Integrating complexity thinking with teacher education practices: a collective yet unpredictable endeavour in physical education?

While complexity thinking features increasingly in the education and physical education literature, there remains a paucity of research presenting evidence of the influence that complexity principles have on learning. We further advocate that more work with complexity thinking is required to investigate how teacher educators engage with key complexity principles in their work with students and teachers. Accordingly, in this paper we investigate how one group of teacher educators, the Developmental Physical Education Group (DPEG), have grappled to develop their own knowledge of complexity thinking while concurrently attempting to support students and teachers in their efforts to apply these principles within local schools. Employing methodology from self-study, the paper provides data from two focus group interviews carried out in 2012 and 2014 in which six members of the DPEG discuss how they wrestled to understand, share and support the application of complexity thinking in practical contexts. In particular, the paper explores how the group members worked with complexity principles such as self-organisation, emergence and ‘the edge of chaos’ to develop innovative pedagogical strategies with children, students and teachers. Findings from the study reveal how all members of the DPEG, in their initial engagement with complexity principles, raised questions about their personal approaches to the teaching and learning process but also struggled to use the principles to inform their practice. Two years later, however, as the group’s confidence with complexity thinking grew, the members had created a shared understanding and language around complexity thinking, were more comfortable debating issues around complexity and also describing how key principles had impacted upon their pedagogical strategies in practical settings.     

Beyond games and sports: a socio-ecological approach to physical education

Acknowledging the performative sporting discourses which continue to dominate physical education, and the emerging focus on disease prevention within this context, this paper presents a socio-ecological framework for physical education that aims to shift the focus towards more multidimensional understandings of what it means to be ‘physically educated’. In doing so, we hope to prompt physical educators in schools and undergraduate programmes to more confidently employ intra-personal, inter-personal and environmental lenses through which to view and understand physical education, and therefore extend the gaze beyond activity-driven practice and ‘downstream’ exercise for health. The proposed framework draws upon established socio-ecological models and encompasses functional, recreational, health-related and performance-related physical activities. The multi-layered complexity associated with the field of physical education is reflected within the proposed socio-ecological framework. Through embracing complexity, particularly the interactions between layers of influence, the framework encourages exploration of the ‘physical’ beyond its subordinate components like fitness, body mass index, tactical awareness or motor skills. The framework is inclusive of games and sports but questions how these activities can be connected in the everyday lives of the learners. Importantly, the framework provided is not an approach to teaching and learning and, on its own, will do little to address the ongoing critique about the privileging of performative and health discourses within physical education. As they have in other fields, socio-ecological frames can provide a useful reference for the teaching and learning of physical education. To produce physically educated citizens in the broadest sense, teachers need to be supported, across multiple levels, to reposition their field to that of a connected specialism contributing to the whole curriculum and the communities within which they are located. It is our contention that socio-ecological frames can serve as useful tools to facilitate such a repositioning.     

Connecting knowledge(s) to practice: a Bernsteinian theorisation of a collaborative coach learning community project

Collaborative action learning was undertaken in response to the growing criticisms of formal coach education. Since it is strongly felt that we can no longer merely commentate on what is not happening in terms of coach learning, a key requirement now is to demonstrate there are other options. The Coach Learning and Development (CLAD) programme was devised and implemented at a community rugby club in Wiltshire, England. The CLAD programme supported volunteers to engage more with contemporary designs for learning, acknowledging a fundamental problem with formal coach education in the way learning (and knowledge) is decontextualised. The theoretical endeavours of Basil Bernstein are introduced to Sport Coaching Research (SCR) for the first time, specifically the ‘pedagogical device’ to illustrate a process of recontextualisation. Findings suggest that the CLAD programme was successful in encouraging coaches to engage with more positive forms of coaching pedagogy. Therefore, the findings draw on the pivotal outcomes of the CLAD programme to re-configure more successful outcomes for coach education, coach learning and volunteers rights to knowledge.     

Physical Education: What Future(s)?

This paper seeks to prompt professional debate about the future of physical education and, specifically, the form that curricula should take in rapidly changing times and societies. Arguments focus upon a reorientation and restructuring of the subject to address educational needs and interests relevant to the 21st century. The current revision of the National Curriculum for Physical Education in England and Wales is used as a basis from which to present a case for a distinctly new orientation to be reflected in the design of PE curricula, units of work and lessons. The work of Bernstein and Young is utilised in deconstructing long-established practices and outlining their potential reconstruction in ways that are informed by, and express, a 'critical pedagogy for social justice' [Fernandez-Balboa (1997) Critical Post Modernism in Human Movement, Physical Education and Sport (New York, State University of New York Press)]. A curriculum framework privileging learning achieved in and via activity contexts, as compared to learning of activities, is presented. The developments that are proposed are identified as highly challenging but arguably long overdue in physical education, and as matters of relevance to international professional communities, not only those in England and Wales.     

The Development of the Network Examination for Student Socialization (NEXSS) Observational Instrument

The complexity of learning has plagued the educational establishment for decades. Recently, ideas of complexity theory and complex adaptive systems have made headway in how we think of institutions of learning. This study developed and tested an instrument for the modeling of underlying social structures, as an element of complexity, within the physical education learning environment. Currently, there are no instruments capable of producing valid and reliable models of underlying student social networks in physical education classes. This study sought to develop and test one of the first instruments for the explicit purpose of this modeling. The Network Examination for Student Socialization was developed as a product of this effort. Testing demonstrated the Network Examination for Student Socialization is both a reliable and valid instrument for modeling underlying student social structures within physical education classes. It is hoped that in years to come, the Network Examination for Student Socialization can play a key role in the study of complexity within physical education.     

表现性评价在体育课程思政建设中的应用研究——以体育教育专业体操类专项课程为例

借鉴建构主义理论、情境认知理论,依据逆向设计与协商建构的原则着重探讨表现性评价在体育课程思政中应用的理论与实践框架,充分展现诊断、反馈、促改、决策的复合功能以及表现性评价过程,即教学过程的统整性特征。以体育教育专业体操类专项课程思政为例解析其应用流程,以"明确评价目标、创设问题情境、提炼思政元素、设置表现性任务、开发评分规则、实施评价与反馈"为行动主线,发现主要呈现出以下特点:以体育领域问题情境创设为特色、以提炼体育课程思政元素为关键、以协商构建完成表现性任务为重点、以开发体育课程思政育人效果的评价标准为难点。旨在丰富体育课程思政的评价理论与方法路径,也为拓展表现性评价在体育课程思政中的应用实践提供理论参考。     

What is ‘effective’ CPD for contemporary physical education teachers? A Deweyan framework

It is widely argued that continuing professional development (CPD) for physical education (PE) teachers is important, yet questions remain about ‘effective’ CPD. We consider these questions afresh from a Deweyan perspective. An overview of the CPD/PE-CPD literature reveals conflicting positions on teachers as learners. Considering the nature of contemporary PE, and the learning needs of teachers, we argue that a different model of PE-CPD is required to reflect the dynamic nature of contemporary practice. We propose John Dewey's classic concept of ‘education as growth’ to underpin a new conceptual framework for the design, delivery and evaluation of PE-CPD. We argue that ‘effective’ PE-CPD will not be found in formal policies, structures and processes, however, well-intentioned, unless it (i) focuses on the dazzling complexity of the learning process, (ii) prioritises context and contemporary challenges; (iii) bridges research/theory–practice in innovative ways; and (iv) nurtures the career-long growth of PE teachers.     

Health and wellbeing: a policy context for physical education in Scotland

The ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ (CfE) guidelines and associated learning experiences and outcomes have been developed following a national debate on the purposes of education in Scotland. The recent development shifts physical education's (PE) role in Scottish education, changing from contributing to the ‘Expressive Arts’ area of the curriculum, to one central to the newly created curriculum area of ‘Health and wellbeing’ in the CfE. This paper provides an analysis of the broader policy context at national and global levels examining the policy developments for PE in Scotland situating them within a globalised discourse emphasising concerns about ill-health and obesity within society. Drawing on the work of Bowe et al., the paper examines the context of production and the context of influence that has contributed to the recent development of ‘Health and wellbeing’ within the CfE. It is argued that the role for PE and the focus on schools promoting daily physical activity within the CfE masks the complexity of addressing the issues of health and well-being. In conclusion it is highlighted that in the interpretation and implementation of policy there will be further issues for PE and as yet unknown consequences for the context of practice and pupils' experiences of PE in Scotland.     

学校体育新近课改旁观

从课的名称、课的性质、教的内容和学的水平等四个方面初步讨论了学校体育新近课改过程中存在的问题,坚持体育课的本色称谓,强调运动技术的操作性知识性质,界说体能等一些重要术语,点评体育教学进阶梯级。     

Professional coach educators in-situ: a social analysis of practice

Professional coach educators are key to the success of coach education and play a crucial role in developing coaching practice. However, coach education research remains remarkably coach centric with little attention paid to the coach educator or the broader role of the socio-cultural context that frames the learning process. Four professional coach educators working for a Sport Governing Body in-situ with twenty five professional clubs took part in interviews and focus groups over the course of a year. In addition, interviews were undertaken with nine academy managers and thirty two coaches as well as observations in eight of the clubs. This paper focuses on the coach educators specifically and aims to understand the nature of coach educators' social reality and practice by examining something of the relational nature of the coach educators and their practice in context. Using the work of Bourdieu the paper engages in epistemic reflexivity and attempts to uncover coach educators' social and intellectual unconscious embedded in and reflected through their social practice. Findings show the operation of a number of socially constructed legitimating principles where the success or failure of the coach educator's practice and learning was inextricably linked to power. Each club (field) was a field of struggles, and coach educators had to play a symbolic and relational game being defined by and, at the same time, struggling to define these relations. Hence practice for the coach educators was both social and embodied.     

Exploring the pedagogical possibilities of Indigenous sport-for-development programmes using a socio-personal approach

This paper considers the pedagogical properties and subsequent impact of sport-for-development programs across a variety of sites in Australia. Moreover, this research adopts a socio-personal account of learning in an attempt to examine the contributions of the social and physical worlds related to surfing programs as well as the individuals’ role in construing and constructing meaning through participation in these worlds. The major learning stories that emerged from this research were in relation to connections with and learning from the ocean, programme providers, Indigenous peers and Indigenous community members. More specifically, learning reportedly related to spiritual (re)connection with land and ocean, the (re)development of Indigenous and surf-specific cultural knowledge, and the (re)establishment of familial and community bonds. While these stories are significant in their own right, the learning affordances present in these programs are worthy of further attention. Indeed, the contributions of the physical and social environments at each site had important implications for the overall pedagogical properties of the programs. For example, the physical conditions of the surf as well as the features of the coastal landscapes served to shape the activities and interactions of individuals within the programs. In a similar fashion, the contributions of program leaders impacted directly on the nature and direction of learning through the organisation and support of the social environment as did the personal agency of the individual learners. Through a socio-personal approach it is possible to consider the contributions of the social and physical world, how individuals engage, construe, construct and reconcile their experiences and the relations between all of these components when learning in sport-for-development settings.     

Hiding behind the camera: social learning within the Cooperative Learning Model to engage girls in physical education

Research suggests that girls are disengaged in physical education due to the ‘traditional’ way that it is taught, i.e. teacher-centred approaches with a primary focus on motor performance. In contrast, Cooperative Learning, a student-centred pedagogy focusing on learning in multiple domains, has had success in engaging girls in physical education. Furthermore, when cooperative group work has been combined with technology, student engagement with learning is heightened. This article discusses the use of Cooperative Learning and video cameras to bring about a positive change to the learning environment for girls who were identified as being disengaged in physical education. Two classes of adolescent girls were taught an eight-lesson unit of Basketball using Cooperative Learning. Students worked in learning teams, participating in different roles, such as a coach or a camerawoman, to help each other learn and to film video clips of their learning. Data collection included a teacher's reflective journal, post-lesson teacher analysis tool, student interviews and the analysis of learning teams' movies. Inductive analysis and constant comparison was used for data analyses. Findings suggest that the role of the coach and the camerawoman was pivotal to girls' engagement. Some girls only ‘fully’ participated in lessons when learning was within the social and cognitive domains, since they could ‘hide behind the camera’ and were not required to participate physically. We controversially suggest that, in order to engage girls in physical education, we may have to temporarily remove the physical domain of learning (at least for some girls) in order to positively affect their longer term engagement in the subject.     

Mechanics of Batting: Effect of Stride Technique on Ground Reaction Forces and Bat Velocities

The benefits associated with being physically active are well documented, but a significant proportion of the population is insufficiently active. Physical inactivity is a major health risk factor in our society, and physical education programs are consistently identified as a means to address this concern. The purpose of this article is to use the social-ecological model as a framework to examine ways in which physical education programs can play an important role in promoting physical activity. Policies that require time allocations and resources for physical education and physical activity in schools and community designs that provide infrastructure that makes being physically active accessible and convenient are important factors in making schools and communities healthier spaces. It is clear, however, that policies alone are not sufficient to address concerns about physical inactivity. We must consider individual factors that influence decisions to be physically active in efforts to engage children in physical education programs that promote active lifestyles. The learning climate that teachers create determines what students do and learn in physical education classes. Ensuring that students see value in the content presented and structuring classes so that students believe they can experience success when they exert effort are key elements in an effective motivational climate. Efforts to address public health concerns about physical inactivity require a comprehensive approach including quality physical education. It is critical that kinesiology professionals emerge as leaders in these efforts to place physical education programs at the center of promoting children's physical activity.     

Centralising space: the physical education and physical activity experiences of South Asian,Muslim girls

This paper explores the physical education (PE) and physical activity experiences of a group of South Asian, Muslim girls, a group typically marginalised in PE and physical activity research. The study responds to ongoing calls for research to explore across different spaces in young people's lives. Specifically, I draw on a ‘middle-ground’ approach, using Hill Collins' matrix of domination and the notion of intersectionality. These concepts offer the possibility to explore the kinds of settings (physical, social and cultural) in which girls undertake PE and physical activity, how these spaces influence experience and how the girls navigate these spaces. The study is based in a large, urban, co-educational, secondary school in Yorkshire, England (95% of the students are from minority ethnic communities, 91% are Muslim and 63% live in the top 10% most deprived neighbourhoods in the country). Data generation involved three phases: observations, creating research artefacts in focus groups and in-depth interviews. The findings reveal the diverse ways the girls are physically active. They also demonstrate a complexity to their involvement which is contingent upon space, discourses and people. For example, discourses of competition, ability and peers are more significant within PE; whilst family, religion and culture feature beyond this context. The paper concludes by acknowledging the girls' heterogeneity and agency in the ways they strategically navigate spaces in their quest to be physically active on their terms.     

目标设置对高职学生体育锻炼坚持性的影响研究

通过对武汉地区高职学生体育现状分析,发现多数学生未能养成经常锻炼身体的习惯。导致学生体育锻炼坚持性差的原因是多方面的,本文运用体育管理学的基本原理,采取分析和调查的方法,论证体育教学中目标设置对提高学生体育锻炼坚持性及减小体育锻炼中断率具有十分重要的作用。并提出强化体育理论课教学,培养学生体育意识为先导,以体育教学中进行有效目标设置为核心,以引导、帮助学生制定锻炼计划为重点,改善和丰富体育设施和条件为保障的设想;提出提高学生体育锻炼坚持性、培养体育锻炼习惯的形成为目标,进一步深化体育教学改革的对策。     

Assessing with new eyes? Assessment for learning in Norwegian physical education

Background: The latest curriculum reform in Norway is one example of an education reform with a highly emphasised assessment for learning (AfL) agenda. Acknowledging that there is a lack of empirical research on AfL in physical education (PE), and that AfL potentially can have an important role to play in development of PE pedagogy, this paper set out to examine the extent to which the emphasis on AfL from educational authorities has led to change in assessment practice in PE.

Purpose and research question: The purpose of this paper is to examine the implementation of AfL in PE at upper secondary level in Norway, and discuss possible implications. More specifically we ask ‘How do students’ and teachers' perspectives of assessment practices in PE reflect AfL key principles?'

Methods: A mixed-method design has been applied in this study. Quantitative data, collected through a questionnaire answered by 1486 students from six upper secondary schools (15–19 years), were combined and compared with qualitative data from focus groups of a total of 23 PE teachers at the same schools. Data were analysed in relation to four key principles of AfL.

Findings: For the majority of the students in the study, their reports of assessment practice in PE did not reflect the four key principles of AfL. This result was supported by the fact that their PE teachers conveyed very varied understandings and enactments of AfL. The study revealed some difference between teacher and student perspectives regarding AfL key principles, in particular regarding feedback that moves learners forward.

Conclusions: The study demonstrates limited implementation of AfL principles in PE and we conclude that the educational authorities' emphasis of AfL has not proven productive in PE. However, most of the teachers acknowledged the need to change teaching and assessment practices in PE, and all schools in the study are observed to be in an area of changing assessment. Considering the findings on different AfL key principles, this study highlights engaging student more directly in assessment processes as an important development area.     

Improving ‘at-action’ decision-making in team sports through a holistic coaching approach

This article draws on Game Sense pedagogy and complex learning theory (CLT) to make suggestions for improving decision-making ability in team sports by adopting a holistic approach to coaching with a focus on decision-making ‘at-action’. It emphasizes the complexity of decision-making and the need to focus on the game as a whole entity, where players, individually and collectively, attempt to manage disorder in the face of an opposition. It rejects the complicated, mechanistic approach to learning and cognitivist views that dominate the literature on decision-making in team sports that see it as being a linear process of conscious thinking limited to the individual mind. It offers an alternative, holistic view grounded in a practical example of how this might be achieved in coaching rugby union football and theorized within a CLT framework.     

基于核心素养的小学体育教学设计优化的研究

本文通过文献资料法、分析总结法和实践操作法,理清体育核心素养、体育教学设计概念,并对体育核心素养进行细化分析,通过查阅近三年区级研讨的教学设计,分别从指导思想、教材和学情分析、学习目标、教学重点与难点、教学流程与策略、问题预设和安全防范六个方面进行总体分析,当下体育教学设计的特点:指导思想、教材和学情分析比较笼统,还不够具体深入;教学目标、教学重难点和教学方法基本都是围绕技术动作制定,缺少学生体育德育方面的培养。针对体育教学设计中存在的不足,提出了基于核心素养的小学低龄段体育教学设计的优化建议:指导思想和学习目标围绕核心素养,增强体育育人功能;教学方法多样化,并且增强其实用价值;教学设计中增加评价标准,方式多元化,增强学生自信心,提高学习兴趣。     

Promoting active lifestyles in schools

ABSTRACT

Effective and sustainable strategies for physical activity promotion during childhood are of considerable importance to physical education, sport, and health organisations. Multi-component physical activity intervention approaches for children and young people are firmly rooted within the literature; however, there is a dearth of research evidence pertaining to healthy lifestyle promotion within and beyond the school environment. ‘Promoting active lifestyles in schools’ represents a valuable resource for teachers seeking to integrate health-related learning and encourage physically active students. The essential ingredients within this book are the active pedagogies and the health-related learning strategies for children from the ages of 5 to 16 years. Through a consistent formula, this book positions the longitudinal process of health-related learning at the centre of its practice, by providing age-appropriate learning outcomes, activities and assessment strategies within and beyond the school environment. This review seeks to examine the focus of the book and consider its contribution to the existing empirical evidence base within the fields of physical education, health education and physical activity promotion.     

How PETE comes to matter in the performance of social justice education

ABSTRACT

Background: For over four decades, there have been calls for physical education (PE) and physical education teacher education (PETE) to address social inequality and foster social justice. Yet, as numerous studies demonstrate, attempts to educate for social justice in PETE are infrequent and rarely comprehensive. This raises the question why it appears to be possible in some situations but not others, and for some students and not others.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the multiple socio-political networks or assemblages in which PETE is embedded and explore how these shape the possibilities for students to engage with the concept of social justice and sociocultural issues (SCI) when learning to teach PE. Two research questions guided this study: How does an orientation for social justice education (SJE) within education policy affect the standards for enacting PETE programs? How is SJE encouraged within PETE programs?

Methodology: Drawing from a broader study of over 70 key personnel in more than 40 PETE programs, we examined how faculty in PETE understand their professional world, identify their subjective meanings of their experiences, and address SCI andSJE within PETE. Data sources included an initial survey, a semi-structured interview, and program artifacts. We analyze the ways that SJE/SCI was represented in three national settings (England, the United States, and New Zealand) and identified common themes.

Results: Examination of each national setting reveals ways that SJE and SCI were enabled and constrained across the national, programmatic, and individual level in each of the countries. The coherence of explicit National policy and curricula, PETE program philosophies, and the presence of multiple individual interests in social justice served to reify a sociocultural agenda. Conversely, possibilities were nullified by narrow or general National Standards, programs that failed to acknowledge sociocultural interests, and the absence of a critical mass of actors with a socio-critical orientation. These differences in assemblage culminated in variations in curriculum time that served to restrict or enable the breadth, frequency, and consistency of the messages surrounding SCI in PETE.

Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of acknowledging socio-political networks where PETE operates. The agency of PETEs to enact pedagogies that foreground sociocultural interests is contingent on congruity of the networks. The authors caution that although the ‘perfect storm’ of conditions has a profound influence of the possibility of transformational learning of SCI in PETE, this arrangement is always temporary, fluid, and subject to changes in any of the three network levels. Additionally, the success of PETE in enabling graduating PE teachers to recognize the inequities that may be reinforced through the ‘hidden curriculum’ and to problematize the subject area is contingent on the expectations of the schools in which they teach.