| Dr. Rockie Pederson named 2009 TAHPERD University Physical Educator of the Year |
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 Dr. Rockie Pederson, Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Kinesiology, is being recognized by the Texas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (TAHPERD) for excellence and leadership in the HPERD profession. Rockie has been awarded the 2009 TAHPERD University Physical Educator of the Year Award and will be recognized at the 86th TAHPERD Annual Convention on December 4,2009 in Arlington, Texas.The Texas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance acknowledges recipients for their accomplishments and professionalism in the disciplines of health, physical education, recreation, and dance. Rockie has earned this distinguished recognition for demonstrating leadership, achieving excellence, and being an outstanding representative of the teaching profession. Pederson was also chosen as one of UTEP’s nine awardees of the 2009 Regents’ Teaching Awards in the Contingent Faculty classification. Pederson has served as Coordinator of the Physical Education Teacher Education Program (PETEP) since joining UTEP in 2001, providing leadership for the Kinesiology Department undergraduate program that prepares our students to become K-12 physical education teachers. In this role, she is responsible for coordinating the pedagogy courses and internship placements, mentoring faculty, organizing and supervising the student teaching internships, preparing students for their professional examinations and collaborating with College of Education faculty and staff to jointly serve the students in this program. There are over 250 students in this program, accounting for approximately half of the Kinesiology undergraduates. Under her transformational leadership and multi-faceted approach to improve this program, the PETEP program has been able to increase the UTEP student pass rate on the Physical Education EC-12 Examination for Educators in Texas ((ExCET), now the TexES)) from 70% to a pass rate of over 90%, sustained since 2003. To accomplish this, Pederson designed five new undergraduate courses and one graduate course to focus on best practices in physical education teaching. In addition, she realigned the curriculum and has maintained a competency-based curriculum matrix to insure adequate content coverage in preparation for the Texas Examination of Educator Standards (TexES). She also developed and implemented a weekly preparation seminar, certainly contributing to the 20+ percentage point-improvement in passing scores on the TexES certification examination. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Pederson for this honor bestowed by the Texas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. |
