D694 Elementary Health and Physical Education Methods, catalog number EDUC 2263, is a three-CU elementary education course at WGU covering the delivery of elementary health and physical education, from fundamental movement skills through to the promotion of lifelong health. It is a methods course rather than a sports course, and the single measure that runs through everything it scores is how much of the lesson each child spends actually moving and learning.
What EDUC 2263 is measuring in a movement lesson
Physical education has a metric that separates good planning from bad more cleanly than almost any other subject: activity time per child. A lesson in which thirty children take turns while twenty-eight wait produces a few minutes of practice each and a great deal of standing. A lesson with small-sided games, parallel stations and enough equipment produces many times the practice from the same forty minutes. Every organisational decision in a plan either raises that number or lowers it, and evaluators reading a methods aspect can see which.
Fundamental movement skills are the content in the elementary years. Locomotor skills such as running, skipping, hopping and leaping; manipulative skills such as throwing, catching, kicking, striking and dribbling; and stability skills such as balancing, twisting and landing. These are teachable with cues, correctable with feedback and improvable with practice. A lesson organised around a sport rather than around a skill tends to give the most practice to the children who already have the skill, which is exactly backwards.
The skill theme approach is what a strong plan usually uses: pick a skill, teach two or three specific cues, design tasks that vary in difficulty so every child works at an appropriate level, and give specific feedback tied to the cues. Cues have to be short and precise enough to say while a child is moving, which is a craft in itself and shows up immediately in a written plan.
The health strand is separate content with its own demands and its own hazards. Elementary health teaching covers nutrition, hygiene, safety, emotional wellbeing and the basics of how bodies work, and it has to be delivered in a way that does not shame anyone. Messages about food and weight in particular land on children whose home circumstances and bodies vary enormously, and framing health around what bodies can do and what habits help, rather than around size or restriction, is both the safer approach and the one the professional literature supports.
Inclusion is the last strand and it is concrete here. Every task can be modified along the same dimensions: the equipment, the distance, the size of the target, the speed, the number of players and the rules. A plan that states two modifications for a named task shows that inclusion was designed rather than promised, and it takes three sentences.
Feedback in a movement lesson has a shape worth planning too. General encouragement is pleasant and teaches nothing, since good job tells a child the outcome was acceptable without saying what produced it. Feedback tied to the cue does the work: your throwing arm came through past your body that time, or your eyes stayed on the target. That kind of statement can only be given if cues were taught first, which is why the cue decision earlier in the plan determines whether the feedback section has anything to say. Planning to give each child at least one cue-specific comment during the lesson also forces you to organise the room so you can actually get round them.
Turning the rubric into a health and movement plan
Your scored aspects live in the Course of Study rather than the public catalog. Count them before drafting, because each is scored alone on a three-point scale and each needs a 2. Aspects here commonly pair the lesson with a safety or inclusion obligation, and the second half is what candidates leave until they run out of room.
Where D694 uses a performance assessment, mirror the aspect list in your headings. If the task covers both health and physical education, give each its own section, because a merged treatment usually leaves the health content thin and the health content is where the sensitive judgment gets scored.
A worked word budget. Take six scored aspects and directions pointing at roughly 2,000 words. Set aside 130 words for context naming the grade, the space, the equipment available and the class size, and 90 for a close. That leaves 1,780 across six aspects, or roughly 296 words each.
Then adjust. The aspect on organisation, participation and safety deserves 380, since it carries the feasibility of the whole lesson. The aspect on modification and inclusion deserves 350. Aspects naming standards or equipment can run at 220. A test worth applying to every paragraph: could a reader tell where thirty children are standing at that moment. If not, the plan is not yet a physical education plan.
A shape that fits a physical education or health lesson
Where the directions supply a template, use it. Where the shape is yours, this order keeps participation and safety visible rather than assumed.
| Segment | What it must specify | The version that loses points |
|---|---|---|
| Space and equipment | The area, the layout and how many pieces of equipment per child | Equipment listed without quantity, so waiting is invisible |
| Entry activity | Movement from the first minute, with no lining up | Register and instructions first, losing a quarter of the lesson |
| Skill and cues | The skill, two or three short cues, and how they are taught | A skill named with no cues, which makes feedback impossible |
| Task progression | Tasks at several difficulty levels children can choose or be placed in | One task for everyone, too easy for some and impossible for others |
| Organisation | Groups, stations, rotations and the signal that moves them | Large groups taking turns, which minimises practice |
| Modifications | Named adjustments for specific needs, using stated dimensions | A statement that all children will be included |
| Safety and closure | Hazards, rules, and a close that consolidates the cues | Safety mentioned generally, and a closure that is just tidying up |
Count the equipment against the class size before you finish the plan. Most participation problems in written lessons are arithmetic problems, and they are visible to an evaluator the moment they compare the two numbers.
Evidence craft in a health and physical education submission
Both strands carry public claims about children's bodies and habits, so accuracy and sensitivity are scored together.
- Cite the standards for physical education and for health separately, since they are different documents with different content.
- Support health content from public health or professional sources rather than from popular material, especially anything about nutrition.
- Cite research for the pedagogical claims, including work on activity time, skill development and effective feedback.
- State safety provisions specifically, including supervision, surfaces, spacing and any equipment restrictions.
- Keep children anonymous, and avoid describing individual bodies or family circumstances even in composite examples.
- APA throughout, including for any published curriculum or programme you draw on.
Add one sentence about the message a lesson sends beyond its content. A game that eliminates children removes the ones who need practice most, and a health lesson framed around restriction can land badly on a child who does not control what is in the house. Naming that awareness is part of the professional judgment this course is scoring.
What separates Competent from a returned lesson
Because aspects score independently, a return here usually names an organisation that leaves children waiting or a health section with no sourcing.
- Equipment quantity is stated and adequate for the class size.
- The skill has short cues that could be said to a moving child.
- Tasks exist at more than one difficulty level.
- Modifications name dimensions rather than expressing intent.
- Health content is sourced and framed around capability and habit rather than around size.
WGU records competency as Competent or Not Competent rather than issuing letter grades, and performance assessment work can be revised and resubmitted without a grade penalty, so returns cost time. Terms run six months at a flat rate, and closing more courses inside a term lowers the effective cost per course, which is the whole argument for getting a plan right on the first pass.
The standing boundaries apply here too. Proctored objective assessments are for preparation only, we never sit them and never request portal credentials, and any classroom-based or field component of a course is yours to complete.
Six mistakes that cost time in D694
- Planning elimination games. They remove the children who most need practice and are difficult to defend in a methods submission.
- Organising around a sport rather than a skill. Sport-shaped lessons give the most practice to the children who already have the skill.
- Ignoring equipment arithmetic. One ball between six children guarantees waiting, whatever the plan says about participation.
- Naming a skill with no cues. Without cues there is nothing to give feedback on, and the feedback aspect has nothing to score.
- Framing health around weight. Capability and habit are the defensible frame, and size-focused messaging is a professional risk.
- Promising inclusion. Modifications along stated dimensions are what an inclusion aspect can actually score.
How support works on D694
Send the rubric and task directions with the grade, class size, space and equipment you are planning for. The draft comes back aspect-mapped, with equipment counted against participation, short usable cues, tasks at several difficulty levels, named modifications and health content sourced and carefully framed.
The graduate version of this material is D702 (EDUC 5093) at two CUs in the MAT sequence. If your Degree Plan lists that code, build from there instead, since the citation expectations differ between the two levels.
Three questions candidates ask about D694
Is D694 the same course as EDUC 2263?
How does D694 relate to D702?
Do I need a gymnasium to plan these lessons?
Planning a movement or health lesson for D694?
Send the rubric and directions with your grade, class size and equipment. You get an aspect-mapped draft with participation counted, usable cues, tiered tasks and named modifications.
Where D694 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 4 current WGU programs. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.