Physical Education: will it remain on the field or be sidelined? EDLD 5326 update

 My action research project, Physical Education: will it remain on the field or be sidelined?- study portion has been completed. Now I must finalize the written paper.  I have learned many things while working on this project. I could not fully implement this plan as the state of Texas has already set mandates in which the college must follow. For the 2013-2014 academic year students need one hour of physical education in order to meet the graduation requirements. In the fall of 2014 physical education will no longer be a degree requirement, but it will remain an elective hour of college credit for students. This fall 2013 we thought students would no longer need physical education but our college board of regents voted that one hour of physical education would satisfy the college degree requirement. Students are confused as to whether they need to take PE or not, we are not sure if this had to anything to do with our lower enrollment numbers this fall 2013. Last spring semester our PE classes were full with over 2,000 students.

We are trying to get students in our building and keep them there by offering our free open gym weight room weekly hours. Our Campus Rec Program offers free intramural sports such as flag football and basketball to students free of charge. By offering these services to students our building has more traffic. We hope this traffic will flow into these students signing up for PE classes!

I have worked with our physical education department during this process to market, promote, and recruit students into our classes. We have attended many new student orientation sessions in which we promoted physical education to future and current students. We explained to them what PE is, how many hours are needed, degree requirements, and other PE related components. We have worked with our marketing department to distribute flyers and other publications related to PE. We have created and purchased a 9 foot banner that promotes PE to our students.

I have accumulated 500 hours of internship work including campus supervised hours.