Gideon Berghuis Ed.

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Assessment

Assessment in a PE sport unit can be very different from assessment in a typical core-class unit. For example, there are typically very few written assignments in PE, while a math class often has written assignments daily, which can be used to assess a students learning throughout the unit. However, in my basketball unit, the instructor is constantly assessing students. Some of these are recorded to use when grading while some are simply mentally noting the progress and skill level of a particular student. My basketball unit is unique. Since I modeled it after the curriculum plan at Excel Charter Academy, the students already had an extensive basketball unit in 4th and 5th grade. As I observed during the first couple of weeks at my placement and from what my advising teacher explained to me, the 4th and 5th graders spend the majority of the unit on skill practice and skill tests, with only a couple of class periods of full gameplay. The 7th and 8th graders will have much more time spent on gameplay. The first four lessons of the unit will serve as review and advancement of shooting, dribbling, and passing skills. Then when we get to lessons with full gameplay, students will have to opportunity to show their development/improvement of skills. The assessments in lessons 1-4 are mainly used to determine students skill levels at the beginning of the unit. Students will participate in shooting, passing, and dribbling drills in the first three lessons and I will record their skill level based on how they perform in the various activities or drills. This serves as a basis for how

they will be evaluated at the end of the unit. The activities and drills are meant to help them develop/practice their skills (passing, shooting, dribbling, defense/offense). In lesson 5 I will record students initial defensive and offensive skill level to serve as a comparison for their final evaluation. The last three days of scrimmaging will be when I am recording students final skill levels according to the grading rubric. The 4th and 5th grade unit contains a written quiz with questions on basketball history, rules, and man to man defense. Since this is covered in greater detail in 4th and 5th grade, the 7th and 8th grade unit will be a brief review of this material in order to measure how well students have retained this knowledge. The quiz for my unit has a few questions about the history and rules of basketball as well as a diagram for zone defense. Quiz results will count towards a small percentage of the final unit grade, but its main importance will be to show how effectiveness of the instructor. If students score low on a certain section, I will know what parts will need more emphasis and further explanation for the next time I teach the unit.