Physical Education Blog

  As discussed in the last post, I will be going over the final 4 content areas in physical education and what their primary goal is. 4. Dance and Rhythmic Activities Examples: Line dancing, hip-hop, folk dance, zumba, rhythmic gymnastics Focus: Creativity, coordination, rhythm, cultural appreciation, and movement expression 5. Outdoor and Adventure Activities Examples: Hiking, orienteering, rock climbing, kayaking, camping Focus: Leadership, survival skills, environmental awareness, and risk-taking 6. Recreational and Leisure Activities Examples: Frisbee, bocce ball, pickleball, yoga, table tennis Focus: Lifelong physical activity, fun, stress relief, and inclusion 7. Health and Skill-Related Fitness Concepts Examples: Lessons on nutrition, injury prevention, goal setting, and body systems Focus: Understanding fitness principles, mental wellness, and personal health knowledge

 What are the main content areas? In physical education, there are 7 main content areas that are the focus of teaching starting with young children and ending with high schoolers. It is important to teach content to a specific age group/ For young children, you should aim for basic motor movements.   For high schoolers, you want to be teaching them games and skills that they can do either by themselves or with one or two other people. The reason for this is that the older you get, the fewer friends or people to do activities with typically gets smaller so playing games such as kickball or soccer becomes harder, so you should be playing games like pickleball or biking.  So what are the major categories? I am glad you asked. There is 7 of them and they are all equally important, I will be breaking them down in this post and the next post, and they are: 1. Team Sports Examples: Soccer, basketball, volleyball, football, hockey Focus: Cooperation, communication, te...

 Grading continued As grading in physical education contains multiple levels, I am going to discuss it more here. In physical education, we must remember that not everyone is the same. We all come from different backgrounds. So when throwing a baseball seems like nothing to me, it can be quite intimidating to others. It is important to foster a collaborative community where everyone learns and gets a fair chance to earn their grade. A topic we have discussed a lot is the use of fitness testing in physical education, and there is a lot of discussion on whether it should be used at all. A lot of teachers just do it to get it over with and just put it in the grade book, but I am here to tell you that is not how it should be used. Fitness testing should be used more than once. The first time is to assess where the student is at physically and then the second time to assess how they have developed. Fitness testing should be used as an assessment of where a student is at physically. Not ...

  So, how do we help students become physically literate? For most educators, we use a thing called standards for grading. Standards are objectives and each grade level has its own standards that get difficult over time. Standards are things you do like throwing, catching, stretching, and all sorts of things, anything you do during an activity has a standard.  Standards are graded on a scale of 1-4.  4 being proficient and 1 being underdeveloped. We grade students on their ability to do something. Not what we think they should do.  So, an example of a standard would be "The Student Will Be Able To (TSWBAT) make a throw to a moving partner," and then from there, we decide what a proficient grade would look like.  So we'll say that to get a 4, the student must make a throw to their partner while using proper form (non-dominant leg forward, form an L with your arm, and then high five. We call those cues.) while their partner runs in a zig-zag pattern. And they must...

 The MAIN goal of Physical Education You may be wondering, "What is the goal of physical education?" and I have an answer. The goal of physical education is to create physically literate individuals. So what does that mean, and what is physical literacy? To be physically literate is to be able to move with confidence and competence in a variety of physical activities for life. So basically, that means we aren't trying to make super athletes. We are mainly trying to give all students the knowledge to be able to participate in a wide variety of games and activities such as dance, baseball, weightlifting, biking, and many more. We want students to be able to be active for life, whether they are doing activities with friends or by themselves                 

 My name is Shawn Houdek, and I am majoring in physical and health education with a minor in coaching. My main focus of study will be physical and health education.  I am an avid sports fan; I like baseball, football, basketball, and wrestling. I am an extremely competitive person and am always giving my best in whatever I do. I like to participate in rec leagues for softball and kickball and will often play pickleball with my girlfriend.  I have a passion for my major, and I believe being physically active is important for everybody, not just a certain demographic. I am excited to make these blog posts and talk about my field, I am not the most tech-savvy, so we will see how this goes.  Throughout these blog posts, I will describe physical education, why it is important, my passion for it, and much more.  Here is a picture of me and President Cook after my team beat his in a kickball tournament