Developing Professionalism with Preservice Physical Education Teachers

Abstract

Becoming a professional requires dedication and persistence. As documented in the National As-sociation for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) Initial Physical Education Teacher Education Standards (2008), there is no set for-mula or a single course to take in becoming a physical educator; however, there are certain behaviors and dispositions associated with the professional practice of teaching physical educa-tion. A physical education teacher candidate (TC) cannot be expected to display all the nec-essary behaviors of an effective physical educa-tion teacher at the start of a preparation pro-gram. However, a TC can start to learn how to refine those behaviors most associated with pro-fessionalism while in their teacher education program. This article covers several different teacher attributes and behaviors that a TC can focus on as they develop into a professional. Teacher educators can help promote profession-alism by implementing instructional tasks and assessments that can help a TC develop charac-teristics that are needed to be employed and to be successful in the workplace. A teaching tool is provided in this paper for physical education teacher educators to use in order to help TCs start to refine professional behavior.