Baseball Unit Plan

Kin 306

May 13, 2017

Tyler Meyer
Introductory Material

Sport: Baseball

For my unit plan I have chosen America’s pastime, baseball. The reasoning behind this

decision is that while I’ve been surrounded by many different sports throughout my life,

baseball has been more than just a part of my life, it is a part of me. The opportunity to share

baseball with others is something that I love to do and this is a great opportunity for that.

When it comes to a unit plan, three things that need to be included are philosophy, theme, and

context.

Philosophy is the thought and reasoning behind the unit plan. Having a good philosophy

for your unit plan allows for a much more successful teaching experience. In philosophy, one of

the first questions asked is, “what is the value and purpose of physical education? My answer

to this is that the value and purpose of it is to attempt to help students learn healthy physical

habits which they can continue with throughout their lives. In terms of the idea of physical

education, I define it as instruction about the development and care of the body. When it

comes to values that are promoted inside of my class, I would say the top values are personally

focused, such as self-sustainability, self-respect, and self-image. Besides those, other key

values would be respect for others and equipment and sportsmanship.

 Inside the actual class of physical education, there are more questions to be answered

in terms of philosophy. My expectations for my students is that they give effort in all activities

and that over time, they attempt to improve on the skills we learn in class. Those expectations

are also what I will measure the success of my students because I feel it is unfair to grade a

student in terms of their skill in a sport because that gives unfair advantages to some students.

While it can be claimed that this advantage happens in other subject areas as well, I feel that in

physical education the advantages are much more drastic and present, thus requiring a change

in the grading style. In terms of overall goals, not just expectations, I hope to see improvement

in their skills as they practice more and that as they progress through their schooling they are

able to keep these skills. The other key goal of mine is that they can take the life lessons, such

as respecting themselves and others, teamwork, and perseverance, that they have learned in

my class and apply them to their lives and continue with those ideas later on in life.

Outside of philosophy, theme is another big key for a unit. In terms of where I see

baseball fitting within my scope and sequence of the curriculum, I see it being primarily a spring

activity since it would line up with typical baseball and softball seasons. Also with the

complexity of baseball, I would have baseball be used in high-school and possibly middle-

school. By including this unit in my curriculum I hope to accomplish having students take part

in skills that are not commonly used in gym classes since baseball is not a very accessible unit

due to a combination of low student skill levels and available space at schools. In terms of

physical education, having a wide variety is key so including this would give the student even

more variety of skills. The goal of my baseball unit is to give my students the proper skills and

knowledge to continue playing baseball if they so choose, with it being more of a recreational
activity. In terms of strategies and concepts I would want to incorporate, I would want to

include techniques like attention cueing and simplification because since the students would be

in high school, they would probably have obtained the normal skills of baseball, such as general

knowledge on how to throw, catch, and hit, from earlier years. If not, then I will include a lot of

instruction in my lessons.

The final aspect of the unit that I will talk about is the context of my unit. In terms of

constraints, baseball has a lot more constraints than typical activities like basketball or soccer

because of they requirement for equipment and a field, but typically high schools have

baseball/softball fields, so location may not be an issue. With it being an outside sport, there is

always a weather constraint in terms of snow and rain so in baseball you are at the mercy of

the weather and if I am not able to go outside I will have to adjust my lesson and apply it to

indoors. As I previously mentioned, this unit is intended for a high school P.E. class since that

age is able to fully understand the skill. The only prerequisite skills are throwing and hitting,

with hitting being the one that would have a chance to not be learned by some students. With

baseball there are multiple safety concerns. Since there are metal bats, and balls flying around,

the chances of something happening are higher than other sports. However, there can be

safety if students follow the rules and standards that I implement in the class and are always

aware of their surroundings.