Characteristics of a good physical education class (listed somewhat in order of importance)

1. Keep them moving: The goal is to have the students moving as much as possible during the time you have them. A good goal is to have them active 50% or more of the total time. Beyond the fitness benefits, keeping them active helps control behavior problems. In order to make the best use of class time for activity, instruction should be limited to only a few minutes at a time. Ensure activities are designed for maximum participation by everyone. Try to come up with more small-sided games or activities in order to avoid the traditional sports because these tend to exclude people from the action. Furthermore, many of the popular sports are not inherently active (e.g. baseball, bowling, golf, volleyball). Activity intensities can and should vary. The transitions between activities and instructional time is used for recovery. Long lines of students waiting to perform a skill are not acceptable. This is particularly a problem in relay activities. Avoid the out and back type of relay drills.
2. Back against the wall: This helps you see everything all the time, which is your responsibility as a teacher. This technique also avoids having kids behind you that are not able to hear your instruction. The same principle applies in outdoor settings. As you move about try to stay on the perimeter of the instructional space as much as possible, only moving through the middle of the group occasionally and quickly. When giving individual feedback to a student, also keep your back to the wall and continue to observe what is happening in the class from your peripheral view. While it is impossible to see everything, it is your duty to stop off-task Johnny from trying to show off with a handstand in the corner.
3. Better safe than sorry: Ensure safety by instructing students to execute skills using proper technique; matching opponents with like size, strength, and skill; and providing a hazard-free environment for participation.
4. Don't play with your kids: You definitely want to avoid ever being part of an activity, unless you absolutely have to. There are 3 important reasons for this: (a) it is extremely difficult to adequately supervise students while you are playing with them, so this is a big liability concern, (b) you aren’t free to move around and provide feedback and instruction as needed, and (c) if you ever contact and hurt a student you will lose the lawsuit because of the size and maturity disparity. Every time I go to the legal sessions at AAHPERD, the experts clearly indicate that you should never ever play with the class. This is unfortunate since the kids often want you to participate with them and it is good to model physical activity. Perhaps a compromise is to participate in fitness activities where there is very little chance of contact and you can still supervise.
5. Organize a demonstration: Use appropriate demonstrations for proper skill execution. Direct the students' attention to what they should look for in the technique and then perform the skill. It is appropriate to have students with good technique demonstrate the skill or provide video models. People learn very well by seeing and then mimicking. Also model good fitness practices and behavior.
6. Don't forget to teach: Physical education is more than just keeping the students actively involved in fun games and out of trouble. Ensure that they receive instruction, specifically in the form of teaching cues and feedback describing how to perform skills properly. Instructional cues should be kept very concise, yet still descriptive about how to perform the skill (e.g. "follow through with your hand high" or "Hand in the cookie jar"). Use no more than 4 cues at a time, usually less for beginning learners. People cannot focus on too much information while performing a motor skill, so make sure the thing they are thinking about is the most important for helping them improve.
7. Equip your students properly: Have all equipment ready before class starts. Setting up equipment around the perimeter allows for students to disperse to gather equipment, rather than converge. Have them put it back in the same place when done. Disorganized equipment leads to wasted time. Also keep an orderly inventory and storage system to keep track of equipment. PE equipment has a habit of disappearing.
8. Give them feedback and reinforcement: Provide feedback as students perform skills. Use encouragement (motivational), correct faults (instructional), identify and praise proper technique (positive reinforcement).
9. Make the transitions smooth: Transitions between instruction and activities should be smooth and efficient. Routines and special techniques can can be employed to help streamline the transitions (e.g. "Place the volleyballs in the basket in 7 seconds. 7, 6, 5. . ."). Tell students ahead of time what they are to do with the equipment when they get it in their hands.
10. Have a plan and follow it: Only deviate if unexpected circumstances require a change in format or content. Be willing to adjust if students are off task or disinterested. Include more activities than you think you need.
11. Keep everyone in front of you when talking: A common tendency is to talk while standing in the middle of the group. This creates a problem because your voice does not project behind you. Physical education teaching environments (e.g. gym, field, pool) are acoustically difficult to teach in so make sure you have their attention and your voice is projected at everyone. This may require you to move outside of everyone, rather than having them move in front of you. When it is windy outside, stand up wind from everyone.
12. Speak in gym voice: Project your voice. Speak using your diaphragm (from the stomach) to project across the audience. This is commonly referred to as your "gym voice." This is not synonymous with yelling.
13. Get their attention: Use good techniques to get students attention: Examples for stopping activities include whistling (auditory), lifting your hand (visual), or even using a loud speaker. Other techniques include requiring participants to move to "open space," placing the ball between feet (or above head), sitting down, hands on knees, or raising their hand.
14. Running laps and stretching are bad: Some type of good warm-up activity that is fun for students should be used to start class. It should begin immediately as they enter the gym or field. Running laps is boring and turns kids off to physical activity. If you use an active warm-up game, what Pangrazi calls an “introductory activity,” students usually like this better. Also, it is very much in question whether stretching is a valuable use of time before starting an activity. There is ample research evidence that stretching does not decrease chance of injury nor does it improve performance. A warm-up is good, but not necessarily stretching. If improving flexibility is a goal, then it should be done after muscles are warmed up perhaps during a fitness focus. Furthermore, the younger the students are, the less need there is for stretching because they are super flexible anyway. So, a stretching routine uses up valuable time that could be spent with activity and learning a new skill. Because of child obesity problems, maximizing activity time is even more important than ever. Stretching is important and should be taught where appropriate, but you should examine the information and decide when it is most appropriate to include stretching in your classes. Daily probably is not a good answer.
15. Be assertive in your teaching. Take control of the class. This will be especially important when working with more challenging groups.
16. Dress for success: It is important to appear ready for action. Attire is important as a PE teacher because you want to portray that you are active, as if you have been working out all day. I am being a bit sarcastic, but it is important that you at least have the proper footwear on for activity. It is also important to be in the right clothes for sport demonstrations. Even though you are ready for action, that does not mean you are in the action (for liability reasons). Just appear to aways be ready because you are modelling an active lifestyle to the students, parents, and faculty.
17. Ditch the clip board: Usually in PE teaching it is best if your notes (lesson plan) disappear while you are teaching and only reappear if you need to take a quick look or review what is next. This frees you up to be more active and use your hands to demonstrate. Overall, it's usually considered unprofessional to rely on notes as a PE teacher. The instructional cues and game explanations are not too difficult to remember without the need for notes. If you do feel the need to have notes present, one inconspicuous technique to use for a lesson plan is to keep note cards in your pocket.
18. Don't compete: Avoiding competitive games to learn a skill, because usually good technique disappears when students only think about going faster (or winning). From my experience, I have seen the degrading of skill when competition is introduced into an activity. The competitive games can come later when the skill has been practiced and it is more automatic.
19. Rethink the relay: Instead of having each relay team member go out and back it is usually better to just have them go one way, then you can send one after the other. Or, just send them all at once. This can help them learn spatial awareness with others in the mix. Also, if you send one at a time it puts that student on display and often encourages speed rather than focusing on performing the skill properly.
20. Never let them see you take attendance: Take attendance discretely, while they are doing some activity. If you have prearranged teams or groups, this makes attendance even easier. It is a time waster to take role while they are sitting around at the beginning of class.