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Health and Physical Education

21st Century Curriculum Design in ACPS Content and Program Areas: Health and Physical Education

Students learning CPR An ACPS graduate will be physically capable, knowledgeable about his or her own health and level of fitness, and sustain a life-long program of exercise, diet, and related interventions to support their personal wellness. In particular, a citizen of the 21st century should be a wise consumer and make productive, age-appropriate choices in key areas of physical, emotional, and social well being. An outstanding 21st Century curriculum will reinforce students' ability to make viable choices and decisions about environmental options impacting their health and relationships. We are committed to promoting life-long habits of exercise, diet management, and modifications throughout the life cycle.

Key Curriculum Design and Learning Principles for Health and Physical Education:

  • An effective physical education curriculum promotes students' becoming effective critical, creative, and self-regulated learners who can analyze problems and tasks involving their health and well being.
  • As a result of participating in physical education, students will learn to synthesize effective solutions, evaluate situations using viable criteria, set goals and pose/answer questions generated in response to immediate and long-range life situations.
  • Effective physical education and health programs are differentiated and designed to maximize the well being of the individual learner.
  • Physical education curriculum should contribute to the preparation of every student for success in the constantly changing world of work in the 21st Century, including their ability to attend to personal health, fitness, and well being within and outside the work environment.
  • As a result of participating in an effective physical education curriculum, students will acquire the knowledge and skill base to ensure a happy, healthy, and productive life, including maintaining a personal level of health and wellness based upon regular and appropriate nutrition and exercise.
  • Physical education students will maximize their life-long learning by integrating best practices in health and physical exercise into daily living, taking advantage of the brain-body connection (e.g., helping to grow brain cells, improving reasoning and long-term memory, and enhancing overall cognition).
  • An effective physical education curriculum emphasizes those Habits of Mind needed to maintain the discipline of life-long physical fitness and health, including such intellectual dispositions as persisting, thinking flexibly, innovating, taking responsible risks, striving for accuracy, and applying past knowledge to new situations.
  • Curriculum should emphasize the evolving role of technology in supporting life-long physical well being and health, including such tools as pedometers and heart-rate monitors to self-adjust and evaluate the intensity and impact of exercise.
  • Relationships should be enhanced via the capacity of physical education to teach about differences among people, teamwork, cooperation, sportsmanship, and healthy competition.
  • Physical education programs support Piaget's 'learn to move' and 'move to learn' philosophy now supported by modern research to grow connections between movement and academic learning.

Exemplary Health and Physical Education Programs Reflecting These Principles:

  • 25th Hour P.E.: Students complete their exercise independently, using heart-rate monitors with downloadable data. Participants meet with the teacher weekly, which leads toward a deeper understanding of life-long self-monitoring habits.
  • Fitness for Life: Students integrate fitness concepts into movement experiences.
  • Physical Best: This program incorporates the components of health-related fitness and uses activities based on national NASPE guidelines.