Case Studies of Teacher Effectiveness in Second Grade Physical Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to describe the teaching behaviors of four teachers who had varying degrees of expertise in working with second grade students and to improve the teachers’ effectiveness. Four experienced teachers were asked to teach a six-lesson unit in jumping and landing skills to an intact class of their choice. Students were pre- and posttested on their ability to produce and reduce force using a force platform and a jump for distance without the platform. OSCD-PE (Rink, 1979) was used to describe the more general aspects of the teachers’ content development and managerial skills. Task presentation, nature of feedback, and appropriateness of student responses were obtained using the QMTPS (Rink & Werner, 1989). Additional information was obtained by counting practice trials and analyzing teacher written plans and approaches to content. Following the first teaching experience, the researchers gave feedback to the teachers and asked them to reteach the unit to a different class. Product and process measures were obtained in the same manner on the second teaching experience. Data were presented in a case study format. The results describe the importance of content knowledge, the ability to present information clearly, and holding students accountable for selected performance aspects.