Physical Education Teaching Philosophy

Teachers can have an effect on students that is everlasting. The ability of one to connect with,
motivate, educate, and help students succeed is one of the many rewards that teachers
experience. As a physical educator, one of my goals is to help make the students become
physically literate for their entire lifespan. It is important to create a fun, positive, and most
importantly safe environment for the student to ensure each student is able to learn the
necessary content. One of the many challenges of teaching is finding what sparks interest in
your students and being able to consistently create lessons where each student wants to
participate and learn each and everyday.
The type of teacher that I will strive to be is one that tries his best to have good rapport
with the students. I will focus on bringing enthusiasm and positive energy to each class. I
believe enthusiasm and positive energy is important because the students feed off of that and
will be more willing to participate and learn. I believe it is important for the teacher to teach
the necessary skills, tactics, and models, however, it is equally important for the students to
learn through practice and repetition. By creating an environment where the students can
learn through trial and error, I think the students will learn the skill and become proficient. It is
also equally important for me, as the teacher, give different types of feedback to ensure the
students perform each skill correctly. If students are performing the skill incorrectly than we
cannot progress and my primary focus, which is to help my students become physically literate,
cannot be met. Some teaching methods that can be incorporated into my teaching can be
intratask variation and challenge by invitation. Intratask variation will allow me to challenge
specific individuals who excel at a certain skill. Challenge by invitation will allow students to
progress at their own speed which will help them develop the necessary skills further. When
starting a new unit the style of teaching that I believe is most effective is command teaching.
This makes me the primary decision maker and allows me to provide developmentally
appropriate teaching tasks for the student. As the students advance with the skill my style will
change to reciprocal where the students can observe one another and learn from each other.
I believe assessments are important for the students to become successful. The way
that I would like to assess is called assessing for learning, which is putting the students in
meaningful tasks that help develop higher order knowledge and skills that can be transferred
beyond the classroom. My assessments will be focused on the learner and will provide
feedback to the learner as well as me. Assessments that I will use with my students will be
informal when the students are first beginning to learn the skill. Types of informal assessments
that can be used are peer assessment using checklists/rubrics, teacher observation, and exit
slips. Informal assessments will be used for learning so students can get feedback about how
well they are performing the skill. Lastly, formal/summative assessments will be used so I, as
the teacher, can compile data and see where the entire class is skill wise.
One of the most important parts of physical education is to create an environment for
all students. All physical education is adapted physical education and no one learning task is
perfect for one individual/student. Modifying and changing the tasks to help the students is
extremely important for student success and is something I will continually get better at and
focus on as a teacher. I believe it is also important to create an environment where all students
feel welcomed and invited. If students don’t feel comfortable then their participation will
decline which will also effect my goal of making students physically literate. Making sure all
students are comfortable goes back on what I previously stated which was to build a good
rapport with all of my students.
As a teacher it is important to be reflective and look back at what worked and what
didn’t work. As I gain more experience, I will be sure to reflect on past lessons and incorporate
what went well into future lessons. I believe that the best teachers are one’s that continue to
adapt to their students and what their interests are. As a physical educator I am one that
motivates all my students to stay active not only in the classroom but out of the classroom as
well. I hope to be able to give my students valuable knowledge about physical activity and the
many benefits of it so they can stay physically active/literate for the rest of their lives.