Justin Diehl

10 March 2019

Teaching Philosophy

As a physical education teacher, I have to effectively teach in all three domains,

psychomotor, cognitive, and affective. Because I am a physical educator the most important

learning that happens in my class is the physical learning and acquisition of skill. Each student

should come away from the class feeling that they have improved in the skills learned, and they

should be able to show that skill acquisition through assessment. The cognitive and Affective

domains I feel may not be quite as important but are very close to the psychomotor domain. Both

deserve an equal amount of attention and students should walk away from my class knowing

more about a certain skill or activity than they did before they came into the class and they

should each have participated in both social and personal responsibility in the class. There are

both NYS standards and national standards that address the three domains and that I plan to use

in my class objectives to execute my teaching. I believe that all of this will help to prepare

students for a healthy lifestyle in their present lives and also in the future, which is what any

physical educator should strive for.

I am a teacher who is capable of using multiple techniques and strategies in my teaching.

I am most comfortable and most experienced with the direct method of teaching. This method

gives me more control and allows me to get across the content that needs to be given. Using the

direct method has been successful for me because I am able to set firmer goals that align with

both the NYS and national standards. This isn’t to say that I don’t use strategies such as teaching

by invitation because students should have some control over their learning experience. No
student is exactly the same and teaching by invitation allows students to all learn the same skill

just at their own respective level. The mixture of these two methods, even though they sound

contradictive, facilitate learning by giving the students structure from me, while also giving them

a little independence at what level they want to participate at based off their own assessment.

The main things that assessment should be used for is to measure student comprehension

of content and skill and helping further my own teaching abilities. I want my students walking

away from my lessons more physically literate and able than when they walked in, and

assessment is a good tool to find out if this is actually happening. I also want to be able to further

my own abilities as a teacher, and if a large number of students get something wrong on a

cognitive assessment or have trouble on a certain skill, then I know that I have to adjust the way I

taught. Adjusting to situations and being creative is something that all good teachers do. I

personally prefer to use formative assessments because students learn better when they’re

consistently being given feedback. Pre-assessments are important to get a general idea of where

my students are in their knowledge and skill. Assessment in all three domains is also something

that needs to happen in my opinion. I tend to use both informal and formal assessments as well,

formal assessments are best used in the cognitive and affective domains, where informal

assessment is best used for the psychomotor domain.

Something that I really try to focus on is on inclusion for all students. Whether it’s

disability, ethnicity, race, gender, etc. all students should be included in class. There are many

ways to be inclusive and it starts for me by showing that I care, not just about a handful of

students but all students. If I don’t show my students I care then they’re automatically going to

feel alienated by me. With students with disability it’s extremely important for me to

accommodate any needs that they might have and to incorporate those needs into my lesson. For
students of other race and ethnicity it’s important to provide lesson that are culturally diverse

such as soccer, cricket, etc. As far as gender goes girls and boys are equally capable in all aspect

of my classes and I use gender neutral terms when addressing my students to respect those who

may not identify as a male or female.

Teaching physical education requires teaching in all three domains, cognitive, affective,

and psychomotor. There are many things to keep in mind when doing so, I not only try my

hardest to adhere to everything I’ve already been taught and experienced, but I also try to keep

an open mind to what I may learn and experience in my future as a physical educator.