Due to curriculum changes, running laps and dressing out are no longer the key to how students will be graded in PE. They will now be graded through the use of knowledge and performance assessments. In addition, coming in before or after school to make up missed days is changing for students.
Knowledge assessments will include multiple-choice questions, which cover the basics and rules learned for each unit. Performance assessments will evaluate the students’ physical skills that they learned from each unit. Each assessment will be graded using rubrics, which were created by the PE department over the summer, that go from beginning to proficient, whether it is testing the knowledge of the unit or the skills of the unit.
“We spent 12 hours just making rubrics, coming up with what’s fair to grade kids on,” PE 1 teacher Tristian Towey said. “We don’t want to give bad grades in PE, but we also don’t want them to just show up and not try.”
But the knowledge assessments may not take the form of a multiple-choice test in every class. For example, in “Fitness for Life” taught by Hope Skrobecki, assessments often present as projects.
“We really talk about safety and weight room etiquette, and then we do projects over them and talk about form,” Skrobecki said. “So my goal is that one of my students in my Fitness for Life Class, when they leave my class, they feel confident enough with the knowledge and abilities that they have to go to a YMCA or a public gym and continue to work out on their own.”
The assessments will follow a similar format to the ones below.
“We’re evaluating a skill within basketball or the units to a set standard, which is what we believe all high school students and PE teachers should walk out with,” assistant principal Ryan Garder, who helped make the PE rubrics, said. “It’s not about ranking who’s the best basketball player in class.”
In the past, any time a student missed a PE class, they were required to come in before or after school to make it up; however, this year, making up work will be at the teacher’s discretion.
“You come in the next day and the teacher works on the side to make sure you understand what you missed,” PE department head Justin Haberman said. “In the past, it was just making up time, and there was no content being taught. We’re here to educate, not be patrollers of time. Now it’s important that you are in class and that you do get all the material, but at the same time, we gotta make sure that we’re using everyone’s time effectively.”
The grading in the past looked more like what students are familiar with; teachers would grade day by day, which would be dependent on whether you are participating and changing out. However, administrators are expecting the changes to help students be more prepared for what they are expected to know and to take away from the class, instead of just being expected to get a workout.
“Oftentimes, we think of PE as just physical exercise or skills, but there’s always been a component of knowledge, and assessing that knowledge is done in a variety of ways,” principal Chad Jepsen said. “Assessments are not necessarily new, but they do look different. There’s a little bit more clarity in what that looks like for students, so they understand, ‘here’s what we would like you to know, and this is what we’re going to be doing.’ There are really no secrets or surprises.”