American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance - AAHPERD

 Issue: Nov/Dec 2008

Training Elementary School Classroom Teachers to Lead Developmentally Appropriate Physical Education
Clay P. Sherman

Abstract:
In consideration of the academic priorities and budgetary constraints in many elementary schools across the country, the classroom teacher (CRT) will likely remain as a primary physical education provider. Reliance on physical education specialists (PES) as indirect service providers can play an important role in preparing CRTs for this task. Classroom teachers from two large urban school districts were trained to use an evidence-based curriculum (i.e., CATCH) that included a four-phase professional-development support strategy, and they were encouraged to provide approximately 100 minutes of physical education per week to their students. The four-phase model included an inservice training delivered by a CATCH master trainer; a four-week peer-modeling phase; a four- to six-week co-teaching phase in which the CRT and PES delivered the weekly lesson together; and a full integration phase, which transferred all aspects of planning and delivering a weekly physical education lesson to the CRT. In the final phase CRTs were interviewed to evaluate model effectiveness in terms of the facilitative factors that helped the overall professional development succeed and areas that could be improved.

Article category: Professional Development