Developing the content

Bottom Line: In PE, students should be LEARNING!

Content development is tied directly to planning but is far more than simply teaching a few activities that were planned while driving to work. Content development refers to the dynamic process of deciding on and implementing developmental progression of activities so that children will achieve the objectives decided on by the teacher. ---This is called instructional alignment (Matching the intended outcomes (lesson objectives) with the teaching process and assessment. 

In developing the content, the teacher is faced with a host of instructional alignment questions about the tasks or activities outline the the lesson plan: 

• Is this task truly helping students improve? 
• Should I change the activity now or wait a few minutes?
• Is there a cue that will help them improve?
• Is the task challenging enough?
• Are the tasks, cues, and challenges instructionally aligned so that they will lead to accomplishing my goals fofr the day? For the unit? For the year?

When a teacher truly develops course content, he is constantly observing his students.

During a lesson, a teacher has essentially 3 choices after the introductory activity and the initial explanation (informing) on how students should do an activity. She can choose to:

1. Change the task to make it easier or harder
2. Focus on how to do the task by providing cues that will make the students more efficient movers, or
3. provide a challenge to the children to give them an opportunity to test their ability and motivate them to continue working on a task.

Terms to remember:  

Informing = providing students with information, like an agenda, mini-lecture, how to begin a lesson 

Task Progression = a logical, developmentally appropriate sequence of tasks that leads to skill development, physical fitness improvement, or concept understanding. Teachers will make things harder or easier to match the development level of the students. Changing task is easy, however, to provide the children with useful practice opportunities in a logical progression is more difficult. 

Extending the task: changing the tasks

Refining (cues): providing cues to help the children learn. Single cues at the time is important. 

Applying (challenges): To maintain the interest of the children - an application

Example videos and analysis:

1) Circuit Training:  Video         Content Development

1) Pool: Side stroke      

Content Development sheets: Content development form.pdf