Starting this summer, Cathedral Catholic High School will be offering a new online PE course to all students as an alternative to the normal PE/Health course.
The administration, particularly the Director of Curriculum Mrs. Anne Egan, has been looking for a new way to gett PE credits for students who do not have the room in their schedules to take PE during school hours.
“We’ve been looking into a way to offer an alternative and Mr. [Will] Cunningham [Physical Education coach] came to us with the idea of an online course,” said Mrs. Egan.
The course will be broken into two separate courses, Health, for freshman and other students who didn’t complete the health course freshman year, and Foundations of Physical Fitness. Both will include weekly quizzes and check-ins from a teacher. The latter will also include logs for activities completed in a given week on the website Moodle.
Mrs. Egan added, “There will be weekly assessments on the basics of physical fitness and diet to make sure the student is completing their requirements.”Coach Cunningham, who came to the administration with the idea of offering an online course, said, “We are offering it as an option for students who have trouble fitting regular PE into their regular schedule.”
He also added, in reference to how the course will be set up, “The course is designed so that outside physical activity can be used as credit. There will also be some computer work that goes along with the course as we will strive to have accountability about what is done.”
Accountability is an important part of online courses, and it is no different for this new course. Schools in the US that have implemented the online PE course in their curriculums have used several methods to make sure that students are completing their required activities. These include physical exams, online quizzes, and check-ins.
Mrs. Egan said that Cathedral will be using all of those methods and possibly others to make sure students are doing what they are supposed to be doing.
The cost for the summer school online course will be $289 for either the health or PE course, both are eight weeks long. The cost per semester during the school year in $99 and students will have 18 weeks to complete the course online.
Ms. Egan added, “Cathedral is always looking to add to the curriculum. We always strive to give students the most options possible for classes, and this is just another option for students to fulfill credits.”
Danielle Miller • Mar 24, 2011 at 7:29 PM
I think it’s great that Cathedral is trying to offer online courses, but I don’t think PE/health is really that great as an online course vs. independent PE or regular PE. It puts more of a strain, it seems, on writing about health or occasional check-ups, that could easily be faked, than on actually being healthy. Isn’t the whole purpose of PE to make sure that students strive to eat healthier and exercise? There isn’t any exercise in being online, unless you count typing as finger exercise, and the extra hours spent in front of a bright light have been proven to lead towards eating later at night and eating more unhealthy foods (I read this on an MSN article a long time ago). This would still be ok if students who don’t want to take PE still had an option of independent PE, but I heard that they’re taking that away too. What about those of us who dance, do gymnastics, karate, rowing or another less common sport, those of us who spend hours and hours every week practicing our sport that’s not offered through school and suddenly can’t get any recognition for it? That’s not fair, at least keep independent PE.
**I think it would be a better option to offer religion as an online course, since that’s the one class that really ties students up. PE, not so much usually.
Patrick Fitzgerald • Mar 22, 2011 at 6:30 PM
I’ve heard rumors that online PE could cost a hefty sum. Is that in any way true?
Billy Slane - reporter • Mar 26, 2011 at 7:57 AM
The price has just been added to the story, Patrick.
According to Curriculum Director Mrs. Anne Egan, itt will cost $289 for the summer course and $99 per semester during the school year.