P.E. teachers spread knowledge

LISA PEMBERTON

Greg Bert and Lisa Summers don’t just teach physical education.

They wrote the book on it.

Bert and Summers penned “Meeting Physical Education Standards Through Meaningful Assessment: Research-Based Strategies for Secondary Teachers,” which was published last month.

The 160-page paperback textbook is designed for P.E. teachers and college students studying to become one, Bert said.

And it fits in with a national shift to standards-based education, which focuses on students achieving certain goals in a class, with plenty of checking in – or assessing – designed to make sure kids understand the material and are learning along the way.

The book is based on six “power standards” Bert and Summers created at Black Hills High School to align with major learning goals set by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education.

“We kept finding there was all of this standards-based grading available for non-P.E. teachers,” Summers said. “What was out there didn’t have the detail and direction and hands-on assessment.”

Carri Kreider, a health and fitness instructor at Eastern Washington University, plans to require the textbook for a course she’s teaching to P.E. majors in the spring. She said the book “could not have come at a better time.”

“Physical educators, like all educators, are searching for the best resources for strong standards-based assessment,” she said. “It provides an easy-to-follow layout for the P.E. power standards, while providing specific learning targets in age-appropriate terms.”

The book features photos of students from the Tumwater-area high school, as well as many of the lessons and assessments that Bert and Summers developed for their classes.

Bert and Summers are both National Board Certified teachers, and for years, they’ve been speaking at conferences and workshops about their work. They’ve often shared photocopies of lesson plans and other materials with their peers from other districts.

“And the light bulb came on, and we said, ‘You know what? We might have something special going on here,’ ” Summers said.

Tumwater School District officials are supportive of the book.

“We are delighted that Greg and Lisa have collected their great thinking about standards and assessment for physical education so that other fitness and health teachers can benefit,” said Sue Anderson, the district’s supervisor of curriculum frameworks.

The book covers national P.E. standards, as well as objectives for students, such as fitness knowledge, self-motivation and sportsmanship. It also provides ideas for game-based assessments that teachers can use to evaluate students’ skills.

“They can read about them in the book, and literally use them the next day in their class,” Bert said.

“We wanted to show (that) this is our research, this is what our kids have learned and this is how we show it.”

The pair began working on the book in 2009.

“Sometimes we were working on weekends,” Bert said. “Sometimes after school or before school or at lunch. It took about three years.”

Bert shopped it to several publishing companies, and it was picked up by Human Kinetics, which specializes in sports and recreation books and videos.

Once the manuscript was accepted, the editing process took nearly two and a half years, Bert said.

“Writing the book was a lot more fun than editing,” he added.

But now that it’s finished, Summers said she’s excited to see who will buy the book, since it’s available at Amazon.com.

“I definitely appreciate textbooks in a different light,” she added.

Lisa Pemberton: 360-754-5433 lpemberton@theolympian.com theolympian.com/edblog @Lisa_Pemberton