Physical Education Teaching
Description of Program
The Physical Education emphasis is intended to prepare students to become certified physical educators from Early Childhood to Adolescence (K-12). The Physical Education emphasis in Kinesiology is a program within the College of Education and Human Sciences (COEHS), accredited through the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
It is the mission of the Physical Education program, within the Department of Kinesiology and the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire , to enable prospective physical education teachers to develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to be an effective novice physical education teacher. UW-Eau Claire physical education graduates will demonstrate knowledge of and skills in the Wisconsin Content Guidelines for Physical Education and the Wisconsin Teacher Standards.
Conceptual Framework
We are committed to the notion that our beliefs about the development of educators are enacted in programs through four central intellectual processes, including:
- reflecting on professional growth
- developing knowledge and skills
- applying knowledge and skills
- integrating knowledge, skills, and dispositions
The intersection of beliefs and central intellectual processes, which are grounded in the research and professional literature, shape the selection and organization of learning experiences and assessment processes.
The mission of preparing quality professional educators is inspired by its vision to cultivate collaborative leaders in education. Collaborative leadership resides at the central intersection of the Conceptual Frameworks' central intellectual processes, the shared beliefs and the Wisconsin Teacher Standard based knowledge, skills, and dispositions that are the core assessment process.
Excellence as a Journey
We believe that excellence is a process whose direction changes as new or different situations or needs arise. As educators we need to strive constantly to improve the teaching/learning process. The complexities of teaching in increasingly complex environments require highly talented and successful individuals committed to life-long learning. Candidates in physical education are encouraged to view themselves as continual learners, to analyze critically data about their students' learning and their teaching for developmental appropriateness, to develop essential relations with their peers and cooperating teachers, and reflect on their own practice through continual professional development. All of these efforts, the program faculty hope, will help our candidates focus on the ongoing nature of learning throughout the program and beyond to their students' learning rather than just their own teaching performance. We believe that selective recruitment, rigorous admission and advancement standards and continuous assessment of candidate progress will ensure that UW-Eau Claire graduates model quality professional practices and dispositions on their journey to excellence.
Exemplary Practice
We believe that educational leaders are expert designers of learning environments that are models of best practices in the art and science of teaching. Education programs at UW-Eau Claire immerse candidates in environments that emphasize the integration of theory into practice; pedagogy with content; and professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions of the liberal arts. Learning experiences are designed to be performance based, to emphasize developmentally appropriate practices and include authentic, continuous and cumulative assessments. The Physical Education Teacher Preparation program at UW-Eau Claire strives for continuous improvement that is based on program evaluation and research is guided by ongoing efforts to evaluate emerging and developing priorities in education.
Collaboration
Collaboration requires that members of the teacher education community work with multiple stakeholders to achieve commonly established goals. We believe that the development of professional educators is substantively enhanced when PK-12 personnel, university personnel and candidates examine professional problems of practice through collaborative disciplined inquiry. The synergistic quality of collaboration assures that collective insight outweighs individual and segmented group insights. Collaborative disciplined inquiry provides participants with a heightened sense of awareness about diverse possibilities, enhances connectivity with each other and to the realities of the "real world" and helps sustain responsible efforts to seek improvement in student learning and program design.
Reaching Diverse Learners
We believe that collaborative leaders nourish learning environments that celebrate the richness of the full range of cultural and individual similarities and differences. Teachers must be prepared to reach learners who come from complex cultural backgrounds and individual students with particular exceptionalities. Individual complexity includes many levels of diversity which include, but are not limited to, emotional, physical or developmental needs, socioeconomic status, non-traditional families, ethnicity, religious upbringing, gender, sexual preference and primary language use. As population demographics change, as people become more mobile and as communication technologies increase our ability to interact with other cultures and individuals, educators are more likely now than ever before to work with heterogeneous groups of students in and out of the classrooms. We believe, therefore, that we must assure that our candidates will acquire knowledge, skills and dispositions to ensure human dignity, equity, and social justice for all learners.
Central Intellectual Processes
Reflection on Professional Growth - Reflection requires continual analysis of the complexities of teaching and learning and the ability to bring focus to problems of professional practice, identify alternative solutions to the problems and evaluate the success of solution strategies. Reflection also includes an important element of creativity that encourages and values consideration of alternate ways to approach professional problems. Reflection involves the thoughtful, honest examination of instructional practices, human interactions, practice or experiences and personal belief systems. Reflection includes both formal and informal actions, conscious analysis and non-conscious habits of mind. Because careful reflection enhances professional efficacy and provides a mechanism for examining interactions among knowledge development, application and integration, it is an essential component of participation in change processes.
Examining one's professional practices and knowledge base is central to reflection. We expect, therefore, that candidates will develop knowledge about the characteristics of reflective activity and learn to apply reflective strategies to their own professional activity. We also expect them to be life-long learners who will develop the disposition of valuing reflection and seeking professional resources to improve their professional practice.
Reflection additionally provides the groundwork for the scholarship of teaching by requiring continual analysis of the complexities of teaching and learning and the ability to bring them forward into professional conversation and debate. Reflection also leads to the development cornerstone and forms a continuous cycle in the development of a life-long reflective scholar.
Developing Knowledge and Skills - Professional educators develop, refine and maintain excellence in educational practice through ongoing learning. They draw meaning from experiences in general education, related areas and professional courses that contribute to their development as effective teachers. Professional educators use justifiable, appropriate instructional methodologies, grounded in the knowledge about the capacity of all students to learn and in the desire to help them develop to their fullest potential. They can discuss stages of development from pre-kindergarten through adolescence and apply this knowledge to develop appropriate instruction for students. They can discuss and use a variety of instructional methodologies and address their implications for teaching. They learn about students and teaching both in and outside of the classroom.
Professional educators can demonstrate knowledge of physical education to be taught by meeting specific performance criteria. They are able to make connections among theories applicable to physical education, the research base that underlies the theories and current practice. Professional educators also understand how media and technology are used effectively as a tool of inquiry to support and enhance learning and how technology changes teaching and learning, including the contexts in which learning may occur.
Applying Knowledge and Skills - Professional educators creatively and effectively use knowledge and skills developed through program experiences in way that result in:
- effective learning on the part of the PK-12 students
- responsive accountability to stakeholders
- appropriate participation in professional activities
The knowledge and understanding of technology, creating learning experiences, assessment and evaluation, communication with developing learners, instructional methodologies, and decision-making are applied within the classroom setting. Through the reflective process, professional educators refine their applied knowledge and understanding. Developing professional educators have early, frequent and multiple opportunities to apply their knowledge and understanding in a variety of instructional environments.
Integrating Knowledge, Skills and Dispositions - Professional educators develop and value connections among personal and public philosophies, theories, models, goals, and assessments in their field of study. Integration results in enhanced ability to identify and construct connections between the learner, content and application in the real world. Integration is the dynamic process that represents how form, manner and order of learning occur. It is reflected in the emerging, merging, and re-emerging changes that occur through planned and unplanned learning activities. Professional educators must constantly integrate their knowledge of information literacy, diversity, theory and practice, and personal philosophy with knowledge of subject matter, instructional methodologies and children to develop, establish and maintain an environment conducive to teaching and learning.
These opportunities for integration of knowledge and understandings are distributed across the teacher education programs. Each change represents learning and leads to ever expanding and deeper discoveries. This reflects the professional educator's progress from pre-service education to becoming a "master teacher" and characterizes the approach that professional educators will take toward the identification and solution of teaching/learning problems throughout their careers. Each new discovery is greater that the sum of its parts, creating an active learning process that promotes an inquisitive and motivated life-long reflective scholar.
Student Teaching - All candidates seeking licensure in physical education must complete a full semester of student teaching or an internship. The final phase of the clinical program requires the candidates to teach for full days for a full semester following the daily schedule and semester calendar of the cooperating school. All applicants for student teaching or internships must have resident, total and professional education course grade points of 2.75 or better and have departmental approval. All students must have passed the content exam (Praxis II) and submit a portfolio for assessment prior to student teaching.
The Director of Field Experiences carefully selects cooperating sites for this capstone experience. To ensure that the candidates gain experience in variety of settings, the placement director assigns student teachers to two quarter placements at grade levels and schools different from their previous clinical experiences. In special circumstances and for programmatic reasons, the director assigns some student teachers to semester long placements. During their placements, candidates are gradually integrated into the teaching schedule of the cooperating teacher. Student teachers are expected to assume the teaching responsibilities that are typical of the cooperating teacher for a minimum of one week during each of their quarter placements or two weeks during a semester placement.
Cooperating teachers and university supervisors are responsible for evaluating the candidates participating in this clinical experience. The cooperating teachers use an evaluation form to assess the students' knowledge, skills, and dispositions on the Wisconsin Teacher Standards (WTS). Cooperating teachers complete at least two written evaluations each quarter. Therefore, student teachers receive a total of four written evaluations during the semester. The cooperating teacher's evaluation becomes part of the candidates' portfolio.
University supervisors conduct a minimum of four classroom visits of at least one hour in length for each student teacher. During the course of the semester, supervisors provide at least four written evaluations of each candidate based on classroom observations by the cooperating teacher and supervisor. One visit each quarter involves a three-way conference among the student teacher, cooperating teacher and supervisor.
Supervisors of all student teachers have certification that is appropriate for the area they are supervising and three years of teaching experience. Qualifications for cooperating teachers for this clinical experience include:
- valid Wisconsin teaching license
- at least three years of teaching experience including one year at their current school
- completion of a course focusing on supervision of clinical candidates and the WTS
- recommendation of the building principal
- willingness to participate
During the professional semester all education students take FED 497, Field Experience Seminar, which is a capstone seminar which candidates refine and demonstrate collaborative and professional practices. Candidates prepare and share their professional portfolio with peers, their supervisor and cooperating teacher.
Additional ECA advising information: www.uwec.edu/coehs/eaa-eca/
Important Information:
- Students are highly advised to take and pass the PPST I as early in their academic career as possible.
- Students are encouraged to gain as much experience with children and adolescents as possible.
- Students are encouraged to become a member of our state and national organizations (AAHPERD & WAHPERD)
- Students are encouraged to become involved in student leadership in WAHPERD.
- Students must pass the content exam (PPST II) before student teaching.
Visit the following websites to learn more about Physical Education as an area of study:
