Guidelines for Planning

Planning the Year

A well thought out "game plan" for the year will help teachers get a sense of the big picture. A clear view of the big picture will help them with planning and organizing, and guiding their students towards the aim and goals of the physical education program.

Following are suggestions about planning for success over the course of the year:

1. Teachers should have a clear sense of the aim and goals of Physical Education 6-9. This will help them stay on track when preparing lessons, assignments and so on. Lesson and unit objectives will develop from the aim and goals and, ultimately, so will assessments and evaluations.

   Aim

   • lifelong participation

   Goals

   • concept based skill development
   • development of positive attitudes
   • a lifestyle oriented to overall well-being

2. Teachers should then consider how they plan to reach each of the goals stated above. Questions teachers might ask are:
   • What activities will I plan and how will I plan them so that students take responsibility for their own learning?
   • How can I encourage students to take ownership of the class by involving them in choosing, planning, assessing and evaluating activities, assignments, etc.?
   • How am I going to ensure that positive attitudes are developed? How will I assess my own development in that area plus that of my students? Which C.E.L.s could help me here?
   • How can I know if my students are making lifestyle changes as a result of participation in my class?

3. The third step is to develop foundational objectives which will help link the aim and goals of the program to the learning objectives and, eventually, to the assessment and evaluation strategies.

   Foundational objectives are outcomes which are achieved over a fairly long period of time such as one or two months or a year. They are different from learning objectives in that they are broader, less specific in nature. They describe the skills and understandings to be acquired by students. Specific learning objectives describe what students do to come to an understanding or how they will acquire that ability.

   Foundational objectives form the basis for curriculum assessment and student evaluation. No matter what strategies are used, they should be the main focus of evaluation. The section on Foundational Objectives and Learning Objectives for the Activities Areas provide examples of foundational objectives.

4. Teachers should then develop learning objectives that tie directly into the foundational objectives.

   The section called Foundational Objectives and Learning Objectives for the Activity Areas contains objectives which have been written to assist in this area. Teachers will eventually wish to add their own. In the section called >Components and Initiatives of Core Curriculum are a number of foundational and learning objectives in the C.E.L.s that pertain specifically to physical education. They might be helpful as well.

Graphing Movement Patterns to Plan the Year

Movement Patterns are the basic themes used in developing units of work and lesson plans. The following template called Graphing Movement Patterns may be duplicated and used for individual activities to indicate the degree of use each of the basic movement patterns have in each activity. In racquet sports, for example, the basic movement patterns of sending, receiving, accompanying and evading will be most used. In gymnastics, springs, landings, statics, rotations and swings will be employed.

By graphing the use of movement patterns in the activity areas, teachers will become aware of the scope of their physical education teaching. By using all ten movement patterns in their planning teachers will ensure that they deliver a complete curriculum package to the students.

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Graphing Movement Patterns

Activity: ___________________________

Planning a Unit

Thoughtful planning contributes to students' development in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains. A thoughtfully planned unit brings together activities, assessments and evaluations in a way that increases the chances of achieving the aim and goals of physical education for all students in a class. The following points guide teachers through the stages of planning a unit and establish a general pattern for the development of future units.

1. Teachers should be aware of the activity area in which the unit is included. Activity areas are described in the section called Overview of Course and have a recommended percentage of class time assigned to them. The charts included with this curriculum guide will help teachers identify activity areas, corresponding units and the amount of class time to be spent on each unit and in each activity area.

   Teachers should be aware of the dominant movement patterns which will be developed during a unit. These are listed and explained in the Motor Skill Development section. Click here for blank graphs. This page can be photocopied and used by teachers to make a quick and simple visual assessment of the major movement patterns of each activity included in a unit. When added to the movement patterns developed in other units, this information may help determine if the program is heavy in one or more movement pattern areas while light in others, or well balanced.

2. Teachers should be aware of the foundational and learning objectives for each of the six activity areas. They have been developed in such a way as to relate directly to the aim and goals of physical education. Activities within each unit must be selected with foundational objectives in mind.

3. Teachers should then determine the instructional approaches to be used during this unit, perhaps by considering the strategies to be used and then becoming more specific with the selection of specific methods.

4. Finally, teachers should determine appropriate assessment and evaluation instruments which will be used during the unit.

Planning a Lesson

Teachers know that classes in any subject area are most enjoyable for everyone when all are aware of the target for each lesson (the little picture) as well as for the entire unit (the big picture). Physical education classes are no exception. Planning each lesson requires careful consideration of the specific foundational and learning objectives. Teachers plan each lesson to achieve outcomes related to these objectives.

The following pages provide templates for future lesson planning. Using these templates as guides, teachers will be able to plan for students' development in the cognitive area (such as understanding basic concepts about movement), the affective area (such as working with a peer tutor) and the psychomotor areas (such as development of motor skills). This template format is used to develop the lessons found in the section called Sample Lesson Plans.

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Template for Planning a Lesson

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Template for Planning a Lesson

CELs

For printing and copying this template Require Acrobat Reader (click on the table title)

Template for Planning a Lesson

For printing and copying this template Require Acrobat Reader (click on the table title)

Template for Planning a Lesson

CELs