An Examination of Teaching Practices of Elementary Physical Educators

Purpose: The issue of physical education's exclusion as a core subject within No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has limited the scale of professional development programs that university and school districts have provided for physical educators. It is believed that teachers learn many of their teaching practices in the school context in order to survive and sustain their teaching career. The purposes of this study were to describe elementary physical educators' teaching practices using Academic Learning Time–Physical Education (ALT-PE) and Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) instruments, to provide valuable insight into why teachers choose these practices in their context, and to explore how they come to learn them.

Methods: A concurrent mixed model design, which involves two strands of research, qualitative and quantitative, was used for this study. Two units of 4th grade classes for each of six physical educators (n=12 units and 45 lessons) were observed and videotaped to collect both qualitative (field notes, interview transcript) and quantitative (ALT-PE and CLASS) data. Interviews were conducted with each teacher before and after each unit and between lessons. Content and constant comparative analysis, and descriptive analysis were utilized to analyze qualitative and quantitative data, respectively. Reliability of quantitative data was established using inter-observer agreement (96%).

Analysis/Results: Teaching practices within the ALT-PE and CLASS were distinguished by Profile A and Profile B among 12 units. Profile A consisted (n=7) of teachers who scored in the high range in both Classroom Management and Student Outcome domains in the CLASS and spent less Management time (<10%) in the ALT-PE. Issues related to time management and student learning guided Profile A teachers' choices of classroom practices. Their professional learning was occurred throughout their teaching career as they integrated reflection processes into their learning and teaching. In contrast, teachers from Profile B (n=2) demonstrated a low range of scores in three domains in the CLASS instrument, and relatively high amounts of Management time in the ALT-PE (18-20%). The Profile B teachers primarily utilized a book used during their preservice education to choose and develop teaching practices with limited reflection on the given context.

Conclusions: This study highlighted that teachers' efforts to be engaged in the learning process may be required for developing and integrating knowledge, skills, and dispositions that result in student engagement. This study also supported the fact that how and what teachers teach depends on teacher quality that, furthermore, is associated with the quality of schools (Feiman-Nemser, 2001).