Reconceptualizing Physical Education Through Curricular And Pedagogical Innovations

Innovative Approaches to Teaching and Learning in Physical Education challenges the traditional 'one size fits all' approach to PE. It explores a range of innovative, alternative activities that teachers can use to develop the physical literacy of their pupils from ages 7 to 18, encouraging lifelong engagement in physical activity by making PE more inclusive, personalized and enjoyable. Drawing on the latest empirical research and current classroom experience, the first section of the book explores important new concepts in the teaching and learning of PE, arguing for important changes in curriculum design, content, method and pedagogy. The second section of the book offers practical guidance, tips, descriptions and plans across a range of alternative activities, from cheerleading and street dance to skateboarding and the Nintendo Wii. An emphasis is placed throughout on the personal, social, moral and cultural gains that young people can make by engaging in physical activity of all kinds, with the book aiming to open up exciting new possibilities for PE teachers tailored to their school's location and pupil population. Innovative Approaches to Teaching and Learning in Physical Education is an essential complement to any physical education course, and a useful reference for all PE teachers and any coach working with young people.

Physical education curricula evolved to emphasize physical training, personal hygiene, character development, fitness development, sports competency, and health. These emphases led to different ways to conceptualize the curricula for primary and secondary schools. This book raises a need to re-conceptualize the physical education curriculum and proposes a life-scan perspective for physical education curriculum conceptualization. Reconceptualizing Physical Education proposes a conceptual framework to focus on the life journey of physical activity, which is guided by the monist perspective and a lifelong approach to physical literacy. Section I of the book lays out important theoretical articulation for a two-dimensional framework with the goal of educating the learner to take a lifelong perspective to personal health and physically active lifestyles. Section II presents curriculum frameworks designed for primary schools and secondary schools. In each framework chapter, the details of content and learning tasks are discussed in terms of the two-dimensional functions. Each framework may be used directly for curriculum development. The book is intended for curriculum scholars and researchers in physical education, graduate students in health and physical education curriculum studies, and teachers in physical education and health education. It may also be of interest of researchers and graduate students in kinesiology fields and public health.

Anthony Laker leads an outstanding international team of educational theorists in critically examining the theoretical underpinnings of physical education, and in challenging the rhetoric, the practices and the pedagogies that prevail in our schools. There has been a great deal of discussion surrounding the value of this subject in schools, particularly around the form that physical education should take. The domination of physical education teaching by the scientific / technical discourses is problemized and it is suggested that this domination limits the potential of the subject to be culturally and contextually relevant to students in schools. This edited collection aims to extend the worldwide academic debate of the future of physical education in schools by challenging the prevailing 'authorised curricula'. Each contributor address a key contemporary issue in physical education bringing different perspectives as they relate to the evolving issues of the subject. They ask important questions about where we intend to take the knowledge we have gained from a legacy of positive research. These chapters tackle critical issues in modernist physical education and suggest how a re-evaluation could contribute to the continuing advancement of the subject for more diverse educational benefits. Laker draws this body of work together in a conclusion that describes a theoretically and pedagogically innovative physical education curriculum for the 21st century. This book is a summary of the current state of research in physical education. It invites debate and discussions in the field and re-conceptualises physical education theory into inclusive practices located in the postmodern school world.

A Curriculum of Wellness seeks to encourage a deeper discussion about teaching our children how to be healthy and live well. It makes a significant contribution to the field of education as it features influential curriculum concepts nuanced with action research principles in a unified, intimate, and deeply relational inquiry into physical education teacher practice. This work presents a very practical yet complex and wisdom-guided way to transform teaching practices that follow more holistic understandings of wellness. A new mode of curriculum inquiry, wisdom-guided inquiry, is presented, providing an opportunity to open up a fresh avenue to understand curriculum and become engaged in discussions that concern teaching, learning, and public education. An outstanding feature of this book is its transdisciplinarity. While the story is situated within physical education discipline, this book has implications for all teachers and teacher educators because it provides insights that encourage us to consider more carefully the subjective insights of teachers and to understand these as central to being and becoming a teacher. A Curriculum of Wellness is essential reading for curriculum and pedagogy scholars, teacher educators, teachers, and other health-related professionals to think differently about curriculum and pedagogy - making it a great option for many related graduate and undergraduate courses.

Redesigning Physical Education is a bold and innovative manifesto for the fundamental redesign of physical education for the twenty-first-century world. Aiming at better outcomes for children, better working conditions for teachers, and innovative solutions to the decline of school PE, it calls for a transnational collective action project based on new research frameworks, stressing the fundamental importance of health-enhancing, life-enriching active participation for all children and young people. Action-oriented and evidence-based, the book examines the key challenges driving change, including the equity agenda, institutionalization, outcome and accountability based teaching, and physical activity requirements in schools. With a truly international scope, the text explores perspectives from the USA, Canada, Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and Italy. This is important reading for students and academics studying and working in physical education, kinesiology, public health, and children’s physical activity. It is also a valuable resource for pediatric exercise specialists, especially sport and exercise psychologists.

This collection of studies addresses contemporary issues and problems in the physical education curriculum. While each of the chapters illustrates the diverse range of practical curriculum issues currently facing physical education, the continuities between them also suggest a certain commonality of experience in Britain, North America and Au tralia. In each it is difficult not to detect at least some rumblings of the various crises - environmental, political, economic, social - that are increasingly impacting on everyday lives in the present and shaping thoughts and plans for the future. The editors stress that physical education is a part of social life and is therefore a key site for the production and legitimation of important cultural mores, values and symbols.