New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards for Comprehensive Health and Physical Education

The New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards for Comprehensive Health and Physical Education are a guide that is used by NJ instructors to teach students the basic concepts of health education and physical education. They are used to promote and establish a respect for students’ physical, mental, emotional, and social development well-being. Students of all grade levels are required to participate in weekly group instruction. Each standard includes several strands that connect and overlap to support and foster students understanding in gaining an appreciation of their physical and emotional health.

MISSION: The Standards essential mission is to promote lifelong student wellness by developing individuals who take responsibility for their health and support healthy living among their families and friends.

Overt Message: Providing students with the ability to make healthy life choices is an essential goal in New Jersey.

Covert Message: Effective, goal-driven Health and Physical Education courses are crucial to reaching this goal.


Standard 1: Wellness
This strand introduces students to the concept of wellness of mind and body. The standards are designed to encourage knowledge and self-awareness of health as a means to adopt and practice a healthy lifestyle.

Standard 2: Integrative Skills
This strand encourages and equips students to use critical thinking skills, problems solving, decision making, and communication skills to identify and evaluate information and situations to avoid destructive behavior and ultimately promote responsible behavior.

Standard 3: Drug Education
This strand is designed to inform and educate students on the correct use of prescription drugs, to appreciate their value for combating illness and disease, and recognize the harm which can come from misuse. Students are urged to make healthy choices and not to use tobacco, alcohol and other drugs which will impair judgment and cause injury and illness.

Standard 4: Human Relationships and Sexuality
This strand is designed to support students in gaining an understanding of the physical, emotional and inter-personal aspects of human relationships and sexuality. Students learn to build and maintain healthy relationships with family and friends. In addition, students are educated on the methods of avoiding an unplanned pregnancy through abstinence and through use of birth control. Students also gain an understanding of ways to reduce or eliminate the potential of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

Standard 5: Motor Skill Development
This strand is designed to enable students to develop motor skills. Instruction is focused on learning how to move, why movement is necessary and strategies to increase effectiveness of goal oriented movements. Students gain exposure to various forms of physical activity including sports, games, dance, calisthenics and aerobics.

Standard 6: Fitness
The mission of this strand is to assist students in gaining an understanding of health-related and skill-related fitness concepts. Health-related concepts include endurance, body composition, flexibility, and muscular strength. Skill-related concepts include speed, agility, reaction time and power. Students learn how to develop and maintain a fitness plan that supports a healthy and active lifestyle.


Strengths:

• Standards are related by the overarching goal of wellness.
• Encourages critical thinking, making connections and effective communication.
• Map to recent medical and health trends.
• Breadth of requirements supports a daily physical education requirement.
• Allows for the differentiation of instruction for students of diverse readiness level.
• Encourages students to research and use valid and reliable sources of health information.
• Provide students with the knowledge and skills to become healthy individuals.
  
  Weaknesses:
• Implementation of standards through curriculum development is challenging without use of Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Core Content Standards Curriculum Framework.
• Framework (1999 revision) has not been updated to meet the current standards (2004 revision).
• The language of the standards is often nebulous and vague which leaves the standards open for interpretation.
• The content standards are extensive. It may be difficult to cover all of the objectives required in the given time period.
• Relies on curriculum developers to integrate technology meaningfully.
• More emphasis should be placed on current topics such as more popular illegal drugs, date rape and STDs.
• Instruction on health and PE related careers omitted.
• Instruction of disabilities seen in the classroom omitted.
  
  Impacts on Curriculum Development:
  Positive: Allow for standardization of health and PE Curriculum among NJ schools.
  Positive: Provides a focus for curriculum development at the district level.
  Negative: Do not provide goals for each grade.
  Negative: Current topics that need to be addressed are not emphasized.
  
  References:
  
  Corbin, C.B. , & LeMasurier, G. (2006, August). Top 10 Reasons for Quality Physical Education. JOPERD, 77(6), 44-50.
  The purpose of this article is to document the need for quality physical education, given the current trends of obesity and physical inactivity among youths and adults, and to discuss 10 reasons why all youths need quality physical education that physical educators can use when communicating the profession’s scientific base to the general public.
  
  Hill, G. M., & Turner, B. (2007, November/December). A Checklist to Promote Physical Activity and Fitness in K-12 Physical Education Programs. JOPERD, 78(9), 14-18.
  This article describes a physical education program self-assessment tool, The Physical Activity and Fitness Promotion Checklist, which was developed by a panel of nationally recognized physical education teachers. This checklist can help physical educators to identify areas for program improvement, set realistic program goals, and make prudent decisions regarding equipment, facilities, and staffing.
  
  Jefferies, S. & Mathias, K. (2007, August). The Physical Educator’s Role in Enacting the Mandated School Wellness Policy: School Nutrition. JOPERD, 78(6) , 24-27.
  The authors of this article discuss wellness policies in relation to nutrition education. The article describes some of the most interesting national initiatives for engaging students in nutrition education and encouraging healthy eating. This article provides suggestions for how the physical educator can contribute to developing students who are committed to eating a well-balanced diet.
  
  Lynn, S. (2007, May/June). The Case for Daily Physical Education. JOPERD, 78(5), 18-21.
  The goal of providing daily physical education to all K-12 students in the United States presents challenges such as budgetary issues, less time for other subjects, an increased need for certified or licensed physical education teachers, and the need of revised curriculums and lesson plans. To achieve this goal, physical education practitioners must become advocates for change by developing goals and strategies, spreading clear messages about the importance and benefits of daily physical education, and reporting data that support a return on investment.
  
  Satcher, D. (2005, September). Health and Ready to Learn. Educational Leadership, 63(1), 26-30.
  Schools can be a powerful source for change when it comes to preventing or reducing overweight and obesity. Some proactive steps can address student health and improve students' readiness to learn, such as forming a school health advisory council, developing a comprehensive wellness policy, integrating physical activity and nutrition into all school programs, and encouraging staff to model healthy lifestyles.
  

“The best teachers don’t teach from the book”. OUCH!

“The best teachers don’t teach from the book”. This quote from our graduate class has resonated with me all week. The most disappointing part was the general agreement with this statement among the class. The class discussion was not aimed at mathematics nor was mathematics excluded from the conversation. Thus, I feel entitled to be slightly outraged as a mathematics teacher who utilizes a text and as a mathematics text book author (Pre-Algebra, Geometry and Discrete Math). As an educator, I have seen tremendous gains in mathematics education since the implementation of a new series of texts. For example, at the elementary level, Everyday Math has been a tremendous success (yes, I realize some people will disagree with this statement). This series has brought about dynamic change in mathematics education in primary school. Students are leaving elementary school with valuable logic and critical thinking skills. Students’ appreciation of mathematics has grown. Their willingness and ability to struggle with an open-ended question has increased. They are more passionate and better ‘thinkers”. No, this is not solely due to the Everyday Math series. Instead, we must give credit to the teachers who not only have taught from the text but have also taken the time to train themselves to be prepared to teach from the curriculum.

At the secondary level, I have had the opportunity to witness the culture of a mathematics classroom change with the adoption of a new text. Texts that focus on real-world applications excite the students. Texts that infuse technology into the curriculum allow more students access to challenging and stimulating mathematics. Why would we want our teachers to spend their time reinventing the wheel to create worksheets when such rich resources are available? The best teachers utilize the best resources (which are often text books) effectively to address the needs of their students. Of course, this requires planning. A careful dissection of the available material is necessary to ensure that the lesson is suitable for the class. At times, the lessons need to be modified based on the audience. Teachers should dedicate their time to these types of meaningful activities, not the mindless creation of a 20 problem worksheet!

As an author, I can assure you that the best texts are written BY TEACHERS. Author teams are carefully selected to ensure the perfect blend of teachers with diverse strengths. An author’s main goal is to provide a lesson that is both intuitive and imaginative. A single lesson may take an author team days to create and revise. To expect every teacher to be able to create lessons of the same depth without the use of a text is both unreasonable and illogical.

Only recently did I realize that Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe would endorse the process through which the texts I’ve co-authored have been developed. Each text development process began with a group of brainstorming sessions to determine our main objectives (i.e. mission) and the major themes (i.e. essential questions) that would be carried throughout the book. Throughout the summer, we’d meet periodically to discuss the main ideas of a different chapter (mini essential questions) before writing on the chapter began. Between these meetings, each team member worked on original assessments, problems sets and prose. Activities and technology were integrated throughout the prose but only in lessons in which they were meaningful. Spiraling ideas was a main goal in each text to encourage a greater level of “understanding”. Does this all sound familiar? Yes, the texts were developed using Understanding By Design techniques. How can we condemn teachers for using a text that was created by teachers using Understanding by Design?

In conclusion, I would like to commend teachers that utilize a text book effectively. The texts that have the strongest impact on students are often the most challenging to teach. They require teachers to leave their comfort zone to try something innovative (technology, activities, applications, etc). Additionally, they demand intense preparation to ensure that the instructor is prepared to teach the content. To all teachers that use these types of texts: KUDOS!

Assessing Other Groups Assessments

In the beginning of the semester, our class had the opportunity to assess each other’s mission statements. The process was invigorating in that it allowed us to not only critique other’s work (which allowed the other groups to adjust their missions based on the feedback ) but it also gave us an opportunity to reflect on our own mission. The result of the activity encouraged the crucial group discussions necessary for any mission to be successful. That is, it provided the initiative to think critically, reflect and come to group consensus on a mission statement.

Recently, I tried a similar approach to assessment in my Basic Skills class. In the HSPA, open-ended mathematics questions are worth a maximum of 3 points. The points are earned based on the validity of the answer as well as the process used to arrive at the solution. I provided each group of students with a sample open ended question, a large Post-It, and markers. I asked each group to post their solution on the wall. Then, I provided students with a sample rubric and some sample graded solutions. After the students reviewed these documents, they were asked to grade each others work by following the rubric. It was interesting to see the students critique each others work. Most exciting though, was their desire to update their own work in the midst of the process. I was thrilled to realize that in the process of assessing others work, the students were reflecting on their own work!

Asking students to place themselves in the assessor’s shoes is a valuable teaching technique. It provides a means though which students can become self-assessors, viewing their own work through with an assessors’ eye.