Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

As part of a longitudinal research project on the transition from physical education teacher education (PETE) to school physical education (PE) in Sweden, and exploring whether and how PETE matters, this paper ‘represents’ a PE teacher’s professional journey from PETE to the induction phase of PE teaching. The study focuses on the PE teacher’s use of, and reflections on, assessment for learning (AfL) (Wiliam, 2011) at different stages of the journey. The purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge about how positive experiences of AfL during PETE can enable the use of AfL in school PE for a newly qualified teacher. Using narrative inquiry (Casey, et al., 2018), supported by occupational socialisation theory (Lawson, 1983), this study focuses on one male PE teacher’s professional journey from PETE to the induction phase of PE teaching. The PE teacher’s tale is represented in first person, as if it were told by ‘the traveller’ on the journey. The underlying data consists of recordings of a campus-based PETE seminar, a stimulated recall interview with the participant during his school placement and two interviews with him in his role as a newly qualified PE teacher at two different schools. Through the PE teacher’s tale, we show how the course on assessment for and of learning in PETE and the student teacher’s positive experience of using AfL during his practicum seem to have inspired him in his later positions. On his professional journey, the traveller encounters barriers such as his colleagues’ contrasting beliefs, dominating PE teaching traditions, and pupils’ resistance. Still, AfL is not washed out from his teaching practice. The key strategies of AfL, such as sharing learning intentions, providing feedback, and activating pupils as learning resources for one another, are rather used to create conditions for progression. In the discussion, we suggest that PETE can make a difference for student teachers who have gained positive experiences of AfL in authentic teaching situations and are able to navigate between the barriers to the use of AfL in the induction phase of PE teaching. The usefulness of this study is its potential to inspire teacher educators to implement AfL in different learning tasks during PETE and student teachers to practice AfL during their school placements. If this would occur more regularly, a content such as AfL would have a better chance of “surviving” the transition from PETE to school PE. Casey, A., Fletcher, T., Schaefer, L., & Gleddie, D. (2018). Conducting practitioner research in physical education and youth sport. Reflecting on practice. London and New York: Routledge. Lawson, H.A. (1983). Toward a model of teacher socialization in physical education: entry into schools, teachers' role orientations, and longevity in teaching (part 2). Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 3(1). Wiliam, D. (2011). What is assessment for learning?. Studies in educational evaluation, 37(1), 3-14.

In 1983, Judith Placek published “Conceptions of success in teaching: Busy, happy, and good?” Placek’s arguments have been picked up widely in research and are often used as a catchphrase to represent bad teaching. Our purpose in this paper is to revisit Placek’s argument and “update” it for modern times. We first contextualize “Busy, Happy, and Good” by exploring the sociopolitical “setting” in which it came from and examine the literature to investigate how the concept has been used. We then outline three challenges physical education faces regarding success in teaching. Lastly, we propose a framework using a revised version of Placek’s concept that engages in the complexities of student learning. In doing so, we discuss five learning “bodies”: (a) Moving Body, (b) Thinking Body, (c) Social Body, (d) Emotional Body, and (e) Cultural Body, and propose educational aims that can guide successful teaching across diverse movement cultures and reposition Placek’s arguments as more positive outcomes of physical education.

Presented as a six-course meal, this article addresses the ethics of innovations, interruptions, and intrusions in physical education (PE). The central ingredient in this meal is Michel Serres' character-concept of the parasite. We begin by interpreting debates about PE's purposes, futures, beneficiaries, and so on, as offering researchers and practitioners food-for-thought about the status quo in PE and its transformation. We then introduce the tastes and textures of the parasite and explore these flavours further using PE research on outsourcing and the use of healthy lifestyle technologies. In the main course, we propose a situated and symbiotic parasitic ethics grounded in hesitation and discuss what this set of sensitivities offers debates in PE about outsourcing and healthy lifestyle technology-use. Recognising there will never be a PE without parasites, we advocate an attunement to what it is to parasite well in PE and to the role of the parasite in the composition of any PE collective.

The health of migrants is often considered a priority area for the government. Research suggests however, that health assumes different meanings in different cultures. For migrants who have crossed cultural borders, what it means to be healthy can become unclear. On the one hand, schools can be one of the main sources to learn about health for newly arrived school-aged migrants. On the other hand, schools can also be a contentious place where knowledge about health that does not fit newly arrived students’ beliefs can create issues or challenges. Discussion on the educational potential and strengths of newly-arrived students, and how these strengths interact with the new health-related content in schools, has been missing from the literature. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to shed light into the (missing) potentials for newly arrived students in Sweden when they encounter health education at school.

Inspired by doing Southern theory in and for education, ‘looking south’ (Connell 2007) becomes a source of unique knowledge and at the same time revealing the limits of northern knowings about health and education. In this study, we worked with 20 immigrant students aged 15-19 with different backgrounds. The participants had migrated to Sweden for various reasons although most sought a less risky, more prosperous life. To generate data, we presented the participants with photographs and vignettes during focus group interviews.

In order to present the results, we used creative (non)fiction writing to construct short stories that focus on the advantages that participants identified about moving to Sweden and learning about health in Sweden. However, the last stories are fictional stories informed by decolonial and Southern theory literature. Therefore, this paper is about both, what we found and what we did not find (but were expecting to find) in the data.

The participants identified several advantages about moving to Sweden, and made reference to other broader health-related beneficial aspects of moving to Sweden. The findings show how Global South concepts related to health and wellbeing were absent from our data. The study demonstrates the need to decolonise health education, as mainly Western perspectives of health were found in the data. More research that investigates what would happen if educators were able to integrate non-Western health-related knowledge in their teaching, and the possible implications of these kinds of pedagogies, is needed.

Teacher education in physical education (PE) involves an array of responsibilities, including preparing and supporting pre-service teachers (PSTs), in-service teachers (ISTs), and teacher educators (TEs). There have been several calls for innovative, coherent approaches within teacher education to address these responsibilities, including the need for cross-national analysis and development of ‘signature pedagogies’ - the forms of teaching-learning that leap to mind when thinking about the preparation and continuous support of teachers in PE. Through a recent comprehensive scoping review of literature, three distinct ‘signature pedagogies’ of teacher education in PE have been identified: (auto)biographical pedagogies, experiential pedagogies, and pedagogies of professional learning (Forthcoming). This symposium builds upon this scoping review. Specifically, we explore how the identified signature pedagogies serve as a shared language, that can inform a more deliberate application of these pedagogies, both within and across different teacher education contexts. The research was guided by the question: What are the processes and outcomes of developing signature pedagogies across international teacher education in PE? We employed a collective action project approach, which entailed continuous collaborative learning and capacity-building activities and brought together TEs and ISTs from seven higher education institutions, seven schools, and two PE associations across seven European countries. The project integrated self-study of teaching and teacher education practice alongside learning communities as complementary pedagogical and methodological frameworks. The symposium’s specific studies included 70 PSTs, 22 ISTs, 14 TEs, and two meta-critical friends. Data from ISTs and TEs were generated through a combination of methods, including reflective diaries, observations, and audio recordings of both local and international learning community meetings. Additionally, 14 focus group interviews were conducted with PSTs. The aim of this symposium is to share experiences of signature pedagogies across international contexts through four presentations: (i) A pedagogical and methodological approach for exploring signature pedagogies of teacher education in PE. (ii) An exploration of PSTs’ experiences with signature pedagogies in initial teacher education. (iii) An exploration of ISTs’ experiences with signature pedagogies in continuous professional development. (iv) An exploration of TEs’ experiences with signature pedagogies for their own professional learning. This research holds important insights for providing more authentic, transformative and equitable teacher education practices for PSTs, ISTs and TEs across international contexts.

Background

In a recent publication [Bjørke, Lars, and Mikael Quennerstedt. 2023. ‘Reflecting on Student Reflections in Physical Education Practice: Moving Beyond a Theory-and-Practice Divide’. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 1–14. doi:1080/17408989.2023.2281913], we conceptualised how student reflection can be understood in a way that aligns with the practical, situated and embodied nature of physical education. Although this study clarified what reflection can be in physical education practice, new questions have emerged in the wake of our discussions. One such question involves how reflection can be explored methodologically. Indeed, through mapping existing methodologies used to explore student reflection in physical education practice, we identified an urgent need for researchers to develop more coherent and rigorous frameworks for exploring student reflection in physical education practice so that our field can move beyond making educated guesses about the potential role of student reflection in physical education practice and its relationship to education and learning.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to suggest and discuss methodological tools to better explore and understand reflection within the context of physical education practice.

Methodological considerations

By outlining previous methodologies used to explore reflection in physical education, we identified three challenges that need to be addressed in research: (1) foregrounding student reflection as the object of knowledge in research, (2) theoretically opening up for student reflection as situated and embodied, and (3) methodologically delineating and empirically capturing student reflection. We address these three challenges by providing methodological examples of how researchers can position reflection theoretically, formulate research questions, generate and analyse data and make claims about student reflection in physical education practice. We then extend our suggestions and determine their usefulness for teachers interested in learning more about how reflection can make their pedagogical practices more educative.

Conclusion

We argue that there is an urgent need to foreground student reflection in physical education research and to develop more coherent and rigorous methodologies for empirically exploring student reflection that, over time, allows cumulative knowledge about the why(s), what(s) and how(s) of student reflection in physical education to be built.

The aim of this paper is to identify the dominant discourses of health and wellbeing that are offered in health education in Swedish schools. Issues of health and wellbeing are covered mainly in four school subjects in Sweden: physical education and health, home and consumer studies, biology, and social studies, and therefore, we interviewed teachers from those subjects to generate data. Six interrelated health discourses were identified from the data. All discourses were, however, also embedded within a health discourse with a comprehensive description of health as physical, psychological and social wellbeing. Results suggest that schools offer a Western and White discourse of health and that some content is overemphasised, and some is missing in relation to other non-dominant discourses of health and wellbeing.

Pedagogical theory concerns ideas about learning, teaching, content and curriculum,and the interdependent relationship between these. This entry focuses on pedagogicaltheories used in sport education. The entry thus describes theories foregroundinglearning, such as behaviourist, cognitivist and sociocultural learning theories,theories foregrounding teaching, like the spectrum of teaching styles, didaktiktheory and critical pedagogy, and theories foregrounding content and curriculum,like pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and Arnold’s notion of education in,through and about movement. As a conclusion to the entry, some of the similaritiesand differences regarding how to understand and investigate teaching, learning,and content are presented. Hence, the entry touches upon the claims made inresearch regarding different pedagogical practices when using pedagogical theories.

Peer assessment has been proven to improve learning for both the observer and the observed. One dimension of peer assessment that has been given little attention in the context of physical education teacher education (PETE) is the tension that exists when peers give feedback on each other's work. In this paper, we report on Swedish preservice teachers' (PST) views on peer assessment used in PETE school placements. Our findings reveal four mechanisms of peer assessment assigned value in PETE: (i) building social relations, (ii) making 'what to learn' visible, (iii) giving correct feedback, and (iv) handling sensitive and gendered comments. Inspired by Bourdieu, we discuss learning potentials and complex challenges with peer assessment, where the combination of social capital and physical capital decides what is possible to say and to whom when peer assessment is used in the PETE school placement and in school physical education (PE).

An ongoing discussion is a debate about the benefits of outdoor activities for health, where a narrowness regarding the benefits as a matter of curing or preventing disease has been questioned. Hence, there is an urgent need to theorize further the relationship between outdoor activities and health with robust theoretical frameworks that can guide research and practice, taking different aspects of human-nature relations into account. In the paper, a critique of pathogenic perspectives of health is forwarded, as well as a critique of an anthropocentric human centeredness of health. Instead, a salutogenic model and the metaphor of the swimmer in the river is used to discuss the relation without being restricted to health as the absence of disease or to human health and wellbeing. In the paper, seven different relations, or salutogenic questions, are provided, moving from the swimmer in the foreground, to swimmers in the river to finally foregrounding the river.