Michael W. Metzler

It's All Very Well, in Theory: Theoretical Perspectives and Their Applications in Contemporary Pedagogical Research.

Current debates about educational theory are concerned with the relationship between knowledge and power and thereby issues such as who possesses a “truth” and how have they arrived at it, what questions are important to ask, and how should they best be answered. As such, these debates revolve around questions of preferred, appropriate, and useful theoretical perspectives. This paper overviews the key theoretical perspectives that are currently used in physical education pedagogy research and considers how these inform the questions we ask and shapes the conduct of research. It also addresses what is contested with respect to these perspectives. The paper concludes with some “cautions” about allegiances to and use of theories in line with concerns for the applicability of educational research to pressing social issues.

Scholarship Reconsidered for the Professoriate of 2010.

The main thesis in this paper argues that the predominant system of defining, conducting, and rewarding scholarship today is mismatched with the shifting mission of higher education. Success in the current monolithic system is based on ones record of publication in adjudicated journals, not on the generation and dissemination of knowledge that benefits academic disciplines, students, and other constituent groups. Three metaphors are used to partially capture the growing crisis in higher education, a crisis fostered by a widening gulf between how faculty members prioritize their time and how the public, students, and state funding agencies perceive faculty members should be doing so. Several alternative models of scholarship are mentioned, with one based on Ernest Boyers (1990) Scholarship Reconsidered discussed at length for its implications for the amalgamated subdisciplines of physical education and the sport sciences.

Health Optimizing Physical Education (HOPE): A New Curriculum for School Programs—Part 1: Establishing the Need and Describing the Model

Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs (CSPAP) are designed to provide expanded opportunities for physical activity beyond regularly scheduled physical education time-including before, during, and after school, as well as at home and in the community. While CSPAPs are gaining support, currently there are no models for designing, implementing, and assessing these programs. This two-part article presents a new CSPAP curriculum model called Health Optimizing Physical Education (HOPE) that can be used to help P–12 students acquire knowledge and skills for lifelong participation in physical activity. Part 1 discusses the need for the HOPE model, presents its theoretical foundation, and describes eight strands that could be included in such a comprehensive school program. Part 2, next issue, will discuss the knowledge base needed by teachers for conducting effective HOPE programs, offer some strategies for preparing and developing HOPE teachers, and identify some of the many other professionals that HOPE teachers must collaborate with to achieve the overall learning objectives.

Teacher Effectiveness Research in Physical Education: The Future Isn't What It Used to Be

This commentary was written in response to the Rink (2013), McKenzie and Lounsbery (2013), and Ward (2013) articles published earlier on teacher effectiveness in physical education (PE). The historical analyses of teacher effectiveness research in PE (TER-PE) presented in those 3 articles are briefly described, particularly as they represent a collective agenda in the first 3 decades in this line of inquiry. That collective agenda was primarily driven by physical education researchers and P–12 teachers, who developed and explored empirically based best practices for effective teaching and learning in physical education, which informed much of the content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge learned in physical education teacher education programs. Based on 2 recent policy developments in many states, external threats to the previous agenda for TER-PE are presented by the author, who concedes that the lead for the future agenda for TER-PE will soon be taken out of the hands of researchers, teachers, and teacher educators and transferred to educational agencies in the form of new policies on initial teacher certification and the evaluation of in-service teachers in a growing number of states.

Health Optimizing Physical Education (HOPE): A New Curriculum for School Programs--Part 2: Teacher Knowledge and Collaboration.

Part 1 of this article, which appeared in the April 2013 of JOPERD, presented the theoretical foundation and evidence-based needs for a main-theme curriculum model called Health Optimizing Physical Education (HOPE) for schools. It also described eight strands that could be used to plan, implement, and assess this version of a comprehensive school physical activity program (CSPAP). Teachers in HOPE programs will need a broader knowledge base than what is currently provided to preservice teachers and available for practicing (inservice) teachers. Also, HOPE programs cannot be effective without the support and collaboration of parents, teachers, administrators, and other professionals and organizations in the local community. This article, Part 2, presents some strategies for the initial preparation of HOPE teachers, continued professional development of inservice HOPE teachers, and suggestions for establishing strong working relationships both inside and outside of schools in order to make HOPE an effective CSPAP model.

The Relationship between Teachers' Preactive Planning and Student Process Measures

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the student process behavior differences resulting from divergent lesson planning patterns within an Experimental Teaching Unit (ETU). Two teachers were asked to plan for and implement a 20 minute ETU on three occasions using different groups of fourth grade students (N = 65). The ETU task, a combination hockey/golf novel skill, was explained to the teachers, as were their identical teaching space and equipment allocations. The two teachers planned and implemented contrasting lessons for this same teaching goal. The purpose of this study was to determine the student process behavior differences that resulted from the two divergent planning strategies. The Flow of Teacher Organizational Patterns (FOTOP) system was used to verify that the teachers consistently and faithfully implemented their intended plans. Student process behavior was analyzed with the Academic Learning Time–Physical Education (ALT–PE) observational system. The data indicate that the stude...

Standards and Practice for K-12 Physical Education in Japan

Abstract In both content and approach, Japanese physical education exhibits similarities to, and differences from, physical education in the United States.

Scaling Up SSTEP in Physical Education Teacher Education: Possibilities and Precautions

Faculty members in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) at Georgia State University (GSU) have conducted a series of inquiries in the tradition of self-study for program coherence, understanding, design, assessment, and revision for over 19 years. One of the main lines of scholarly work in that series has been a concerted effort to study the processes by which pre-service teachers acquire pedagogical content knowledge that is defined around the construct of model-based instruction (MBI) for physical education. In MBI, teachers learn the knowledge, skills, and reflections necessary to select, plan, implement, and assess effective instructional plans from a variety of approaches – not a single plan that represents the ‘one best way to teach’ this content to learners in schools. The PETE faculty have conducted and reported several ‘institutional’ or ‘programmatic’ self-studies (Erickson LB, Pinnegar S, Young, JR, A programmatic self-study of practice: exploring teacher educator knowledge. In: Young JR, Erickson LB, Pinnegar S (eds) The ninth international conference of self-study of teacher education practices. Brigham Young University Press, Provo, pp 98–101, 2012; Loughran J, Searching for meaning in structuring preservice teacher education. In: Erickson L, Pinnegar S, Young J (eds) Navigating the public and private: negotiating the diverse landscape of teacher education. Proceedings of the eighth international conference on the self-study of teacher education practices, Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex, England. Brigham Young University, Provo, pp 133–136, 2010) of factors that influence the development of pre-service teachers’ knowledge base for MBI. Together, these studies have provided us with deep insights that have steered our PETE program for many years. The purpose of this meta-analytic chapter will be to share that extended self-study by synthesizing several related research projects that continue to guide the PETE program at GSU.

Adoption of Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs: A Literature Review.

Recent research has provided preliminary insight into the implementation of Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program (CSPAP) components in P–12 schools, but additional empirical support is needed to establish the CSPAP model as a viable conceptual framework. The purpose of this review is to examine the extent to which the CSPAP framework is currently being adopted and implemented in schools, by each CSPAP component and holistically as a model. Specifically, the review consists of three thematic areas: (a) CSPAP single and multicomponent outcomes based on empirical studies, (b) barriers and facilitators associated with CSPAP adoption, and (c) suggestions for future research and methodological considerations aimed at advancing CSPAP adoption. The information provided in this review expands the knowledge base, which is necessary to transform CSPAP theory into an adoptable and sustainable model for schools. Subscribe to TPE

Physical Activity Education: The New Name for Our Field

This article is a follow-up to a previous Viewpoint article, wherein the authors challenged the oft-cited distinction between physical education and physical activity, and proposed an alternate definition of physical education that is aligned with the need to promote physical activity in schools.