Leverage PE teachers as physical activity experts for classroom teachers

A story from Utah

When it comes to sharing tools and ideas for classroom physical activity, physical education teachers are a great resource for classroom teachers. We spoke to Jenny Grosh, PE Specialist for Granite School District in Utah, about her efforts to support PE teachers to be training leads for classroom physical activity.

“For the last five years, we’ve been able to incentivize the PE teachers at the schools to go into the classroom teachers’ room, either through a [professional development opportunity] or before or after school, and teach them ways to integrate physical activity into the classroom.”

Key Takeaways

Provide opportunities for PE teachers to learn from experts and from each other about new ideas for physical activity. In order to prepare her PE teachers to be resources, Ms. Grosh uses “early out” days – when she is still able to have teachers on contract time – to conduct 1-2 professional development opportunities a month. In addition, she encourages groups of PE teachers to use their professional learning collaboration (PLC) time to get together and learn from each other. The benefit of this shared PLC time is that “it’s [PE teachers] learning from each other, things that they’ve found have worked. They share and then tell each other about it.”

Incentivize PE teachers to serve as physical activity leaders and resources in their schools. After receiving professional development or taking PLC time to learn from each other, PE teachers are incentivized to go back and practice new ideas in their PE classes and share that information with the classroom teachers in their schools.

Encourage classroom teachers to be active players in this partnership. Classroom teachers also act as drivers for this shared learning. Ms. Grosh shared that some classroom teachers will often observe the last few minutes of a PE class to get ideas for things they can implement in their classrooms.

“Classroom teachers have reached out to ask: What was that? What were you doing? Is that something I can do in my classroom?”

Help administrators understand the role and expertise of a PE teacher in implementing classroom physical activity. If an administrator understands the role and expertise of the PE teacher, she or he can provide support and credibility to PE teachers in their work with classroom teachers. For example, in Granite District, when principals understand the value of PE teachers as a resource, they will often allocate staff meeting time for PE teachers to share classroom physical activity ideas with classroom teachers. This allows PE teachers to reconnect with teachers who are district veterans, and build connections with new teachers in the district.

PE teachers are a natural go-to resource for teachers that are open to integrating physical activity in their classroom. “[PE teachers] can go back and forth with [classroom teachers] when they have questions or [encounter barriers]. When they do stuff in [professional development], they’ll bring it back to their teachers and give them ideas of what they can use in the classroom.” Ms. Grosh agreed that ultimately the comfort between PE teachers and classroom teachers comes from the relationships that PE teachers have built with the classroom teachers at their school and their role as a resource to those teachers.