Trainer Tips: Start Strong With Standards

Start Strong With Standards Tips from SHAPE America national trainers.

When planning, instead of thinking about activities first — as in, “What activity should we do next?” or “We will be doing our *name of sport here* unit next” — look at the learning indicators within the grade spans that you teach and consider the needs of your students. The sport or activity is the vehicle. The learning indicators are the map that will help you bring your students where they need to go.

Amanda Amtmanis, SHAPE America Physical Education Trainer

Plan backwards. Start with the goal (standard) in mind and work backwards.

When we ignore planning it's like going on a road trip without a destination in mind. You can make the road trip fun, play great music, and have great snacks, but get nowhere and end up lost. To make the trip meaningful to the student, we must have a destination planned, a desired route, and strategies to ensure all students arrive.

Brad Brummel, SHAPE America Physical Education Trainer

Health and physical education teachers should connect and compare scope and sequences so that standards can be reinforced in both classrooms. Both instructors can draw upon activities used to teach and practice skills. For example, during the goal-setting unit in the health classroom, health educators can rely on PE activities to reinforce skill development and even use similar games and activities in the classroom if there is space.

Michelle Rawcliffe, SHAPE America Health Education Trainer

Copyright © 2026 by SHAPE America | shapeamerica.org | All rights reserved.

PO Box 225, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701 | 800.213.9527

TRAINER TIPS

Start Strong With Standards Tips from SHAPE America national trainers.

Make every lesson skill-based, not just content-based. In health education, it’s not enough for students to know something, they need to practice doing it.

Whether it’s decision-making, communication, or self-management, build in short, intentional opportunities for students to apply the skill.

For example: Instead of just teaching about healthy choices, have students practice making a choice using a simple model (like DECIDE or I AM).

Instead of only discussing emotions, have students use sentence starters like “I feel __ when I __” (I TELL).

Instead of talking about friendships, have students demonstrate one positive interaction in a quick partner activity.

A simple way to remember it: Teach it, Model it, Practice it, Reflect on it.

This keeps your lesson aligned to the SHAPE America National Health Education Standards and builds real-life skills students can actually use beyond the classroom.

Cara Grant, SHAPE America Health Education Trainer

Copyright © 2026 by SHAPE America | shapeamerica.org | All rights reserved.

PO Box 225, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701 | 800.213.9527

TRAINER TIPS