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Maximizing learning and activity time in PE

This is an excerpt from The Essentials of Teaching Physical Education 3rd Edition by Jennifer Walton-Fisette,Stephen A. Mitchell.

Although a set of rules is undoubtedly important for ensuring a learning-oriented environment, developing and teaching a set of routines can also ensure that students know what to expect when they enter your gymnasium and during activity. This section describes sensible routines, particularly those that provide students with direction on what to do when entering and leaving the gymnasium, how to transition during a lesson, and how to handle equipment appropriately. The Routines for Equipment, Space, and People for a Lacrosse Lesson sidebar provides an example of effective routines.

Entering the Gymnasium

The way in which your students enter the gymnasium can have a significant effect on the start of your lesson, so you should design a routine to get an active and positive start. A routine is particularly useful at the secondary level, where students first go to the locker room and change clothing, giving the potential for lost time. An effective entry routine includes an instant activity, perhaps either a different activity for each lesson that is posted for students to see, an activity from the previous lesson, or a consistent fitness activity for students to begin immediately. Knowing that they will be active right away, not just sitting or standing around waiting for attendance to be taken, motivates students to get changed quickly. The sport education pedagogical model described in chapter 11 has teams assigned to home courts where they go for a warm-up activity, perhaps under the direction of a designated athletic trainer for each team. This example of an effective entry routine is built into an instructional approach.

At the elementary level, time between lessons is usually minimal; one class enters the gymnasium as the previous class leaves. Elementary lessons are also usually considerably shorter than secondary lessons, making an effective entry routine even more important to minimize time lost. Students should be allowed to get into activity as quickly as possible because the opportunity for movement is the best feature of physical education for elementary children. If attendance taking is necessary, you can do it while students are active. This task is best accomplished by counting how many students are present and determining absentees by noting the number on the class roster, as opposed to having students stand in a line or sit in rows while you mark down who is present. You might need to use part of a lesson at the beginning of the school year to practice an entry routine, but the time will be well spent by giving your lessons an active start and helping them run smoothly.

Transitions During a Lesson

Physical education lessons usually have several phases in which students are engaged in activities in various parts of the gymnasium. For example, your lesson might involve activity at fitness or skill-related stations, so your students will have to move smoothly between stations as they change activities. Otherwise, you might need to have your students shift from game play to skill practice (or vice versa), probably also involving changes in the amount of equipment being used. Movement between these lesson phases is known as transition, and well-planned and well-executed transitions are crucial to maintaining the flow of a lesson.

Write the transition statements (i.e., what you will say to students) into your lesson plans and think through each transition carefully—they can make or break your lesson. To give an effective transition statement, make sure you have your students’ attention and then clearly tell them the following:

• When to move (on your signal or when you say, “Go”)
• How to move (carefully or quickly)
• Where to move
• What to do when they arrive

Using the previous activity examples, the Sample Transition Statements sidebar shows transition statements that would be appropriate for moving students from station to station in a fitness lesson, for gathering students for a skill or activity demonstration, and for moving students from a skill practice to a game in a sport education lesson. Note the addition of designated student responsibilities to the third of these.

All the transition statements in the sidebar include some assumptions. In the first transition, the assumption is that the students know, through instruction or demonstration, where the next station is located, usually the one in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. In the second transition statement, the assumptions are that your students are aware that a countdown means they have to hustle to wherever they are gathering, that you have practiced this with them, and that you have previously held them accountable for not hustling. This transition statement could apply to gathering your students for a demonstration or for any other occasion when you need to gather them. In the third transition, the assumption is that part of the coach’s responsibility is to know which court his or her team is playing on and whether they are the home or away team by looking at a posted game schedule. The “bench” in this transition statement might be an actual bench or just an area of the gym floor next to the court.

A last word on transitions: Try to avoid what is known as double transitions. Do not gather your students in one place initially if you plan to move them all again to a second place. For example, some beginning teachers develop a habit of always transitioning their students to the same place, perhaps the center of the gymnasium, when gathering them. This idea might seem appealing because students get used to the procedure and know where to go. But suppose you need to show a demonstration at a particular court or activity space using some students who have been performing well. Gathering your students directly at the demonstration court or space, where they can best see the demonstration, would alleviate the need to move them a second time.

Managing Equipment

Using and manipulating equipment is one of the joys of physical education for most students. In most cases, more equipment is preferable to less because more practice opportunities are then available to students. For example, having one ball for each pair of students provides twice as many dribbling or passing practice opportunities in soccer or basketball practices as having one ball for every four students. Similarly, playing badminton or pickleball in a singles format provides twice as many practice opportunities as playing doubles. Because having more equipment on your gymnasium floor will inevitably complicate your management of the equipment, you need to plan routines that students can implement. The following guidelines should help:

• Where possible, have designated equipment managers. This role is one of the team roles in a sport education setting, but equipment managers do not have to be exclusive to this model. Rotate this responsibility so that all students get to know your equipment routines and have the opportunity to take on this responsibility.
• Have equipment collected from and returned to the same place—a ball rack, bag, or basket; a cone stack; or a hook where jump ropes hang. In the case of paper and pencils, boxes and envelopes could be taped to the wall in specific places.
• To avoid congestion, have more than one site for equipment retrieval. For example, in a badminton or pickleball lesson, in which each student needs a racket or paddle, have several places (most likely boxes) from where students can retrieve their equipment. This arrangement ensures that too many students are not trying to collect or return equipment simultaneously in the same place.
• If equipment managers are not formally designated, have just one person per pair or group collect and return the equipment while the partner or other group members go to the activity area and get ready to begin. Again, this procedure prevents congestion.

Exiting the Gymnasium

The end of a lesson is also important because you want your students to leave the gymnasium in an orderly manner so that they behave appropriately in the locker room and go to their next class ready to learn. A cool-down activity, perhaps relaxation breathing or stretching, and a closure in which you review the key points of the lesson, can be followed by an orderly exit from the gymnasium to the locker room. In most elementary schools, the exit will be to the gymnasium door, where the class will line up ready for the classroom teacher to take them back.

An orderly exit is best accomplished by having students move to the locker room or door in teams or groups. For example, you could have students with birthdays between January and March go first, followed by those with birthdays between April and June, and so on, or you could dismiss students in groups according to the color of shirt they are wearing.

More Excerpts From The Essentials of Teaching Physical Education 3rd Edition

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