Jacob Capalbo - 1

Student Engagement Project

YCE II, Spring 2023
Jacob Capalbo - East Paulding High School

I. Baseline Data: Three (3) Recorded Videos of PE/Health Lessons

a. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scw_AZ3si3k
b. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7QP496yJAU
c. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJngI-dD35o

II. PETAI Analysis (Physical Education Teacher Assessment Instrument)

a. PE Day 1 Recorded Lecture PETAI Analysis

b. PE Day 2 Recorded Lecture PETAI Analysis

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c. PE Day 3 Recorded Lecture PETAI Analysis

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III. Reflection of Baseline PETAI Analysis

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I think the biggest barrier for me is increased student participation. This stems directly

from administration and teachers not holding their students accountable in physical education.

My CT and I have had many discussions about the lack of accountability at East Paulding for

students and how lack of participation and/or effort is not something they are willing to address.

I’ve done my best this spring semester to create engaging and differentiated lessons to try and

motivate student participation. I do believe I have impacted my students for the better but it is

still a work in progress.

Using the PETAI analysis tool I now have three sets of data to compare for three separate

lessons I recorded. I’d like to start off by saying the week I recorded was not a typical week for

us. We had multiple teachers out and our gym space was impacted, the auxiliary gym was

unavailable for the Personal Fitness class so they joined us in our gym, also I had issues with

students messing with the camera so I had to move it inside the coaches office and set it up to

look out the window. Due to the increased number of students in an already limited space and

lack of teachers available, we had multiple “free days” for the students as it was easier to manage

them this way.

Day one teacher observation PETAI results confirmed my suspicions and ended up with

an 82% instruction behavior and only 18% management. Because of our precarious situation, I

spent very little time organizing the students and equipment and spent the majority of the day

monitoring and providing feedback. I ended up reffing the game and keeping students in line. I

was disappointed to see that a large chunk of our students did not participate but this is

something I have unfortunately come to expect at East Paulding high school. I did have to deal

with a few behavior issues, as you can see on film. There were a few students who were not

adhering to the rules of the game and I had to call them out and correct their behavior.
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Day two was much of the same since we were in a very similar situation with the teachers

and available space. My instruction and management percentages stayed the same at 82% and

18% respectively. I ended up spending a little more time organizing the students and equipment

than day one but I still spent a huge majority of the class monitoring and providing feedback. I

had to call out the same few students for disregarding the rules of the game again. I have come to

notice that students think they are invisible when they are misbehaving and are in shock when

you call them out for it.

Day three was a full “free day” Friday as we typically do. On this day, we give students

multiple options for gameplay such as basketball, volleyball and table tennis. I forgot I had the

camera on and ended up in the front right of the gym where it’s difficult for the camera to see

me. I spent the day over by the table tennis area teaching students how to play more effectively.

Each Friday I tend to play with the same students in table tennis and basketball. While playing I

am emphasizing using tactics and strategy to defeat challengers. For example, in table tennis I

primarily use ball placement and occasional spin to defeat challengers easily. For basketball I am

constantly encouraging cutting and setting screens for teammates to create space and make

scoring easier. I have noticed a huge improvement in the students' games who I have worked

with this semester. I have also enjoyed bonding with them through competition, I think this has

made my relationships with my students stronger.

On the first day, if you’re looking at the Physical Education students and not the

additional Personal fitness students, I would say we had about 70% of our kids up and playing

the entire class. This is much better than what I experienced in the fall when only about half the

students would be up and engaged. This still means we had around 30% of the students not

engaged. These students either walk in circles around the gym or sit off to the side on the
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bleachers while doing other assignments or on their phones. Throughout the semester I have

attempted to get these students more involved by creating fun and engaging activities in each of

my lessons, and I do believe it has made an impact. I see some students who are typically sitting

more involved because of this, but it doesn’t seem to carry over into the next lesson.

This is something I observed on the second recorded day as well. We ended up in the

same situation as day one with limited teachers and limited space, so we ended up playing the

same game and encountered similar participation from the students. As I watched the video I also

noticed the same handful of students who end up sitting by the teachers and talking for a

majority of the class rather than participating. Most of these students are athletes and are

therefore closer with the coaches. I believe this makes them think it’s okay to not participate in

physical education since they are already relatively active because of the sports they play.

Not much is different for day three as well. For this day we had more activities set up for

the students with options for basketball, volleyball or table tennis. Yet the same issues occur with

a large percentage of the class not participating and instead sitting off to the side on their phones.

On “free days” such as this one I have tried multiple times to approach the students who are

sitting and see if there’s some piece of equipment they would like me to pull out to get them

involved, such as a football, frisbee or soccer but they just say no thanks and would rather sit

there, relax and play with their phones.

IV. Identification of the Barrier and Theoretical Foundation

The theory I want to apply that addresses my barrier would be differentiated learning

theory. With respect to instruction, this means tailoring it to meet individual needs of the

students. Teachers can differentiate content, process, products, or the learning environment, the

use of ongoing assessment and flexible grouping makes this a successful approach to instruction.
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Teachers differentiate the four classroom elements based on student readiness, interest, or

learning profile.

I have actually been implementing this theory for the entire spring semester and have

seen encouraging results. My goal is to get more students up and engaged during our classes. To

accomplish this goal I have implemented a daily dynamic warmup and a variety of mini games

and activities into each lesson to encourage students to get involved. During my time at East

Paulding High School, I have noticed that many students lack the foundational skills for many of

the games we play in physical education. At the high school level we are meant to focus on

tactics and strategy in gameplay rather than skills, and I think this discourages many of the

students who still need to improve their skills in order to feel comfortable playing.

I have taken this lack of skill level into account when designing my lessons and

incorporated many skill building activities into my lessons to encourage those who need to work

on skill to participate and learn. I have had many students and teachers approach me throughout

the semester and tell me how excited they are about the variety of activities and increased level

of interest gained with each lesson.

I hypothesize that by the end of the semester, with my continued use of differentiated

activities that I will be able to increase student participation as a whole by 20%. At the beginning

of the semester I would say we had about 55-60 percent of the class playing consistently. Now,

through two months implementing this strategy I would say it has improved to 65-70 percent.

With a ten percent increase across 2 months I believe I can get to my 20% goal over the final two

months. For PETAI analysis, the results for my students should change dramatically with higher

percentages of engaged allocated game playing time and reduced behavior management and

other tasks.
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V. Intervention Results

a. {Insert YouTube Unlisted Video Link 4 and label it “Video4_Date}

b. {Insert YouTube Unlisted Video Link 5 and label it “Video5_Date}
c. {Insert YouTube Unlisted Video Link 6 and label it “Video6_Date}

d. {Insert Video 4 screencaps of Teacher Assessment and Student Assessment}

e. {Insert Video 5 screencaps of Teacher Assessment and Student Assessment}
f. {Insert Video 6 screencaps of Teacher Assessment and Student Assessment}

g. {Insert graph/chart comparing the % of teacher instruction and management

across the three videos}
h. {Insert graph/chart comparing the % of student instruction and management
across the three videos}

VI. Reflection of Intervention

VII. Reflection of the Impact of the Student Engagement Project