A STATE MODEL FOR COMPETENCYBASED LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT

A STATE MODEL FOR COMPETENCY-BASED LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION STEVEN C WRIGHT HEALTH & PE COORDINATOR UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, DURHAM, NH STEVEN. WRIGHT@UNH. EDU

EDUCATION IN THE U. S. IS “STATE” DRIVEN, NOT ”NATIONAL” - NH IS THE FIRST STATE IN THE U. S. TO FULLY INTEGRATE A COMPETENCY-BASED LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT SYSTEM - - THIS STATE MANDATE HOWEVER, IS DESIGNED TO BE DEVELOPED FROM THE GROUND UP OVER A FIVE-YEAR PERIOD THE NH DEPT. OF ED. HAS NOT PROVIDED SCHOOLS WITH ASSESSMENT GUIDELINES FOR HEALTH OR PE SUBJECTS (THEY HAVE FOR OTHER SUBJECTS SUCH AS HISTORY)

PREVIOUS GRADING WAS ON AN A-F SCALE TRADITIONAL ASSESSMENTS WERE USED, SUCH AS WRITTEN TESTS, SKILLS TESTING AND SUBJECTIVE GRADING RELATED TO THINGS SUCH AS PREPAREDNESS, PARTICIPATION AND SPORTSMANSHIP

NEW GRADING WILL BE ON A 0 -5 BASIS SPECIFIC COMPETENCIES ARE ADDRESSED AND ASSESSED VIA STANDARDS AND OUTCOMES THAT LEAD TO STUDENT SELFASSESSMENT ‘I CAN’ STATEMENTS. AN EXAMPLE: ‘I CAN THROW A LEAD PASS ACCURATELY TO A MOVING TEAMMATE. ’ TEACHER-BASED ASSESSMENTS ARE MAINLY VIA RUBRICS AND CHECK LISTS.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE COMPETENCYBASED ASSESSMENT MODEL VARIES WIDELY • Some schools have barely started, and some PE teachers are vowing to retire before they will engage in this. • Most schools are in the development phase, but teachers are not given any ‘release’ time to fully develop it. • Some schools have the system in place (Standards, Competencies, and ‘I Can’ statements established for each grade level and sport/game/activity) and are assessing students using this new model.

CURRENT PE TEACHERS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THIS NEW ASSESSMENT SYSTEM – THEY ARE LOOKING FOR HELP - SOCIETY FOR HEALTH & PHYSICAL EDUCATORS (SHAPE, 2014) BOOK PROVIDES NATIONAL STANDARDS AND GRADE LEVEL OUTCOMES K-12 - PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (PD) WORKSHOPS - NH STATE HPE CONFERENCE - GRADUATE-LEVEL SUMMER COURSES VERY VALUABLE FOR TEACHERS TO SHARE IN THEIR EXPERIENCES HARD FOR MANY OLDER PE TEACHERS TO MOVE AWAY FROM SUBJECTIVE GRADING

PHYSICAL EDUCATION TEACHER EDUCATION TRAINING REGARDING ASSESSMENT • Share my personal experience • If we want to be taken as seriously as academic subjects, we need show evidence of student learning. • National Standards and Grade Level Outcomes (as well as individually created outcomes for secondary level). Also ‘I Can’ statements for students. • Holistic and Analytic Rubrics, Checklists, Task Sheets, etc • How to implement all this into the NH Competency-Based model