This is an excerpt from Everyone Can! by Luke Kelly,Janet Wessel,Gail Dummer & Thomas Sampson.
How to Use This Book and Online Resource
What you have in your hands is the most comprehensive and extensive set of elementary physical education teaching materials currently available in a single resource. Although primarily designed to be used as a preservice textbook in physical education teacher preparation programs, this book was also written with the needs of in-service teachers in mind. The uniqueness of this book is that it provides you with both the What and the How for teaching elementary physical education. The What is addressed by the Achievement-Based Curriculum (ABC) process in part I, and the How is addressed by the Everyone Can resource materials in part II. The ABC process is labeled the ABC success cycle in figure I.1 because it defines what decisions teachers must make to design, implement, and evaluate a physical education program that ensures both teacher and student success—effective instruction that results in all students mastering the content in the curriculum.
The ABC success cycle is made up of five components. Although shown as discrete components in the illustration it is important to understand that they are interdependent and thus must all be addressed to have a successful physical education program. Program planning is the first component and involves creating a functional physical education curriculum that clearly communicates the program content, when it is taught, and when it is expected to be achieved by the students. The second component is assessment, which guides teachers through the process of observing student performance on the content identified for instruction and identifying their current level of performance. With student assessment data in hand, teachers use this information to plan their instruction, which is called implementation planning, the third component. The fourth component is teaching, which involves managing the learning environment and implementing instruction so that students learn the content targeted for instruction. Finally, the last component is evaluation, which involves analyzing student reassessment data to maximize student achievement and program effectiveness.
Two of the more time challenging tasks involved in using the ABC model are developing a program plan and then defining the objectives (i.e., the content to be taught) as criterion-referenced assessment items that can be used to evaluate student performance and guide the planning of instruction. To facilitate the use of the ABC process and the Everyone Can resources, these two elements have been provided in the form of a model K-5 elementary physical education curriculum (chapter 6). These two elements in turn are the keys to using the Everyone Can resources, which are described in detail in chapter 7. The mouse icon that can be found in the margin denotes an online resource. The program plan indicates what content should be taught and mastered at each grade level. The criterion-referenced assessment items break each objective down into small components, called focal points, which allow you to determine what each student needs to learn next on each objective. Once you know what objective and focal points your students need to work on, you are ready to tap into the Everyone Can online resources outlined in table I.1.
A quick review of table I.1 reveals that the online resource materials, located at www.HumanKinetics.com/EveryoneCan, are organized on two levels. The assessments, assessing activities, accommodations for individuals with disabilities, scoresheets, and posters are designed around the objectives with one of each of these resources provided for each of the 70 objectives in the model K-5 program—for a total of 350 resources at the objective level. The remaining instructional resources are organized around the focal points and skill levels within each objective. These include instruction activities for the teacher, station cards, and games—in all, there are more than 2,000 instructional resources at the focal point and skill levels.
Now that you know the depth and breadth of the online resource materials provided with this book, you might be tempted to skip the reading and jump right onto the Internet. Although it is true that all resources can be used independently, the power of this package is that all materials are designed around the ABC process. To maximize your ability to meet your students' needs, we highly recommend that you read the first part of the book. The five chapters on the ABC process are presented in a condensed, easy-to-read, step-by-step process. Practical activities are provided at the end of each of these chapters to assist you in translating the concepts into practice. In addition, chapters 3 and 7 specifically address how to use the instruction materials in the online resource. Figure I.2 illustrates the relations among the chapters in the book and the Everyone Can resources. Content presented in the book chapters is denoted by clear rectangles, whereas the resources on the Web site are indicated by shaded rectangles with rounded corners.
Finally, chapter 8 addresses how to modify the model program plan and the instructional resources to meet your school's unique needs. It is important to understand that the ABC success cycle guides teachers through a decision-making process in which they decide what content should be in their program, when it should be taught and mastered, and how it should best be taught. Guidelines are also provided to assist teachers in using the ABC process to develop IEPs for their students with disabilities and for assisting parents who are homeschooling their children. The model program plan presented in chapter 6 and the Everyone Can teaching resources are provided as examples to help teachers get started using the ABC process. We understand that each teaching situation is unique and that many teachers face significant challenges, such as large class sizes, inadequate facilities and equipment, and limited amounts of instruction time. We strongly encourage teachers to experiment with the ABC process and the Everyone Can teaching materials, adapt them to their needs, and make them their own. Recommendations are provided in chapter 8 on how the ABC model and Everyone Can online resources can also be used to design a comprehensive physical education in-service program. Our goal is not to try and make everyone teach the same content or the same way but to assist teachers in providing the best physical education program they can.
Let the adventure begin. Nothing is more exciting than giving students new abilities, particularly for skills they have tried to learn and have been unsuccessful in mastering. With the ABC success cycle and the Everyone Can online teaching resources, you now have the knowledge and tools to teach your students all the physical and motor skills they need to live active and healthy lives.
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