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Using PE Metrics in Your Program

This is an excerpt from PE Metrics 3rd Edition by SHAPE America - Society of Health and Physical Educators.

The scoring rubrics within the sample assessments are designed so that you can observe students during practice tasks, modified game play, fitness and movement activities, gymnastics or dance to determine their level of proficiency. The rubrics guide your evaluation by allowing you to assign students to one of three levels: Developing, Competent or Proficient. All rubrics include an "indicator," which is an outcome statement against which you can assess student performance using the performance criteria in each of the three levels (Developing, Competent and Proficient). For example, an indicator in a sample assessment for high school students on creating and maintaining a fitness plan, in Part IV of this book, states: "Goals meet the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria." The indicator within that assessment's scoring rubric is intended to help teachers measure a student's ability to set and pursue personal fitness goals. At the elementary school level, Standard 1 indicators are specific to the critical elements for the skill. The indicator column states, simply, "Critical Elements," and students must demonstrate the critical elements of that particular skill to be scored as Competent in the skill. The indicators are similar to student learning outcomes, and you can think of them as an "indication" of how students demonstrate their mastery of a skill.

Each performance level in the rubric is defined by criteria linked specifically to critical elements. At the Developing level, students are moving toward competency and mastery of the identified critical elements. At the Developing level, then, a student's competency is emerging and needs further development. With deliberate practice, students can move from the Developing level to the Competent level. Students at the Competent level demonstrate all of the critical elements of the skill, exhibiting mastery of the indicator. The Competent level defines the minimal level of performance required for meeting the indicator. Students at the Proficient level not only demonstrate all the required critical elements of the skill during assessment, but their performance also meets additional criteria and/or displays a level of performance that goes beyond Competent. For example, a student could display all of the critical elements while throwing overhand, while another student adds the wrist snap at the end of the throw or increases their stride length to generate more power. The first student demonstrated competency while the second student demonstrated proficiency by showing a more advanced level of performance.

Throughout this book, we use the term "sample" assessment purposefully. We do not recommend any of the assessments as exemplars, but only as samples of assessments that are aligned with the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes. They represent SHAPE America's attempt to provide you with a way of thinking about developing assessments that is unique to your teaching environment. The purposes of assessment are to improve instruction, track student progress, and provide feedback to students on their progress toward intended outcomes. Therefore, the assessments you use must meet the needs of your students and your program.

We encourage you to modify any and all sample assessments in this book to fit your teaching environment, to use them as guidelines for developing your own assessments, and to combine or modify the assessments to align with your school or district outcomes. You will also want to modify the sample assessments to meet the needs of students with disabilities. For specific guidance in this area, we recommend Assessment for Everyone: Modifying NASPE Assessments to Include All Elementary School Children (Lieberman, Kowalski, et al., 2011).

While all the sample rubrics in this version of PE Metrics denote levels of competency and not point values for each level, you can modify the samples to assign point values and assign different weights to various indicators on the rubric. The sample assessments simply provide you with some suggestions. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for each level can be found in Appendix B. An example of a "rubric with weighted values" for indicators can be found in Appendix C. You can change a rubric to a checklist or a checklist to a rubric if doing so better fits your needs. While the sample assessment for evaluating students' reflections or journal entries might be an analytic rubric, you might find that a general rubric works better for you. In many cases, you may want to alter a sample assessment by replacing some of the language to match the cues you have been using in your classes. That way, the assessment process and feedback from the rubric will be more meaningful to your students. Think of the sample assessments in PE Metrics as building blocks and tools for you to use in developing an assessment plan that is unique to your program and the needs of your students.

As you review the various samples of assessments and assignments in this book, keep in mind that you can use a single assessment to measure more than one Grade-Level Outcome, even if the outcomes are aligned under different standards. You can combine a sample assessment suggested for one National Standard and Grade-Level Outcome with another assessment for a different Grade-Level Outcome under a different National Standard to create an analytic rubric. This is particularly true for assessments under Standards 1, 4 and 5. For example, you can assess middle school students creating a line dance on their skill competency in dance & rhythms (Outcome S1.M1.8) while also assessing them on their collaboration skills (Outcome S4.M6.8) and their enjoyment of activity and their self-expression (Outcome S5.M5.8). You can assess students under all three outcomes in one assignment, using one comprehensive analytic rubric. An example of an analytic rubric assessing more than one standard can be found in Appendix D. These types of assessments have "embedded" within them opportunities to assess multiple standards. Another assessment strategy is to use a suite of assessments to provide a comprehensive and multidimensional picture of student achievement throughout a unit or school year. A suite of assessments would include several forms of assessment, including rubrics, checklists, peer and self-assessments, exit slips and worksheets. An example of a suite of assessments can be found in Appendix E.

Please note that many of the sample assessments encourage students to demonstrate their competency in specific outcomes through the use of technology. Video blogs, slide presentations, flipped classrooms and electronic postings are some of the examples provided. In addition, you might use software to track student progress, collect data and report results to various stakeholders. As physical educators, we need to be part of the digital revolution!

When the time comes to implement your assessments, you will have to think about the practicality of using a rubric while watching students who are moving. This is true especially when evaluating students in activities under Standards 1 and 2. You might want to place a streamlined copy of your rubric on a clipboard or tablet for quick reference while observing students. You can simplify the rubric by highlighting key words in the descriptors or by abbreviating the descriptors in a way that makes sense to you. After you've used the rubric a few times, it will become quite familiar and you will find yourself referring to the rubric far less frequently; it will be in your head. You also will need a simple score sheet for recording students' final scores in an efficient manner. An example of a simple score sheet for locomotor skills at the elementary level and a score sheet for backhand stroke in badminton at the middle or high school level can be found in Appendix F.

Learn more about PE Metrics, Third Edition.

More Excerpts From PE Metrics 3rd Edition

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