Movement Education: An Individualized Approach to Physical Education.

Overview & Synopsis

A new approach to elementary school physical education is called "movement education." Movement education uses problem-solving, guided-discovery, and exploratory methods, with the effect of individualizing learning in physical education. The concepts involved in movement education include body awareness and skills, the space in which the body moves, the effort or quality of body movement, and the relationships among body parts, individuals, groups, and objects. Movement education can also be based on movement purposes, such as physiological efficiency and psychic equilibrium. Movement education is advocated for 10 reasons, including its basing of skill development on the learner's natural movements, its allowance for learners to make decisions and be successful, the opportunities for self-direction, the reduced likelihood of injury, and its enhancement of students' ability to learn on their own. Movement education is characterized by informal use of space, equipment variety, dissimilar responses among students, small game situations based on student decision-making, and self-directed activities. As with other innovations, the implications for administrators include leadership, inservice education, communication about the program to parents and the community, suitable space and equipment, and opportunities for joint planning among physical education and classroom teachers. (RW)