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Executive Summary for Physical Education
The major outcomes of the K ‑ 12 Physical Education District Curriculum Committee will be aligned to the state and national goal for all students to become physically educated. A physically educated person must meet the following criteria:
Research has proven that children and youth do not naturally develop the knowledge, skill attitudes, and behaviors necessary to establish regular physical activity. Physical education remains unique in its ability to challenge and develop all three domains of the learner, psychomotor, cognitive, and affective. Understanding that our discipline has a unique learning environment the task for our committee has been to determine what content is most important and how that content should be sequenced to enhance student learning.
Within the district, physical education has had a variety of expectations and program goals. The curriculum committee has agreed that motor skill development and development of physical fitness remain primary program emphases in K ‑ 12 physical education. Historically, these two purposes have been separate focal points where programs only emphasized one or the other. The district's curriculum will reflect the need to integrate the skill and fitness instruction. Students need to develop competence in a variety of motor skills, to acquire the confidence in their adeptness at participating in skill‑related and fitness‑related activities and to find personal meaning and purpose through their physical activity involvement in order to make the choice to stay physically active. The committee will design exit reports at specific grade levels to help track student progress in motor skill and fitness status.
Like any other curriculum, a high quality physical education program is designed to meet higher-order educational objectives. The curriculum will be designed to help students become independent problem solvers and decision‑makers. Students should be moving from a teacher directed experience at the lower grades to the high school where students should be involved in self‑directed learning activities. In order to move in this direction two other program goals which have not been clearly stated in measurable outcomes in past curriculums need to be addressed the cognitive and affective domain.
The committee believes that the acquisition of knowledge and development of critical thinking skills are an important outcome of physical education if students are to become self‑educative. The committee will develop innovative assessments at critical grade levels, which will challenge students to demonstrate their understanding and thinking skills. It will also provide needed feedback to the teachers as they assess program effectiveness.
The physical education classes offer an ideal environment for effective attainment of a number of "Aspects of Character" in the Connecticut Common Core of Learning. In physical education our students need to internalize and understand the merits of participation, cooperation, competition and tolerance. Through carefully planned activities teachers can help students develop an awareness of how they interact with others and how the quality of their behavior influences others response to them. These experiences can also help students become less dependent on others and more able to independently plan personal activity programs and to be informed participants in physical activity.
Effective communication will be the key to helping our students achieve the program goals. The committee will develop a variety of methods to inform students, parents, school personnel, community members, and decision‑makers about the district's physical education program and student's progress toward becoming physically educated.
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