What’s up PE Friends!
“Today we’re going to talk about everyone’s favorite thing ASSESSMENT!!”
– said no PE teacher ever
This is one reason why I do the Daily Self Assessment with my students as an easy way to get in some reflection without taking up too much of my class time. I’m also a big fan of peer assessment, teacher observation and any creative way to get assessment in without taking away from instructional time.
Before getting into this assessment, let me say up front that it’s SUPER BASIC, but I’ve found that the more I simplify things the better and more effective I can be in my teaching and also in my personal life…
One question I am constantly asking myself is…
“How can I make this more simple or more fun”
Disclaimer:
- My class sizes are pretty small around the 25-30 range, so if you are one of those all star PE teachers with 75 kids in a class, this method might not be feasible for you and you should probably just use a system like Plickers (here’s how I’ve used Plickers in PE) or find another solution (maybe peer assessment?). I actually used to use Plickers, but switched to just doing a verbal quiz because I found it helped my students be more successful.
The post below will walk you through how I do my assessment for my second-grade students in my PE Class. This is a common formative assessment for all the schools in my district, which means that each Elementary School will be assessing this exact standard and it will show up on the student’s report card. (For more info on how I do grades and our standards based report cards, check out the How I Do Grades Post Here).
FYI I copied the official standard below for you to check out if your interested:
*Standard taken from my SC State Standards Document
For this assessment, my goal is to see if my 2nd grade students know the correct cues for a basketball dribble.
Like I tell my students frequently, “the more you know, the further you go”.
There are 3 main domains that we assess in PE Class:
- Cognitive (knowledge)
- Affective (social responsibility)
- Psychomotor (physical skills).
This is a cognitive assessment, which means I’m not assessing their ability to perform the dribble, just whether or not they KNOW HOW TO dribble correctly.
Check out the video below for a quick look into my Basketball Cues Assessment:
The Basketball Cues Assessment:
So as you can see, for me this was a super simple and easy way to see if my kids actually have the knowledge of the correct cues for basketball. Of course, you can use this same setup to test whatever cues you want for whatever skill you’re teaching, our district elementary teachers agreed on using the basketball dribbling cues as a common assessment because it’s a unit that everyone was already teaching.
A few thoughts:
- A review is important before you do any testing. This will refresh your students’ memories and activate their learnings from your previous lessons. So I usually do a short oral review on the cue terms that I want them to remember. Always do everything you can to promote student success.
- Since I’m pulling kids one on one – stations is a great way to allow the rest of the students to stay active and get skill practice during the assessment (this is also how I handle the sit and reach test). You can check the link below if you want to check out our basketball station signs:
- Choose the method that works for you, I like the verbal quiz, but if Plickers works or you want to do a written test or peer assessment then go for it. As I always say before any presentation that I give:
“Take what works and trash what doesn’t”
Or as a super wise and experience PE teacher told once me before giving me some critical feedback on my PE Philosophy, “What I’m about to tell you is my gospel… it doesn’t have to be your gospel. Think about it, test it out and if it works for you great, if not that’s fine too”
That being said, let’s go ahead and dig into the lesson and assessment:
The Lesson Outline:
This is my second-grade class on a test day (which is normally the last day of our unit), we’ve been working on ball handling and basketball skills for usually 2-3 weeks at this point. Check out the links below for some examples of how I teach basketball skills:
Review the Cues:
I started the class by reminding students that they will be quizzed that day. I give them the questions and review the answers. You can check out our Cues Posters on our Poster Tour Page
- 3 Cues I use for the Basketball Dribble
- Fingerpads
- Waist Level
- Eyes Up
Stations:
After a quick warmup (here’s a few ideas), I explain to students that they will be working on their basketball skills in 4 different stations (PS – Tips for teaching with station activities):
- The 4 Basketball Stations (available here and included in pack at the bottom of this post):
- Dribbling – Fingerpads, eyes up, waist level
- Passing – Step and Push
- Shooting – BEEF (Balance, Eyes, Elbow, Followthrough)
- Student Choice of Dribble, Pass or Shoot (Also where I pull kids for the verbal quiz)
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9AAbsxBTI3/
Review Again:
I review the quiz ONE MORE TIME just to be sure they get it right. I flashed questions on the screen with a few choices. I even added a bunch of illustrations in each question so the students can remember the answer. You can copy the slides to use for yourself by clicking the link below:
Do a quick check for understanding and make sure students don’t have questions and then I split everyone up into stations and start pulling kids for the verbal quiz like you saw in the video.
For most students, it’s easy to answer the question “What are the 3 cues for dribbling?”, but for some students, I need to ask more questions to get the answer like “What part of your hand should you dribble a ball with?” or “How high should you dribble a basketball?” and “Where should you look when dribbling a ball?”
Recording Results:
As I mentioned in my “How I do Grades” video on our FAQ Page, I like to keep every assessment on one page to make things super simple when it comes to giving report card grades. I just make a quick mark next to each student’s name depending on how many cues they were able to explain to me:
- 1 correct answer: 1/3
- 2 correct answers: 2/3
- 3 correct answers: 3/3
And that pretty much wraps it up my cues assessment!
More Basketball Resources
If you want to check out our Basketball Resources you can see an overview of them in the videos below. Each resource is available to all teachers in our membership program (info on our membership here), just login and download them straight from the membership area. They are also available in our Teachers Pay Teachers Store for anyone who isn’t a member.
Basketball Unit Resource Pack
The Unit Resource Pack will provide you with a ton of printable resources to plan an AMAZING basketball unit.
Included in this download:
- Sample Unit Plan with 50 pages of activities
- Printable Station Activity Signs
- Basketball Cues Poster
- Create Your Own Basketball Routine Worksheet
- Basketball Tricks Checklist
- Player of the Day Certificate
- Basketball Golf Scorecard
Check out the Basketball Unit Resource Pack (TPT)
Basketball Follow the Leader Pack
All of our follow the leader packs are a “technology upgrade” for anyone with a screen that goes along perfectly with the Unit Resource Packs.
Included in this download:
- 3 Follow the Leader Videos (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced)
- Animated GIF Looping Videos
- Powerpoint Slideshows with all Animated GIFS
- Create Your Own Ball Handling Routine Worksheet
- Basketball Trick Checklist
Cameron Schmidt says
I had a quick question. I am wondering what else you do for knowledge piece. Do you all do verbal tests? It has been killing me. We have one of these grades in our PE for 3-5. It is always a struggle to think of ways to test. We used to do a written. Then you run into all kinds of reading and writing issues. And.. who wants the whole class sitting for half a class or more? No-one… So wondering if you do all verbal and how many per trimester do you use? I have done a plicker system in the past but it hasn’t seemed relieable enough to give grades on based on their answers.
Thanks
Cam
Marcus says
Hey Cameron,
Thanks for reaching out!
We had the same issues you do when it comes to cognitive assessment. We done paper and pencil, plickers, and Google Forms but verbal test at stations seems to be the most efficient with time in PE class.
We only need to assess our students cognitive knowledge on a couple of power standards. We can knock these out during basketball and at the end of the year our students tell us activities they find personally enjoyable.
Amy Edmonds says
Ben,
I really enjoy and love referring to your ideas. You rock!
Do you already have a Badminton skills/knowledge assessment made?
Ben Landers says
Awesome to hear that! I don’t teach badminton, we use short handled implements like paddles or tennis rackets and I don’t have a pre-made assessment for that other than playing a mini tournament with my older students.
Christopher says
I totally a agree with what you said about assessments taking up a lot of time. I’m a college student and we’ve ben taught several different ways to assess students, including some of the ways you mentioned. As PE teachers we need to always be assessing students for the state standards so when parent teacher conferences comes we’ll have something to show parents on why their students grade is what it is.
Ben Landers says
For sure, gotta have some data to back up what you’re grades mean
Melissa Heck says
I love the idea of having the stations with the cues on the cones. This is something I will have to write down in my notes.
Ben Landers says
Glad it was helpful!