Physical Education: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
This domain tests instructional design: building standards-based units, writing measurable objectives, choosing teaching styles and management routines, and selecting assessments that actually measure the objective. Items reward alignment - objective, instruction, and assessment must match in verb and condition.
Planning frameworks
Backward design (Wiggins and McTighe) has three stages: identify desired results (standards and big ideas), determine acceptable evidence (assessment), plan learning experiences. SHAPE America's five national standards frame physical literacy: motor skill competency; applying concepts, principles, strategies, and tactics; achieving and maintaining a health-enhancing level of activity and fitness; responsible personal and social behavior; and recognizing the value of physical activity. A scope and sequence maps when each outcome is taught, practiced, and mastered.
Objectives and teaching styles
Write objectives in ABCD form: audience, behavior, condition, degree. Verbs must match the domain - "understand" is not observable. Mosston's spectrum runs from teacher-centered to student-centered: command, practice, reciprocal, self-check, inclusion, guided discovery, problem-solving, divergent production. Reciprocal and self-check styles build peer feedback and self-regulation; inclusion styles adjust task difficulty so all learners succeed.
Management and inclusion
Establish routines and instant activities for maximum participation; use small-sided games, adequate equipment, and clear stop/start signals. Include students with disabilities through modification of equipment, space, rules, or time rather than exclusion, consistent with IEP or 504 provisions and least restrictive environment.
Assessment
Formative assessment (exit tickets, peer checklists, questioning) guides instruction; summative assessment (unit rubrics, fitness testing, skills tests) judges achievement. Rubrics may be analytic (separate criteria) or holistic (single overall score); checklists are binary and best for simple task criteria. Validity = measures what it claims; reliability = consistency across occasions; objectivity = consistency across scorers. Fitness test scores alone should not be the grade; grade against the standard and the student's own baseline.
Worked example
Revise "Students will understand the importance of teamwork." Problem: no observable behavior, no condition, no criterion. Revision: "By the end of the lesson, working in groups of four on a 20 × 20 grid, students will complete 10 consecutive passes using either foot and will verbally encourage teammates at least twice per game, scored at 80% accuracy on the pass rubric." Reasoning: the revision names the audience, the observable behavior, the condition, and the degree, and it matches the psychomotor and affective standards it claims to measure.
Traps that cost marks
- Pairing a cognitive verb ("know," "understand") with a psychomotor rubric.
- Treating fitness testing as summative grading without standards alignment.
- Confusing formative with summative purposes.
- Choosing a teaching style for novelty when the objective demands direct instruction and high practice trials.
Professional Knowledge: Program Planning, Collaboration, and Advocacy
This domain tests program-level thinking: how a school or district assesses need, designs and evaluates a coordinated health and physical education program, works with families and community partners, and advocates for policies that protect student health. Items look for data-driven decisions and realistic, measurable plans.
Coordinated school health
Use the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model. Its ten components: physical education and physical activity; nutrition environment and services; health education; social and emotional climate; physical environment; health services; counseling, psychological, and social services; employee wellness; community involvement; family engagement. WSCC integrates the classic coordinated school health components with the whole-child focus on being healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.
Needs assessment and planning steps
- Assess need with data: CDC School Health Index, Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) results, absenteeism, nurse visits, fitness data, student and family surveys.
- Set goals and SMART objectives - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound.
- Choose evidence-based strategies (skills-based curricula, policy and environmental change, family engagement) rather than one-off events.
- Implement with clearly assigned roles, timelines, and resources.
- Evaluate process, impact, and outcome, then revise. A logic model links inputs → activities → outputs → short-term outcomes → long-term outcomes. Planning models such as PRECEDE-PROCEED begin with social and epidemiologic diagnosis before selecting interventions.
Collaboration and advocacy
Identify stakeholders - administrators, school board, nurses, counselors, food service, families, community organizations, local health departments, and students. Advocacy uses data plus relationships: brief board presentations, policy proposals (recess time, vending standards, tobacco-free campus), media and family communication, and partnership grants. Maintain ethical practice: confidentiality, mandated reporting, accurate claims, professional development, and competence with culturally and linguistically diverse families.
Worked example
Critique this objective: "The school will hold a health fair to improve student wellness." Reasoning: it names an activity, not a measurable outcome, and has no audience, metric, or deadline. Revision: "By the end of the second semester, at least 75% of grade 6–8 students will correctly identify three sources of added sugar and report one weekly physical activity goal, measured by a pre/post exit survey and goal-tracking log, as part of a WSCC health education and nutrition services initiative." That is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, and it names how evidence is collected.
Traps that cost marks
- Writing objectives that describe activities rather than outcomes.
- Skipping evaluation or gathering only process data (attendance) instead of impact data.
- Building a program with no data or stakeholder input.
- Advocating with anecdotes alone when school or district data are available.