D702 Elementary Health and Physical Education Methods, catalog number EDUC 5093, is the two-CU graduate health and physical education course in the WGU Master of Arts in Teaching sequence. It covers elementary health and physical education from movement skills to lifelong health promotion, the same material as the undergraduate D694 (EDUC 2263). The graduate framing is wider than a lesson. In most elementary schools a generalist teacher influences children's activity and health far more through the other five hours than through a scheduled period.
What EDUC 5093 asks a classroom teacher to plan
Physical education in many elementary schools happens once or twice a week and is taught by a specialist. The classroom teacher still controls recess expectations, transitions, movement breaks, the length of continuous sitting, what happens on a wet day, and whether physical activity is used as a reward or withheld as a punishment. A graduate submission is expected to plan across that whole surface rather than only inside a period.
Movement integration is the concrete version and it is well supported. Short activity breaks between lessons improve on-task behaviour rather than costing time, and movement can carry academic content directly: children stepping a number line, physically sorting statements into categories, or acting a sequence they are learning. Those are lesson designs rather than interruptions, and they belong in a graduate plan with the minutes attached.
Withholding activity is the practice a graduate submission should be able to argue against with reasons. Removing recess as a consequence takes activity from the children who most need it, usually those whose behaviour is hardest to sustain when they have been sitting, and it removes the setting in which social skills are practised. Saying that clearly, with a source and with an alternative consequence, is a professional judgment the course rewards.
The health strand widens too. Elementary health touches nutrition, sleep, hygiene, safety, emotional wellbeing and relationships, and much of it intersects with what families do and can afford. The defensible stance treats families as partners rather than as targets of instruction, teaches skills rather than issuing directives, and avoids messages that a child cannot act on because they do not control the household.
Sensitive content requires a specific professional posture. Some health topics are governed by district policy or state requirement, some require notification to families, and some sit close to the boundary of what a teacher should handle alone. A graduate plan should say where it would check policy and where it would involve a school counsellor or nurse rather than proceeding on its own judgment.
Coordination is the last strand. Specialists, cafeteria staff, counsellors, nurses and families are all part of a child's health environment, and a graduate submission that names who else is involved and what each contributes is describing a system rather than a lesson.
Health teaching is also more effective when it teaches skills rather than facts, and the distinction is easy to build into a plan. Knowing that vegetables are good for you changes nothing a child controls. Being able to read a label, plan a snack from what is in the house, notice the signals that mean tiredness rather than hunger, ask an adult for help, or say no to something a friend suggests are all practisable, all within a child's control, and all assessable by watching them do it. A graduate plan built on skills also avoids the trap of issuing instructions about a household the child does not run, which is the single most common way elementary health teaching lands badly.
Turning the rubric into a whole-day plan
Your scored aspects live in the Course of Study rather than the public catalog. Count them before drafting, since each is scored alone on a three-point scale with a 2 needed in each. This course tends to carry an aspect on professional or family communication, and that is the one most often left thin.
Where D702 uses a performance assessment, mirror the aspect list and use its nouns. If the task addresses both health and physical education, give each its own section, because merged treatment reliably starves the health content.
A worked word budget. Take six scored aspects and directions pointing at roughly 1,800 words. Reserve 120 words for context naming the grade, the schedule and the constraints you work inside, and 90 for a close. That leaves 1,590 across six aspects, or about 265 words each.
Weight for judgment. The aspect on health content and its sensitivity deserves 370 and the aspect on integration across the day deserves 340. The four aspects listing standards, equipment or provision hold at 220 apiece, which returns the total to 1,590. In two CUs, the sentences to cut are those explaining why physical activity matters; assume the reader agrees and spend the words on what you would actually schedule.
A shape that fits a graduate health and activity plan
Where directions specify sections, follow them. Where the shape is yours, this order covers the whole day rather than a single period.
| Layer | What it must specify | The narrow version |
|---|---|---|
| Context and policy | Schedule, specialist provision and the policies that bind you | A plan written as though the teacher decides everything |
| Activity across the day | Where movement occurs, for how long, and what it carries | Activity confined to the scheduled physical education period |
| Skill content | The movement skills taught, with cues, wherever they are taught | Movement as a break with no skill content at all |
| Health topics | Content, sequence and the skills children practise | Information delivered with no skill attached |
| Sensitivity and policy check | Where you check policy and where you involve others | Sensitive topics handled entirely on personal judgment |
| Family partnership | What you tell families, what you ask them, and in what tone | Instructions to families about what they should do at home |
| Inclusion | Modifications by dimension across every activity described | A general commitment that all children take part |
Fill the activity across the day row with real minutes at real points in the timetable. It is the row that distinguishes this course from its undergraduate counterpart and the one an evaluator will read for evidence that the plan understood the graduate question.
Evidence craft in a graduate health submission
Health claims carry weight beyond the assignment, so sourcing is a professional obligation as much as an academic one.
- Cite public health or professional guidance for health content, and avoid popular sources entirely on nutrition and body topics.
- Support integration claims with the research on physical activity and classroom behaviour rather than asserting the link.
- Reference policy sources where you rely on them, and note that requirements vary by state and district.
- Quote standards from both the physical education and the health documents with codes.
- Keep children and families unidentified, and avoid describing individual bodies or circumstances.
- APA throughout, including any published curriculum or programme you draw on.
Add a sentence on the limits of what a school can change. Sleep, diet and activity outside school are shaped by circumstances a teacher does not control, and a plan that acknowledges that while doing what school can do is more credible than one that implies otherwise.
What separates Competent from a returned plan
Aspects score independently, so returns here usually name a plan confined to a single period or health content delivered as information with no skill.
- Movement is planned across the day with minutes and placement.
- Skill content with cues appears wherever movement is taught.
- Health topics teach a skill rather than deliver a message.
- Policy checks and referrals to other staff are named for sensitive content.
- Family communication asks as well as tells.
WGU records competency as Competent or Not Competent rather than issuing letter grades, and performance assessment work can be revised and resubmitted with no grade penalty. A return costs queue time inside a six-month flat-rate term, and closing more courses inside the term lowers the effective cost per course.
Boundaries are unchanged: proctored objective assessments are for preparation only and never for us to sit, portal credentials are never requested, and any classroom-based component of a course is yours to complete.
Six mistakes that cost time in D702
- Planning only the scheduled period. The graduate question is about the whole day, and a period-only plan answers the undergraduate one.
- Using activity as a reward or a punishment. Withholding recess takes activity from the children who need it most.
- Delivering health as information. Skills such as refusing, planning, asking for help and reading a label are what children can practise.
- Issuing directives to families. Partnership language and a question outperform instructions about the household.
- Handling sensitive topics alone. Policy checks and colleague involvement are part of professional practice here.
- Movement breaks with no content. Two minutes of movement is fine, and movement carrying academic content is better and costs the same.
How support works on D702
Send the rubric and task directions with the grade, the timetable and any specialist provision your setting has. The draft comes back aspect-mapped, with movement planned across the day at named points, skill cues wherever movement is taught, health topics built around practisable skills, and policy checks written into the sensitive content.
If your Degree Plan carries the undergraduate code, build from D694. This course pairs naturally with D636, since movement, transitions and routines are the same minutes viewed from two angles.
Three questions MAT candidates ask about D702
Is D702 the same course as EDUC 5093?
How does D702 relate to D694?
My school has a physical education specialist. What is left for me to plan?
Planning activity across the whole day for D702?
Send the rubric and directions with your grade and timetable. You get an aspect-mapped draft with movement placed across the day, skill cues throughout and health content built on practisable skills.
Where D702 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 1 current WGU program. 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.