Wanted: Engaged Physical Education Cooperating Teachers

Cooperating Teachers are an integral part of physical education teacher education candidates’ field experience. With an increasingly diverse student population, it is important that teachers have the knowledge and skills to teach high quality, and socially-just physical education. In addition to the increased focus on equity, diversity and inclusion, the COVID-19 pandemic brought uncertainty and challenges for many teachers, as physical educators needed to navigate pandemic pedagogies, while re-examining physical education best practices. To best prepare candidates, there is a need for strong mentorship and support in fostering the development of candidates learning to teach today’s students. The purpose of this paper is to reiterate the necessary skills of cooperating teachers in supporting candidates, and to encourage cooperating teachers to examine their current pedagogical practices related to teaching online physical education, the implementation of social emotional learning in the curriculum, and strategies for teaching socially just physical education to meet the unique needs of K-12 students.