it needs to be planned deliberately. That is, conditions need to be arranged so that when students are not in physical education lessons, they can still seek out needed equipment, find an appropriate location, and participate in activities taught in physical education lessons. Before school as well as during recess and lunch breaks are prime campus-based times when opportunities for physical activity can be created. In the next section, we provide various strategies that can help create the conditions for transfer from activity engagement in physical education lessons to other times on campus and beyond.
Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education Lessons
In Sport Education, teachers can make enormous contributions to ensuring that all students make use of physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons. They can encourage out-of-class physical activity in various ways. Out-of-class (i.e., independent) physical activity opportunities can be made available on school grounds before school, during recess and lunch, and after school. Beyond the school grounds, opportunities exist at home, in structured sport programs, in parks, at community centers, and so on. In the following sections we offer strategies for structuring the season competition, setting up the campus environment, prompting and encouragement, and self-monitoring by students.
Structuring the Season Competition
With its strong emphasis on teams learning to work together, team competition within Sport Education seasons is likely one of the strongest incentives for students to seek out physical activity beyond the regular class sessions. Out-of-class physical activity can be built directly into the season competition. In addition to the points earned as a result of games played, duty team points, and fair play points, points for out-of-class physical activity can count directly toward a team's standing in the season competition. It is important to explain this dimension of the competition clearly in the initial class sessions of the new season. Students need to learn where they can get equipment, where it needs to be stored afterward, how they can earn physical activity points, and how they should report their out-of-class activities.
As for how such points can be earned, teachers can set a point value based on the number of minutes that a team practiced during recess or lunch period, such as one physical activity point for every five minutes of time spent in team practice. Physical activity points can also be awarded to individual team members, or on the basis of how many team members participated; that is, a team that has all of its members present and participating can be awarded additional points. The teacher is the best judge of the minutes-to-points ratio.
Just as physical activity engagement is not transferred automatically from the physical education lesson to out-of-class periods, it also does not automatically transfer to times and settings away from the school campus. This means that transfer of physical activity engagement beyond the school campus also needs to be considered. Physical activity during discretionary time outside of school (e.g., time spent at home) can be integrated into the seasonal competition in physical education. Such activity can be measured using multiple tools. For example, students can be asked to keep an activity log that provides a record of the nature of the activity and the amount of physical activity time. Or they can use pedometers that can track step counts. Upper-end pedometer models like the FITStepTM Pedometer (www.gophersport.com/assessment/pedometers) can also capture the amount time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Smartphone apps also offer physical activity tracking tools. Since many if not most secondary school-aged students own smartphones, such apps would be a good way to use technology in a physical education program. Parents of elementary school-aged students could be recruited to verify their children's daily physical activity records.
This team competition approach encourages students to work on either fitness- or technique-related activities in discretionary time outside of school. In order for this strategy to succeed, it is imperative that teachers explain to students what kinds of activities count toward daily and weekly accumulation of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Needless to say, the season can be set up so that any out-of-school physical activity can count toward the total team accumulation, or it might have to be a physical activity that is specific to the current season within the physical education lessons.
Hastie et al. (2012) demonstrated how the transfer of physical activity beyond the school day is more likely to occur as part of a jump rope season with fourth-grade students. In addition to providing verbal prompts for students to practice their jump rope skill, the teacher also provided a team bonus points challenge on selected days of the season. When students practiced their jump rope skills at home and met the amount of time spent practicing set by the teacher (and certified by their parents) they earned bonus points that counted toward the team's standing in the competition. As can be seen in figure 6.4, on days when the prompting plus bonus points condition was in effect, the average step count (the indicator of students' physical activity levels) was significantly higher than for the baseline and prompting-only condition.
The use of group contingencies is an excellent example of how out-of-class physical activity can be encouraged and reinforced. Moreover, it represents an authentic means of embedding it in a sport season and supports transfer from physical education classes to other times and settings.
Figure 6.4 Mean after-school step counts across conditions.
Reprinted by permission from P. Hastie et al. “The Effects of Prompts and a Group-Oriented Contingency on Out-of-School Physical Activity in Elementary School-Aged Students” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 31 (2012): 131-145.
Setting Up the Campus Environment
In all likelihood, merely prompting students to go out and be active on their own is not enough; they need to be supported in their out-of-class physical activity as well. You can help shape the school environment by providing such support in ways that address three key issues: access, equipment, and adult supervision
(Lorenz et al., 2017).
First, you can create access by designating the gymnasium or parts of the outdoor activity venues as areas for independent team practices. Clearly marked signage can indicate the designated team practice area, setting it apart from other activity areas that can be used for free play by other students.
Second, you can make season-specific equipment available for use before and after school by preparing an equipment cart that is placed in the same spot every day near a designated activity area. For example, through grants or by working with Parent Teacher Organizations, all the elementary school physical education programs in Chandler, Arizona, were provided such carts, with the accompanying equipment dedicated solely to supporting campus-based physical activity beyond the physical education lessons.
Team equipment managers can be made responsible for the carts, overseeing proper use of the equipment, reporting any lost or damaged equipment, and returning the cart at the end of practice.
Some teachers may argue that equipment will get damaged, lost, or mistreated if students are given the role as equipment managers. But the proper use, treatment, and management of equipment can be built directly into the season's point system through the use of fair play points that help determine the season's champion. Repeated mistreatment or loss of equipment could result in loss of fair play points or not being allowed to practice outside of class. Once teams understand that they can earn additional fair play points, they will be more inclined to use and manage equipment appropriately.
In order for team practices held outside of physical education classes to be productive, team coaches can be asked to provide written documentation on who attended team practices and on what did or did not work well during the out-of-class team practices. Such documentation would be excellent evidence about team performance that can be shared in the team's portfolio.
Third, you can recruit other adults (e.g., playground monitors) who have lunch duty by making them aware of your goal of encouraging physical activity and seeking their assistance in this process. Typically, adult monitors see themselves as responsible only for safety and overall conduct. As long as students act safely and avoid inappropriate conduct, therefore, these monitors tend to remain passive during recess or lunch periods, and yet they are also a built-in support resource. For example, they can sign the team-based physical activity log to certify that members of a team came together to practice. For them to take on this added task of monitoring team activities they will require professional development. The willingness of physical education teachers to communicate with other staff members and teachers on campus, coupled with a little training (perhaps at staff meetings), can go a long way toward creating and supporting students' physical activity opportunities throughout the school day.
Fourth, lunch periods provide ample time for team coaches to organize one good activity that can help the team prepare for the season or for the next game. Such practices should consist of informal (but purposeful) games that are typical of the natural play patterns when children and youth gather to play a game. We strongly agree with Launder and Piltz (2013), who argued that it is within this context that learners become players through experimentation. Team coaches can be encouraged to use the team practice cards and action fantasy game cards provided in the web resource for chapter 7. Note that introducing students to a particular activity during physical education class provides a perfect opportunity for you to encourage teams to engage in that same activity during out-of-class times.
When teams play and practice by themselves, they invariably have to work through problems that may emerge between team members. A central characteristic of fair play is that all team members show up for such independent team practices. If a player misses multiple practice sessions, the team has to decide how to address this problem.
Establishing a Distinct Program Theme
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme?
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme? Can you honestly state that you learned something valuable and meaningful because of your participation in it? Do you believe that all students would view these experiences in similar ways? Having a distinct program theme and organizing the content accordingly will help your program remain focused. It will also help you avoid having a program that is a repeat of the same short units that are nothing more than a smorgasbord of content and that have little if any focus on providing students with meaningful learning experiences.
A quality physical education program is one whose content reflects a distinct program theme (Tannehill et al., 2015). That is, there is coherence in what students experience as they complete the program. Examples of program themes include sport, fitness, outdoor pursuits, or personal and social responsibility. An agreed-upon program theme reflects and is determined by multiple factors. Key factors include the local topography and climate, teachers' values and beliefs, and their expertise specific to what they can teach. For example, teachers with a strong content background in outdoor pursuits and who live in more mountainous regions would most likely build a program aimed at developing students' skills and knowledge through activities such as hiking, climbing, mountain biking, canoeing, and fly-fishing. Similarly, teachers who value and believe in the importance of physical fitness and who have strong content knowledge in this area are more likely to develop a fitness-themed program. These teachers might consider incorporating the Fitness for Life model (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014), which includes content offerings aimed at helping students become informed fitness consumers. Teachers with both broad and in-depth content background in sport would likely make sport the central theme, and so Sport Education would be the logical curricular approach to build students' competency, literacy, and enthusiasm for sport. Choosing a fitness- or outdoor-themed program does not mean that the principles embedded in Sport Education cannot be used. Throughout this text, we have made reference to several examples of how Sport Education can be used with content not typically described as sport.
Can Programs Have More Than One Theme?
In most cases, because they are the only teacher in the program, physical educators in elementary schools can put their own stamp on how a program is organized. Later in this chapter we will provide more detail on how an elementary program can be structured around a theme.
Depending on the school size, secondary school programs may have anywhere from three to six physical education teachers on staff. It is not uncommon for teachers in one program to have differing values and beliefs about what the program theme and focus should be and what content should be included. This does not mean that the physical education program cannot have a distinct theme. Moreover, programs can have a dual theme. For example, over the last three decades there has been a shift in physical education programming, given the growing interest in the promotion of physical activity from a health perspective. As a result, we have seen an increased emphasis on building in more physical fitness content in K-12 programs. We view a dual-themed focus on Sport Education and Fitness for Life (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014; Corbin, Le Masurier, & Lambdin, 2018) as a natural and defensible blend. Two examples of a junior high program with a dual-themed focus are presented in Tables 19.1 and 19.2. Table 19.1 shows a program for a school where physical education is offered every day and in both grade levels, but only for one semester (i.e., 18 weeks, in either fall or spring). Table 19.2 includes a junior high school program with physical education offered every day in both grade levels over the full year. Later on in this chapter (see tables 19.5 and 19.6), when we address the use of yearly block plans, we will present another example of a dual-themed sport and fitness program in a junior high school.
In high schools, graduation requirements for physical education vary from district to district. In many districts, high school students have physical education for only two semesters or less. Moreover, the length of high schools classes varies, depending on their school's schedule. While some schools employ a standard 50-minute lesson schedule; others, where the block system is in place, have lessons lasting from 75 to 90 minutes. Still other schools use a combination of these two schedules. Also common are schools that follow an A-B format (often named after the school colors, e.g., Blue and White or Green and Gold), which results in students having physical education every other day.
In high schools with a one-year (i.e., two-semester) physical education requirement, a logical approach to creating a sport and fitness concepts dual-themed program is for all students to complete the Fitness for Life course in one semester, and use the second semester to choose a course that includes various Sport Education seasons. In this chapter's web resource, we provide examples of how these two content areas could be integrated over the course of two consecutive semesters. You may not be able to cover the entire set of chapters included in the Fitness for Life program. However, if your program provides positive experiences in the first two courses, that may attract students to an additional elective credit course titled Advanced Physical Education, during which the dual-theme focus is continued, or a single sport or fitness theme is extended.
These high school students are completing fitness-related self-assessments as part of a Fitness for Life unit within a course that includes various Sport Education seasons.
Developing Positive Behavior Within a Culture of Fair Play
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs.
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs. Fortunately, the Sport Education model provides the context within which these goals can be achieved. But for Sport Education to be a site of positive responsibility, inclusion, and equitable learning environments, we need to produce season plans and individual lessons that have a democratic, inclusive, and participatory focus. Further, within these lessons there must be opportunities where fair play behaviors are addressed, together with the social (i.e., responsibility, perseverance, loyalty, and teamwork) and moral (i.e., honesty and mutual respect) properties of the sporting experience (Harvey, Kirk, & O'Donovan, 2014).
At a structural level, the basic Sport Education format of longer seasons and team membership for the duration of the season provides the motivational context within which students can learn to be good leaders, good teammates, and good competitors. They learn exactly what fair play means in the context of specific sports and other physical activities. They learn about fair play when they fulfill their roles as referees, judges, or umpires. They learn to appreciate participating in a series of good games, played hard and fairly by both teams. Good games are those where they can gradually learn the value of perseverance, the satisfaction of improvement, and the fulfillment that comes from contributing to a team effort and having that contribution recognized. None of these outcomes accrues automatically; teachers and students have to work together to ensure that these outcomes prevail.
Our approach to positive responsibility is grounded in the concept of fair play. We chose this approach because fair play is recognized throughout the world as the central concept for social development in children's and youth sport. Fair play has a much broader meaning than just playing by the rules. It also means having respect for opponents, participating with the right spirit and attitude, valuing equal opportunity, and behaving responsibly as a teammate and as a player. Table 10.1 provides a list of the characteristics of fair and unfair play, while figure 10.2 gives examples of prestigious awards given by sports governing bodies. This chapter's web resource includes numerous supporting resources aimed specifically at developing students' fair play skills.
Strategies for Teaching Fair Play and Responsibility
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved. The affiliation of students with teams and the multiple roles students have to fulfill for a season to be successful create endless opportunities for teachers to emphasize these goals and for students to learn what it means to achieve the goals. Teams meet regularly to make decisions together, and they compete for a seasonal championship. Student referees are put in situations where they make judgments to which competitors react. These situations have the potential to create tensions, disagreements, and even confrontations, all of which become teachable moments for students not only to learn what constitutes fair play but also to come to value it.
Strategies for teaching fair play differ somewhat depending on the age and experience of the students. The overall strategy is to make fair play an important and pervasive part of all that is done throughout a Sport Education season. Farias (2017) has provided a number of useful pedagogical strategies teachers can use to promote inclusion, equity, and positive responsibility. These include (1) developing positive and responsible membership, (2) developing positive and responsible peer leadership, and (3) reshaping the meaning of winning for legitimating different levels of participation and membership.
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved.
Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades.
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades. As noted in chapter 3, the historic dominance of sport in the physical education curriculum has been pointed to as one of the main causes for many of the field's problems. This resulted in efforts to de-emphasize this focus on sport and increase the focus on fitness-related content. But there is no evidence that sport as program content in itself is the problem. Rather, we regard the manner in which sports have been taught in school physical education as the central cause. In this section, we show how Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
The ultimate goal for physical educators is to have their students seek out opportunities to engage in activities practiced (and learned) in physical education at times and in settings beyond the physical education lessons. For example, if students who learn to play badminton in physical education through Sport Education then go and seek out badminton before or during school (or at home), we can say that transfer has occurred.
Such transfer, however, does not happen automatically; it needs to be planned deliberately. That is, conditions need to be arranged so that when students are not in physical education lessons, they can still seek out needed equipment, find an appropriate location, and participate in activities taught in physical education lessons. Before school as well as during recess and lunch breaks are prime campus-based times when opportunities for physical activity can be created. In the next section, we provide various strategies that can help create the conditions for transfer from activity engagement in physical education lessons to other times on campus and beyond.
Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education Lessons
In Sport Education, teachers can make enormous contributions to ensuring that all students make use of physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons. They can encourage out-of-class physical activity in various ways. Out-of-class (i.e., independent) physical activity opportunities can be made available on school grounds before school, during recess and lunch, and after school. Beyond the school grounds, opportunities exist at home, in structured sport programs, in parks, at community centers, and so on. In the following sections we offer strategies for structuring the season competition, setting up the campus environment, prompting and encouragement, and self-monitoring by students.
Structuring the Season Competition
With its strong emphasis on teams learning to work together, team competition within Sport Education seasons is likely one of the strongest incentives for students to seek out physical activity beyond the regular class sessions. Out-of-class physical activity can be built directly into the season competition. In addition to the points earned as a result of games played, duty team points, and fair play points, points for out-of-class physical activity can count directly toward a team's standing in the season competition. It is important to explain this dimension of the competition clearly in the initial class sessions of the new season. Students need to learn where they can get equipment, where it needs to be stored afterward, how they can earn physical activity points, and how they should report their out-of-class activities.
As for how such points can be earned, teachers can set a point value based on the number of minutes that a team practiced during recess or lunch period, such as one physical activity point for every five minutes of time spent in team practice. Physical activity points can also be awarded to individual team members, or on the basis of how many team members participated; that is, a team that has all of its members present and participating can be awarded additional points. The teacher is the best judge of the minutes-to-points ratio.
Just as physical activity engagement is not transferred automatically from the physical education lesson to out-of-class periods, it also does not automatically transfer to times and settings away from the school campus. This means that transfer of physical activity engagement beyond the school campus also needs to be considered. Physical activity during discretionary time outside of school (e.g., time spent at home) can be integrated into the seasonal competition in physical education. Such activity can be measured using multiple tools. For example, students can be asked to keep an activity log that provides a record of the nature of the activity and the amount of physical activity time. Or they can use pedometers that can track step counts. Upper-end pedometer models like the FITStepTM Pedometer (www.gophersport.com/assessment/pedometers) can also capture the amount time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Smartphone apps also offer physical activity tracking tools. Since many if not most secondary school-aged students own smartphones, such apps would be a good way to use technology in a physical education program. Parents of elementary school-aged students could be recruited to verify their children's daily physical activity records.
This team competition approach encourages students to work on either fitness- or technique-related activities in discretionary time outside of school. In order for this strategy to succeed, it is imperative that teachers explain to students what kinds of activities count toward daily and weekly accumulation of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Needless to say, the season can be set up so that any out-of-school physical activity can count toward the total team accumulation, or it might have to be a physical activity that is specific to the current season within the physical education lessons.
Hastie et al. (2012) demonstrated how the transfer of physical activity beyond the school day is more likely to occur as part of a jump rope season with fourth-grade students. In addition to providing verbal prompts for students to practice their jump rope skill, the teacher also provided a team bonus points challenge on selected days of the season. When students practiced their jump rope skills at home and met the amount of time spent practicing set by the teacher (and certified by their parents) they earned bonus points that counted toward the team's standing in the competition. As can be seen in figure 6.4, on days when the prompting plus bonus points condition was in effect, the average step count (the indicator of students' physical activity levels) was significantly higher than for the baseline and prompting-only condition.
The use of group contingencies is an excellent example of how out-of-class physical activity can be encouraged and reinforced. Moreover, it represents an authentic means of embedding it in a sport season and supports transfer from physical education classes to other times and settings.
Figure 6.4 Mean after-school step counts across conditions.
Reprinted by permission from P. Hastie et al. “The Effects of Prompts and a Group-Oriented Contingency on Out-of-School Physical Activity in Elementary School-Aged Students” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 31 (2012): 131-145.
Setting Up the Campus Environment
In all likelihood, merely prompting students to go out and be active on their own is not enough; they need to be supported in their out-of-class physical activity as well. You can help shape the school environment by providing such support in ways that address three key issues: access, equipment, and adult supervision
(Lorenz et al., 2017).
First, you can create access by designating the gymnasium or parts of the outdoor activity venues as areas for independent team practices. Clearly marked signage can indicate the designated team practice area, setting it apart from other activity areas that can be used for free play by other students.
Second, you can make season-specific equipment available for use before and after school by preparing an equipment cart that is placed in the same spot every day near a designated activity area. For example, through grants or by working with Parent Teacher Organizations, all the elementary school physical education programs in Chandler, Arizona, were provided such carts, with the accompanying equipment dedicated solely to supporting campus-based physical activity beyond the physical education lessons.
Team equipment managers can be made responsible for the carts, overseeing proper use of the equipment, reporting any lost or damaged equipment, and returning the cart at the end of practice.
Some teachers may argue that equipment will get damaged, lost, or mistreated if students are given the role as equipment managers. But the proper use, treatment, and management of equipment can be built directly into the season's point system through the use of fair play points that help determine the season's champion. Repeated mistreatment or loss of equipment could result in loss of fair play points or not being allowed to practice outside of class. Once teams understand that they can earn additional fair play points, they will be more inclined to use and manage equipment appropriately.
In order for team practices held outside of physical education classes to be productive, team coaches can be asked to provide written documentation on who attended team practices and on what did or did not work well during the out-of-class team practices. Such documentation would be excellent evidence about team performance that can be shared in the team's portfolio.
Third, you can recruit other adults (e.g., playground monitors) who have lunch duty by making them aware of your goal of encouraging physical activity and seeking their assistance in this process. Typically, adult monitors see themselves as responsible only for safety and overall conduct. As long as students act safely and avoid inappropriate conduct, therefore, these monitors tend to remain passive during recess or lunch periods, and yet they are also a built-in support resource. For example, they can sign the team-based physical activity log to certify that members of a team came together to practice. For them to take on this added task of monitoring team activities they will require professional development. The willingness of physical education teachers to communicate with other staff members and teachers on campus, coupled with a little training (perhaps at staff meetings), can go a long way toward creating and supporting students' physical activity opportunities throughout the school day.
Fourth, lunch periods provide ample time for team coaches to organize one good activity that can help the team prepare for the season or for the next game. Such practices should consist of informal (but purposeful) games that are typical of the natural play patterns when children and youth gather to play a game. We strongly agree with Launder and Piltz (2013), who argued that it is within this context that learners become players through experimentation. Team coaches can be encouraged to use the team practice cards and action fantasy game cards provided in the web resource for chapter 7. Note that introducing students to a particular activity during physical education class provides a perfect opportunity for you to encourage teams to engage in that same activity during out-of-class times.
When teams play and practice by themselves, they invariably have to work through problems that may emerge between team members. A central characteristic of fair play is that all team members show up for such independent team practices. If a player misses multiple practice sessions, the team has to decide how to address this problem.
Establishing a Distinct Program Theme
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme?
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme? Can you honestly state that you learned something valuable and meaningful because of your participation in it? Do you believe that all students would view these experiences in similar ways? Having a distinct program theme and organizing the content accordingly will help your program remain focused. It will also help you avoid having a program that is a repeat of the same short units that are nothing more than a smorgasbord of content and that have little if any focus on providing students with meaningful learning experiences.
A quality physical education program is one whose content reflects a distinct program theme (Tannehill et al., 2015). That is, there is coherence in what students experience as they complete the program. Examples of program themes include sport, fitness, outdoor pursuits, or personal and social responsibility. An agreed-upon program theme reflects and is determined by multiple factors. Key factors include the local topography and climate, teachers' values and beliefs, and their expertise specific to what they can teach. For example, teachers with a strong content background in outdoor pursuits and who live in more mountainous regions would most likely build a program aimed at developing students' skills and knowledge through activities such as hiking, climbing, mountain biking, canoeing, and fly-fishing. Similarly, teachers who value and believe in the importance of physical fitness and who have strong content knowledge in this area are more likely to develop a fitness-themed program. These teachers might consider incorporating the Fitness for Life model (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014), which includes content offerings aimed at helping students become informed fitness consumers. Teachers with both broad and in-depth content background in sport would likely make sport the central theme, and so Sport Education would be the logical curricular approach to build students' competency, literacy, and enthusiasm for sport. Choosing a fitness- or outdoor-themed program does not mean that the principles embedded in Sport Education cannot be used. Throughout this text, we have made reference to several examples of how Sport Education can be used with content not typically described as sport.
Can Programs Have More Than One Theme?
In most cases, because they are the only teacher in the program, physical educators in elementary schools can put their own stamp on how a program is organized. Later in this chapter we will provide more detail on how an elementary program can be structured around a theme.
Depending on the school size, secondary school programs may have anywhere from three to six physical education teachers on staff. It is not uncommon for teachers in one program to have differing values and beliefs about what the program theme and focus should be and what content should be included. This does not mean that the physical education program cannot have a distinct theme. Moreover, programs can have a dual theme. For example, over the last three decades there has been a shift in physical education programming, given the growing interest in the promotion of physical activity from a health perspective. As a result, we have seen an increased emphasis on building in more physical fitness content in K-12 programs. We view a dual-themed focus on Sport Education and Fitness for Life (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014; Corbin, Le Masurier, & Lambdin, 2018) as a natural and defensible blend. Two examples of a junior high program with a dual-themed focus are presented in Tables 19.1 and 19.2. Table 19.1 shows a program for a school where physical education is offered every day and in both grade levels, but only for one semester (i.e., 18 weeks, in either fall or spring). Table 19.2 includes a junior high school program with physical education offered every day in both grade levels over the full year. Later on in this chapter (see tables 19.5 and 19.6), when we address the use of yearly block plans, we will present another example of a dual-themed sport and fitness program in a junior high school.
In high schools, graduation requirements for physical education vary from district to district. In many districts, high school students have physical education for only two semesters or less. Moreover, the length of high schools classes varies, depending on their school's schedule. While some schools employ a standard 50-minute lesson schedule; others, where the block system is in place, have lessons lasting from 75 to 90 minutes. Still other schools use a combination of these two schedules. Also common are schools that follow an A-B format (often named after the school colors, e.g., Blue and White or Green and Gold), which results in students having physical education every other day.
In high schools with a one-year (i.e., two-semester) physical education requirement, a logical approach to creating a sport and fitness concepts dual-themed program is for all students to complete the Fitness for Life course in one semester, and use the second semester to choose a course that includes various Sport Education seasons. In this chapter's web resource, we provide examples of how these two content areas could be integrated over the course of two consecutive semesters. You may not be able to cover the entire set of chapters included in the Fitness for Life program. However, if your program provides positive experiences in the first two courses, that may attract students to an additional elective credit course titled Advanced Physical Education, during which the dual-theme focus is continued, or a single sport or fitness theme is extended.
These high school students are completing fitness-related self-assessments as part of a Fitness for Life unit within a course that includes various Sport Education seasons.
Developing Positive Behavior Within a Culture of Fair Play
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs.
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs. Fortunately, the Sport Education model provides the context within which these goals can be achieved. But for Sport Education to be a site of positive responsibility, inclusion, and equitable learning environments, we need to produce season plans and individual lessons that have a democratic, inclusive, and participatory focus. Further, within these lessons there must be opportunities where fair play behaviors are addressed, together with the social (i.e., responsibility, perseverance, loyalty, and teamwork) and moral (i.e., honesty and mutual respect) properties of the sporting experience (Harvey, Kirk, & O'Donovan, 2014).
At a structural level, the basic Sport Education format of longer seasons and team membership for the duration of the season provides the motivational context within which students can learn to be good leaders, good teammates, and good competitors. They learn exactly what fair play means in the context of specific sports and other physical activities. They learn about fair play when they fulfill their roles as referees, judges, or umpires. They learn to appreciate participating in a series of good games, played hard and fairly by both teams. Good games are those where they can gradually learn the value of perseverance, the satisfaction of improvement, and the fulfillment that comes from contributing to a team effort and having that contribution recognized. None of these outcomes accrues automatically; teachers and students have to work together to ensure that these outcomes prevail.
Our approach to positive responsibility is grounded in the concept of fair play. We chose this approach because fair play is recognized throughout the world as the central concept for social development in children's and youth sport. Fair play has a much broader meaning than just playing by the rules. It also means having respect for opponents, participating with the right spirit and attitude, valuing equal opportunity, and behaving responsibly as a teammate and as a player. Table 10.1 provides a list of the characteristics of fair and unfair play, while figure 10.2 gives examples of prestigious awards given by sports governing bodies. This chapter's web resource includes numerous supporting resources aimed specifically at developing students' fair play skills.
Strategies for Teaching Fair Play and Responsibility
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved. The affiliation of students with teams and the multiple roles students have to fulfill for a season to be successful create endless opportunities for teachers to emphasize these goals and for students to learn what it means to achieve the goals. Teams meet regularly to make decisions together, and they compete for a seasonal championship. Student referees are put in situations where they make judgments to which competitors react. These situations have the potential to create tensions, disagreements, and even confrontations, all of which become teachable moments for students not only to learn what constitutes fair play but also to come to value it.
Strategies for teaching fair play differ somewhat depending on the age and experience of the students. The overall strategy is to make fair play an important and pervasive part of all that is done throughout a Sport Education season. Farias (2017) has provided a number of useful pedagogical strategies teachers can use to promote inclusion, equity, and positive responsibility. These include (1) developing positive and responsible membership, (2) developing positive and responsible peer leadership, and (3) reshaping the meaning of winning for legitimating different levels of participation and membership.
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved.
Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades.
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades. As noted in chapter 3, the historic dominance of sport in the physical education curriculum has been pointed to as one of the main causes for many of the field's problems. This resulted in efforts to de-emphasize this focus on sport and increase the focus on fitness-related content. But there is no evidence that sport as program content in itself is the problem. Rather, we regard the manner in which sports have been taught in school physical education as the central cause. In this section, we show how Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
The ultimate goal for physical educators is to have their students seek out opportunities to engage in activities practiced (and learned) in physical education at times and in settings beyond the physical education lessons. For example, if students who learn to play badminton in physical education through Sport Education then go and seek out badminton before or during school (or at home), we can say that transfer has occurred.
Such transfer, however, does not happen automatically; it needs to be planned deliberately. That is, conditions need to be arranged so that when students are not in physical education lessons, they can still seek out needed equipment, find an appropriate location, and participate in activities taught in physical education lessons. Before school as well as during recess and lunch breaks are prime campus-based times when opportunities for physical activity can be created. In the next section, we provide various strategies that can help create the conditions for transfer from activity engagement in physical education lessons to other times on campus and beyond.
Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education Lessons
In Sport Education, teachers can make enormous contributions to ensuring that all students make use of physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons. They can encourage out-of-class physical activity in various ways. Out-of-class (i.e., independent) physical activity opportunities can be made available on school grounds before school, during recess and lunch, and after school. Beyond the school grounds, opportunities exist at home, in structured sport programs, in parks, at community centers, and so on. In the following sections we offer strategies for structuring the season competition, setting up the campus environment, prompting and encouragement, and self-monitoring by students.
Structuring the Season Competition
With its strong emphasis on teams learning to work together, team competition within Sport Education seasons is likely one of the strongest incentives for students to seek out physical activity beyond the regular class sessions. Out-of-class physical activity can be built directly into the season competition. In addition to the points earned as a result of games played, duty team points, and fair play points, points for out-of-class physical activity can count directly toward a team's standing in the season competition. It is important to explain this dimension of the competition clearly in the initial class sessions of the new season. Students need to learn where they can get equipment, where it needs to be stored afterward, how they can earn physical activity points, and how they should report their out-of-class activities.
As for how such points can be earned, teachers can set a point value based on the number of minutes that a team practiced during recess or lunch period, such as one physical activity point for every five minutes of time spent in team practice. Physical activity points can also be awarded to individual team members, or on the basis of how many team members participated; that is, a team that has all of its members present and participating can be awarded additional points. The teacher is the best judge of the minutes-to-points ratio.
Just as physical activity engagement is not transferred automatically from the physical education lesson to out-of-class periods, it also does not automatically transfer to times and settings away from the school campus. This means that transfer of physical activity engagement beyond the school campus also needs to be considered. Physical activity during discretionary time outside of school (e.g., time spent at home) can be integrated into the seasonal competition in physical education. Such activity can be measured using multiple tools. For example, students can be asked to keep an activity log that provides a record of the nature of the activity and the amount of physical activity time. Or they can use pedometers that can track step counts. Upper-end pedometer models like the FITStepTM Pedometer (www.gophersport.com/assessment/pedometers) can also capture the amount time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Smartphone apps also offer physical activity tracking tools. Since many if not most secondary school-aged students own smartphones, such apps would be a good way to use technology in a physical education program. Parents of elementary school-aged students could be recruited to verify their children's daily physical activity records.
This team competition approach encourages students to work on either fitness- or technique-related activities in discretionary time outside of school. In order for this strategy to succeed, it is imperative that teachers explain to students what kinds of activities count toward daily and weekly accumulation of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Needless to say, the season can be set up so that any out-of-school physical activity can count toward the total team accumulation, or it might have to be a physical activity that is specific to the current season within the physical education lessons.
Hastie et al. (2012) demonstrated how the transfer of physical activity beyond the school day is more likely to occur as part of a jump rope season with fourth-grade students. In addition to providing verbal prompts for students to practice their jump rope skill, the teacher also provided a team bonus points challenge on selected days of the season. When students practiced their jump rope skills at home and met the amount of time spent practicing set by the teacher (and certified by their parents) they earned bonus points that counted toward the team's standing in the competition. As can be seen in figure 6.4, on days when the prompting plus bonus points condition was in effect, the average step count (the indicator of students' physical activity levels) was significantly higher than for the baseline and prompting-only condition.
The use of group contingencies is an excellent example of how out-of-class physical activity can be encouraged and reinforced. Moreover, it represents an authentic means of embedding it in a sport season and supports transfer from physical education classes to other times and settings.
Figure 6.4 Mean after-school step counts across conditions.
Reprinted by permission from P. Hastie et al. “The Effects of Prompts and a Group-Oriented Contingency on Out-of-School Physical Activity in Elementary School-Aged Students” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 31 (2012): 131-145.
Setting Up the Campus Environment
In all likelihood, merely prompting students to go out and be active on their own is not enough; they need to be supported in their out-of-class physical activity as well. You can help shape the school environment by providing such support in ways that address three key issues: access, equipment, and adult supervision
(Lorenz et al., 2017).
First, you can create access by designating the gymnasium or parts of the outdoor activity venues as areas for independent team practices. Clearly marked signage can indicate the designated team practice area, setting it apart from other activity areas that can be used for free play by other students.
Second, you can make season-specific equipment available for use before and after school by preparing an equipment cart that is placed in the same spot every day near a designated activity area. For example, through grants or by working with Parent Teacher Organizations, all the elementary school physical education programs in Chandler, Arizona, were provided such carts, with the accompanying equipment dedicated solely to supporting campus-based physical activity beyond the physical education lessons.
Team equipment managers can be made responsible for the carts, overseeing proper use of the equipment, reporting any lost or damaged equipment, and returning the cart at the end of practice.
Some teachers may argue that equipment will get damaged, lost, or mistreated if students are given the role as equipment managers. But the proper use, treatment, and management of equipment can be built directly into the season's point system through the use of fair play points that help determine the season's champion. Repeated mistreatment or loss of equipment could result in loss of fair play points or not being allowed to practice outside of class. Once teams understand that they can earn additional fair play points, they will be more inclined to use and manage equipment appropriately.
In order for team practices held outside of physical education classes to be productive, team coaches can be asked to provide written documentation on who attended team practices and on what did or did not work well during the out-of-class team practices. Such documentation would be excellent evidence about team performance that can be shared in the team's portfolio.
Third, you can recruit other adults (e.g., playground monitors) who have lunch duty by making them aware of your goal of encouraging physical activity and seeking their assistance in this process. Typically, adult monitors see themselves as responsible only for safety and overall conduct. As long as students act safely and avoid inappropriate conduct, therefore, these monitors tend to remain passive during recess or lunch periods, and yet they are also a built-in support resource. For example, they can sign the team-based physical activity log to certify that members of a team came together to practice. For them to take on this added task of monitoring team activities they will require professional development. The willingness of physical education teachers to communicate with other staff members and teachers on campus, coupled with a little training (perhaps at staff meetings), can go a long way toward creating and supporting students' physical activity opportunities throughout the school day.
Fourth, lunch periods provide ample time for team coaches to organize one good activity that can help the team prepare for the season or for the next game. Such practices should consist of informal (but purposeful) games that are typical of the natural play patterns when children and youth gather to play a game. We strongly agree with Launder and Piltz (2013), who argued that it is within this context that learners become players through experimentation. Team coaches can be encouraged to use the team practice cards and action fantasy game cards provided in the web resource for chapter 7. Note that introducing students to a particular activity during physical education class provides a perfect opportunity for you to encourage teams to engage in that same activity during out-of-class times.
When teams play and practice by themselves, they invariably have to work through problems that may emerge between team members. A central characteristic of fair play is that all team members show up for such independent team practices. If a player misses multiple practice sessions, the team has to decide how to address this problem.
Establishing a Distinct Program Theme
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme?
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme? Can you honestly state that you learned something valuable and meaningful because of your participation in it? Do you believe that all students would view these experiences in similar ways? Having a distinct program theme and organizing the content accordingly will help your program remain focused. It will also help you avoid having a program that is a repeat of the same short units that are nothing more than a smorgasbord of content and that have little if any focus on providing students with meaningful learning experiences.
A quality physical education program is one whose content reflects a distinct program theme (Tannehill et al., 2015). That is, there is coherence in what students experience as they complete the program. Examples of program themes include sport, fitness, outdoor pursuits, or personal and social responsibility. An agreed-upon program theme reflects and is determined by multiple factors. Key factors include the local topography and climate, teachers' values and beliefs, and their expertise specific to what they can teach. For example, teachers with a strong content background in outdoor pursuits and who live in more mountainous regions would most likely build a program aimed at developing students' skills and knowledge through activities such as hiking, climbing, mountain biking, canoeing, and fly-fishing. Similarly, teachers who value and believe in the importance of physical fitness and who have strong content knowledge in this area are more likely to develop a fitness-themed program. These teachers might consider incorporating the Fitness for Life model (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014), which includes content offerings aimed at helping students become informed fitness consumers. Teachers with both broad and in-depth content background in sport would likely make sport the central theme, and so Sport Education would be the logical curricular approach to build students' competency, literacy, and enthusiasm for sport. Choosing a fitness- or outdoor-themed program does not mean that the principles embedded in Sport Education cannot be used. Throughout this text, we have made reference to several examples of how Sport Education can be used with content not typically described as sport.
Can Programs Have More Than One Theme?
In most cases, because they are the only teacher in the program, physical educators in elementary schools can put their own stamp on how a program is organized. Later in this chapter we will provide more detail on how an elementary program can be structured around a theme.
Depending on the school size, secondary school programs may have anywhere from three to six physical education teachers on staff. It is not uncommon for teachers in one program to have differing values and beliefs about what the program theme and focus should be and what content should be included. This does not mean that the physical education program cannot have a distinct theme. Moreover, programs can have a dual theme. For example, over the last three decades there has been a shift in physical education programming, given the growing interest in the promotion of physical activity from a health perspective. As a result, we have seen an increased emphasis on building in more physical fitness content in K-12 programs. We view a dual-themed focus on Sport Education and Fitness for Life (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014; Corbin, Le Masurier, & Lambdin, 2018) as a natural and defensible blend. Two examples of a junior high program with a dual-themed focus are presented in Tables 19.1 and 19.2. Table 19.1 shows a program for a school where physical education is offered every day and in both grade levels, but only for one semester (i.e., 18 weeks, in either fall or spring). Table 19.2 includes a junior high school program with physical education offered every day in both grade levels over the full year. Later on in this chapter (see tables 19.5 and 19.6), when we address the use of yearly block plans, we will present another example of a dual-themed sport and fitness program in a junior high school.
In high schools, graduation requirements for physical education vary from district to district. In many districts, high school students have physical education for only two semesters or less. Moreover, the length of high schools classes varies, depending on their school's schedule. While some schools employ a standard 50-minute lesson schedule; others, where the block system is in place, have lessons lasting from 75 to 90 minutes. Still other schools use a combination of these two schedules. Also common are schools that follow an A-B format (often named after the school colors, e.g., Blue and White or Green and Gold), which results in students having physical education every other day.
In high schools with a one-year (i.e., two-semester) physical education requirement, a logical approach to creating a sport and fitness concepts dual-themed program is for all students to complete the Fitness for Life course in one semester, and use the second semester to choose a course that includes various Sport Education seasons. In this chapter's web resource, we provide examples of how these two content areas could be integrated over the course of two consecutive semesters. You may not be able to cover the entire set of chapters included in the Fitness for Life program. However, if your program provides positive experiences in the first two courses, that may attract students to an additional elective credit course titled Advanced Physical Education, during which the dual-theme focus is continued, or a single sport or fitness theme is extended.
These high school students are completing fitness-related self-assessments as part of a Fitness for Life unit within a course that includes various Sport Education seasons.
Developing Positive Behavior Within a Culture of Fair Play
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs.
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs. Fortunately, the Sport Education model provides the context within which these goals can be achieved. But for Sport Education to be a site of positive responsibility, inclusion, and equitable learning environments, we need to produce season plans and individual lessons that have a democratic, inclusive, and participatory focus. Further, within these lessons there must be opportunities where fair play behaviors are addressed, together with the social (i.e., responsibility, perseverance, loyalty, and teamwork) and moral (i.e., honesty and mutual respect) properties of the sporting experience (Harvey, Kirk, & O'Donovan, 2014).
At a structural level, the basic Sport Education format of longer seasons and team membership for the duration of the season provides the motivational context within which students can learn to be good leaders, good teammates, and good competitors. They learn exactly what fair play means in the context of specific sports and other physical activities. They learn about fair play when they fulfill their roles as referees, judges, or umpires. They learn to appreciate participating in a series of good games, played hard and fairly by both teams. Good games are those where they can gradually learn the value of perseverance, the satisfaction of improvement, and the fulfillment that comes from contributing to a team effort and having that contribution recognized. None of these outcomes accrues automatically; teachers and students have to work together to ensure that these outcomes prevail.
Our approach to positive responsibility is grounded in the concept of fair play. We chose this approach because fair play is recognized throughout the world as the central concept for social development in children's and youth sport. Fair play has a much broader meaning than just playing by the rules. It also means having respect for opponents, participating with the right spirit and attitude, valuing equal opportunity, and behaving responsibly as a teammate and as a player. Table 10.1 provides a list of the characteristics of fair and unfair play, while figure 10.2 gives examples of prestigious awards given by sports governing bodies. This chapter's web resource includes numerous supporting resources aimed specifically at developing students' fair play skills.
Strategies for Teaching Fair Play and Responsibility
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved. The affiliation of students with teams and the multiple roles students have to fulfill for a season to be successful create endless opportunities for teachers to emphasize these goals and for students to learn what it means to achieve the goals. Teams meet regularly to make decisions together, and they compete for a seasonal championship. Student referees are put in situations where they make judgments to which competitors react. These situations have the potential to create tensions, disagreements, and even confrontations, all of which become teachable moments for students not only to learn what constitutes fair play but also to come to value it.
Strategies for teaching fair play differ somewhat depending on the age and experience of the students. The overall strategy is to make fair play an important and pervasive part of all that is done throughout a Sport Education season. Farias (2017) has provided a number of useful pedagogical strategies teachers can use to promote inclusion, equity, and positive responsibility. These include (1) developing positive and responsible membership, (2) developing positive and responsible peer leadership, and (3) reshaping the meaning of winning for legitimating different levels of participation and membership.
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved.
Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades.
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades. As noted in chapter 3, the historic dominance of sport in the physical education curriculum has been pointed to as one of the main causes for many of the field's problems. This resulted in efforts to de-emphasize this focus on sport and increase the focus on fitness-related content. But there is no evidence that sport as program content in itself is the problem. Rather, we regard the manner in which sports have been taught in school physical education as the central cause. In this section, we show how Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
The ultimate goal for physical educators is to have their students seek out opportunities to engage in activities practiced (and learned) in physical education at times and in settings beyond the physical education lessons. For example, if students who learn to play badminton in physical education through Sport Education then go and seek out badminton before or during school (or at home), we can say that transfer has occurred.
Such transfer, however, does not happen automatically; it needs to be planned deliberately. That is, conditions need to be arranged so that when students are not in physical education lessons, they can still seek out needed equipment, find an appropriate location, and participate in activities taught in physical education lessons. Before school as well as during recess and lunch breaks are prime campus-based times when opportunities for physical activity can be created. In the next section, we provide various strategies that can help create the conditions for transfer from activity engagement in physical education lessons to other times on campus and beyond.
Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education Lessons
In Sport Education, teachers can make enormous contributions to ensuring that all students make use of physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons. They can encourage out-of-class physical activity in various ways. Out-of-class (i.e., independent) physical activity opportunities can be made available on school grounds before school, during recess and lunch, and after school. Beyond the school grounds, opportunities exist at home, in structured sport programs, in parks, at community centers, and so on. In the following sections we offer strategies for structuring the season competition, setting up the campus environment, prompting and encouragement, and self-monitoring by students.
Structuring the Season Competition
With its strong emphasis on teams learning to work together, team competition within Sport Education seasons is likely one of the strongest incentives for students to seek out physical activity beyond the regular class sessions. Out-of-class physical activity can be built directly into the season competition. In addition to the points earned as a result of games played, duty team points, and fair play points, points for out-of-class physical activity can count directly toward a team's standing in the season competition. It is important to explain this dimension of the competition clearly in the initial class sessions of the new season. Students need to learn where they can get equipment, where it needs to be stored afterward, how they can earn physical activity points, and how they should report their out-of-class activities.
As for how such points can be earned, teachers can set a point value based on the number of minutes that a team practiced during recess or lunch period, such as one physical activity point for every five minutes of time spent in team practice. Physical activity points can also be awarded to individual team members, or on the basis of how many team members participated; that is, a team that has all of its members present and participating can be awarded additional points. The teacher is the best judge of the minutes-to-points ratio.
Just as physical activity engagement is not transferred automatically from the physical education lesson to out-of-class periods, it also does not automatically transfer to times and settings away from the school campus. This means that transfer of physical activity engagement beyond the school campus also needs to be considered. Physical activity during discretionary time outside of school (e.g., time spent at home) can be integrated into the seasonal competition in physical education. Such activity can be measured using multiple tools. For example, students can be asked to keep an activity log that provides a record of the nature of the activity and the amount of physical activity time. Or they can use pedometers that can track step counts. Upper-end pedometer models like the FITStepTM Pedometer (www.gophersport.com/assessment/pedometers) can also capture the amount time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Smartphone apps also offer physical activity tracking tools. Since many if not most secondary school-aged students own smartphones, such apps would be a good way to use technology in a physical education program. Parents of elementary school-aged students could be recruited to verify their children's daily physical activity records.
This team competition approach encourages students to work on either fitness- or technique-related activities in discretionary time outside of school. In order for this strategy to succeed, it is imperative that teachers explain to students what kinds of activities count toward daily and weekly accumulation of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Needless to say, the season can be set up so that any out-of-school physical activity can count toward the total team accumulation, or it might have to be a physical activity that is specific to the current season within the physical education lessons.
Hastie et al. (2012) demonstrated how the transfer of physical activity beyond the school day is more likely to occur as part of a jump rope season with fourth-grade students. In addition to providing verbal prompts for students to practice their jump rope skill, the teacher also provided a team bonus points challenge on selected days of the season. When students practiced their jump rope skills at home and met the amount of time spent practicing set by the teacher (and certified by their parents) they earned bonus points that counted toward the team's standing in the competition. As can be seen in figure 6.4, on days when the prompting plus bonus points condition was in effect, the average step count (the indicator of students' physical activity levels) was significantly higher than for the baseline and prompting-only condition.
The use of group contingencies is an excellent example of how out-of-class physical activity can be encouraged and reinforced. Moreover, it represents an authentic means of embedding it in a sport season and supports transfer from physical education classes to other times and settings.
Figure 6.4 Mean after-school step counts across conditions.
Reprinted by permission from P. Hastie et al. “The Effects of Prompts and a Group-Oriented Contingency on Out-of-School Physical Activity in Elementary School-Aged Students” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 31 (2012): 131-145.
Setting Up the Campus Environment
In all likelihood, merely prompting students to go out and be active on their own is not enough; they need to be supported in their out-of-class physical activity as well. You can help shape the school environment by providing such support in ways that address three key issues: access, equipment, and adult supervision
(Lorenz et al., 2017).
First, you can create access by designating the gymnasium or parts of the outdoor activity venues as areas for independent team practices. Clearly marked signage can indicate the designated team practice area, setting it apart from other activity areas that can be used for free play by other students.
Second, you can make season-specific equipment available for use before and after school by preparing an equipment cart that is placed in the same spot every day near a designated activity area. For example, through grants or by working with Parent Teacher Organizations, all the elementary school physical education programs in Chandler, Arizona, were provided such carts, with the accompanying equipment dedicated solely to supporting campus-based physical activity beyond the physical education lessons.
Team equipment managers can be made responsible for the carts, overseeing proper use of the equipment, reporting any lost or damaged equipment, and returning the cart at the end of practice.
Some teachers may argue that equipment will get damaged, lost, or mistreated if students are given the role as equipment managers. But the proper use, treatment, and management of equipment can be built directly into the season's point system through the use of fair play points that help determine the season's champion. Repeated mistreatment or loss of equipment could result in loss of fair play points or not being allowed to practice outside of class. Once teams understand that they can earn additional fair play points, they will be more inclined to use and manage equipment appropriately.
In order for team practices held outside of physical education classes to be productive, team coaches can be asked to provide written documentation on who attended team practices and on what did or did not work well during the out-of-class team practices. Such documentation would be excellent evidence about team performance that can be shared in the team's portfolio.
Third, you can recruit other adults (e.g., playground monitors) who have lunch duty by making them aware of your goal of encouraging physical activity and seeking their assistance in this process. Typically, adult monitors see themselves as responsible only for safety and overall conduct. As long as students act safely and avoid inappropriate conduct, therefore, these monitors tend to remain passive during recess or lunch periods, and yet they are also a built-in support resource. For example, they can sign the team-based physical activity log to certify that members of a team came together to practice. For them to take on this added task of monitoring team activities they will require professional development. The willingness of physical education teachers to communicate with other staff members and teachers on campus, coupled with a little training (perhaps at staff meetings), can go a long way toward creating and supporting students' physical activity opportunities throughout the school day.
Fourth, lunch periods provide ample time for team coaches to organize one good activity that can help the team prepare for the season or for the next game. Such practices should consist of informal (but purposeful) games that are typical of the natural play patterns when children and youth gather to play a game. We strongly agree with Launder and Piltz (2013), who argued that it is within this context that learners become players through experimentation. Team coaches can be encouraged to use the team practice cards and action fantasy game cards provided in the web resource for chapter 7. Note that introducing students to a particular activity during physical education class provides a perfect opportunity for you to encourage teams to engage in that same activity during out-of-class times.
When teams play and practice by themselves, they invariably have to work through problems that may emerge between team members. A central characteristic of fair play is that all team members show up for such independent team practices. If a player misses multiple practice sessions, the team has to decide how to address this problem.
Establishing a Distinct Program Theme
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme?
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme? Can you honestly state that you learned something valuable and meaningful because of your participation in it? Do you believe that all students would view these experiences in similar ways? Having a distinct program theme and organizing the content accordingly will help your program remain focused. It will also help you avoid having a program that is a repeat of the same short units that are nothing more than a smorgasbord of content and that have little if any focus on providing students with meaningful learning experiences.
A quality physical education program is one whose content reflects a distinct program theme (Tannehill et al., 2015). That is, there is coherence in what students experience as they complete the program. Examples of program themes include sport, fitness, outdoor pursuits, or personal and social responsibility. An agreed-upon program theme reflects and is determined by multiple factors. Key factors include the local topography and climate, teachers' values and beliefs, and their expertise specific to what they can teach. For example, teachers with a strong content background in outdoor pursuits and who live in more mountainous regions would most likely build a program aimed at developing students' skills and knowledge through activities such as hiking, climbing, mountain biking, canoeing, and fly-fishing. Similarly, teachers who value and believe in the importance of physical fitness and who have strong content knowledge in this area are more likely to develop a fitness-themed program. These teachers might consider incorporating the Fitness for Life model (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014), which includes content offerings aimed at helping students become informed fitness consumers. Teachers with both broad and in-depth content background in sport would likely make sport the central theme, and so Sport Education would be the logical curricular approach to build students' competency, literacy, and enthusiasm for sport. Choosing a fitness- or outdoor-themed program does not mean that the principles embedded in Sport Education cannot be used. Throughout this text, we have made reference to several examples of how Sport Education can be used with content not typically described as sport.
Can Programs Have More Than One Theme?
In most cases, because they are the only teacher in the program, physical educators in elementary schools can put their own stamp on how a program is organized. Later in this chapter we will provide more detail on how an elementary program can be structured around a theme.
Depending on the school size, secondary school programs may have anywhere from three to six physical education teachers on staff. It is not uncommon for teachers in one program to have differing values and beliefs about what the program theme and focus should be and what content should be included. This does not mean that the physical education program cannot have a distinct theme. Moreover, programs can have a dual theme. For example, over the last three decades there has been a shift in physical education programming, given the growing interest in the promotion of physical activity from a health perspective. As a result, we have seen an increased emphasis on building in more physical fitness content in K-12 programs. We view a dual-themed focus on Sport Education and Fitness for Life (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014; Corbin, Le Masurier, & Lambdin, 2018) as a natural and defensible blend. Two examples of a junior high program with a dual-themed focus are presented in Tables 19.1 and 19.2. Table 19.1 shows a program for a school where physical education is offered every day and in both grade levels, but only for one semester (i.e., 18 weeks, in either fall or spring). Table 19.2 includes a junior high school program with physical education offered every day in both grade levels over the full year. Later on in this chapter (see tables 19.5 and 19.6), when we address the use of yearly block plans, we will present another example of a dual-themed sport and fitness program in a junior high school.
In high schools, graduation requirements for physical education vary from district to district. In many districts, high school students have physical education for only two semesters or less. Moreover, the length of high schools classes varies, depending on their school's schedule. While some schools employ a standard 50-minute lesson schedule; others, where the block system is in place, have lessons lasting from 75 to 90 minutes. Still other schools use a combination of these two schedules. Also common are schools that follow an A-B format (often named after the school colors, e.g., Blue and White or Green and Gold), which results in students having physical education every other day.
In high schools with a one-year (i.e., two-semester) physical education requirement, a logical approach to creating a sport and fitness concepts dual-themed program is for all students to complete the Fitness for Life course in one semester, and use the second semester to choose a course that includes various Sport Education seasons. In this chapter's web resource, we provide examples of how these two content areas could be integrated over the course of two consecutive semesters. You may not be able to cover the entire set of chapters included in the Fitness for Life program. However, if your program provides positive experiences in the first two courses, that may attract students to an additional elective credit course titled Advanced Physical Education, during which the dual-theme focus is continued, or a single sport or fitness theme is extended.
These high school students are completing fitness-related self-assessments as part of a Fitness for Life unit within a course that includes various Sport Education seasons.
Developing Positive Behavior Within a Culture of Fair Play
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs.
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs. Fortunately, the Sport Education model provides the context within which these goals can be achieved. But for Sport Education to be a site of positive responsibility, inclusion, and equitable learning environments, we need to produce season plans and individual lessons that have a democratic, inclusive, and participatory focus. Further, within these lessons there must be opportunities where fair play behaviors are addressed, together with the social (i.e., responsibility, perseverance, loyalty, and teamwork) and moral (i.e., honesty and mutual respect) properties of the sporting experience (Harvey, Kirk, & O'Donovan, 2014).
At a structural level, the basic Sport Education format of longer seasons and team membership for the duration of the season provides the motivational context within which students can learn to be good leaders, good teammates, and good competitors. They learn exactly what fair play means in the context of specific sports and other physical activities. They learn about fair play when they fulfill their roles as referees, judges, or umpires. They learn to appreciate participating in a series of good games, played hard and fairly by both teams. Good games are those where they can gradually learn the value of perseverance, the satisfaction of improvement, and the fulfillment that comes from contributing to a team effort and having that contribution recognized. None of these outcomes accrues automatically; teachers and students have to work together to ensure that these outcomes prevail.
Our approach to positive responsibility is grounded in the concept of fair play. We chose this approach because fair play is recognized throughout the world as the central concept for social development in children's and youth sport. Fair play has a much broader meaning than just playing by the rules. It also means having respect for opponents, participating with the right spirit and attitude, valuing equal opportunity, and behaving responsibly as a teammate and as a player. Table 10.1 provides a list of the characteristics of fair and unfair play, while figure 10.2 gives examples of prestigious awards given by sports governing bodies. This chapter's web resource includes numerous supporting resources aimed specifically at developing students' fair play skills.
Strategies for Teaching Fair Play and Responsibility
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved. The affiliation of students with teams and the multiple roles students have to fulfill for a season to be successful create endless opportunities for teachers to emphasize these goals and for students to learn what it means to achieve the goals. Teams meet regularly to make decisions together, and they compete for a seasonal championship. Student referees are put in situations where they make judgments to which competitors react. These situations have the potential to create tensions, disagreements, and even confrontations, all of which become teachable moments for students not only to learn what constitutes fair play but also to come to value it.
Strategies for teaching fair play differ somewhat depending on the age and experience of the students. The overall strategy is to make fair play an important and pervasive part of all that is done throughout a Sport Education season. Farias (2017) has provided a number of useful pedagogical strategies teachers can use to promote inclusion, equity, and positive responsibility. These include (1) developing positive and responsible membership, (2) developing positive and responsible peer leadership, and (3) reshaping the meaning of winning for legitimating different levels of participation and membership.
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved.
Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades.
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades. As noted in chapter 3, the historic dominance of sport in the physical education curriculum has been pointed to as one of the main causes for many of the field's problems. This resulted in efforts to de-emphasize this focus on sport and increase the focus on fitness-related content. But there is no evidence that sport as program content in itself is the problem. Rather, we regard the manner in which sports have been taught in school physical education as the central cause. In this section, we show how Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
The ultimate goal for physical educators is to have their students seek out opportunities to engage in activities practiced (and learned) in physical education at times and in settings beyond the physical education lessons. For example, if students who learn to play badminton in physical education through Sport Education then go and seek out badminton before or during school (or at home), we can say that transfer has occurred.
Such transfer, however, does not happen automatically; it needs to be planned deliberately. That is, conditions need to be arranged so that when students are not in physical education lessons, they can still seek out needed equipment, find an appropriate location, and participate in activities taught in physical education lessons. Before school as well as during recess and lunch breaks are prime campus-based times when opportunities for physical activity can be created. In the next section, we provide various strategies that can help create the conditions for transfer from activity engagement in physical education lessons to other times on campus and beyond.
Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education Lessons
In Sport Education, teachers can make enormous contributions to ensuring that all students make use of physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons. They can encourage out-of-class physical activity in various ways. Out-of-class (i.e., independent) physical activity opportunities can be made available on school grounds before school, during recess and lunch, and after school. Beyond the school grounds, opportunities exist at home, in structured sport programs, in parks, at community centers, and so on. In the following sections we offer strategies for structuring the season competition, setting up the campus environment, prompting and encouragement, and self-monitoring by students.
Structuring the Season Competition
With its strong emphasis on teams learning to work together, team competition within Sport Education seasons is likely one of the strongest incentives for students to seek out physical activity beyond the regular class sessions. Out-of-class physical activity can be built directly into the season competition. In addition to the points earned as a result of games played, duty team points, and fair play points, points for out-of-class physical activity can count directly toward a team's standing in the season competition. It is important to explain this dimension of the competition clearly in the initial class sessions of the new season. Students need to learn where they can get equipment, where it needs to be stored afterward, how they can earn physical activity points, and how they should report their out-of-class activities.
As for how such points can be earned, teachers can set a point value based on the number of minutes that a team practiced during recess or lunch period, such as one physical activity point for every five minutes of time spent in team practice. Physical activity points can also be awarded to individual team members, or on the basis of how many team members participated; that is, a team that has all of its members present and participating can be awarded additional points. The teacher is the best judge of the minutes-to-points ratio.
Just as physical activity engagement is not transferred automatically from the physical education lesson to out-of-class periods, it also does not automatically transfer to times and settings away from the school campus. This means that transfer of physical activity engagement beyond the school campus also needs to be considered. Physical activity during discretionary time outside of school (e.g., time spent at home) can be integrated into the seasonal competition in physical education. Such activity can be measured using multiple tools. For example, students can be asked to keep an activity log that provides a record of the nature of the activity and the amount of physical activity time. Or they can use pedometers that can track step counts. Upper-end pedometer models like the FITStepTM Pedometer (www.gophersport.com/assessment/pedometers) can also capture the amount time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Smartphone apps also offer physical activity tracking tools. Since many if not most secondary school-aged students own smartphones, such apps would be a good way to use technology in a physical education program. Parents of elementary school-aged students could be recruited to verify their children's daily physical activity records.
This team competition approach encourages students to work on either fitness- or technique-related activities in discretionary time outside of school. In order for this strategy to succeed, it is imperative that teachers explain to students what kinds of activities count toward daily and weekly accumulation of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Needless to say, the season can be set up so that any out-of-school physical activity can count toward the total team accumulation, or it might have to be a physical activity that is specific to the current season within the physical education lessons.
Hastie et al. (2012) demonstrated how the transfer of physical activity beyond the school day is more likely to occur as part of a jump rope season with fourth-grade students. In addition to providing verbal prompts for students to practice their jump rope skill, the teacher also provided a team bonus points challenge on selected days of the season. When students practiced their jump rope skills at home and met the amount of time spent practicing set by the teacher (and certified by their parents) they earned bonus points that counted toward the team's standing in the competition. As can be seen in figure 6.4, on days when the prompting plus bonus points condition was in effect, the average step count (the indicator of students' physical activity levels) was significantly higher than for the baseline and prompting-only condition.
The use of group contingencies is an excellent example of how out-of-class physical activity can be encouraged and reinforced. Moreover, it represents an authentic means of embedding it in a sport season and supports transfer from physical education classes to other times and settings.
Figure 6.4 Mean after-school step counts across conditions.
Reprinted by permission from P. Hastie et al. “The Effects of Prompts and a Group-Oriented Contingency on Out-of-School Physical Activity in Elementary School-Aged Students” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 31 (2012): 131-145.
Setting Up the Campus Environment
In all likelihood, merely prompting students to go out and be active on their own is not enough; they need to be supported in their out-of-class physical activity as well. You can help shape the school environment by providing such support in ways that address three key issues: access, equipment, and adult supervision
(Lorenz et al., 2017).
First, you can create access by designating the gymnasium or parts of the outdoor activity venues as areas for independent team practices. Clearly marked signage can indicate the designated team practice area, setting it apart from other activity areas that can be used for free play by other students.
Second, you can make season-specific equipment available for use before and after school by preparing an equipment cart that is placed in the same spot every day near a designated activity area. For example, through grants or by working with Parent Teacher Organizations, all the elementary school physical education programs in Chandler, Arizona, were provided such carts, with the accompanying equipment dedicated solely to supporting campus-based physical activity beyond the physical education lessons.
Team equipment managers can be made responsible for the carts, overseeing proper use of the equipment, reporting any lost or damaged equipment, and returning the cart at the end of practice.
Some teachers may argue that equipment will get damaged, lost, or mistreated if students are given the role as equipment managers. But the proper use, treatment, and management of equipment can be built directly into the season's point system through the use of fair play points that help determine the season's champion. Repeated mistreatment or loss of equipment could result in loss of fair play points or not being allowed to practice outside of class. Once teams understand that they can earn additional fair play points, they will be more inclined to use and manage equipment appropriately.
In order for team practices held outside of physical education classes to be productive, team coaches can be asked to provide written documentation on who attended team practices and on what did or did not work well during the out-of-class team practices. Such documentation would be excellent evidence about team performance that can be shared in the team's portfolio.
Third, you can recruit other adults (e.g., playground monitors) who have lunch duty by making them aware of your goal of encouraging physical activity and seeking their assistance in this process. Typically, adult monitors see themselves as responsible only for safety and overall conduct. As long as students act safely and avoid inappropriate conduct, therefore, these monitors tend to remain passive during recess or lunch periods, and yet they are also a built-in support resource. For example, they can sign the team-based physical activity log to certify that members of a team came together to practice. For them to take on this added task of monitoring team activities they will require professional development. The willingness of physical education teachers to communicate with other staff members and teachers on campus, coupled with a little training (perhaps at staff meetings), can go a long way toward creating and supporting students' physical activity opportunities throughout the school day.
Fourth, lunch periods provide ample time for team coaches to organize one good activity that can help the team prepare for the season or for the next game. Such practices should consist of informal (but purposeful) games that are typical of the natural play patterns when children and youth gather to play a game. We strongly agree with Launder and Piltz (2013), who argued that it is within this context that learners become players through experimentation. Team coaches can be encouraged to use the team practice cards and action fantasy game cards provided in the web resource for chapter 7. Note that introducing students to a particular activity during physical education class provides a perfect opportunity for you to encourage teams to engage in that same activity during out-of-class times.
When teams play and practice by themselves, they invariably have to work through problems that may emerge between team members. A central characteristic of fair play is that all team members show up for such independent team practices. If a player misses multiple practice sessions, the team has to decide how to address this problem.
Establishing a Distinct Program Theme
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme?
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme? Can you honestly state that you learned something valuable and meaningful because of your participation in it? Do you believe that all students would view these experiences in similar ways? Having a distinct program theme and organizing the content accordingly will help your program remain focused. It will also help you avoid having a program that is a repeat of the same short units that are nothing more than a smorgasbord of content and that have little if any focus on providing students with meaningful learning experiences.
A quality physical education program is one whose content reflects a distinct program theme (Tannehill et al., 2015). That is, there is coherence in what students experience as they complete the program. Examples of program themes include sport, fitness, outdoor pursuits, or personal and social responsibility. An agreed-upon program theme reflects and is determined by multiple factors. Key factors include the local topography and climate, teachers' values and beliefs, and their expertise specific to what they can teach. For example, teachers with a strong content background in outdoor pursuits and who live in more mountainous regions would most likely build a program aimed at developing students' skills and knowledge through activities such as hiking, climbing, mountain biking, canoeing, and fly-fishing. Similarly, teachers who value and believe in the importance of physical fitness and who have strong content knowledge in this area are more likely to develop a fitness-themed program. These teachers might consider incorporating the Fitness for Life model (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014), which includes content offerings aimed at helping students become informed fitness consumers. Teachers with both broad and in-depth content background in sport would likely make sport the central theme, and so Sport Education would be the logical curricular approach to build students' competency, literacy, and enthusiasm for sport. Choosing a fitness- or outdoor-themed program does not mean that the principles embedded in Sport Education cannot be used. Throughout this text, we have made reference to several examples of how Sport Education can be used with content not typically described as sport.
Can Programs Have More Than One Theme?
In most cases, because they are the only teacher in the program, physical educators in elementary schools can put their own stamp on how a program is organized. Later in this chapter we will provide more detail on how an elementary program can be structured around a theme.
Depending on the school size, secondary school programs may have anywhere from three to six physical education teachers on staff. It is not uncommon for teachers in one program to have differing values and beliefs about what the program theme and focus should be and what content should be included. This does not mean that the physical education program cannot have a distinct theme. Moreover, programs can have a dual theme. For example, over the last three decades there has been a shift in physical education programming, given the growing interest in the promotion of physical activity from a health perspective. As a result, we have seen an increased emphasis on building in more physical fitness content in K-12 programs. We view a dual-themed focus on Sport Education and Fitness for Life (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014; Corbin, Le Masurier, & Lambdin, 2018) as a natural and defensible blend. Two examples of a junior high program with a dual-themed focus are presented in Tables 19.1 and 19.2. Table 19.1 shows a program for a school where physical education is offered every day and in both grade levels, but only for one semester (i.e., 18 weeks, in either fall or spring). Table 19.2 includes a junior high school program with physical education offered every day in both grade levels over the full year. Later on in this chapter (see tables 19.5 and 19.6), when we address the use of yearly block plans, we will present another example of a dual-themed sport and fitness program in a junior high school.
In high schools, graduation requirements for physical education vary from district to district. In many districts, high school students have physical education for only two semesters or less. Moreover, the length of high schools classes varies, depending on their school's schedule. While some schools employ a standard 50-minute lesson schedule; others, where the block system is in place, have lessons lasting from 75 to 90 minutes. Still other schools use a combination of these two schedules. Also common are schools that follow an A-B format (often named after the school colors, e.g., Blue and White or Green and Gold), which results in students having physical education every other day.
In high schools with a one-year (i.e., two-semester) physical education requirement, a logical approach to creating a sport and fitness concepts dual-themed program is for all students to complete the Fitness for Life course in one semester, and use the second semester to choose a course that includes various Sport Education seasons. In this chapter's web resource, we provide examples of how these two content areas could be integrated over the course of two consecutive semesters. You may not be able to cover the entire set of chapters included in the Fitness for Life program. However, if your program provides positive experiences in the first two courses, that may attract students to an additional elective credit course titled Advanced Physical Education, during which the dual-theme focus is continued, or a single sport or fitness theme is extended.
These high school students are completing fitness-related self-assessments as part of a Fitness for Life unit within a course that includes various Sport Education seasons.
Developing Positive Behavior Within a Culture of Fair Play
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs.
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs. Fortunately, the Sport Education model provides the context within which these goals can be achieved. But for Sport Education to be a site of positive responsibility, inclusion, and equitable learning environments, we need to produce season plans and individual lessons that have a democratic, inclusive, and participatory focus. Further, within these lessons there must be opportunities where fair play behaviors are addressed, together with the social (i.e., responsibility, perseverance, loyalty, and teamwork) and moral (i.e., honesty and mutual respect) properties of the sporting experience (Harvey, Kirk, & O'Donovan, 2014).
At a structural level, the basic Sport Education format of longer seasons and team membership for the duration of the season provides the motivational context within which students can learn to be good leaders, good teammates, and good competitors. They learn exactly what fair play means in the context of specific sports and other physical activities. They learn about fair play when they fulfill their roles as referees, judges, or umpires. They learn to appreciate participating in a series of good games, played hard and fairly by both teams. Good games are those where they can gradually learn the value of perseverance, the satisfaction of improvement, and the fulfillment that comes from contributing to a team effort and having that contribution recognized. None of these outcomes accrues automatically; teachers and students have to work together to ensure that these outcomes prevail.
Our approach to positive responsibility is grounded in the concept of fair play. We chose this approach because fair play is recognized throughout the world as the central concept for social development in children's and youth sport. Fair play has a much broader meaning than just playing by the rules. It also means having respect for opponents, participating with the right spirit and attitude, valuing equal opportunity, and behaving responsibly as a teammate and as a player. Table 10.1 provides a list of the characteristics of fair and unfair play, while figure 10.2 gives examples of prestigious awards given by sports governing bodies. This chapter's web resource includes numerous supporting resources aimed specifically at developing students' fair play skills.
Strategies for Teaching Fair Play and Responsibility
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved. The affiliation of students with teams and the multiple roles students have to fulfill for a season to be successful create endless opportunities for teachers to emphasize these goals and for students to learn what it means to achieve the goals. Teams meet regularly to make decisions together, and they compete for a seasonal championship. Student referees are put in situations where they make judgments to which competitors react. These situations have the potential to create tensions, disagreements, and even confrontations, all of which become teachable moments for students not only to learn what constitutes fair play but also to come to value it.
Strategies for teaching fair play differ somewhat depending on the age and experience of the students. The overall strategy is to make fair play an important and pervasive part of all that is done throughout a Sport Education season. Farias (2017) has provided a number of useful pedagogical strategies teachers can use to promote inclusion, equity, and positive responsibility. These include (1) developing positive and responsible membership, (2) developing positive and responsible peer leadership, and (3) reshaping the meaning of winning for legitimating different levels of participation and membership.
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved.
Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades.
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades. As noted in chapter 3, the historic dominance of sport in the physical education curriculum has been pointed to as one of the main causes for many of the field's problems. This resulted in efforts to de-emphasize this focus on sport and increase the focus on fitness-related content. But there is no evidence that sport as program content in itself is the problem. Rather, we regard the manner in which sports have been taught in school physical education as the central cause. In this section, we show how Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
The ultimate goal for physical educators is to have their students seek out opportunities to engage in activities practiced (and learned) in physical education at times and in settings beyond the physical education lessons. For example, if students who learn to play badminton in physical education through Sport Education then go and seek out badminton before or during school (or at home), we can say that transfer has occurred.
Such transfer, however, does not happen automatically; it needs to be planned deliberately. That is, conditions need to be arranged so that when students are not in physical education lessons, they can still seek out needed equipment, find an appropriate location, and participate in activities taught in physical education lessons. Before school as well as during recess and lunch breaks are prime campus-based times when opportunities for physical activity can be created. In the next section, we provide various strategies that can help create the conditions for transfer from activity engagement in physical education lessons to other times on campus and beyond.
Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education Lessons
In Sport Education, teachers can make enormous contributions to ensuring that all students make use of physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons. They can encourage out-of-class physical activity in various ways. Out-of-class (i.e., independent) physical activity opportunities can be made available on school grounds before school, during recess and lunch, and after school. Beyond the school grounds, opportunities exist at home, in structured sport programs, in parks, at community centers, and so on. In the following sections we offer strategies for structuring the season competition, setting up the campus environment, prompting and encouragement, and self-monitoring by students.
Structuring the Season Competition
With its strong emphasis on teams learning to work together, team competition within Sport Education seasons is likely one of the strongest incentives for students to seek out physical activity beyond the regular class sessions. Out-of-class physical activity can be built directly into the season competition. In addition to the points earned as a result of games played, duty team points, and fair play points, points for out-of-class physical activity can count directly toward a team's standing in the season competition. It is important to explain this dimension of the competition clearly in the initial class sessions of the new season. Students need to learn where they can get equipment, where it needs to be stored afterward, how they can earn physical activity points, and how they should report their out-of-class activities.
As for how such points can be earned, teachers can set a point value based on the number of minutes that a team practiced during recess or lunch period, such as one physical activity point for every five minutes of time spent in team practice. Physical activity points can also be awarded to individual team members, or on the basis of how many team members participated; that is, a team that has all of its members present and participating can be awarded additional points. The teacher is the best judge of the minutes-to-points ratio.
Just as physical activity engagement is not transferred automatically from the physical education lesson to out-of-class periods, it also does not automatically transfer to times and settings away from the school campus. This means that transfer of physical activity engagement beyond the school campus also needs to be considered. Physical activity during discretionary time outside of school (e.g., time spent at home) can be integrated into the seasonal competition in physical education. Such activity can be measured using multiple tools. For example, students can be asked to keep an activity log that provides a record of the nature of the activity and the amount of physical activity time. Or they can use pedometers that can track step counts. Upper-end pedometer models like the FITStepTM Pedometer (www.gophersport.com/assessment/pedometers) can also capture the amount time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Smartphone apps also offer physical activity tracking tools. Since many if not most secondary school-aged students own smartphones, such apps would be a good way to use technology in a physical education program. Parents of elementary school-aged students could be recruited to verify their children's daily physical activity records.
This team competition approach encourages students to work on either fitness- or technique-related activities in discretionary time outside of school. In order for this strategy to succeed, it is imperative that teachers explain to students what kinds of activities count toward daily and weekly accumulation of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Needless to say, the season can be set up so that any out-of-school physical activity can count toward the total team accumulation, or it might have to be a physical activity that is specific to the current season within the physical education lessons.
Hastie et al. (2012) demonstrated how the transfer of physical activity beyond the school day is more likely to occur as part of a jump rope season with fourth-grade students. In addition to providing verbal prompts for students to practice their jump rope skill, the teacher also provided a team bonus points challenge on selected days of the season. When students practiced their jump rope skills at home and met the amount of time spent practicing set by the teacher (and certified by their parents) they earned bonus points that counted toward the team's standing in the competition. As can be seen in figure 6.4, on days when the prompting plus bonus points condition was in effect, the average step count (the indicator of students' physical activity levels) was significantly higher than for the baseline and prompting-only condition.
The use of group contingencies is an excellent example of how out-of-class physical activity can be encouraged and reinforced. Moreover, it represents an authentic means of embedding it in a sport season and supports transfer from physical education classes to other times and settings.
Figure 6.4 Mean after-school step counts across conditions.
Reprinted by permission from P. Hastie et al. “The Effects of Prompts and a Group-Oriented Contingency on Out-of-School Physical Activity in Elementary School-Aged Students” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 31 (2012): 131-145.
Setting Up the Campus Environment
In all likelihood, merely prompting students to go out and be active on their own is not enough; they need to be supported in their out-of-class physical activity as well. You can help shape the school environment by providing such support in ways that address three key issues: access, equipment, and adult supervision
(Lorenz et al., 2017).
First, you can create access by designating the gymnasium or parts of the outdoor activity venues as areas for independent team practices. Clearly marked signage can indicate the designated team practice area, setting it apart from other activity areas that can be used for free play by other students.
Second, you can make season-specific equipment available for use before and after school by preparing an equipment cart that is placed in the same spot every day near a designated activity area. For example, through grants or by working with Parent Teacher Organizations, all the elementary school physical education programs in Chandler, Arizona, were provided such carts, with the accompanying equipment dedicated solely to supporting campus-based physical activity beyond the physical education lessons.
Team equipment managers can be made responsible for the carts, overseeing proper use of the equipment, reporting any lost or damaged equipment, and returning the cart at the end of practice.
Some teachers may argue that equipment will get damaged, lost, or mistreated if students are given the role as equipment managers. But the proper use, treatment, and management of equipment can be built directly into the season's point system through the use of fair play points that help determine the season's champion. Repeated mistreatment or loss of equipment could result in loss of fair play points or not being allowed to practice outside of class. Once teams understand that they can earn additional fair play points, they will be more inclined to use and manage equipment appropriately.
In order for team practices held outside of physical education classes to be productive, team coaches can be asked to provide written documentation on who attended team practices and on what did or did not work well during the out-of-class team practices. Such documentation would be excellent evidence about team performance that can be shared in the team's portfolio.
Third, you can recruit other adults (e.g., playground monitors) who have lunch duty by making them aware of your goal of encouraging physical activity and seeking their assistance in this process. Typically, adult monitors see themselves as responsible only for safety and overall conduct. As long as students act safely and avoid inappropriate conduct, therefore, these monitors tend to remain passive during recess or lunch periods, and yet they are also a built-in support resource. For example, they can sign the team-based physical activity log to certify that members of a team came together to practice. For them to take on this added task of monitoring team activities they will require professional development. The willingness of physical education teachers to communicate with other staff members and teachers on campus, coupled with a little training (perhaps at staff meetings), can go a long way toward creating and supporting students' physical activity opportunities throughout the school day.
Fourth, lunch periods provide ample time for team coaches to organize one good activity that can help the team prepare for the season or for the next game. Such practices should consist of informal (but purposeful) games that are typical of the natural play patterns when children and youth gather to play a game. We strongly agree with Launder and Piltz (2013), who argued that it is within this context that learners become players through experimentation. Team coaches can be encouraged to use the team practice cards and action fantasy game cards provided in the web resource for chapter 7. Note that introducing students to a particular activity during physical education class provides a perfect opportunity for you to encourage teams to engage in that same activity during out-of-class times.
When teams play and practice by themselves, they invariably have to work through problems that may emerge between team members. A central characteristic of fair play is that all team members show up for such independent team practices. If a player misses multiple practice sessions, the team has to decide how to address this problem.
Establishing a Distinct Program Theme
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme?
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme? Can you honestly state that you learned something valuable and meaningful because of your participation in it? Do you believe that all students would view these experiences in similar ways? Having a distinct program theme and organizing the content accordingly will help your program remain focused. It will also help you avoid having a program that is a repeat of the same short units that are nothing more than a smorgasbord of content and that have little if any focus on providing students with meaningful learning experiences.
A quality physical education program is one whose content reflects a distinct program theme (Tannehill et al., 2015). That is, there is coherence in what students experience as they complete the program. Examples of program themes include sport, fitness, outdoor pursuits, or personal and social responsibility. An agreed-upon program theme reflects and is determined by multiple factors. Key factors include the local topography and climate, teachers' values and beliefs, and their expertise specific to what they can teach. For example, teachers with a strong content background in outdoor pursuits and who live in more mountainous regions would most likely build a program aimed at developing students' skills and knowledge through activities such as hiking, climbing, mountain biking, canoeing, and fly-fishing. Similarly, teachers who value and believe in the importance of physical fitness and who have strong content knowledge in this area are more likely to develop a fitness-themed program. These teachers might consider incorporating the Fitness for Life model (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014), which includes content offerings aimed at helping students become informed fitness consumers. Teachers with both broad and in-depth content background in sport would likely make sport the central theme, and so Sport Education would be the logical curricular approach to build students' competency, literacy, and enthusiasm for sport. Choosing a fitness- or outdoor-themed program does not mean that the principles embedded in Sport Education cannot be used. Throughout this text, we have made reference to several examples of how Sport Education can be used with content not typically described as sport.
Can Programs Have More Than One Theme?
In most cases, because they are the only teacher in the program, physical educators in elementary schools can put their own stamp on how a program is organized. Later in this chapter we will provide more detail on how an elementary program can be structured around a theme.
Depending on the school size, secondary school programs may have anywhere from three to six physical education teachers on staff. It is not uncommon for teachers in one program to have differing values and beliefs about what the program theme and focus should be and what content should be included. This does not mean that the physical education program cannot have a distinct theme. Moreover, programs can have a dual theme. For example, over the last three decades there has been a shift in physical education programming, given the growing interest in the promotion of physical activity from a health perspective. As a result, we have seen an increased emphasis on building in more physical fitness content in K-12 programs. We view a dual-themed focus on Sport Education and Fitness for Life (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014; Corbin, Le Masurier, & Lambdin, 2018) as a natural and defensible blend. Two examples of a junior high program with a dual-themed focus are presented in Tables 19.1 and 19.2. Table 19.1 shows a program for a school where physical education is offered every day and in both grade levels, but only for one semester (i.e., 18 weeks, in either fall or spring). Table 19.2 includes a junior high school program with physical education offered every day in both grade levels over the full year. Later on in this chapter (see tables 19.5 and 19.6), when we address the use of yearly block plans, we will present another example of a dual-themed sport and fitness program in a junior high school.
In high schools, graduation requirements for physical education vary from district to district. In many districts, high school students have physical education for only two semesters or less. Moreover, the length of high schools classes varies, depending on their school's schedule. While some schools employ a standard 50-minute lesson schedule; others, where the block system is in place, have lessons lasting from 75 to 90 minutes. Still other schools use a combination of these two schedules. Also common are schools that follow an A-B format (often named after the school colors, e.g., Blue and White or Green and Gold), which results in students having physical education every other day.
In high schools with a one-year (i.e., two-semester) physical education requirement, a logical approach to creating a sport and fitness concepts dual-themed program is for all students to complete the Fitness for Life course in one semester, and use the second semester to choose a course that includes various Sport Education seasons. In this chapter's web resource, we provide examples of how these two content areas could be integrated over the course of two consecutive semesters. You may not be able to cover the entire set of chapters included in the Fitness for Life program. However, if your program provides positive experiences in the first two courses, that may attract students to an additional elective credit course titled Advanced Physical Education, during which the dual-theme focus is continued, or a single sport or fitness theme is extended.
These high school students are completing fitness-related self-assessments as part of a Fitness for Life unit within a course that includes various Sport Education seasons.
Developing Positive Behavior Within a Culture of Fair Play
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs.
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs. Fortunately, the Sport Education model provides the context within which these goals can be achieved. But for Sport Education to be a site of positive responsibility, inclusion, and equitable learning environments, we need to produce season plans and individual lessons that have a democratic, inclusive, and participatory focus. Further, within these lessons there must be opportunities where fair play behaviors are addressed, together with the social (i.e., responsibility, perseverance, loyalty, and teamwork) and moral (i.e., honesty and mutual respect) properties of the sporting experience (Harvey, Kirk, & O'Donovan, 2014).
At a structural level, the basic Sport Education format of longer seasons and team membership for the duration of the season provides the motivational context within which students can learn to be good leaders, good teammates, and good competitors. They learn exactly what fair play means in the context of specific sports and other physical activities. They learn about fair play when they fulfill their roles as referees, judges, or umpires. They learn to appreciate participating in a series of good games, played hard and fairly by both teams. Good games are those where they can gradually learn the value of perseverance, the satisfaction of improvement, and the fulfillment that comes from contributing to a team effort and having that contribution recognized. None of these outcomes accrues automatically; teachers and students have to work together to ensure that these outcomes prevail.
Our approach to positive responsibility is grounded in the concept of fair play. We chose this approach because fair play is recognized throughout the world as the central concept for social development in children's and youth sport. Fair play has a much broader meaning than just playing by the rules. It also means having respect for opponents, participating with the right spirit and attitude, valuing equal opportunity, and behaving responsibly as a teammate and as a player. Table 10.1 provides a list of the characteristics of fair and unfair play, while figure 10.2 gives examples of prestigious awards given by sports governing bodies. This chapter's web resource includes numerous supporting resources aimed specifically at developing students' fair play skills.
Strategies for Teaching Fair Play and Responsibility
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved. The affiliation of students with teams and the multiple roles students have to fulfill for a season to be successful create endless opportunities for teachers to emphasize these goals and for students to learn what it means to achieve the goals. Teams meet regularly to make decisions together, and they compete for a seasonal championship. Student referees are put in situations where they make judgments to which competitors react. These situations have the potential to create tensions, disagreements, and even confrontations, all of which become teachable moments for students not only to learn what constitutes fair play but also to come to value it.
Strategies for teaching fair play differ somewhat depending on the age and experience of the students. The overall strategy is to make fair play an important and pervasive part of all that is done throughout a Sport Education season. Farias (2017) has provided a number of useful pedagogical strategies teachers can use to promote inclusion, equity, and positive responsibility. These include (1) developing positive and responsible membership, (2) developing positive and responsible peer leadership, and (3) reshaping the meaning of winning for legitimating different levels of participation and membership.
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved.
Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades.
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades. As noted in chapter 3, the historic dominance of sport in the physical education curriculum has been pointed to as one of the main causes for many of the field's problems. This resulted in efforts to de-emphasize this focus on sport and increase the focus on fitness-related content. But there is no evidence that sport as program content in itself is the problem. Rather, we regard the manner in which sports have been taught in school physical education as the central cause. In this section, we show how Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
The ultimate goal for physical educators is to have their students seek out opportunities to engage in activities practiced (and learned) in physical education at times and in settings beyond the physical education lessons. For example, if students who learn to play badminton in physical education through Sport Education then go and seek out badminton before or during school (or at home), we can say that transfer has occurred.
Such transfer, however, does not happen automatically; it needs to be planned deliberately. That is, conditions need to be arranged so that when students are not in physical education lessons, they can still seek out needed equipment, find an appropriate location, and participate in activities taught in physical education lessons. Before school as well as during recess and lunch breaks are prime campus-based times when opportunities for physical activity can be created. In the next section, we provide various strategies that can help create the conditions for transfer from activity engagement in physical education lessons to other times on campus and beyond.
Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education Lessons
In Sport Education, teachers can make enormous contributions to ensuring that all students make use of physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons. They can encourage out-of-class physical activity in various ways. Out-of-class (i.e., independent) physical activity opportunities can be made available on school grounds before school, during recess and lunch, and after school. Beyond the school grounds, opportunities exist at home, in structured sport programs, in parks, at community centers, and so on. In the following sections we offer strategies for structuring the season competition, setting up the campus environment, prompting and encouragement, and self-monitoring by students.
Structuring the Season Competition
With its strong emphasis on teams learning to work together, team competition within Sport Education seasons is likely one of the strongest incentives for students to seek out physical activity beyond the regular class sessions. Out-of-class physical activity can be built directly into the season competition. In addition to the points earned as a result of games played, duty team points, and fair play points, points for out-of-class physical activity can count directly toward a team's standing in the season competition. It is important to explain this dimension of the competition clearly in the initial class sessions of the new season. Students need to learn where they can get equipment, where it needs to be stored afterward, how they can earn physical activity points, and how they should report their out-of-class activities.
As for how such points can be earned, teachers can set a point value based on the number of minutes that a team practiced during recess or lunch period, such as one physical activity point for every five minutes of time spent in team practice. Physical activity points can also be awarded to individual team members, or on the basis of how many team members participated; that is, a team that has all of its members present and participating can be awarded additional points. The teacher is the best judge of the minutes-to-points ratio.
Just as physical activity engagement is not transferred automatically from the physical education lesson to out-of-class periods, it also does not automatically transfer to times and settings away from the school campus. This means that transfer of physical activity engagement beyond the school campus also needs to be considered. Physical activity during discretionary time outside of school (e.g., time spent at home) can be integrated into the seasonal competition in physical education. Such activity can be measured using multiple tools. For example, students can be asked to keep an activity log that provides a record of the nature of the activity and the amount of physical activity time. Or they can use pedometers that can track step counts. Upper-end pedometer models like the FITStepTM Pedometer (www.gophersport.com/assessment/pedometers) can also capture the amount time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Smartphone apps also offer physical activity tracking tools. Since many if not most secondary school-aged students own smartphones, such apps would be a good way to use technology in a physical education program. Parents of elementary school-aged students could be recruited to verify their children's daily physical activity records.
This team competition approach encourages students to work on either fitness- or technique-related activities in discretionary time outside of school. In order for this strategy to succeed, it is imperative that teachers explain to students what kinds of activities count toward daily and weekly accumulation of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Needless to say, the season can be set up so that any out-of-school physical activity can count toward the total team accumulation, or it might have to be a physical activity that is specific to the current season within the physical education lessons.
Hastie et al. (2012) demonstrated how the transfer of physical activity beyond the school day is more likely to occur as part of a jump rope season with fourth-grade students. In addition to providing verbal prompts for students to practice their jump rope skill, the teacher also provided a team bonus points challenge on selected days of the season. When students practiced their jump rope skills at home and met the amount of time spent practicing set by the teacher (and certified by their parents) they earned bonus points that counted toward the team's standing in the competition. As can be seen in figure 6.4, on days when the prompting plus bonus points condition was in effect, the average step count (the indicator of students' physical activity levels) was significantly higher than for the baseline and prompting-only condition.
The use of group contingencies is an excellent example of how out-of-class physical activity can be encouraged and reinforced. Moreover, it represents an authentic means of embedding it in a sport season and supports transfer from physical education classes to other times and settings.
Figure 6.4 Mean after-school step counts across conditions.
Reprinted by permission from P. Hastie et al. “The Effects of Prompts and a Group-Oriented Contingency on Out-of-School Physical Activity in Elementary School-Aged Students” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 31 (2012): 131-145.
Setting Up the Campus Environment
In all likelihood, merely prompting students to go out and be active on their own is not enough; they need to be supported in their out-of-class physical activity as well. You can help shape the school environment by providing such support in ways that address three key issues: access, equipment, and adult supervision
(Lorenz et al., 2017).
First, you can create access by designating the gymnasium or parts of the outdoor activity venues as areas for independent team practices. Clearly marked signage can indicate the designated team practice area, setting it apart from other activity areas that can be used for free play by other students.
Second, you can make season-specific equipment available for use before and after school by preparing an equipment cart that is placed in the same spot every day near a designated activity area. For example, through grants or by working with Parent Teacher Organizations, all the elementary school physical education programs in Chandler, Arizona, were provided such carts, with the accompanying equipment dedicated solely to supporting campus-based physical activity beyond the physical education lessons.
Team equipment managers can be made responsible for the carts, overseeing proper use of the equipment, reporting any lost or damaged equipment, and returning the cart at the end of practice.
Some teachers may argue that equipment will get damaged, lost, or mistreated if students are given the role as equipment managers. But the proper use, treatment, and management of equipment can be built directly into the season's point system through the use of fair play points that help determine the season's champion. Repeated mistreatment or loss of equipment could result in loss of fair play points or not being allowed to practice outside of class. Once teams understand that they can earn additional fair play points, they will be more inclined to use and manage equipment appropriately.
In order for team practices held outside of physical education classes to be productive, team coaches can be asked to provide written documentation on who attended team practices and on what did or did not work well during the out-of-class team practices. Such documentation would be excellent evidence about team performance that can be shared in the team's portfolio.
Third, you can recruit other adults (e.g., playground monitors) who have lunch duty by making them aware of your goal of encouraging physical activity and seeking their assistance in this process. Typically, adult monitors see themselves as responsible only for safety and overall conduct. As long as students act safely and avoid inappropriate conduct, therefore, these monitors tend to remain passive during recess or lunch periods, and yet they are also a built-in support resource. For example, they can sign the team-based physical activity log to certify that members of a team came together to practice. For them to take on this added task of monitoring team activities they will require professional development. The willingness of physical education teachers to communicate with other staff members and teachers on campus, coupled with a little training (perhaps at staff meetings), can go a long way toward creating and supporting students' physical activity opportunities throughout the school day.
Fourth, lunch periods provide ample time for team coaches to organize one good activity that can help the team prepare for the season or for the next game. Such practices should consist of informal (but purposeful) games that are typical of the natural play patterns when children and youth gather to play a game. We strongly agree with Launder and Piltz (2013), who argued that it is within this context that learners become players through experimentation. Team coaches can be encouraged to use the team practice cards and action fantasy game cards provided in the web resource for chapter 7. Note that introducing students to a particular activity during physical education class provides a perfect opportunity for you to encourage teams to engage in that same activity during out-of-class times.
When teams play and practice by themselves, they invariably have to work through problems that may emerge between team members. A central characteristic of fair play is that all team members show up for such independent team practices. If a player misses multiple practice sessions, the team has to decide how to address this problem.
Establishing a Distinct Program Theme
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme?
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme? Can you honestly state that you learned something valuable and meaningful because of your participation in it? Do you believe that all students would view these experiences in similar ways? Having a distinct program theme and organizing the content accordingly will help your program remain focused. It will also help you avoid having a program that is a repeat of the same short units that are nothing more than a smorgasbord of content and that have little if any focus on providing students with meaningful learning experiences.
A quality physical education program is one whose content reflects a distinct program theme (Tannehill et al., 2015). That is, there is coherence in what students experience as they complete the program. Examples of program themes include sport, fitness, outdoor pursuits, or personal and social responsibility. An agreed-upon program theme reflects and is determined by multiple factors. Key factors include the local topography and climate, teachers' values and beliefs, and their expertise specific to what they can teach. For example, teachers with a strong content background in outdoor pursuits and who live in more mountainous regions would most likely build a program aimed at developing students' skills and knowledge through activities such as hiking, climbing, mountain biking, canoeing, and fly-fishing. Similarly, teachers who value and believe in the importance of physical fitness and who have strong content knowledge in this area are more likely to develop a fitness-themed program. These teachers might consider incorporating the Fitness for Life model (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014), which includes content offerings aimed at helping students become informed fitness consumers. Teachers with both broad and in-depth content background in sport would likely make sport the central theme, and so Sport Education would be the logical curricular approach to build students' competency, literacy, and enthusiasm for sport. Choosing a fitness- or outdoor-themed program does not mean that the principles embedded in Sport Education cannot be used. Throughout this text, we have made reference to several examples of how Sport Education can be used with content not typically described as sport.
Can Programs Have More Than One Theme?
In most cases, because they are the only teacher in the program, physical educators in elementary schools can put their own stamp on how a program is organized. Later in this chapter we will provide more detail on how an elementary program can be structured around a theme.
Depending on the school size, secondary school programs may have anywhere from three to six physical education teachers on staff. It is not uncommon for teachers in one program to have differing values and beliefs about what the program theme and focus should be and what content should be included. This does not mean that the physical education program cannot have a distinct theme. Moreover, programs can have a dual theme. For example, over the last three decades there has been a shift in physical education programming, given the growing interest in the promotion of physical activity from a health perspective. As a result, we have seen an increased emphasis on building in more physical fitness content in K-12 programs. We view a dual-themed focus on Sport Education and Fitness for Life (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014; Corbin, Le Masurier, & Lambdin, 2018) as a natural and defensible blend. Two examples of a junior high program with a dual-themed focus are presented in Tables 19.1 and 19.2. Table 19.1 shows a program for a school where physical education is offered every day and in both grade levels, but only for one semester (i.e., 18 weeks, in either fall or spring). Table 19.2 includes a junior high school program with physical education offered every day in both grade levels over the full year. Later on in this chapter (see tables 19.5 and 19.6), when we address the use of yearly block plans, we will present another example of a dual-themed sport and fitness program in a junior high school.
In high schools, graduation requirements for physical education vary from district to district. In many districts, high school students have physical education for only two semesters or less. Moreover, the length of high schools classes varies, depending on their school's schedule. While some schools employ a standard 50-minute lesson schedule; others, where the block system is in place, have lessons lasting from 75 to 90 minutes. Still other schools use a combination of these two schedules. Also common are schools that follow an A-B format (often named after the school colors, e.g., Blue and White or Green and Gold), which results in students having physical education every other day.
In high schools with a one-year (i.e., two-semester) physical education requirement, a logical approach to creating a sport and fitness concepts dual-themed program is for all students to complete the Fitness for Life course in one semester, and use the second semester to choose a course that includes various Sport Education seasons. In this chapter's web resource, we provide examples of how these two content areas could be integrated over the course of two consecutive semesters. You may not be able to cover the entire set of chapters included in the Fitness for Life program. However, if your program provides positive experiences in the first two courses, that may attract students to an additional elective credit course titled Advanced Physical Education, during which the dual-theme focus is continued, or a single sport or fitness theme is extended.
These high school students are completing fitness-related self-assessments as part of a Fitness for Life unit within a course that includes various Sport Education seasons.
Developing Positive Behavior Within a Culture of Fair Play
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs.
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs. Fortunately, the Sport Education model provides the context within which these goals can be achieved. But for Sport Education to be a site of positive responsibility, inclusion, and equitable learning environments, we need to produce season plans and individual lessons that have a democratic, inclusive, and participatory focus. Further, within these lessons there must be opportunities where fair play behaviors are addressed, together with the social (i.e., responsibility, perseverance, loyalty, and teamwork) and moral (i.e., honesty and mutual respect) properties of the sporting experience (Harvey, Kirk, & O'Donovan, 2014).
At a structural level, the basic Sport Education format of longer seasons and team membership for the duration of the season provides the motivational context within which students can learn to be good leaders, good teammates, and good competitors. They learn exactly what fair play means in the context of specific sports and other physical activities. They learn about fair play when they fulfill their roles as referees, judges, or umpires. They learn to appreciate participating in a series of good games, played hard and fairly by both teams. Good games are those where they can gradually learn the value of perseverance, the satisfaction of improvement, and the fulfillment that comes from contributing to a team effort and having that contribution recognized. None of these outcomes accrues automatically; teachers and students have to work together to ensure that these outcomes prevail.
Our approach to positive responsibility is grounded in the concept of fair play. We chose this approach because fair play is recognized throughout the world as the central concept for social development in children's and youth sport. Fair play has a much broader meaning than just playing by the rules. It also means having respect for opponents, participating with the right spirit and attitude, valuing equal opportunity, and behaving responsibly as a teammate and as a player. Table 10.1 provides a list of the characteristics of fair and unfair play, while figure 10.2 gives examples of prestigious awards given by sports governing bodies. This chapter's web resource includes numerous supporting resources aimed specifically at developing students' fair play skills.
Strategies for Teaching Fair Play and Responsibility
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved. The affiliation of students with teams and the multiple roles students have to fulfill for a season to be successful create endless opportunities for teachers to emphasize these goals and for students to learn what it means to achieve the goals. Teams meet regularly to make decisions together, and they compete for a seasonal championship. Student referees are put in situations where they make judgments to which competitors react. These situations have the potential to create tensions, disagreements, and even confrontations, all of which become teachable moments for students not only to learn what constitutes fair play but also to come to value it.
Strategies for teaching fair play differ somewhat depending on the age and experience of the students. The overall strategy is to make fair play an important and pervasive part of all that is done throughout a Sport Education season. Farias (2017) has provided a number of useful pedagogical strategies teachers can use to promote inclusion, equity, and positive responsibility. These include (1) developing positive and responsible membership, (2) developing positive and responsible peer leadership, and (3) reshaping the meaning of winning for legitimating different levels of participation and membership.
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved.
Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades.
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades. As noted in chapter 3, the historic dominance of sport in the physical education curriculum has been pointed to as one of the main causes for many of the field's problems. This resulted in efforts to de-emphasize this focus on sport and increase the focus on fitness-related content. But there is no evidence that sport as program content in itself is the problem. Rather, we regard the manner in which sports have been taught in school physical education as the central cause. In this section, we show how Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
The ultimate goal for physical educators is to have their students seek out opportunities to engage in activities practiced (and learned) in physical education at times and in settings beyond the physical education lessons. For example, if students who learn to play badminton in physical education through Sport Education then go and seek out badminton before or during school (or at home), we can say that transfer has occurred.
Such transfer, however, does not happen automatically; it needs to be planned deliberately. That is, conditions need to be arranged so that when students are not in physical education lessons, they can still seek out needed equipment, find an appropriate location, and participate in activities taught in physical education lessons. Before school as well as during recess and lunch breaks are prime campus-based times when opportunities for physical activity can be created. In the next section, we provide various strategies that can help create the conditions for transfer from activity engagement in physical education lessons to other times on campus and beyond.
Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education Lessons
In Sport Education, teachers can make enormous contributions to ensuring that all students make use of physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons. They can encourage out-of-class physical activity in various ways. Out-of-class (i.e., independent) physical activity opportunities can be made available on school grounds before school, during recess and lunch, and after school. Beyond the school grounds, opportunities exist at home, in structured sport programs, in parks, at community centers, and so on. In the following sections we offer strategies for structuring the season competition, setting up the campus environment, prompting and encouragement, and self-monitoring by students.
Structuring the Season Competition
With its strong emphasis on teams learning to work together, team competition within Sport Education seasons is likely one of the strongest incentives for students to seek out physical activity beyond the regular class sessions. Out-of-class physical activity can be built directly into the season competition. In addition to the points earned as a result of games played, duty team points, and fair play points, points for out-of-class physical activity can count directly toward a team's standing in the season competition. It is important to explain this dimension of the competition clearly in the initial class sessions of the new season. Students need to learn where they can get equipment, where it needs to be stored afterward, how they can earn physical activity points, and how they should report their out-of-class activities.
As for how such points can be earned, teachers can set a point value based on the number of minutes that a team practiced during recess or lunch period, such as one physical activity point for every five minutes of time spent in team practice. Physical activity points can also be awarded to individual team members, or on the basis of how many team members participated; that is, a team that has all of its members present and participating can be awarded additional points. The teacher is the best judge of the minutes-to-points ratio.
Just as physical activity engagement is not transferred automatically from the physical education lesson to out-of-class periods, it also does not automatically transfer to times and settings away from the school campus. This means that transfer of physical activity engagement beyond the school campus also needs to be considered. Physical activity during discretionary time outside of school (e.g., time spent at home) can be integrated into the seasonal competition in physical education. Such activity can be measured using multiple tools. For example, students can be asked to keep an activity log that provides a record of the nature of the activity and the amount of physical activity time. Or they can use pedometers that can track step counts. Upper-end pedometer models like the FITStepTM Pedometer (www.gophersport.com/assessment/pedometers) can also capture the amount time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Smartphone apps also offer physical activity tracking tools. Since many if not most secondary school-aged students own smartphones, such apps would be a good way to use technology in a physical education program. Parents of elementary school-aged students could be recruited to verify their children's daily physical activity records.
This team competition approach encourages students to work on either fitness- or technique-related activities in discretionary time outside of school. In order for this strategy to succeed, it is imperative that teachers explain to students what kinds of activities count toward daily and weekly accumulation of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Needless to say, the season can be set up so that any out-of-school physical activity can count toward the total team accumulation, or it might have to be a physical activity that is specific to the current season within the physical education lessons.
Hastie et al. (2012) demonstrated how the transfer of physical activity beyond the school day is more likely to occur as part of a jump rope season with fourth-grade students. In addition to providing verbal prompts for students to practice their jump rope skill, the teacher also provided a team bonus points challenge on selected days of the season. When students practiced their jump rope skills at home and met the amount of time spent practicing set by the teacher (and certified by their parents) they earned bonus points that counted toward the team's standing in the competition. As can be seen in figure 6.4, on days when the prompting plus bonus points condition was in effect, the average step count (the indicator of students' physical activity levels) was significantly higher than for the baseline and prompting-only condition.
The use of group contingencies is an excellent example of how out-of-class physical activity can be encouraged and reinforced. Moreover, it represents an authentic means of embedding it in a sport season and supports transfer from physical education classes to other times and settings.
Figure 6.4 Mean after-school step counts across conditions.
Reprinted by permission from P. Hastie et al. “The Effects of Prompts and a Group-Oriented Contingency on Out-of-School Physical Activity in Elementary School-Aged Students” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 31 (2012): 131-145.
Setting Up the Campus Environment
In all likelihood, merely prompting students to go out and be active on their own is not enough; they need to be supported in their out-of-class physical activity as well. You can help shape the school environment by providing such support in ways that address three key issues: access, equipment, and adult supervision
(Lorenz et al., 2017).
First, you can create access by designating the gymnasium or parts of the outdoor activity venues as areas for independent team practices. Clearly marked signage can indicate the designated team practice area, setting it apart from other activity areas that can be used for free play by other students.
Second, you can make season-specific equipment available for use before and after school by preparing an equipment cart that is placed in the same spot every day near a designated activity area. For example, through grants or by working with Parent Teacher Organizations, all the elementary school physical education programs in Chandler, Arizona, were provided such carts, with the accompanying equipment dedicated solely to supporting campus-based physical activity beyond the physical education lessons.
Team equipment managers can be made responsible for the carts, overseeing proper use of the equipment, reporting any lost or damaged equipment, and returning the cart at the end of practice.
Some teachers may argue that equipment will get damaged, lost, or mistreated if students are given the role as equipment managers. But the proper use, treatment, and management of equipment can be built directly into the season's point system through the use of fair play points that help determine the season's champion. Repeated mistreatment or loss of equipment could result in loss of fair play points or not being allowed to practice outside of class. Once teams understand that they can earn additional fair play points, they will be more inclined to use and manage equipment appropriately.
In order for team practices held outside of physical education classes to be productive, team coaches can be asked to provide written documentation on who attended team practices and on what did or did not work well during the out-of-class team practices. Such documentation would be excellent evidence about team performance that can be shared in the team's portfolio.
Third, you can recruit other adults (e.g., playground monitors) who have lunch duty by making them aware of your goal of encouraging physical activity and seeking their assistance in this process. Typically, adult monitors see themselves as responsible only for safety and overall conduct. As long as students act safely and avoid inappropriate conduct, therefore, these monitors tend to remain passive during recess or lunch periods, and yet they are also a built-in support resource. For example, they can sign the team-based physical activity log to certify that members of a team came together to practice. For them to take on this added task of monitoring team activities they will require professional development. The willingness of physical education teachers to communicate with other staff members and teachers on campus, coupled with a little training (perhaps at staff meetings), can go a long way toward creating and supporting students' physical activity opportunities throughout the school day.
Fourth, lunch periods provide ample time for team coaches to organize one good activity that can help the team prepare for the season or for the next game. Such practices should consist of informal (but purposeful) games that are typical of the natural play patterns when children and youth gather to play a game. We strongly agree with Launder and Piltz (2013), who argued that it is within this context that learners become players through experimentation. Team coaches can be encouraged to use the team practice cards and action fantasy game cards provided in the web resource for chapter 7. Note that introducing students to a particular activity during physical education class provides a perfect opportunity for you to encourage teams to engage in that same activity during out-of-class times.
When teams play and practice by themselves, they invariably have to work through problems that may emerge between team members. A central characteristic of fair play is that all team members show up for such independent team practices. If a player misses multiple practice sessions, the team has to decide how to address this problem.
Establishing a Distinct Program Theme
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme?
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme? Can you honestly state that you learned something valuable and meaningful because of your participation in it? Do you believe that all students would view these experiences in similar ways? Having a distinct program theme and organizing the content accordingly will help your program remain focused. It will also help you avoid having a program that is a repeat of the same short units that are nothing more than a smorgasbord of content and that have little if any focus on providing students with meaningful learning experiences.
A quality physical education program is one whose content reflects a distinct program theme (Tannehill et al., 2015). That is, there is coherence in what students experience as they complete the program. Examples of program themes include sport, fitness, outdoor pursuits, or personal and social responsibility. An agreed-upon program theme reflects and is determined by multiple factors. Key factors include the local topography and climate, teachers' values and beliefs, and their expertise specific to what they can teach. For example, teachers with a strong content background in outdoor pursuits and who live in more mountainous regions would most likely build a program aimed at developing students' skills and knowledge through activities such as hiking, climbing, mountain biking, canoeing, and fly-fishing. Similarly, teachers who value and believe in the importance of physical fitness and who have strong content knowledge in this area are more likely to develop a fitness-themed program. These teachers might consider incorporating the Fitness for Life model (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014), which includes content offerings aimed at helping students become informed fitness consumers. Teachers with both broad and in-depth content background in sport would likely make sport the central theme, and so Sport Education would be the logical curricular approach to build students' competency, literacy, and enthusiasm for sport. Choosing a fitness- or outdoor-themed program does not mean that the principles embedded in Sport Education cannot be used. Throughout this text, we have made reference to several examples of how Sport Education can be used with content not typically described as sport.
Can Programs Have More Than One Theme?
In most cases, because they are the only teacher in the program, physical educators in elementary schools can put their own stamp on how a program is organized. Later in this chapter we will provide more detail on how an elementary program can be structured around a theme.
Depending on the school size, secondary school programs may have anywhere from three to six physical education teachers on staff. It is not uncommon for teachers in one program to have differing values and beliefs about what the program theme and focus should be and what content should be included. This does not mean that the physical education program cannot have a distinct theme. Moreover, programs can have a dual theme. For example, over the last three decades there has been a shift in physical education programming, given the growing interest in the promotion of physical activity from a health perspective. As a result, we have seen an increased emphasis on building in more physical fitness content in K-12 programs. We view a dual-themed focus on Sport Education and Fitness for Life (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014; Corbin, Le Masurier, & Lambdin, 2018) as a natural and defensible blend. Two examples of a junior high program with a dual-themed focus are presented in Tables 19.1 and 19.2. Table 19.1 shows a program for a school where physical education is offered every day and in both grade levels, but only for one semester (i.e., 18 weeks, in either fall or spring). Table 19.2 includes a junior high school program with physical education offered every day in both grade levels over the full year. Later on in this chapter (see tables 19.5 and 19.6), when we address the use of yearly block plans, we will present another example of a dual-themed sport and fitness program in a junior high school.
In high schools, graduation requirements for physical education vary from district to district. In many districts, high school students have physical education for only two semesters or less. Moreover, the length of high schools classes varies, depending on their school's schedule. While some schools employ a standard 50-minute lesson schedule; others, where the block system is in place, have lessons lasting from 75 to 90 minutes. Still other schools use a combination of these two schedules. Also common are schools that follow an A-B format (often named after the school colors, e.g., Blue and White or Green and Gold), which results in students having physical education every other day.
In high schools with a one-year (i.e., two-semester) physical education requirement, a logical approach to creating a sport and fitness concepts dual-themed program is for all students to complete the Fitness for Life course in one semester, and use the second semester to choose a course that includes various Sport Education seasons. In this chapter's web resource, we provide examples of how these two content areas could be integrated over the course of two consecutive semesters. You may not be able to cover the entire set of chapters included in the Fitness for Life program. However, if your program provides positive experiences in the first two courses, that may attract students to an additional elective credit course titled Advanced Physical Education, during which the dual-theme focus is continued, or a single sport or fitness theme is extended.
These high school students are completing fitness-related self-assessments as part of a Fitness for Life unit within a course that includes various Sport Education seasons.
Developing Positive Behavior Within a Culture of Fair Play
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs.
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs. Fortunately, the Sport Education model provides the context within which these goals can be achieved. But for Sport Education to be a site of positive responsibility, inclusion, and equitable learning environments, we need to produce season plans and individual lessons that have a democratic, inclusive, and participatory focus. Further, within these lessons there must be opportunities where fair play behaviors are addressed, together with the social (i.e., responsibility, perseverance, loyalty, and teamwork) and moral (i.e., honesty and mutual respect) properties of the sporting experience (Harvey, Kirk, & O'Donovan, 2014).
At a structural level, the basic Sport Education format of longer seasons and team membership for the duration of the season provides the motivational context within which students can learn to be good leaders, good teammates, and good competitors. They learn exactly what fair play means in the context of specific sports and other physical activities. They learn about fair play when they fulfill their roles as referees, judges, or umpires. They learn to appreciate participating in a series of good games, played hard and fairly by both teams. Good games are those where they can gradually learn the value of perseverance, the satisfaction of improvement, and the fulfillment that comes from contributing to a team effort and having that contribution recognized. None of these outcomes accrues automatically; teachers and students have to work together to ensure that these outcomes prevail.
Our approach to positive responsibility is grounded in the concept of fair play. We chose this approach because fair play is recognized throughout the world as the central concept for social development in children's and youth sport. Fair play has a much broader meaning than just playing by the rules. It also means having respect for opponents, participating with the right spirit and attitude, valuing equal opportunity, and behaving responsibly as a teammate and as a player. Table 10.1 provides a list of the characteristics of fair and unfair play, while figure 10.2 gives examples of prestigious awards given by sports governing bodies. This chapter's web resource includes numerous supporting resources aimed specifically at developing students' fair play skills.
Strategies for Teaching Fair Play and Responsibility
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved. The affiliation of students with teams and the multiple roles students have to fulfill for a season to be successful create endless opportunities for teachers to emphasize these goals and for students to learn what it means to achieve the goals. Teams meet regularly to make decisions together, and they compete for a seasonal championship. Student referees are put in situations where they make judgments to which competitors react. These situations have the potential to create tensions, disagreements, and even confrontations, all of which become teachable moments for students not only to learn what constitutes fair play but also to come to value it.
Strategies for teaching fair play differ somewhat depending on the age and experience of the students. The overall strategy is to make fair play an important and pervasive part of all that is done throughout a Sport Education season. Farias (2017) has provided a number of useful pedagogical strategies teachers can use to promote inclusion, equity, and positive responsibility. These include (1) developing positive and responsible membership, (2) developing positive and responsible peer leadership, and (3) reshaping the meaning of winning for legitimating different levels of participation and membership.
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved.
Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades.
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades. As noted in chapter 3, the historic dominance of sport in the physical education curriculum has been pointed to as one of the main causes for many of the field's problems. This resulted in efforts to de-emphasize this focus on sport and increase the focus on fitness-related content. But there is no evidence that sport as program content in itself is the problem. Rather, we regard the manner in which sports have been taught in school physical education as the central cause. In this section, we show how Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
The ultimate goal for physical educators is to have their students seek out opportunities to engage in activities practiced (and learned) in physical education at times and in settings beyond the physical education lessons. For example, if students who learn to play badminton in physical education through Sport Education then go and seek out badminton before or during school (or at home), we can say that transfer has occurred.
Such transfer, however, does not happen automatically; it needs to be planned deliberately. That is, conditions need to be arranged so that when students are not in physical education lessons, they can still seek out needed equipment, find an appropriate location, and participate in activities taught in physical education lessons. Before school as well as during recess and lunch breaks are prime campus-based times when opportunities for physical activity can be created. In the next section, we provide various strategies that can help create the conditions for transfer from activity engagement in physical education lessons to other times on campus and beyond.
Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education Lessons
In Sport Education, teachers can make enormous contributions to ensuring that all students make use of physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons. They can encourage out-of-class physical activity in various ways. Out-of-class (i.e., independent) physical activity opportunities can be made available on school grounds before school, during recess and lunch, and after school. Beyond the school grounds, opportunities exist at home, in structured sport programs, in parks, at community centers, and so on. In the following sections we offer strategies for structuring the season competition, setting up the campus environment, prompting and encouragement, and self-monitoring by students.
Structuring the Season Competition
With its strong emphasis on teams learning to work together, team competition within Sport Education seasons is likely one of the strongest incentives for students to seek out physical activity beyond the regular class sessions. Out-of-class physical activity can be built directly into the season competition. In addition to the points earned as a result of games played, duty team points, and fair play points, points for out-of-class physical activity can count directly toward a team's standing in the season competition. It is important to explain this dimension of the competition clearly in the initial class sessions of the new season. Students need to learn where they can get equipment, where it needs to be stored afterward, how they can earn physical activity points, and how they should report their out-of-class activities.
As for how such points can be earned, teachers can set a point value based on the number of minutes that a team practiced during recess or lunch period, such as one physical activity point for every five minutes of time spent in team practice. Physical activity points can also be awarded to individual team members, or on the basis of how many team members participated; that is, a team that has all of its members present and participating can be awarded additional points. The teacher is the best judge of the minutes-to-points ratio.
Just as physical activity engagement is not transferred automatically from the physical education lesson to out-of-class periods, it also does not automatically transfer to times and settings away from the school campus. This means that transfer of physical activity engagement beyond the school campus also needs to be considered. Physical activity during discretionary time outside of school (e.g., time spent at home) can be integrated into the seasonal competition in physical education. Such activity can be measured using multiple tools. For example, students can be asked to keep an activity log that provides a record of the nature of the activity and the amount of physical activity time. Or they can use pedometers that can track step counts. Upper-end pedometer models like the FITStepTM Pedometer (www.gophersport.com/assessment/pedometers) can also capture the amount time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Smartphone apps also offer physical activity tracking tools. Since many if not most secondary school-aged students own smartphones, such apps would be a good way to use technology in a physical education program. Parents of elementary school-aged students could be recruited to verify their children's daily physical activity records.
This team competition approach encourages students to work on either fitness- or technique-related activities in discretionary time outside of school. In order for this strategy to succeed, it is imperative that teachers explain to students what kinds of activities count toward daily and weekly accumulation of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Needless to say, the season can be set up so that any out-of-school physical activity can count toward the total team accumulation, or it might have to be a physical activity that is specific to the current season within the physical education lessons.
Hastie et al. (2012) demonstrated how the transfer of physical activity beyond the school day is more likely to occur as part of a jump rope season with fourth-grade students. In addition to providing verbal prompts for students to practice their jump rope skill, the teacher also provided a team bonus points challenge on selected days of the season. When students practiced their jump rope skills at home and met the amount of time spent practicing set by the teacher (and certified by their parents) they earned bonus points that counted toward the team's standing in the competition. As can be seen in figure 6.4, on days when the prompting plus bonus points condition was in effect, the average step count (the indicator of students' physical activity levels) was significantly higher than for the baseline and prompting-only condition.
The use of group contingencies is an excellent example of how out-of-class physical activity can be encouraged and reinforced. Moreover, it represents an authentic means of embedding it in a sport season and supports transfer from physical education classes to other times and settings.
Figure 6.4 Mean after-school step counts across conditions.
Reprinted by permission from P. Hastie et al. “The Effects of Prompts and a Group-Oriented Contingency on Out-of-School Physical Activity in Elementary School-Aged Students” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 31 (2012): 131-145.
Setting Up the Campus Environment
In all likelihood, merely prompting students to go out and be active on their own is not enough; they need to be supported in their out-of-class physical activity as well. You can help shape the school environment by providing such support in ways that address three key issues: access, equipment, and adult supervision
(Lorenz et al., 2017).
First, you can create access by designating the gymnasium or parts of the outdoor activity venues as areas for independent team practices. Clearly marked signage can indicate the designated team practice area, setting it apart from other activity areas that can be used for free play by other students.
Second, you can make season-specific equipment available for use before and after school by preparing an equipment cart that is placed in the same spot every day near a designated activity area. For example, through grants or by working with Parent Teacher Organizations, all the elementary school physical education programs in Chandler, Arizona, were provided such carts, with the accompanying equipment dedicated solely to supporting campus-based physical activity beyond the physical education lessons.
Team equipment managers can be made responsible for the carts, overseeing proper use of the equipment, reporting any lost or damaged equipment, and returning the cart at the end of practice.
Some teachers may argue that equipment will get damaged, lost, or mistreated if students are given the role as equipment managers. But the proper use, treatment, and management of equipment can be built directly into the season's point system through the use of fair play points that help determine the season's champion. Repeated mistreatment or loss of equipment could result in loss of fair play points or not being allowed to practice outside of class. Once teams understand that they can earn additional fair play points, they will be more inclined to use and manage equipment appropriately.
In order for team practices held outside of physical education classes to be productive, team coaches can be asked to provide written documentation on who attended team practices and on what did or did not work well during the out-of-class team practices. Such documentation would be excellent evidence about team performance that can be shared in the team's portfolio.
Third, you can recruit other adults (e.g., playground monitors) who have lunch duty by making them aware of your goal of encouraging physical activity and seeking their assistance in this process. Typically, adult monitors see themselves as responsible only for safety and overall conduct. As long as students act safely and avoid inappropriate conduct, therefore, these monitors tend to remain passive during recess or lunch periods, and yet they are also a built-in support resource. For example, they can sign the team-based physical activity log to certify that members of a team came together to practice. For them to take on this added task of monitoring team activities they will require professional development. The willingness of physical education teachers to communicate with other staff members and teachers on campus, coupled with a little training (perhaps at staff meetings), can go a long way toward creating and supporting students' physical activity opportunities throughout the school day.
Fourth, lunch periods provide ample time for team coaches to organize one good activity that can help the team prepare for the season or for the next game. Such practices should consist of informal (but purposeful) games that are typical of the natural play patterns when children and youth gather to play a game. We strongly agree with Launder and Piltz (2013), who argued that it is within this context that learners become players through experimentation. Team coaches can be encouraged to use the team practice cards and action fantasy game cards provided in the web resource for chapter 7. Note that introducing students to a particular activity during physical education class provides a perfect opportunity for you to encourage teams to engage in that same activity during out-of-class times.
When teams play and practice by themselves, they invariably have to work through problems that may emerge between team members. A central characteristic of fair play is that all team members show up for such independent team practices. If a player misses multiple practice sessions, the team has to decide how to address this problem.
Establishing a Distinct Program Theme
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme?
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme? Can you honestly state that you learned something valuable and meaningful because of your participation in it? Do you believe that all students would view these experiences in similar ways? Having a distinct program theme and organizing the content accordingly will help your program remain focused. It will also help you avoid having a program that is a repeat of the same short units that are nothing more than a smorgasbord of content and that have little if any focus on providing students with meaningful learning experiences.
A quality physical education program is one whose content reflects a distinct program theme (Tannehill et al., 2015). That is, there is coherence in what students experience as they complete the program. Examples of program themes include sport, fitness, outdoor pursuits, or personal and social responsibility. An agreed-upon program theme reflects and is determined by multiple factors. Key factors include the local topography and climate, teachers' values and beliefs, and their expertise specific to what they can teach. For example, teachers with a strong content background in outdoor pursuits and who live in more mountainous regions would most likely build a program aimed at developing students' skills and knowledge through activities such as hiking, climbing, mountain biking, canoeing, and fly-fishing. Similarly, teachers who value and believe in the importance of physical fitness and who have strong content knowledge in this area are more likely to develop a fitness-themed program. These teachers might consider incorporating the Fitness for Life model (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014), which includes content offerings aimed at helping students become informed fitness consumers. Teachers with both broad and in-depth content background in sport would likely make sport the central theme, and so Sport Education would be the logical curricular approach to build students' competency, literacy, and enthusiasm for sport. Choosing a fitness- or outdoor-themed program does not mean that the principles embedded in Sport Education cannot be used. Throughout this text, we have made reference to several examples of how Sport Education can be used with content not typically described as sport.
Can Programs Have More Than One Theme?
In most cases, because they are the only teacher in the program, physical educators in elementary schools can put their own stamp on how a program is organized. Later in this chapter we will provide more detail on how an elementary program can be structured around a theme.
Depending on the school size, secondary school programs may have anywhere from three to six physical education teachers on staff. It is not uncommon for teachers in one program to have differing values and beliefs about what the program theme and focus should be and what content should be included. This does not mean that the physical education program cannot have a distinct theme. Moreover, programs can have a dual theme. For example, over the last three decades there has been a shift in physical education programming, given the growing interest in the promotion of physical activity from a health perspective. As a result, we have seen an increased emphasis on building in more physical fitness content in K-12 programs. We view a dual-themed focus on Sport Education and Fitness for Life (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014; Corbin, Le Masurier, & Lambdin, 2018) as a natural and defensible blend. Two examples of a junior high program with a dual-themed focus are presented in Tables 19.1 and 19.2. Table 19.1 shows a program for a school where physical education is offered every day and in both grade levels, but only for one semester (i.e., 18 weeks, in either fall or spring). Table 19.2 includes a junior high school program with physical education offered every day in both grade levels over the full year. Later on in this chapter (see tables 19.5 and 19.6), when we address the use of yearly block plans, we will present another example of a dual-themed sport and fitness program in a junior high school.
In high schools, graduation requirements for physical education vary from district to district. In many districts, high school students have physical education for only two semesters or less. Moreover, the length of high schools classes varies, depending on their school's schedule. While some schools employ a standard 50-minute lesson schedule; others, where the block system is in place, have lessons lasting from 75 to 90 minutes. Still other schools use a combination of these two schedules. Also common are schools that follow an A-B format (often named after the school colors, e.g., Blue and White or Green and Gold), which results in students having physical education every other day.
In high schools with a one-year (i.e., two-semester) physical education requirement, a logical approach to creating a sport and fitness concepts dual-themed program is for all students to complete the Fitness for Life course in one semester, and use the second semester to choose a course that includes various Sport Education seasons. In this chapter's web resource, we provide examples of how these two content areas could be integrated over the course of two consecutive semesters. You may not be able to cover the entire set of chapters included in the Fitness for Life program. However, if your program provides positive experiences in the first two courses, that may attract students to an additional elective credit course titled Advanced Physical Education, during which the dual-theme focus is continued, or a single sport or fitness theme is extended.
These high school students are completing fitness-related self-assessments as part of a Fitness for Life unit within a course that includes various Sport Education seasons.
Developing Positive Behavior Within a Culture of Fair Play
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs.
Physical education has emphasized social development and character development objectives for more than 100 years, and while it has long been argued that sport builds character, we know this does not happen automatically just by engaging students in sport programs. Fortunately, the Sport Education model provides the context within which these goals can be achieved. But for Sport Education to be a site of positive responsibility, inclusion, and equitable learning environments, we need to produce season plans and individual lessons that have a democratic, inclusive, and participatory focus. Further, within these lessons there must be opportunities where fair play behaviors are addressed, together with the social (i.e., responsibility, perseverance, loyalty, and teamwork) and moral (i.e., honesty and mutual respect) properties of the sporting experience (Harvey, Kirk, & O'Donovan, 2014).
At a structural level, the basic Sport Education format of longer seasons and team membership for the duration of the season provides the motivational context within which students can learn to be good leaders, good teammates, and good competitors. They learn exactly what fair play means in the context of specific sports and other physical activities. They learn about fair play when they fulfill their roles as referees, judges, or umpires. They learn to appreciate participating in a series of good games, played hard and fairly by both teams. Good games are those where they can gradually learn the value of perseverance, the satisfaction of improvement, and the fulfillment that comes from contributing to a team effort and having that contribution recognized. None of these outcomes accrues automatically; teachers and students have to work together to ensure that these outcomes prevail.
Our approach to positive responsibility is grounded in the concept of fair play. We chose this approach because fair play is recognized throughout the world as the central concept for social development in children's and youth sport. Fair play has a much broader meaning than just playing by the rules. It also means having respect for opponents, participating with the right spirit and attitude, valuing equal opportunity, and behaving responsibly as a teammate and as a player. Table 10.1 provides a list of the characteristics of fair and unfair play, while figure 10.2 gives examples of prestigious awards given by sports governing bodies. This chapter's web resource includes numerous supporting resources aimed specifically at developing students' fair play skills.
Strategies for Teaching Fair Play and Responsibility
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved. The affiliation of students with teams and the multiple roles students have to fulfill for a season to be successful create endless opportunities for teachers to emphasize these goals and for students to learn what it means to achieve the goals. Teams meet regularly to make decisions together, and they compete for a seasonal championship. Student referees are put in situations where they make judgments to which competitors react. These situations have the potential to create tensions, disagreements, and even confrontations, all of which become teachable moments for students not only to learn what constitutes fair play but also to come to value it.
Strategies for teaching fair play differ somewhat depending on the age and experience of the students. The overall strategy is to make fair play an important and pervasive part of all that is done throughout a Sport Education season. Farias (2017) has provided a number of useful pedagogical strategies teachers can use to promote inclusion, equity, and positive responsibility. These include (1) developing positive and responsible membership, (2) developing positive and responsible peer leadership, and (3) reshaping the meaning of winning for legitimating different levels of participation and membership.
Sport Education provides the context within which fair play and responsibility goals can be achieved.
Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades.
The promotion of physical activity in physical education has become a major focus nationally and globally over the past three decades. As noted in chapter 3, the historic dominance of sport in the physical education curriculum has been pointed to as one of the main causes for many of the field's problems. This resulted in efforts to de-emphasize this focus on sport and increase the focus on fitness-related content. But there is no evidence that sport as program content in itself is the problem. Rather, we regard the manner in which sports have been taught in school physical education as the central cause. In this section, we show how Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
The ultimate goal for physical educators is to have their students seek out opportunities to engage in activities practiced (and learned) in physical education at times and in settings beyond the physical education lessons. For example, if students who learn to play badminton in physical education through Sport Education then go and seek out badminton before or during school (or at home), we can say that transfer has occurred.
Such transfer, however, does not happen automatically; it needs to be planned deliberately. That is, conditions need to be arranged so that when students are not in physical education lessons, they can still seek out needed equipment, find an appropriate location, and participate in activities taught in physical education lessons. Before school as well as during recess and lunch breaks are prime campus-based times when opportunities for physical activity can be created. In the next section, we provide various strategies that can help create the conditions for transfer from activity engagement in physical education lessons to other times on campus and beyond.
Sport Education, if delivered effectively, can help students seek physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons.
Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity Beyond Physical Education Lessons
In Sport Education, teachers can make enormous contributions to ensuring that all students make use of physical activity opportunities beyond the regular physical education lessons. They can encourage out-of-class physical activity in various ways. Out-of-class (i.e., independent) physical activity opportunities can be made available on school grounds before school, during recess and lunch, and after school. Beyond the school grounds, opportunities exist at home, in structured sport programs, in parks, at community centers, and so on. In the following sections we offer strategies for structuring the season competition, setting up the campus environment, prompting and encouragement, and self-monitoring by students.
Structuring the Season Competition
With its strong emphasis on teams learning to work together, team competition within Sport Education seasons is likely one of the strongest incentives for students to seek out physical activity beyond the regular class sessions. Out-of-class physical activity can be built directly into the season competition. In addition to the points earned as a result of games played, duty team points, and fair play points, points for out-of-class physical activity can count directly toward a team's standing in the season competition. It is important to explain this dimension of the competition clearly in the initial class sessions of the new season. Students need to learn where they can get equipment, where it needs to be stored afterward, how they can earn physical activity points, and how they should report their out-of-class activities.
As for how such points can be earned, teachers can set a point value based on the number of minutes that a team practiced during recess or lunch period, such as one physical activity point for every five minutes of time spent in team practice. Physical activity points can also be awarded to individual team members, or on the basis of how many team members participated; that is, a team that has all of its members present and participating can be awarded additional points. The teacher is the best judge of the minutes-to-points ratio.
Just as physical activity engagement is not transferred automatically from the physical education lesson to out-of-class periods, it also does not automatically transfer to times and settings away from the school campus. This means that transfer of physical activity engagement beyond the school campus also needs to be considered. Physical activity during discretionary time outside of school (e.g., time spent at home) can be integrated into the seasonal competition in physical education. Such activity can be measured using multiple tools. For example, students can be asked to keep an activity log that provides a record of the nature of the activity and the amount of physical activity time. Or they can use pedometers that can track step counts. Upper-end pedometer models like the FITStepTM Pedometer (www.gophersport.com/assessment/pedometers) can also capture the amount time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Smartphone apps also offer physical activity tracking tools. Since many if not most secondary school-aged students own smartphones, such apps would be a good way to use technology in a physical education program. Parents of elementary school-aged students could be recruited to verify their children's daily physical activity records.
This team competition approach encourages students to work on either fitness- or technique-related activities in discretionary time outside of school. In order for this strategy to succeed, it is imperative that teachers explain to students what kinds of activities count toward daily and weekly accumulation of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Needless to say, the season can be set up so that any out-of-school physical activity can count toward the total team accumulation, or it might have to be a physical activity that is specific to the current season within the physical education lessons.
Hastie et al. (2012) demonstrated how the transfer of physical activity beyond the school day is more likely to occur as part of a jump rope season with fourth-grade students. In addition to providing verbal prompts for students to practice their jump rope skill, the teacher also provided a team bonus points challenge on selected days of the season. When students practiced their jump rope skills at home and met the amount of time spent practicing set by the teacher (and certified by their parents) they earned bonus points that counted toward the team's standing in the competition. As can be seen in figure 6.4, on days when the prompting plus bonus points condition was in effect, the average step count (the indicator of students' physical activity levels) was significantly higher than for the baseline and prompting-only condition.
The use of group contingencies is an excellent example of how out-of-class physical activity can be encouraged and reinforced. Moreover, it represents an authentic means of embedding it in a sport season and supports transfer from physical education classes to other times and settings.
Figure 6.4 Mean after-school step counts across conditions.
Reprinted by permission from P. Hastie et al. “The Effects of Prompts and a Group-Oriented Contingency on Out-of-School Physical Activity in Elementary School-Aged Students” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 31 (2012): 131-145.
Setting Up the Campus Environment
In all likelihood, merely prompting students to go out and be active on their own is not enough; they need to be supported in their out-of-class physical activity as well. You can help shape the school environment by providing such support in ways that address three key issues: access, equipment, and adult supervision
(Lorenz et al., 2017).
First, you can create access by designating the gymnasium or parts of the outdoor activity venues as areas for independent team practices. Clearly marked signage can indicate the designated team practice area, setting it apart from other activity areas that can be used for free play by other students.
Second, you can make season-specific equipment available for use before and after school by preparing an equipment cart that is placed in the same spot every day near a designated activity area. For example, through grants or by working with Parent Teacher Organizations, all the elementary school physical education programs in Chandler, Arizona, were provided such carts, with the accompanying equipment dedicated solely to supporting campus-based physical activity beyond the physical education lessons.
Team equipment managers can be made responsible for the carts, overseeing proper use of the equipment, reporting any lost or damaged equipment, and returning the cart at the end of practice.
Some teachers may argue that equipment will get damaged, lost, or mistreated if students are given the role as equipment managers. But the proper use, treatment, and management of equipment can be built directly into the season's point system through the use of fair play points that help determine the season's champion. Repeated mistreatment or loss of equipment could result in loss of fair play points or not being allowed to practice outside of class. Once teams understand that they can earn additional fair play points, they will be more inclined to use and manage equipment appropriately.
In order for team practices held outside of physical education classes to be productive, team coaches can be asked to provide written documentation on who attended team practices and on what did or did not work well during the out-of-class team practices. Such documentation would be excellent evidence about team performance that can be shared in the team's portfolio.
Third, you can recruit other adults (e.g., playground monitors) who have lunch duty by making them aware of your goal of encouraging physical activity and seeking their assistance in this process. Typically, adult monitors see themselves as responsible only for safety and overall conduct. As long as students act safely and avoid inappropriate conduct, therefore, these monitors tend to remain passive during recess or lunch periods, and yet they are also a built-in support resource. For example, they can sign the team-based physical activity log to certify that members of a team came together to practice. For them to take on this added task of monitoring team activities they will require professional development. The willingness of physical education teachers to communicate with other staff members and teachers on campus, coupled with a little training (perhaps at staff meetings), can go a long way toward creating and supporting students' physical activity opportunities throughout the school day.
Fourth, lunch periods provide ample time for team coaches to organize one good activity that can help the team prepare for the season or for the next game. Such practices should consist of informal (but purposeful) games that are typical of the natural play patterns when children and youth gather to play a game. We strongly agree with Launder and Piltz (2013), who argued that it is within this context that learners become players through experimentation. Team coaches can be encouraged to use the team practice cards and action fantasy game cards provided in the web resource for chapter 7. Note that introducing students to a particular activity during physical education class provides a perfect opportunity for you to encourage teams to engage in that same activity during out-of-class times.
When teams play and practice by themselves, they invariably have to work through problems that may emerge between team members. A central characteristic of fair play is that all team members show up for such independent team practices. If a player misses multiple practice sessions, the team has to decide how to address this problem.
Establishing a Distinct Program Theme
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme?
Reflect on your own physical education experiences when you were in school. Can you recall your physical education having a distinct theme? Can you honestly state that you learned something valuable and meaningful because of your participation in it? Do you believe that all students would view these experiences in similar ways? Having a distinct program theme and organizing the content accordingly will help your program remain focused. It will also help you avoid having a program that is a repeat of the same short units that are nothing more than a smorgasbord of content and that have little if any focus on providing students with meaningful learning experiences.
A quality physical education program is one whose content reflects a distinct program theme (Tannehill et al., 2015). That is, there is coherence in what students experience as they complete the program. Examples of program themes include sport, fitness, outdoor pursuits, or personal and social responsibility. An agreed-upon program theme reflects and is determined by multiple factors. Key factors include the local topography and climate, teachers' values and beliefs, and their expertise specific to what they can teach. For example, teachers with a strong content background in outdoor pursuits and who live in more mountainous regions would most likely build a program aimed at developing students' skills and knowledge through activities such as hiking, climbing, mountain biking, canoeing, and fly-fishing. Similarly, teachers who value and believe in the importance of physical fitness and who have strong content knowledge in this area are more likely to develop a fitness-themed program. These teachers might consider incorporating the Fitness for Life model (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014), which includes content offerings aimed at helping students become informed fitness consumers. Teachers with both broad and in-depth content background in sport would likely make sport the central theme, and so Sport Education would be the logical curricular approach to build students' competency, literacy, and enthusiasm for sport. Choosing a fitness- or outdoor-themed program does not mean that the principles embedded in Sport Education cannot be used. Throughout this text, we have made reference to several examples of how Sport Education can be used with content not typically described as sport.
Can Programs Have More Than One Theme?
In most cases, because they are the only teacher in the program, physical educators in elementary schools can put their own stamp on how a program is organized. Later in this chapter we will provide more detail on how an elementary program can be structured around a theme.
Depending on the school size, secondary school programs may have anywhere from three to six physical education teachers on staff. It is not uncommon for teachers in one program to have differing values and beliefs about what the program theme and focus should be and what content should be included. This does not mean that the physical education program cannot have a distinct theme. Moreover, programs can have a dual theme. For example, over the last three decades there has been a shift in physical education programming, given the growing interest in the promotion of physical activity from a health perspective. As a result, we have seen an increased emphasis on building in more physical fitness content in K-12 programs. We view a dual-themed focus on Sport Education and Fitness for Life (Corbin & Le Masurier, 2014; Corbin, Le Masurier, & Lambdin, 2018) as a natural and defensible blend. Two examples of a junior high program with a dual-themed focus are presented in Tables 19.1 and 19.2. Table 19.1 shows a program for a school where physical education is offered every day and in both grade levels, but only for one semester (i.e., 18 weeks, in either fall or spring). Table 19.2 includes a junior high school program with physical education offered every day in both grade levels over the full year. Later on in this chapter (see tables 19.5 and 19.6), when we address the use of yearly block plans, we will present another example of a dual-themed sport and fitness program in a junior high school.
In high schools, graduation requirements for physical education vary from district to district. In many districts, high school students have physical education for only two semesters or less. Moreover, the length of high schools classes varies, depending on their school's schedule. While some schools employ a standard 50-minute lesson schedule; others, where the block system is in place, have lessons lasting from 75 to 90 minutes. Still other schools use a combination of these two schedules. Also common are schools that follow an A-B format (often named after the school colors, e.g., Blue and White or Green and Gold), which results in students having physical education every other day.
In high schools with a one-year (i.e., two-semester) physical education requirement, a logical approach to creating a sport and fitness concepts dual-themed program is for all students to complete the Fitness for Life course in one semester, and use the second semester to choose a course that includes various Sport Education seasons. In this chapter's web resource, we provide examples of how these two content areas could be integrated over the course of two consecutive semesters. You may not be able to cover the entire set of chapters included in the Fitness for Life program. However, if your program provides positive experiences in the first two courses, that may attract students to an additional elective credit course titled Advanced Physical Education, during which the dual-theme focus is continued, or a single sport or fitness theme is extended.
These high school students are completing fitness-related self-assessments as part of a Fitness for Life unit within a course that includes various Sport Education seasons.
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