A Curricular Framework for Teaching Basketball in Physical Education

Basketball is one of the most accessible and popular sports across the world. For example, basketball courts and hoops (indoor and outdoor) are usually available for most physical education teachers to use on a daily basis. Also, basketball is played and/or watched by people, young and old, around the globe. For these reasons, basketball should be a regular curricular offering of K-12 physical education programs, even though teaching it is not easy. Simply including basketball in the curriculum does not mean that it will be taught well, especially across age or developmental levels. A basketball curriculum framework is needed so teachers can know what to teach (i.e., scope) and when to teach it (i.e., sequence). Furthermore, teachers need basketball curriculum and instruction/assessment tools to guide their unit and lesson decision-making. The aims of this article are to (a) present a curricular framework for teaching basketball within and across upper elementary and secondary grade levels and (b) share curriculum and instructional tools to guide unit/lesson planning and formative and summative assessment of student learning. The hope is that physical education teachers will recognize that the teaching of basketball is not one teacher’s responsibility but is rather shared by multiple teachers across age/grade or developmental levels and that a curriculum framework is necessary to make this shared responsibility more manageable and systematized.