Can you grade on effort in Physical Education?

As simple as it sounds, the question of weather you can or can't grade on effort in a Physical Education environment is something that goes on in my opinion way to much. Now the idea that effort is a category that falls in the form of formative assessments is something that needs to be stopped. My thoughts behind this are as follows:

1) People work at different rates. The only true way to grade someone is to know where they are in terms of heart rate (I will touch on this later).

2) What may look like underachieving for a individual could be them working harder then someone say... jogging. For example - A student comes to your class with very minimal experience working on their cardiovascular fitness. Compared to the students who participate in extracurricular activities like athletics, it may seem like this students is simply not putting the effort in to get better. But what people do not seem to realize (I being guilty of this on occasion) is that the student who is walking could potentially have a higher heart rate than the other students jogging at a slower pace. It simply depends on where the student is at in terms of cardiovascular strength

So how can we get better at this??

- Well the answer is very simple... Heart Rate Monitors. If you connect your students up to devices that measure and record their heart rate then I would say yes, you can know if students are working hard enough in your class. Realistically for every student to have access to heart rate monitors is difficult being they cost so much money, so what now? My biggest advice here is to teach students and really put the emphasis on the importance of them doing their best no matter where they are in the search for b

etter fitness. A key word that I use with all my classes in the beginning of the year is "Trust". I need to trust that you can you technology in the proper way. I need to trust that you are giving your best effort to make yourself healthier.

Is there ever a time when I can talk with my students about their effort in class?

There are always times when you just flat out know when a student of yours is simply not doing their best. I for one know that if one of my students who runs cross country and can achieve a sub 6:30 mile is walking during an activity that two things can be going on, 1) The students is ill or hurt or 2) They simply are not doing their best. Is that something that you can do with everyone? Well to simply put it the answer is no. Not everyone should be looked at like this. All you can do is motivate and encourage and teach them the reasons your classes do the activities they do.

Just remember that students of all shapes and sizes simply work at different paces. A student who is walking could technically be working just as hard as another student jogging. Even tho it is a difficult thing to comprehend sometimes we always need to keep it in the back of our minds and always make the activities fun and rewarding to incorporate physical activity.

As always please leave any questions and comments you have. The more we share the more we learn.