Brett Everhart

Using “Cylinder Ball” to Emphasize Tactics and Critical Thinking in Territorial Sports

As physical education teachers continue to seek ways to teach sport units that will help students to become as competent at game playing as possible, many of them are moving to innovative instructional models that combine skill practice with modified, simulated, or small-sided authentic games. Two of these models are teaching games for understanding (TGFU, also called the tactical games approach; Mitchell, Oslin, & Griffin, 2006) and the sport education model (SEM; Bulger, Mohr, Rairigh, & Townsend, 2007; Siedentop, Hastie, & van der Mars, 2004). These models allow students to develop tactical and skill competency in more authentic modified-game activities rather than emphasizing more individual and partner-based isolated skill drills before some version of the full-sided game is played, as in a technical approach (French, Werner, Taylor, Hussey, & Jones, 1996; Gurvitch, Metzler, & Lund, 2008). In his text on instructional models in physical education, Metzler (2000) succinctly describes the primary intent of the TGFU approach:

Using an Online Assessment System to Support the Program Report Process in Physical Education Teacher Education

JOPERD • Volume 79 No. 4 • April 2008 I n teacher education programs across the country, the latest trend within the accreditation process is to integrate assessment systems with online assessment products (OAPs). These products or systems enable academic programs to collect and store candidate artifacts that are aligned with professional standards and assessed by faculty using appropriate rubrics. The development and implementation of such an assessment system is one of the most important initiatives a program can undertake. Consequently, the intent of this article is to discuss how to use an OAP to support the preparation of the program report for accreditation by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). It is not the intent to show all the elements that should be included within the report, but rather to offer a guide for setting up and using an OAP by showing selected examples of an OAP in place. To understand the value of an OAP, imagine an accreditation site visit in which the visiting team requests a number of artifacts to demonstrate examples of candidates’ work in relation to specifi c standards, as well as a report showing how various demographic groups performed. In addition, the team asks for proof that the process for measuring the performance of candidates is reliable. It is possible to fulfi ll these requests without an OAP, but it would be a much more diffi cult and time-consuming process: phone calls would be made and emails sent to various faculty and administrators to piece together the evidence needed in a painstaking effort. An OAP can streamline this process.

Physical Activity Patterns of College Students with and without High School Physical Education

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in physical activity patterns of high school graduates in Texas who completed physical education class credit during high school and those who did not but who were varsity athletes. A questionnaire was designed and tested for reliability prior to being administered to 201 college students. Analysis indicated that participants who completed high school physical education class credit do not currently participate in regular physical activity as mucn as those who were not required to complete such credit. Conversely, athletes who did not participate in physical education reported currently engaging in more cardiovascular exercise and team sports than the physical education students during high school.

Starting a Home-School Physical Education Clinical Program on Your Campus.

A home-school physical education clinical program can do more than improve the physical activity levels of the homeschool population; it can address the needs of the university community as well. Physical education teacher-education (PETE) programs actively seek to provide prospective teachers with more direct experience in public school classrooms. However, public schools in proximity to such programs are often saturated with observers, interns, and student teachers. The Appalachian State University Physical Education Clinical Program (ASUPECP) offers future teachers an alternative means of gaining practical experience-working with homeschooled students. Recently, home schooling has received increased attention from both the media and parents of school-age children. According to the National Home Education Research Institute (Ray, 1996), home schooling was growing at a rate of 15 to 40 percent per year in 1996. Lines (1997) estimated that the number of home-schooled children in 1985 was 50,000. By the end of 1996, there were an estimated 1.23 million such students (Ray, 1997; also see www.hslda.org/media/stat sandreports/ray1997/03.~tm). Parents who choose to school their children at home often focus on academic pursuits. There is no literature describing home-schooling efforts in areas of the curriculum (e.g., physical education) that are ancillary to the core academic curriculum. However, DeVoe, Kennedy, Harman-Anderson, and Zimmerman (1995) found that parents of home-schooled children tend to have positive attitudes toward Etness. Despite these positive attitudes, though, the fitness levels of homeschooled children were found to be low. Parents of the children in the ASUPECP had previously attempted to meet the physical activity needs of these children through local recreation programs, church programs, and home-designed programs. The steady growth of the ASUPECP is an indicator of the value that these parents place on regular physical activity. The increasing population of homeschooled students and their need for regular physical activity indicates the need for established home-school physical education programs on college campuses. The purpose of this article is to describe the development and implementation of an on-campus physical education clinical program for such students.