P.E. Program Evaluation

When conducting an evaluation of a physical education program within a school system, it may prove useful to incorporate the concept of triangulation into the evaluation process. The triangulation process used in such an evaluation may include three dominant data sources - Curriculum & Opportunities, Student Learning and Community Impact. Triangulation can be defined as an approach to data analysis that synthesizes data from multiple sources. It is from the three aforementioned sources that data and information will be drawn to be used in the evaluation of the overall effectiveness of any physical education program.

According to Plaza et al., curriculum mapping, ultimately, is used to identify whether the intended material is actually being learned and furthers what students learn as well as identifying gaps in the curriculum and demonstrating key links between components of the curriculum. In terms of utilizing curriculum mapping, educators can get an idea of the effectiveness of their program by examining the designed curriculum (institutional and program requirements), the delivered curriculum (instructional delivery), and the experienced curriculum (what students actually experience). To create a useful curriculum map, it may be beneficial to devise a course description sheet with expected outcomes and objectives. To garner information about objectives covered and competencies taught from a teacher's perspective, they may compare the course objectives with the competencies they believe they taught using responses of "yes" or "no". Students, too, could do a reflection noting the extent to which the curriculum focused on each objective using a Likert Scale. This reflection may help reveal the actual "received" curriculum while the other method will denote the "delivered" curriculum.

Objectives can then be categorized into larger "domains" covered in physical education. Using means, students responses and faculty responses can be mapped using a unique shading system, with the darkest shade style representing the highest proportion of domain coverage ratings.

Likewise, student learning forms another piece of the triangulation helpful in evaluating educational programs. Student learning is best exemplified through the provision of multiple forms of assessment geared to meet program goals, such as observation, oral/written/physical knowledge and skill assessments, and criterion-referenced testing. Careful analysis of the results of these assessments will reveal information critical to the evaluation of your physical education program. For example, results of pre/post-assessments (as in the split and switch method) may reveal that information or skills need to be presented in a different format or which content areas, specifically, students are excelling or failing in comprehending. Most useful, perhaps, is the fact that the evaluation of assessment evidence will reveal deficiencies in instructional ability upon which the teacher may see fit to improve.

Finally, community impact, or cost-effectiveness analysis, can serve as a final component in the evaluation of a physical education curriculum. A method that may prove useful to applying the concept of cost-effectiveness may be to choose alternatives that are least costly for reaching a particular objective or that have the largest impact per unit cost. Both cost and effectiveness must be known to make good public policy choices. Also, clear goals must be established, with all alternatives bearing that same goal. Experimental designs can even be employed to ascertain effectiveness. Most educational interventions require personnel, facilities, materials, equipment, and client time. All ingredients required to replicate the alternatives are listed. Ingredients are listed in terms of quantity and quality and cost values can be determined. Generally, costs are determined by annual value, annual depreciation, or annual interest costs. In a final step, the costs are summed up to obtain a total cost, which can then be divided by the number of student to reveal an average cost per student associated with the effectiveness of each intervention. Here, alternatives with the largest effectiveness relative to cost are given the highest priority in decision-making, followed by ease of implementation and political resistance.

Sources:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1858603

http://www.paaljapan.org/resources/proceedings/PAAL11/pdfs/20.pdf

http://ag.arizona.edu/fcs/cyfernet/cyfar/Costben2.htm

http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1887/Cost-Effectiveness-in-Education.html

Re: Master Grade Software

Regarding the Master Grade Software that you previously reviewed:

The software, indeed, is creatively laid out and is relatively easy to learn via a do-it-yourself kind of method. After using the software to create grades for my students for the whole year, there are many pros about using this software and a couple of cons. Though the drawbacks are fairly minor when compared to all of the positives of the software, they may pose a more serious problem for physical education teachers in particular.

One major drawback of the software is that, although detailed student progress reports can be e-mailed to other classroom teachers very easily, these teachers, too, must be using the Master Grade software and be on a school network. The district or school would probably have to agree to use the software in all classrooms and set up a network for ease of use and distribution of grades amongst respective teachers. Additionally, physical education teachers have an easy way to keep track of daily attendance and participation or effort or whatever other areas on which they may grade their students. However, I was only able to configure one way to have the software take into account attendance and participation so that they affected overall grades and grades for quarters. To do this, they must be added on as separate 'assignments' for each quarter. Then, a scheme must be developed to deduct points given a particular student's attendance and participation record. In this case, physical educators may find the software somewhat frustrating.

The positives of the software are numerous. These include the ability to add any number of classes with any numbers of students. Detailed information for each student can be added, including multiple addresses, phone numbers, and pictures. Weights can be applied to assignments and scores for the quarters and scales can be individualized and tailored to meet the needs of any teacher. Overall, the software did everything I needed it to and would recommend it to any classroom teacher. A physical education teacher, on the other hand, may want to try out the 30-day trial and see if, indeed, the software meets his or her grading demands for an entire curriculum.

Master Grade Software

After briefly searching and experiencing what the internet has to offer in terms of gradebook utilities, a piece of software called Master Grade by Maxium Developments seems to be capable of fully meeting the needs of my physical education curriculum. The software is available for a free 30-day trial at http://www.maxium.com/index.htm.

The software offers an array of options for easy use by teachers. The product allows for unlimited numbers of classes and students to be stored in one gradebook. Editing and sorting classes is an option at any point in the process of completing grades. Even personal information can be stored about particular students, including a photo of the student, gender, grade, phone number, home address(es), and email address(es). Also, the software allows for an entry of an unlimited number of reporting periods and exam periods and weighting this periods accordingly. Perhaps the most useful portion included with this software is the ability to tailor a number of different scales to meet the needs of the educator. For example, a teacher may customize scales according to certain percentages which can then be translated into equivalent letter grades. Even more useful, in my opinion, is the ability to create "special scores" that may deal with attendance, participation, not handing in assignments, etc.

Of course, educators are able to enter grades and view student progress whenever necessary. More useful for a health educator than a physical educator may be the ability to create and utilize a seating chart using student photos. As with other grading software, there is a large bank of comments that can be assigned to students respectively. Progress reports can be emailed to those who may want to view them (parents, principles, classroom teachers, etc.). Finally, anecdotal information may be typed in the form of notes for any individual student.

One last major upside to this software is that is can be used by those educators who prefer Mac OS X as well as Windows users. The versions for both operating systems appear to be fairly streamlined and customizable. Downsides to using this software appear, at least at first glance, to be few and far between. At times, however, it seems that the weighting system is a bit confusing in that the category for"weighting" appears at multiple points in the gradebook. Additionally, although there is a separate "gradebook" for attendance, it is unclear as to where to include participation - whether it should fall into the term reports section or into the actual gradebook as a "special score".

You Oughta Know

As a physical education and/or health education teacher, there are couple bits of wisdom that may prove useful to know and consider when creating a curriculum and assessment plan. First and foremost, when designing an assessment plan, the physical educator should consider using mostly formative assessments with a few summative assessments. Additionally, the instructor should give heavy consideration to using a select few choices of feedback types, especially interpretation by rule, explanation, and displaying results graphically. These three types of feedback have been extremely successful in improving percentile improvement in students. Furthermore, it would be beneficial for the teacher to analyze how his or her respective groups of students view their ability to experience success in the classroom - whether it be that the students are driven to be success through a value of success or a value of avoiding failure, or that students attribute their success to ability, luck, effort, or task difficulty.

When developing a curriculum, it may be of use to remember to not force too many topics into your content for the year or the semester or quarter. As suggested by Marzano, teachers ought to consider covering just 15 topics or less throughout the year. To address the issue of a lack of unidimensionality in assessment grades, physical education and health teachers should to concoct a system by which students are given one grade for an assessment emphasizing one dimension, rather than one grade for an assessment emphasizing multiple dimensions.

Finally, physical education and health education teachers should try their best to form alliances with administrators, principles, and state and national educational organizations to try to break down the barriers facing their curriculum and instruction. With the use of constructive discussions and meetings regarding the reformation of standards, goals, and objectives within state documents, educators may be able to more easily write lesson, assessment, and unit plans to meet the state's needs.

Teams & Groups Do Not Equal Hitchhikers

Based on the format of Oakley's (2004) Table 1, my progression of forms to use in a 10-12 grade physical education classroom setting would look as follows:

1. Form: Individual group member introductions & group formations

Time: First day of physical education class

Objective: Divide students into teams of 3 or 4, avoiding homogeneity in skill level

2. Form: Group policy-making and Division of duties

Time: Second physical education class

Objective: To get students to comprehend rules and conditions to abide by within their group, possible consequences of actions, and understand individual duties within a group framework

3. Form: Common group mistakes

Time: First week of physical education class

Objective: Promote groups to rework unsuccessful policies & promote awareness of more successful strategies

4. Form: Reflective Journaling

Time: Every 2 weeks of each semester

Objective: Students will reflect on group dynamic, successes, failures, how to become more effective as group, and how they plan to tackle what is to come next

5. Online Team Evaluation (for each group member)

Time: Middle and end of each marking period (quarter)

Objective: Provides students with opportunity to share honest opinions and, hopefully, engage in fruitful discussions afterward

6. Project Presentation

Time: Last week of 2nd marking period, 4th marking period

Objective: Reinforce knowledge of the roles of all group members, present an understanding of the content contained in the areas covered by other members

7. Summarization of Team Evaluations for Peer Rating

Time: End of each quarter

Objective: Acts as a final, overall evaluation of individual contribution to the group effort and as a means to adjust individual grades for effort by person

The 10-12 grade physical education classroom setting can, undoubtedly, serve to benefit students by allowing students to achieve higher grades, retain information longer, and acquire greater teamwork skills. Forming teams is vital to effective group work. At this grade level, it would work best to have the physical education teacher choose teams of three or four with diversity in their levels of skill and an ability to meet outside of class at common times. Although instructors may be inclined to have students choose their own groups, it is logical to conclude that students in this situation would opt to work with friends and teammates who share common methods of "cutting corners" on group work.

Ensuring that groups are, indeed, effective in progressing is essential. It may be helpful to have the groups establish policies and set of expectations by which they can and should abide. Especially useful, in this scenario, is for teacher to examine the team policy statements to get an idea of an overriding set of class policies for all groups to follow. Additionally, it would prove very useful for high school physical educators to hand back these sets of policies and expectations as a reminder to groups of the respective guidelines they agreed on.

Finally, physical educators would benefit from considering the use of peer ratings in their group work assignments. Instead of focusing on peer ratings that emphasize relative contributions, and thereby favoring students who excel academically, peer ratings ought to emphasize the concepts of teamwork skills. In this sense, the students who drag behind academically will not suffer from a low grade on any given group assignment. These ratings can be used in an online method where students post and discuss them anonymously. The ratings, since following a Likert scale, will then be used to form overall grades that take into account individual effort. Individual efforts would be weighted based on the Likert scale scores.

2 Letters

Hypothetical letter from a confused parent:

Dear Mr. McGuire,

After reading an intriguing article in today's Chicago Tribune regarding the growing use of standards-based report cards, I must call into question the continued use of the A,B,C, D and F grading system appearing on my son's recently received report card. I'm completely flabbergasted as to why Lincoln Street Elementary has not considered or experimented with moving towards the issuance of a standards-based report card for all children K-5.

My son, Adam, is currently in 3rd grade and receives letter grades on his report card. Education specialists mentioned in the article seem to agree that the ABC grading system ought to be reserved for the middle school grades and beyond. Instead of trying to determine from these "mystery letters" how well my son is performing compared to other students in his class, I would like to be more aware of how he is performing towards achieving state education standards and classroom goals.

Clearly, a standards-based report card may make more sense and allow for a more in depth report about the specific areas in which my son may be struggling or achieving. For example, his math grade is currently a B-. This particular grade reveals nothing about his weaknesses or strengths relative to the numerous components covered in his mathematics class. Instead, these details, as noted in the article from the Chicago Tribune, are lost in a final grade that lumps together homework, tests, and participation. Instead of compiling these areas into a single grade, why not provide a detailed account (using an enforced scale) of the successes and failures my child experiences in these component areas?

It seems logical to me that parents of students attending Lincoln Street Elementary should not have to struggle to interpret letter grades on their child's report card. Instead, I ask that consideration be given to implementing a more advantageous system based on meeting standards and not friend-to-friend comparisons.

Sincerely,

Linda Jacobson

Response from School Principal:

Dear Mrs. Jacobson,

I, and the rest of the faculty here at Lincoln Street Elementary, understand your viewpoint. The issue of how to approach final grades on report cards arises quite frequently at the end of semesters within all schools in our district and those throughout much of the country. As of now, our faculty members and administration often hold meetings to try and come to terms on a more sophisticated, detailed approach to how grades will appear when released on report cards. Despite our efforts to resolve the issue, it remains a complicated matter for one major reason.

First and foremost, the ABC grading system is deeply rooted in the schools of America and has been for a number of decades. Breaking with tradition, even if for the better, is never an easy task. Attempting to tamper with an established means of reporting final grades has the potential to cause more of an uproar than would the act of holding true to the current grading system. In districts where standards-based report cards have been recently issued, parents of students are citing confusion, educational jargon, and complexity as the biggest challenges faced when trying to interpret standards-based report cards. Educators, too, will face a total reconstruction of their assessment strategies and lesson plans in addition to dedicating countless hours creating these report cards.

Despite these common problems with standards-based report cards, I can assure you that the majority of the faculty and staff employed by this school district agree with your sentiments regarding the need for the implementation of a standards-based system. These systems show remarkable promise for all grade levels, not just the early elementary classrooms. We do believe that it provides parents with a more detailed look at their child's progress in specific components of the typical school subjects. Furthermore, we believe that standards-based report cards give parents, students, and teachers a realistic view of how and where a student can improve. As we, the district, are totally dedicated to successful student learning, we hope to embark on more fruitful conversations regarding this topic and, eventually, begin to work on implementing this type of system in the near future.

Respectfully Yours,

Mr. John McGuire