Jacalyn Lund

Assessment and accountability in secondary physical education.

Accountability surrounds us in our daily lives. It is a key to keeping students on task and augmenting learning. Physical educators can use various types of accountability to increase the quantity and quality of student response rates. Accountability can take avariety of forms, with grading being used most often, along with public recognition, high-tech heart monitoring equipment, trophies, and other material rewards. Authentic assessments are becoming another way to hold students and teachers accountable for subject matter competency rather than completion of a class. When accountability and assessment are used in conjunction with goal setting and task-oriented teaching, instructional alignment occurs. Assessment and accountability need to be applied to the instructional task system as part of an effective physical education program.

PETE Doctoral Institutions: Programs, Faculty, and Doctoral Students

Purpose: The present study of doctoral physical education teacher education (D-PETE) programs was part of a longitudinal study that provided an extensive description of demographics including: (a) doctoral program characteristics, (b) faculty, and (c) doctoral students/graduates. Method: This trend study incorporated 3 data sets (2005–2006, 2008–2009, and 2011–2012) that described the characteristics of D-PETE programs. Academic heads of D-PETE programs provided demographic information on their doctoral students, faculty, and institutional characteristics for the 2005–2006, 2008–2009, and 2011–2012 academic years and selected summary data from 1996–1997 through 2011–2012. Results/Conclusion: As a result of this longitudinal data collection, the following trends were revealed. First, there was a decrease in the number of D-PETE programs and an increase of nontenured and part-time pedagogy faculty. Second, initial teacher licensure programs remained in existence at the vast majority of D-PETE programs. Third, funding for doctoral students at D-PETE programs was decreasing. Fourth, racial composition of doctoral graduates and current doctoral students remained largely skewed toward Caucasians. Fifth, there was a slight decline in the percentage of doctoral graduates entering higher education, but employment rates were exceptionally high. Sixth, non-U.S. doctoral students and ABDs were marketable in the United States.

Activity in Physical Education: Process or Product?.

In our concern about making physical education classes more active, has the message about activity overshadowed the message about helping students learn something in physical education?

Getting on the Right Bus

I am truly honored to present the 44th Amy Morris Homans lecture and wish to publicly thank Dr. Fiorentino for extending the invitation. Being asked to deliver this lecture carries with it a great amount of responsibility. First, one wants to present one’s thoughts in the spirit of the woman for which the lecture is named. Secondly, after glancing down the list of names of the previous lecturers, one knows that the bar is high. I offer my thoughts today about the future of our profession and the role that this organization plays in moving us from good to great. This year’s conference theme draws from a book called Good to Great that examined why some companies have grown and prospered (Collins, 2001). To qualify as one of Collins’ “great” companies, the company had to not only show excellence and market growth, but also needed to sustain this growth over an extended period of time. In a sense, the book looked at the past to see what had worked for these companies and why they have a bright future. The book lists ten themes that emerged from the data. In this lecture I will focus on three of those themes: having a Level 5 leader at the helm, the hedgehog principle, and getting the right people on the bus.

CORRELATION OF EYE COLOR ON SELF-PACED AND REACTIVE MOTOR PERFORMANCE '

Researchers continue to examine the distinctiveness of motor performance by dark- versus light-eyed individuals. Dark-eyed individuals generally perform better at reactive type tasks (boxing, hitting a ball, defensive positions in football, rotary pursuit), while light-eyed individuals perform better at self-paced tasks (bowling, golf, pitching baseballs). Subjects performed two tasks, rotary pursuit and ball tossing (with light and dark background). Eye color (light or dark) and accuracy of performance were recorded for each subject. No significant difference was found between eye color and performance on the pursuit rotor (reactive activity). A significant difference was found between mens and womens performance in throwing a ball (self-paced activity) at a light-colored background.

Faculty Dispositions: Seeking Clarity while Looking at Muddy Waters.

If one reads the paper or listens to the news, professional disposition are almost becoming critical job skills in the world of work. Similarly, faculty dispositions, defined in this article as “attitudes, values, and beliefs demonstrated through both verbal and non-verbal behaviors as educators interact with students, families, colleagues, and communities” (NCATE, 2007), are becoming increasingly important as the demands on faculty members increase. Many individuals in higher education can cite examples of individuals acting or treating others in ways that were less than fair or ethical with few, if any, consequences. In an attempt to define those behaviors important to higher education faculty, the authors of this article initiated a series of studies done in five phases that were designed to achieve that end. In addition, they developed a method for articulating standards of excellence that could be used in a variety of ways, including yearly faculty evaluations or pre tenure or tenure reviews. Suggestions from various sectors in academe provided an initial list of behaviors which were then reduced via focus group discussions and survey data collection resulting in a list of 56 items. A second survey examined the differences in perceptions about the significance of the dispositions between several paired groups: (a) administrators and nonadministrators, (b) Research 1 institutions and comprehensive or small colleges (referred to as “Other” institutions), (c) males and females, and (d) tenured and nontenured faculty members. The greatest variance was with the gender and tenure pairings. The article concludes with a rubric based on these 56 items that departments can use for a variety of purposes as they seek clarity in the muddy waters of dealing with faculty dispositions.

Same Sneakers, New Tricks: Curricular Alternatives for Physical Education

As societal demands for health and fitness are changing, the curricula delivering this knowledge must change as well. This writer reviews three alternatives that propose ways to redistribute time allocated to physi cal education. In addition, sugges tions are offered that allow other sub jects to be integrated with physical education.

Assessment for Learning in Physical Education: The What, Why and How

Assessment in physical education has undergone significant changes since in the 1990s. Teachers now place less emphasis on fitness test scores and dressing out, and more on skills and knowledge according to SHAPE Americas National Standards for K–12 Physical Education. More teachers are looking into formative assessments, rather than a summative score. “Formative assessment” and “assessment for learning” are terms that are usually used synonymously. However, some writers distinguished between these two terms and argued that they served different purposes. Regardless, formative assessment and assessment for learning have been shown to have a positive impact on teaching and learning. This article clarifies the terms and purposes of formative assessment and assessment for learning, provides examples of various types of formative assessment and assessment for learning activities in physical education, and explains why teachers should include them as part of their physical education instruction.

The Impact of Formative Assessment on the Success and Response Rate in a 6th Grade Physical Education Badminton Unit

ABSTRACT Formative assessment can raise standards of achievement. In physical education, when formative assessment was incorporated into instruction, students performed better in terms of skills and were more on-task. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of formative assessment on success and response rate of a sixth grade badminton unit. Specifically, this study aims to study how formative assessments impact response and success rates of the more skilled, average skilled and lower skilled students in a badminton unit in physical education. Sixteen students from two sixth grade classes took part in this study. One class served as the treatment group, where the teacher incorporated formative assessments in her teaching, while the other class served as the control group. The current study found that students in the treatment group were more on-task than the students in the control group based on the response rate. Students in the treatment group had higher response rate, and this difference was statistically significant. Although the treatment group showed a 10% higher mean success rate, the results were statistically insignificant. This study confirmed students were more on-task and had a higher response rate when formative assessments were incorporated into the lesson.

Teacher Evaluation: Done to You or with You?

Educational reform in the past decade has placed a very strong emphasis on teacher accountability and student achievement. This change in focus has caused a thorough reexamination of how teacher quality and effectiveness are defined in the field, and has triggered a reform of the teacher evaluation process. As a result, generic, all-encompassing evaluation systems are being developed to evaluate teachers across all subject areas, including physical education. This one-size-fits-all approach meets the more obvious goal of evaluation, which is to review and appraise the competence level of teachers, but questions arise about whether the evaluation will improve teacher effectiveness. This generic approach overlooks the actual context in which teaching takes place and disregards the subject matter being taught. If the primary goal of teacher evaluation is to help teachers become more effective, the evaluation system must provide teachers with objective, content-specific feedback to inform practice and guide them to improve their teaching effectiveness. This article discusses concerns related to using some of the more generic evaluation systems currently being implemented in schools to evaluate physical education teachers. It concludes with suggestions about how physical education teacher education programs can provide observation tools to their teacher candidates to improve teacher effectiveness.