Inez Rovegno

Learning to Teach Sport Education: Misunderstandings, Pedagogical Difficulties, and Resistance

This study used cognitive developmental theory to analyze how teachers learn to teach sport education. Two groups of undergraduate pre-service teachers were studied, one group during their secondary methods and corresponding field-teaching courses, the other during an independent teaching course. Data were collected through ethnographic observations and interviews, and analyzed using constant comparison. Findings revealed that the teachers encountered three pitfalls in learning to teach sport education. First, group one teachers struggled with the tactical instruction in sport education and, in response, retreated to the safety of decontextualized skill drills or non-instructional games. Second, group one teachers, in their descriptions of future pedagogical intentions, expressed resistance, for a number of reasons, to incorporating most of the unique characteristics of sport education into their future secondary classrooms. Third, group two teachers misunderstood the role of skill development in sport education. The discussion centers on mechanisms of knowledge acquisition related to learning sport education, and recommendations for teacher educators and future research.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF IN-SERVICE TEACHERS' KNOWLEDGE OF A CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH TO PHYSICAL EDUCATION : TEACHING BEYOND ACTIVITIES

The purpose of this paper is to describe three aspects of learning a movement approach that were salient and initially problematic for 1 experienced teacher, 2 early career teachers, and 1 student teacher. A constructivist perspective was the theoretical base. Across 3 years, the researcher conducted 11 weeks of observations, 15 formal interviews, 3 group interviews, and daily informal interviews. Three problematic aspects were: (1) knowing to what extent they should give information and tell children what to do when teaching less structured content, (2) knowing the whole of the approach and how components connected, and (3) knowing content (i.e., pedagogical content knowledge) in enough depth and detail. Knowledge development was facilitated by more experienced teachers, experience, and a set of key ideas.

Teaching within a Curricular Zone of Safety: School Culture and the Situated Nature of Student Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge

The purpose of this paper is to continue the theoretical delineation of the nature of pedagogical content knowledge. Two student teachers were observed teaching an elementary games and high school sport unit and interviewed in depth about their lessons, biography, pedagogical content knowledge, and aspects of the school culture. Data were analyzed by constant comparison and analytic induction. Trustworthiness was established through member checks and triangulation. In the high school, both student teachers tried to use extending and refining tasks, as they had in the elementary school. But, when confronted with aspects of the high school culture, both retreated to a curricular zone of safety relying on application tasks. This zone, the defining aspect of their pedagogical content knowledge of teaching sports, emerged from and was constituted by the relations among goals, capabilities, teaching, inadequate pedagogical content knowledge, and aspects of the school culture. It is argued that situated and cultural orientations contribute to psychological orientations currently used to delineate pedagogical content knowledge. A curricular zone of safety is offered as a concept that helped account for the emergence and persistence of particular ways of knowing content.

Articulations and Silences in Socially Critical Work on Physical Education: Toward a Broader Agenda

This paper proposes that socially critical work has, thus far, articulated a theoretical base for curriculum development and theorizing that is too narrow. First, a brief, selective overview of the history of socially critical work in physical education provides an outline of its achievements. Second, in addition to an ethic of justice and emancipation, which currently serves as the underlying moral basis for much socially critical theorizing, this paper proposes that an ethic of care and responsibility be included and given equal weight. In addition, socially critical work must pay more attention to how children learn, develop, and experience physical education. Finally, three programs are described to stimulate thinking about theory. These programs illustrate and provide precedents for aspects of the broader agenda proposed here.

Content-Knowledge Acquisition During Undergraduate Teacher Education: Overcoming Cultural Templates and Learning Through Practice

This article describes aspects of physical education teacher education (PETE) that 12 participants reported were instrumental in the development of understanding of and commitment to a movement approach. The movement approach was a constructivist and developmental approach that was discrepant from the participants’ prior knowledge of curriculum. Based on in-depth interviews, observations of teaching and coursework, and documents, 12 case studies were prepared. Students’ understanding and commitment developed through a critique of K–12 experiences, learning to read the political text of their subject matter, confronting negative stereotypes of physical educators, understanding the movement approach as a program that they could be proud of, feeling part of a bigger collective mission to bring better physical education to children, and learning through practical experiences. Coursework gave students a broader context for interpreting field experiences and served as a catalyst for the power of learning through doing, whereas learning through doing instantiated and integrated theory learned at the university.

Meaning and Movement: Exploring the Deep Connections to Education

Many in education suggest that to have studentsadopt healthy and active lifestyles, then theymust be offered meaning rich physical activityexperiences. This paper adds to thisconversation in two ways. First, this paperadds depth and richness to traditionalconceptualizations of the meaning in movement.In doing so, we interrogate the physical,cognitive and affective meaning that studentsmay derive from participation in movement.Second, this paper examines the role ofphysical activity in theme-based, integratedcurriculum. We highlight how physical activitycan be incorporated into theme-based units insubstantial and non-trivial ways.

Learning and Instruction in Social, Cultural Environments: Promising Research Agendas

My charge is to discuss the challenges and significant research questions for pedagogy. I believe the top challenges we face are to address inequitable opportunities to learn and participate in physical activities and to improve the quality of teachers and physical education, especially for those children and adolescents who feel alienated and disengaged. The most promising research agendas are (a) to design and research a variety of curriculum programs aimed at different age groups, cultural settings, subject matter, and curricular goals; (b) to study mechanisms for successful dissemination and long-term teacher adoption of field-tested curriculum; (c) to study programs that successfully produce graduates who value diversity, resist socialization, and are well-prepared to work with diverse populations in urban environments; and (d) to study what undergraduates actually learn in their coursework, how they transfer that knowledge to practice, and how their practice impacts student learning and engagement in physical activity.

A Participant-Observation Study of Knowledge Restructuring in a Field-Based Elementary Physical Education Methods Course

This paper describes how seven undergraduate students restructured knowledge during a field-based elementary physical education methods course. Guided by the teacher educator the students planned, taught, and reflected on a series of lessons to children in an elementary school. Theoretical course knowledge was integrated into planning and reflecting sessions. Data were collected and analyzed using interpretive research methodologies. The researcher observed and recorded field notes during all class sessions, conducted three formal and many informal interviews with all seven students, and collected available, pertinent documents. All data were categorized, and similarities in what and how the students learned were identified. The students reported knowledge restructuring as a salient aspect of field-based learning. Based on a cognitive theoretical perspective, this study described students as active, goal-oriented learners who, at times, recognized and restructured problematic prior knowledge to form a more differentiated understanding of teaching and children.

Teaching Development and Diversity in Field-Based Methods Courses

Abstract This paper focuses on the issue of teaching development and diversity in an innovative elementary and special education teacher preparation program. Using the language arts and physical education components as examples, we describe problematic conceptions that preservice teachers hold about development and diversity and a set of learning experiences aimed at confronting these conceptions and helping undergraduates begin to learn to differentiate instruction. These learning experiences occur in elementary school settings during lessons taught by the university professors as a way to model effective practice and provide links to theory taught in the university.