Bloom's Taxonomy of Questions

P.E. classes don't offer a lot of areas for students to ask higher level questions. The questions asked in P.E. are often knowledge or comprehension based and occasionally application based. Questions include: "Are we going outside?", "What are we doing today?", "Can I go to the bathroom?", "Can I get a drink of water?", and the occasional "How do we do this?". The questions are usually just for clarification and there will just be one answer. The only thing I've noticed the P.E. teacher ask is "Did you guys bring coats?", "What game would you rather play?", "Why aren't you participating?", and when teaching a new game, "Does anyone have any questions?

The reasoning behind the shallowness of the questions is due to the fact that most classes are based around learning things that will increase your mental ability and require more thinking whereas P.E. is about physical activity and requires less thinking and more doing.

Art Club is similar. Because it's more about the students doing and the teacher clarifying and helping, the questions are about opinions and options as to what the students can do such as "Can we work with clay today?" or "Do we have any red paint?". I suppose a lot of the club/art in itself is application: you learn a technique and apply it to the project that you're working on.

Do you think that higher level questions CAN be used in P.E. and Art? How?

Lesson Clarity

I find that lesson clarity isn't always obvious when it comes to a PE classroom. Since every activity kind of just builds off of the basic skills that students have learned earlier in life (running, throwing, catching, etc). The times when I observed the most lesson clarity was when the teacher was explaining a new game or exercise. He would ask the students if any had played the game before and build off their understanding and make sure everyone understood before they started. The day I observed, he included a new warm-up/stretch and got down on the floor to demonstrate so the students knew exactly how to do it. With P.E., it isn't really necessary to summarize what was learned and what will happen next class unless it involves special things needed for them to bring or something.

I found that I witnessed a lot more of what could be described as lesson clarity while volunteering in the after school art club. The art teacher reviews what was done the previous time they met and what needs to be finished of those projects, and what they will be starting during this club meeting. She often has me help with demonstrations of the projects that the students will be working on, and for some of the younger students, she and I help with their specific projects to make sure everything goes smoothly for a good final project. She also has a lot of examples made in her classes in previous years so the students have something to aim toward.

On a side note, I really enjoyed the P.E. class I was helping in this week. We got a girl to overcome her fear of being made fun of and at least try the rock wall. It was great when her friends were cheering her on. :)