Lars Domino Østergaard

A Taxonomy of Physical Activities in School

Background/Purpose: Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often show characteristics thatmake promoting physical activity (PA) difficult, leading to poorer health outcomes. Studies have shown exergaming incorporating ASD-like behavior (e.g., predictable, repetitive tasks) improves PA participation and on-task behavior in children with ASD. However, no study has compared exergaming to adaptive physical education (PE) with regard to PA, on-task behavior, or other behavioral outcomes among this population. This study’s purpose was to compare these children’s PA, on-task behavior, and communication during adaptive PE and exergaming sessions. Method: Five male students (3 African Americans, 2 Somali; M̅age = 6.8 ± 2.1 years), clinically diagnosed with ASD and spending ≥ 60% of school time in a special education setting, participated in the study. Students were observed during three 50-min adaptive PE classes and three 50-min exergaming sessions over 3 weeks. PA was monitored via accelerometers worn by participants during each session, with dependent t-tests used to assess differences between students’ sedentary behavior (SB), light PA (LPA), and moderate-tovigorous PA (MVPA) during adaptive PE and exergaming sessions. Direct observation, conducted by two trained observers, assessed on-task behavior (e.g., behavior in which the student was attentive to the teacher and/or actively engaged in teacher-assigned task[s]) and communication (e.g., vocal utterances). Each student was observed twice in 1-min intervals during each session. Observer agreement was assessed using interrater observation agreement (IOA). Analysis/Results: Results indicated significant differences between the two PA modalities for LPA, t (13) = −3.0, p = .01, and MVPA, t(13) = 2.5, p = .03, but not SB, t(13) = −1.3, p > .05. Specifically, compared to adaptive PE, exergaming had higher average minutes of MVPA (16.9 versus 11.6, respectively), but lower average minutes of LPA (10.8 versus 13.2, respectively) and SB (22.3 versus 25.1, respectively). Additionally, direct observation revealed greater percentages of ontask behavior during adaptive PE (91.4%) compared to exergaming (69.8%), with a higher percentages of communication also seen during adaptive PE (30.8%) in comparison to exergaming (15.4%). IOAs for the direct observation sessions were all approximately 95%. Conclusions: Findings indicated children with ASD were more vigorously active and less sedentary during exergaming, but were more likely to pay attention and communicate during adaptive PE—likely due to the need for greater teacher-student interaction in the latter setting. Additional research is warranted to develop exergaming programs that are capable of enhancing ontask behavior and communication among children with ASD to the same magnitude as adaptive PE without reducing PA participation.

Creation of new routines in physical education: second-order reflection as a tradition-challenging form of reflection stimulated by inquiry-based learning

ABSTRACT The time we live in is characterised by social and cultural changes, but teaching in physical education (PE) does not necessary match these changes. Consequently, the present project explored how second-order reflection (SoR) as a tradition-challenging and developing form of reflection can be stimulated by an inquiry-based learning (IBL) approach in physical education teacher education to transform current pedagogy to align with social and cultural changes. SoR fosters development and learning by inter-professional collaboration and inter-professional dialogue and is an extended form of higher-order thinking (HoT) including critical thinking and problem-solving. The project explored how an IBL approach stimulated a group of pre-service teachers (n = 32) developing their professional practice by using SoR. Data were generated through video observations and audio recordings of the pre-service teachers’ discussions, reflections and actions during the IBL unit. Furthermore, written reflections regarding the challenges were collected. All data were inductively analysed in order to identify and extract common themes and patterns in relation to SoR. The analyses of the data revealed that during the IBL approach the pre-service teachers used both reflection at first and second-order level. Reflections in the form of technical and practical considerations were common, while examples of SoR were seen especially in the phases of IBL where the pre-service teachers used new theoretical knowledge and experiences from other contexts than PE. Consequently, the findings supported that IBL enhanced the second-order reflective skills of some of the pre-service teachers. However, with further use of guiding and facilitation of the IBL process or keeping the pre-service teachers to their challenges, hypotheses and plans, the methodology has even more potential to enhance the second-order critical reflection of the participants; thereby developing their coming practice to be more reflective, engaging and probably motivational.

Creativity as a developmental resource in sport training activities

ABSTRACT The multidimensional concept of creativity has a much wider scope of application than disclosed by prevailing research on sporting creativity. In this area, creativity is mostly perceived, praised, and approached for its performative, in-game benefits. Pointing to the belief that creativity requires well-developed technical skills, this phenomenon is often treated as a performative end. When targeting creative match performances, the developmental and experiential benefits of creative activities may be neglected, and creativity may be reserved for the best offensive players. To nourish and nuance practical and scholastic dialogues, the purpose of this paper is to conceptualize creativity as a developmental resource in sport training activities. This is accomplished by building on and articulating [Shilling, C. (2005). Body in culture, technology and society. London: SAGE] body-sociology, [Glăveanu, V. P. (2012). What can be done with an egg? Creativity, material objects, and the theory of affordances. The Journal of Creative BehaviorJournal of Creative Behavior, 46(3), 192–208. doi:10.1002/jocb.13, Glăveanu, V. P. (2016b). The psychology of creating: A cultural-developmental approach to key dichotomies within creativity studies. In The Palgrave handbook of creativity and culture research (pp. 205–223). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-46344-9_10] socio-cultural notions about creativity, and [Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education– an introduction to the philosophy of education. New York, NY: The Free Press.] educational philosophy. Based on these positions, creativity is treated as a dynamic quality of action that is located in the transaction between the player and the specific situation (i.e. affordances, intentions, and norms). Hence, creativity regards the exploratory and playful processes of discovering, exploiting, and originating unusual action possibilities (i.e. acting on unperceived, unexploited, and uninvented affordances). Grounded in these ideas, we argue for the stimulation of creative actions during training, which should not be forgotten when trying to nurture in-game creativity. Essentially, the developmental benefits (e.g. learning and enjoyment) of creativity could apply to all players, at all levels. Among others, creativity may enhance their situated potential (e.g. expanding the boundaries of usual actions; developing the capacity for novel actions). For instance, the exploration of unexploited affordances (i.e. actions normally avoided due to norms) entails broad experiences and may help the players discover novel actions. Moreover, creative activities may develop the players’ capacity to search for, handle, and/or create unexpected, unusual, and novel situations. This is vital for players’ development and performance.

Inquiry-based Learning Approach in Physical Education: Stimulating and Engaging Students in Physical and Cognitive Learning

Inquiry is an approach that promotes engagement, motivation and learning, and which involves use of cognitive knowledge, bodily experience and communicative skills. Usually the inquiry method with skills like observations, planning, investigations, experimenting and drawing conclusions is related to natural sciences, but this paper describes an inquiry-based learning approach used in physical education teacher education. The first phase in inquiry work is to discuss and reflect on a given question or challenge which is realistic and relevant for the students. In the described example, the challenges were how it was possible in a given sports arena to modify or create a ball game for lower secondary students (grade 8) to fulfill three distinctive curriculum-related goals (selected by the student teacher). In the next phases the students in groups were to discuss, argue and formulate predictions of how to deal with the challenge, and then by using the inquiry skills mentioned above they were to investigate, test and collect data to confirm or disapprove their prediction. Together with the other students they finally played their game and discussed, concluded and criticized their findings in relation to the prediction. Based on observations of and interviews with students who have been taught by means of the inquiry method it is apparent that the students, besides enhancing their motivation and engagement in physical education teacher education, also enhanced both physical and cognitive learning by using bodily experiences, cognitive knowledge, communicative skills and inquiry-based skills.

Engagerande samtal i det naturvetenskapliga klassrummet [Inquiry based dialouge in science classroom]

This study focuses on classroom communication within an inquiry-based science education (IBSE) program, called NTA (Naturvetenskap och Teknik for Alla). The overall aim of the study is to highlight the ways in which productive and engaging conversations are conducted in the classroom. We have analysed the work within the unit ”The Chemistry of food” and the theme testing of fat in food in grade five and six in a Swedish and a Danish science classroom. We have used video cameras and mp3-players to follow the classroom interaction. Our findings indicate that the classroom communication was focused on everyday science content and that the introduction and the summary of the theme were very important for the pupils’ possibilities to productive disciplinary engagement.