Meaningful Contexts in PE Everyone will get a different take away from each activity in a gym class. However, every class should contain some aspects that allow for meaningful experiences for all students to happen. Competitions or challenges Competing with others or with yourself can be a great motivator for some students and a great limitation for others. At the elementary level it is critical to be aware of your students and how they will react in a competitive activity. Often times elementary PE now leaves the competition out of class, but students need to learn how to win and lose respectfully and fairly. To completely eliminate competition hinders that growth that comes from learning from a loss or win in a game. Cooperation or team building activities Working together in a team is a critical learning that takes place in physical education. Activities that help develop teamwork, create situations for students to take on leader and follower roles, and force students to share their ideas and thoughts in order to succeed will always be important in PE. Working out or fitness activities Many people see the need for PE to focus on fitness and health. While this is definitely and important aspect of a quality PE program, it is not the be all end all. Activities that introduce young students to health and fitness are great as warmup activities and cool down activities in PE classes. Joy of movement Enjoying moving simply for the sake of it is another aspect of elementary PE that needs to be focused on - play for the sake of play, free choice play, experimentation with equipment all allow students to explore movement in their own ways. As an educator we always want the students to be able to leave our gym and be able to physically take part in any type of activity outside of school. Allowing the students the chance to play increase the likelihood that they will be move capable and confident in other situations outside the gym, PE should be meaningful and according to the research of R. Scott Kretchmar and work of Stephanie Beni, Tim Fletcher and Diedre Ní Chróinín at LAMPE meaning is created in the following ways. 1. Challenge 2. Delight 3. Fun 4. Personal Relevance 5. Skill Development 6. Social Interaction Below is a podcast I created based on my Master of Education research in to Meaningful Physical Education.
Moving to Online PE How is meaningfulness kept when we move PE from the gym to the computer? This is a question that I have been struggling with these past couple weeks as Nova Scotia recently moved to online learning due to COVID-19. Thus far I am trying to keep things simple, we are unsure how long this will last and thus its a week by week situation. What I have created for my students is not overly meaningful, at least I am not thinking it is. Keeping track of their physical activity while at home. As an activity it poses little challenge, is not likely much fun or delightful, doesn't require skill development (though the activities the students choose to do may develop their skills), definitely isn't a social experience and may not be personally relevant to anyone not interested in this type of tracking activity. Log submissions support these thoughts on the program. For the most part I am getting a low percentage of return on logs and while it seems to be the same students each week, it is often a parent emailing the info to me... I fear that I am failing my students in this online experience and that I need to be more mindful of what I am doing with them and asking of them. I need to remember what makes an experience meaningful and come up with a better approach as this shut down continues. Sources:
Beni, S., Fletcher, T, & Ní Chróinín, D. (2018). Using features of meaningful experiences to guide primary physical education practice. European Physical Education Review. 17. doi:10.1177/1356336X18755050 Beni S, Fletcher T & Ní Chróinín D. (2017). Meaningful experiences in physical education and youth sport: A review of the literature. Quest 69, (3), 291–312. Comments are closed.
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