Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

Background, purpose, and theoretical framework: According to Knorr-Cetina, the development of knowledge occurs in objectual practice within what she refers to as epistemic cultures. We assume this also applies to knowledge in movement. However, there is a lack of insight into the epistemic cultures of movement practices, which may be why physical education (PE) is sometimes reduced to recreational physical activity or 'correct technique' in predetermined movements. In this article, we explore educational gymnastics, a practice often perceived by PE teachers as 'difficult' to teach. The purpose of the article is to explore how the epistemic culture of gymnastics informs gymnastics educators' content knowledge (CK) when they teach educational gymnastics in a PETE context. How do experienced gymnastics educators use the tools that the epistemic culture offers in teaching to support objectual practice?Method: Four TEs specialising in educational gymnastics participated in a workshop with the authors of this paper, where TEs and authors jointly explored the epistemic culture of gymnastics through deliberation and practical examples about how teaching for the development of knowledge in movement is accomplished in gymnastics. Additionally, two gymnastics lessons conducted by one of the TEs were observed, during which ethnographic interviews were held with students and TEs. Knorr-Cetina's notion of epistemic cultures, along with Jeraj and colleagues' aspects of gymnastics feedback, framed the analysis.Results and conclusions: The analysis demonstrated how the TEs used aspects of feedback - visual perspective, visual experience, motor experience, personal relationship, methodological knowing, and biomechanical knowing - to create an objectual practice where the exploration of various gymnastic learning objects, in this case 'stability' and 'rotation' as they are expressed in a trampette jump with rotation, was the focus. The analysis indicated that the objectual practice oscillated between a convergent approach, which provided learners with a sense of direction, and a divergent approach, which provided learners with opportunities to explore different solutions to movement problems.

Purpose: This study investigates what enacted knowledge is in movement for preservice teachers and teacher educators within two different physical education teacher education courses at two universities. Method: Data were generated through video recordings, and brief interviews were conducted during two teaching units focused on gymnastics/parkour and acrobatics. The data set comprises 4 hr of gymnastics and parkour instruction at one university and 3 hr of acrobatics at another. Theory: The study is grounded in activity theory, which emphasizes the interconnected actions of individuals engaged in a collective activity and the object toward which their actions are directed. Findings: The findings reveal that the enacted knowledge deviates from knowledge in movement, which was the purpose of the teaching. Developing knowledge in movement was often overshadowed by didactic thinking and prevailing norms-such as avoiding moving beyond one's comfort zone-and by differing interpretations of explicitly stated learning objectives.

BackgroundIn the last 40 years, physical education (PE) scholars have developed an array of approaches for teaching games. This development is positive in that PE professionals now have a wealth of practically-oriented scholarship to help them teach games. Yet the widespread availability of prescriptions for teaching games potentially reduces both the need and opportunity for teachers to exercise their practical judgement when working with games.AimThe specific aim of the current investigation is to develop an understanding of how physical education teacher education (PETE) provides preservice teachers with opportunities to develop practical judgement with respect to games teaching in one course.Theoretical frameworkWe rely on Joseph Dunne's (Dunne, Joseph. 1997. Back to the Rough Ground: Practical Judgment and the Lure of Technique. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Pess; Dunne, Joseph. 2005. "An intricate fabric: Understanding the rationality of practice." Pedagogy, Culture & Society 13 (3): 367-390) notion of practical judgement. Practical judgement refers to the knowledge individuals use in complex and dynamic situations, where they need to find resonance between general principles relevant to a practice and the particular characteristics of the situation they are dealing with.MethodsNine practical PETE lessons focusing on games were observed over a period of three weeks at one university in Sweden. Three three-hour lessons took place once with approximately 44 students. Three two-hour lessons took place twice (i.e. six times in total), each time with half the student cohort. Video data were produced by one researcher. The researcher alternated between active participation and passive participation in the lessons.FindingsThe PETE lessons provided the preservice teachers with four different types of opportunities to exercise their practical judgement: (1) opportunities to judge how principles of games teaching would operate in school contexts; (2) opportunities to compare different approaches and content against one another; (3) opportunities to consider the teacher educator's pedagogical decisions; and (4) opportunities for preservice teachers to take on teaching roles.DiscussionWe suggest that problematic situations where different interests compete and where deliberation is necessary, are valuable in PETE contexts. We also propose that providing space for preservice teachers to exercise their practical judgement may mean that they make loosely informed decisions. The investigation thus provides insights into a common trend seen in games scholarship.Impact statementThis case study reminds physical educators of the importance of working reflectively when teaching games. In the context of a long-standing debate about effective ways to teach games, the paper provides physical education teacher educators with concrete examples of how an expert games educator encouraged the preservice teachers in his course to use their practical judgement.

Previous research has presented contrasting notions of the potential impact of physical education teacher education (PETE) on professional teaching practice. Despite growing scholarship on PETE, work is needed to better understand how PETE can matter to would-be physical education (PE) teachers and teaching in the subject. This article aims to provide insights into when and how PETE matters to further understand how programmes can prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) for their future profession. The article draws on data from two larger research projects and nine doctoral projects conducted in Sweden from 2018 to 2024. We revisit this collective dataset through a reanalysis of all the original data across the projects, complemented by a two-day collaborative analysis workshop involving all researchers to explore when and how PETE matters throughout teacher education during campus-based courses, in the transitions between campus and school-based experiences, and in the shift from teacher education into the initial years of teaching. This iterative analytical process enabled the identification of four categories of when PETE mattered: (i) when knowledge in movement and movement cultures was taught, (ii) when coherence was accommodated, (iii) when opportunities for student subjectification were provided, and (iv) when PETE constituted a driving force for educational change. In contrast to studies that question the impact of PETE, we have pointed to instances when PETE mattered and how. The article shows various ways PETE can prepare PSTs for their upcoming professional lives as teachers and be a proactive part of driving PE as a subject area forward.

Background. Principles such as instructional alignment and step-by-step progression are often seen as crucial features of good assessment practices in school physical education (PE). These features are problematic from nonlinear educational perspectives, which are based on the idea that movement learning cannot be expected to take place in the same manner for all students. Without some resolution of the contradiction between nonlinear pedagogies and principles of good assessment, the likelihood of physical educators fully embracing any kind of nonlinear approach to movement education remains doubtful.

Purpose and research question. Our purpose in this paper is to illustrate how assessment for and of learning (AfL and AoL) can look when implemented in nonlinear movement education practices.

Methods. Illustrations of AfL and AoL are drawn from an investigation in which one educator implements a nonlinear movement education module. The module focuses on juggling for students at high school (grade nine students aged approximately 15 years). The module provided students with 10 x 50-minute lessons to explore juggling. Data were generated through observations (film clips and field notes) and ethnographic-type interviews that were conducted with the students during the lessons.

Findings. In the context of the nonlinear movement education module, AfL became: Interacting with students in joint exploration; Introducing learning strategies; Encouraging students to clarify and verbalise the object of learning; Helping students identify critical aspects of the movement activity, and; Inviting students to consider alternative learning trajectories. The educator then evaluates the students' learning experiences in the context of a group performance at the end of the module. This performance can be seen as an instance of holistic assessment within a nonlinear movement education practice.

Conclusions. The suggested holistic perspective on PE assessment could help educators to: circumvent dichotomies such as mind-body and theory-practice; approach students as active meaning-makers; re-frame students' actions as emergent and context-dependent; and replace direct instruction with explorative teaching and learning methods. The major contribution of this study is that it shows how assessment for and of learning can be implemented in nonlinear movement education practices within a linear, goal-related and criterion-referenced, education system.

Creative dance, that is to say, movements, with or without music, which allow participants to express ideas, thoughts, and feelings, are sometimes accompanied by a ‘there is no right or wrong way to move’ rhetoric. This may reinforce the impression among physical education teacher education (PETE) students, who often have limited experience of (creative) dance, that there is nothing to practise in creative dance and that this activity is merely directionless movement. In this paper, however, based on Aggerholm's notion of practising movements, we explore an occasion in a PETE course where a magic moment occurred, indicating that the students had practised and ‘figured out’ something that made this moment possible. The purpose of the paper is to explore the knowledge in movement that PETE students were practising as they participated in creative dance. The purpose is also to shed light on what pedagogical practice contributed to enabling such practising. Video documentation and short interviews with students in one PETE course and one continuing professional development course for physical education teachers indicate that the magic moment was made possible as the students’ practised making sense of moving in non-predetermined – creative – ways and appreciating the expressive dimension of movement. Laban's movement analysis framework seemed, along with the teachers’ knowledge of movement, to be an important element in the pedagogical practice that made the magic moment possible.

Various attempts have been made to emphasise the educational purpose of physical education (PE). Ennis (2011) has noted that understandings of content shift depending on curriculum. The aim of the paper is to explore what the enacted content becomes when the Practising Model is implemented in PE. Four PE teachers, in two Swedish secondary schools, enacted the Practising Model with five classes for 10–17 lessons. Qualitative data were generated in the form of video recordings of lessons, interviews with students and teachers, and student-produced material.

The findings are presented as three main content areas: (a) general-subject content, typically teacher-initiated and involving planning and evaluation; (b) subject-specific content, largely student- initiated and encompassing the adoption, appreciation, exploration, understanding, and grasping of movement qualities; and (c) persona-developing content, focusing on character development through persisting and daring. A discussion of the findings using Categorical Bildung is presented, illustrating the added value the enacted content may bring students in terms of their Bildung. The study highlights the diversity of content engagement and the fluidity between content categories.

This diversity also introduces a challenge in the changing relationship between content and teaching. The organising centre for PE and its relation to content are discussed. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.

I det här kapitlet riktar vi blicken mot de normer och föreställningar om funktionsduglighet som påverkar människors villkor att vara fysiskt aktiva.