By John Kruse
Using state content standards to teach physical education can be a daunting task. As a middle school physical education teacher, I often see teachers of sixth, seventh and eighth grade teach the same lesson all day long. They teach the same lesson regardless of the students’ needs, skills or developmental level. I’m not sure if this is due to laziness or if its because these teachers haven’t looked at the standards closely enough to realize there is a developmental progression that builds on previous years.
Bonnie Mohnsen’s third edition of Teaching Middle School Physical Education, A Standards Based Approach for Grades 5-8 presents an excellent model of how these grades should differ in their curriculum. This book presents sample units for grades five through eight and the reader will clearly see how these grades should differ in both content and focus.
Mohnsen is probably best know in physical education circles for technology. She is the CEO and president of Bonnie’s Fitware. Her previous experience as a middle school physical education teacher shows in her writing. In other words, this text provides practicle applications that are not coming form an “ivory tower” approach. The book is very well researched and uses these professional resources as support for the suggested practices found in each chapter. Mohnsen presents a good foundation up front on such issues as grading, assessment, teaching environment, choosing equipment and teaching styles. The book is particulary useful for someone who is new to the profession or someone who is looking for some new ideas.
Teaching Middle School Physical Education uses national physical education standards as a guide. As a result, a teacher needs to realize that the book is only an example and is not meant to be a cookie cutter approach to teaching. Teachers will need to use the examples to creat their own lessons based on their own states physical education content standards.
Teaching Middle School Physical Education is 584 pages in length. The book is comes in a soft cover and the third addition also includes a CD-ROM with examples of task cards and detailed lesson plans that can be purchased to accompany the text. The ISBN# is 13:987-0-7360-6849-9.
Click here for Bonnie Mohnsen’s blog.