Connie Collier

Case Method in Physical Education Higher Education: A Pedagogy of Change?

Preparing physical educators for the 21st century will require professional preparation programs to address both a growing diverse studentlclient population and a more technologically advanced society (Tyson, 1996). How well do the pedagogical practices within our preparation programs represent these transformations? The case method has potential to be the pedagogy change in physical education higher education. The selected research in this review describes the use of cases to reform other professional preparation programs. Possibilities and pitfalls for using case method to address reflection, multicultural education, and technology integrative practice also are outlined. In 1915, John Dewey challenged us to modify our methods of instruction to incorporate more active and constructive processes. Physical educational professionals are entering work environments that demand skills reflecting a changing world, and our pedagogical practices also need to mirror these complex decision-intensive environments. T...

Student Choice Makes a Difference in Physical Education

H OW do physical educators reach those students who dislike physical activity? How do they motivate those students who are already active to remain active? How do factors such as enjoyment, health benefits, and choice affect the participation levels of adults and youths in active leisure and fitness activities? These questions are intimately related to present activity patterns in the United States, and they need to be addressed if physical educators are to construct programs that are more meaningful for youths. This fact is driven home by the dismal picture of physical activity participation presented in the Surgeon Generals report (U .S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1996). According to that report, a mere 21 percent of American adults participate in regular, sustained physical activity of any intensity, and 25 percent report no physical activity at all during their leisure time. Youths do not fare much better, as only 50 percent regularly participate in vigorous physical activity and 25 percent report no vigorous physical activity. Enrollment in physical education declined among high school students from 42 percent in 1991 to 25 percent in 1995. Only 19 percent of high school students report being physically active for 20 minutes or more in a typical physical education class. To make matters worse, most research has shown that physical activity declines dramatically with age.

Student Discourse on Physical Activity and Sport among Irish Young People.

This article explores accounts of student discourse related to the role of physical activity and sport in the lives of Irish children and youth. The data source is a purposeful sample of student narratives based upon age of student, type of school and gender, and sought representation from both rural and urban settings. Data were derived from an original, random sample of approximately 4,100 texts written by Irish young people (ages 10–12 and 14–17). Data suggest sport plays a pervasive role in the lives of Irish primary children as they enjoy and participate in a variety of sports and physical activities. Gendered and age-related patterns emerged in their preferences of activities and in the way in which they represented their sporting selves. These findings have implications for the value of student voice in the delivery and design of models of participation that expand opportunities for physical activity within schools and beyond.

Lifestyles and gendered patterns of leisure and sporting interests among Irish adolescents

This paper strives to provide an insight into the multifaceted relationships that young people have, examining the social, cultural and institutional discourses, which shape their lives. We set out to discuss, from an empirical poststructuralist perspective, the way in which Irish adolescents write about the reality of their lives and privilege certain practices and forms of subjectivity. We are particularly interested in the role and significance of physical activity in the lives of young people, asking what institutional and cultural discourses are brought into play to construct particular identities and social practices associated with leisure and sporting interests. This paper focuses on a purposeful sample of 168 written narratives of Irish post-primary students (14–17 years of age), chosen to represent the gender of students, a range of rural and urban school locales from different geographic locations and single sex and co-educational schools. We focus on the inter-relationships between (1) family and friends; (2) community-localism and tradition; (3) commodification and globalisation; (4) popular culture; and (5) gendered patterns of leisure and sporting interests. The family is a strong focal point for these young people as are their friends and being part of a community. The young people (boys in particular) are significant consumers of ‘media sport’ and both girls and boys were knowledgeable of national and international politics. We also comment on the extent to which female and male adolescents negotiate, similarly or differently, culturally dominant discourses within physical activity and sport, with significantly more boys choosing to write about physical activity and sport in their narratives.

Toward Academically Based Community Scholarship: Ideals, Realities, and Future Needs

Service to the community, a recent interest in higher education, poses numerous challenges and questions including: How can public colleges and universities fulfill their responsibilities to their surrounding communities? In doing so, how do formal responsibilities of faculty and students change? How do courses and programs change? What are the benchmarks or progress indicators for success? What are the facilitators, constraints, and barriers for this type of orientation? We explore these questions in the ensuing analysis. We begin with indices of need and an accompanying rationale. Then we share the results of a faculty focus groups problem-solving in relation to these kinds of questions. We conclude by

Observing and Diagnosing Student Performance Problems in Games Teaching.

JOPERD • Volume 80 No. 6 • August 2009 D uring the past 25 years, game-based or tactical approaches have been increasingly advocated as appropriate and effective methods for teaching games in public school physical education. This movement began in England in 1982 with the formulation of a games approach known as teaching games for understanding or TGFU (Bunker & Thorpe, 1982). The TGFU approach presents a challenge for physical educators, particularly in games and sport contexts, because most teachers are more comfortable using direct instruction rather than indirect approaches that might be more common to the teaching of movement or gymnastics, in which exploration and discovery by students can lead to the identification and resolution of movement challenges. The game-based nature of TGFU means that teachers must be effective observers of game play in order to encourage thinking processes during game play, diagnose the performance problems of participants, and identify solutions. This article begins by briefly reviewing the TGFU approach and describing its implications for the role of the teacher. The primary purpose of the article is to provide a framework to help teachers understand the complexities of game performance, observe game play, and subsequently determine performance problems and appropriate instructional foci to alleviate the problems identified.

Rethinking the Boundaries: Response.

In his Keynote address, Dr. Kretchmar suggests that children who demonstrate an inability or unwillingness to play may have a ‘play disability,’ and thus offers interventions for remediation. In response, Oslin and Collier argue that due to cultural influences, it is more likely that physical educators are play disabled. Oslin and Collier share Kretchmars sentiment that playing and valuing play is essential to becoming physically educated and living a fulfilling life. Recommendations are offered as a means of infusing play into PETE and physical education curriculums.