Meaningful physical education programs and a 'main theme' curriculum model

 

In my last post here, I considered what it means to teach physical education for effective learning. In this blog, I connect back to an idea I have discussed before in relation to games based teaching here, that is making a physical education program meaningful. For me, the questions behind this are: 'Does the physical education program progress participant learning? and 'What learning is the physical education program progressing: that is, what is the program focus?'

Daryl Siedentop extensively researched physical education curriculum. He concluded that meaningful physical education programs consistently have one thing in common, that they each stood for something specific. Each of the programs had a main focus that defined and identified the program. The main focus provided a theme that dominated the program (Siedentop, 1987) [if you are interested in a Siedentopian perspective on physical education I blog about that here]

Selecting, planning and implementing a meaningful curriculum, here that is taken to mean one that is defined by a main focus provided by a clear theme, I beleive is the most important issue to be addressed by physical education teachers. This is because physical education teachers are educators. That means, the 'business' is student learning. The reality is that physical education has limited time in a school curricula. With limited time, limited outcomes can be obtained. This leads to an important question that needs to be addressed by physical education teachers when planning a curriculum, What curriculum is worth planning in the time available? This question is deeply connected to the question , What is important to learn in physical education in the time available (and to what standard or level of competence) to enable students to continue to pursue being physically active beyond the school gates?

No program can achieve all that is possible or ambitioned for physical education as physical education programs have limited time (see for more discussion the last blog). However, a well-designed and thoughtfully pursued program comprising a coherently connected curriculum may be able to achieve specific goals because that program has a core focus. Siedentop and Tannehill (2000) called physical education curriculum with a main focus that defines and identifies the program a "main-theme" curriculum model. They suggested 5 main-theme models for physical education, each with a different focus on the notion of what is 'good' for students to learn in order for them to continue to pursue physical activity beyond the school gates.

Sport Education. The Sport Education model (SEM: Siedentop, 1995) defines the content of physical education as representation of authentic sport experiences. Based on the assumption that physical education is derived from 'play' and that 'playing' is integral culturally (Siedentop, 1980), the SEM is designed to provide authentic, in-depth, and educationally rich sport experiences within physical education. Of all the models, the SEM is probably the model with the most extensive research validation. The SEM has 6 defining features: 1. A season of sport. 2. Students are attached to a team (affiliation) 3. A formal competition schedule. 4. The season ends with a culminating event. 5. Record keeping to enable players and teams to be provided with recognition of success. 6. Festivity, in that improvement, playing fair, and role responsibility are recognised and celebrated throughout the season.

Developmental physical education (DPE). DPE (e.g. Gallahue, 1996) is designed around individual student's developmental needs rather than achievement of content-specific goals. DPE is designed in a sequential fashion through skill progressions. This implies that skill development (physical, cognitive and social-emotional) can be introduced and developed in a progressive and staged manner based on the individual learners current level of development, which determines their learning needs. By my way of observation, this implication of skill development introduced and developed in a progressive and staged manner seems inherent in many fundamental movement skill assessment and teaching programs.

Adventure Education. Adventure education is based on experiental learning design to provide the opportunity for students to be challenged physically, cognitively, and social-emotionally. Individual and collective exploration and discovery are central to the approach to student learning. My experience of Adventure Education is via the work of Karl Rohnke - I still have my copies of Cowtails and Cobras (1989) and Silver Bullets (1989) from my time as an Outdoor Education teacher. Mark Collard's Playmeo "seriously fun" (2012) program seems to me to be a recent interpretation of this model.

Physical activity and fitness orientated physical education. The main goal of this curriculum model is to provide students with the skills, knowledge and disposition to maintain lifetime physical activity through a health-related curricular focus that promotes physical activity. Physical education therefore needs to provide time to achieve physical fitness and/or physical activity objectives, teach goal setting for physical activity to achieve health outcomes, and teach students how to design physical activity and/or fitness programs. An example is Corbin and Lindsey's (1979) Fitness for Life program. Health orientated/optimising physical education (HOPE: e.g. Metzler et al., 2013) seems to me to be a more recent variation on this main-theme model .

Integrated Physical Education. Often referred to as interdisciplinary learning, this model is considered to be the purposeful integration of physical education with two or more subjects to enhance the application of physical education into real-life contexts. Cone et al. (2009) is a very good resource for integrated physical education in primary/elementary physical education. This model has also been interpreted as integration within physical education of the disciplinary foundations of physical education (e.g., biomechanics, skill acquisition, exercise physiology, etc). I find this description of an internal integration consistent with the Arnold (1979) perspective of physical education as education in, through and about movement that underpins some curriculum frameworks (such as, the AC: HPE-Movement and Participation Strand). Hellsions's humanistic (1973) physical education model and Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR: 1995) I feel would also be consistent with an internally integrated physical education model. If interested in a summary of Humanstic PE, I blog about the Helison idea here

Figure 1. An internally integrated physical education curriculum model

It seems to me that an internally-integrated model is well aligned with the expected curriculum student achievement standards in frameworks like the AC: HPE as well as the expectations to incoprorate learning across multiple focus (e.g., Sport, Dance, Outdoor Pursuits, Active Recreation) areas in achieving the "physically educated" goal of the curriculum framework. Those familiar with my work will recognise that I suggest the Sport Educaton model has moved from a pedagogical/instructional model to a curriculum model through the excellent work of Siednetop, Hastie and van der Mars, 'The Complete Guide to Sport Education'. It now might be described as an internally integrated model. In addition to team sports, over the years the SEM has been developed and researched with 'recreation' activities (e.g., dance, swimming, bike riding, fitness, gym), 'outdoor pursuits' (e.g. wall climbing, outdoor and adventure activities) and individual sports (e.g., track and field) across the primary/elementary and secondary school physical education curriculum. Given the time limited nature of physical education within school curricula, I think that the SEM may be best able to meet the breadth of expected curriculum student achievement standards as well as the expectations of many curriculum frameworks to incoprorate multiple focus areas within the curriculum. 

If you have read any of my work in physical education you will know I side with the argument that the still common in schools mutli-activity for sport techniques curriculum model is unable to deliver for the majority of students the "physically educated" goal of physical education curriculum frameworks and/or school physical education curriculum (see e.g., Kirk, 2010; Locke 1992; Penney & Chandler, 2000 for detailed arguments against the multi-activity model). Siedentop and Tannehill (2000) argued that schools continuing to reproduce a version of the multi-activity curriculum model that most in the research community have (for some time before and now since that writing) argued does not enable the majority of students to meet the "physically educated" goal of physical education curriculum, will not resolve the debate about the warrent of, or need for, physical education in curriculum time. 

Thanks for stopping by and reading this post. If you would like to connect with me on a project to do with the ideas in this blog or any of the other ideas that I have blogged about, you can contact me by the email link available here

References

Arnold, P. (1979). Meaning in movement, sport and physical education. Heineman.

Collard, M. (2012). Seriously fun. Playmeo Pty Ltd.

Cone, T., Werner, P. & Cone, S. (2009). Interdisciplinary physical education. Human Kinetics.

Corbin, C. & Lindsey, M. (1979). Fitness for life. Foreman-Wesley.

Gallahue, D. (1996). Developmental physical education for children. Brown & Benchmark.

Hellsion, D. (1973). Humanistic physical education. Prentice hall.

Hellsion, D. (1995). Teaching personal and social responsibility through physical activity. Human Kinetics.

Kirk, D. (2010). Physical education futures. Routledge.

Locke. L. (1992).Changing secondary school physical education. Quest, 44, 361-372.

Metzler, M., McKenzie, T., van der Mars, H., Barrett-Wilson, S., & Ellis, R. (2013). Health optimising physical education (HOPE): A new curriculum for school programs - Part 1. JOPERD, 84(4), 41-47.

Penney, D. & Chandler, T. (2000). Physical education: What future(s)? Sport, Education and Society, 5(1), 71-87.

Rohnke, K. (1989). Cowtails and cobras: A guide to games, initiatives, rope courses and adventure curriculum. Project Adeventure.

Rohnke, K. (1989). Silver bullets. Kendall/Hunt.

Siedentop, D. (1980). Physical education: Introductory analysis. W C Brown.

Siedentop, D. (1987). High school physical education: Still an endangered species. JOPERD, 58(2), 24-25.

Siedentop, D. (1995). Sport education: Quality PE programming through positive sport experiences. Human Kinetics.

Siedentop, D. & Tannehill, D. (2000). Developing teaching skills in physical education, 4th edn. Mayfield.