Studying the manners of teaching in PE: A methodological attempt

Author(s):

Emmanuelle Forest(presenting / submitting)Chantal Amade-Escot

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

18. Research in Sports Pedagogy

Format:

Paper

Session Information

18 SES 12 B, Effective Pedagogies in PE and Sport

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-05

09:00-10:30

Room:

B215 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Fiona Chambers

Contribution

In this presentation we discuss a methodological attempt to analyze the scope of the content really taught (Amade-Escot, 2006) and the manners of teaching (Lundqvist, Almqvist & Östman, 2012) within PE school practices. This study belongs to an international project which aims to compare teachers’ practices in three countries: « Comparative didactics investigations of the interplay between manners of teaching and learning within science and physical education and health in Sweden, Switzerland and France ».

Within this project, the need of a tertium comparationis that allows comparing different PE practices that are culturally embedded brings us to focus on a particular observational object: the status and didactic functions of “demonstrations” as teaching tools. The methodological attempt was conducted in France with a female PE teacher, during a gymnastic unit. The didactical approach analyzes teaching and learning by taking account of the complexity of a ternary system: teacher, pupils, knowledge (Amade-Escot, 2005, 2006). Manners of teaching (Lundqvist, Almqvist & Östman, 2012) are identified through knowledge content and didactic procedures such as they are observable in the teacher and student’s joint action (Venturini & Amade-Escot, 2013) with regard to the feature of the French curriculum related to gymnastic. One can said with regard to the logic of the practice that Gymnastic is a “morphocinetic” activity that is a physical activity in which the production of body movements is a central feature, by opposition to strategic sports like basketball for example. A literature review in the field of PE let us consider that the ways of using « demonstration » when teaching “morphocinetic” activities may reveal what is the teacher’s targeted knowledge and her/his learning conceptions. Thus, demonstration is considered as a professional gesture that has potential to document teacher’s practical epistemology.

During this preliminary study, the methodological attempt aims at documenting different questions: What is the knowledge targeted when teacher uses demonstration? What is demonstrated? Who is demonstrating? How? When? From where in the gymnasium? To whom? What are the forms and the didactical functions of teacher’s demonstrations gestures? In terms of content? In terms of learning? Which discourse is associated with the demonstrative gestures? How demonstrations belong to didactic techniques that might reveal her/his manners of teaching?

Method

The study is based on the observation of a lesson in a grade 6 during a gymnastic unit in an underprivileged middle school in France. Data collection encompasses video observation and pre and post interviews (Amade-Escot, 2005) as well as a Transana® transcription of data. We filmed with 2 cameras: a fixed video with a wide plan to inform us about the whole class, a moving video following the teacher’s demonstrations and discourse associated. The semi-directive interviews before and after the lesson aim to understand teacher's activity, her didactic intentions and her institutional views. The a priori analysis of the learning tasks and the analysis of teacher’s plans give information on how the pedagogical content is linked with the official curriculum text.

Expected Outcomes

Examples from this case study will be used to illustrate and discuss the approach. The analysis shows that the teacher used demonstration to devolve some knowledge dimension. The discourse associated is more often questions and comments on the student’s action. Students rarely assume responsibility for taking forward the knowledge. They are most often involved in an imitation didactic contract. The qualitative analysis points out that teacher’s demonstrations rarely allow new “meaning making” for the students. They do not change their ways of acting in the learning task. For example, during the student’s attempt, the teacher comments her practice: Be tonic, come on, be sheathed (…) / / Go straight, no, sheathed, what does it mean sheathed? solid as we saw in acrobatics (...) Want to ride? how you want to do? (...) You want to ride or you want to do like me? what do you want? well you have to try, go Cross checking video data with interviews indicates that the content at stake is in adequacy with the teacher’s discourse centered on student’s health (“bad lifestyle”, “flabbiness”, “obesity”…): “I propose strengthening workshops but they still have problems, they have slackening, these students get fat because they do not pay any attention to their diet” (pre-lesson interview) From this methodological attempt it appears that demonstration and discourse associated have for consequence a linear and hierarchical approach that divides the PE contents into units to be reproduced. Moreover in this preliminary study, the teacher’s manner of teaching documented through joint action analysis may be interpret as targeting mainly sanitary and hygienic objectives (Öhman & Quennerstedt, 2008). Broadly speaking, in relation with previous work, we can add that interactions in the knowledge’s construction draw teacher’s and student’s experiences which resound and inspired previous experiences (Quennesterd & al., in press).

References

Amade-Escot, C. (2006). Student learning within the didactique tradition. Chapter in D. Kirk, M. O'Sullivan, and D. Macdonald (Eds.). Handbook of Research in Physical Education. (pp. 347-365). London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE Publications Ltd. Amade-Escot, C. (2005). The Critical Didactic Incidents as a Qualitative Method of Research to Analyze the Content Taught. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 24, 127-148. Lundqvist, E., Almqvist, J., & Östman, L. (2012). Institutional traditions in teachers’ manners of teaching. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 7(1), 111 127. doi:10.1007/s11422-011-9375-x Öhman, M. & Quennerstedt, M. (2008). Feel good—be good: subject content and governing processes in physical education. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 13 (4), 365-379 Quennerstedt, M., Annerstedt, C., Barker, D., Karlefors, I., Larsson, H., Redelius, K., & Öhman, M. (in press). What did they learn in school today ? A method for exploring aspects of learning in physical education. European Physical Education Review. Venturini, P., & Amade-Escot, C. (2013). Analysis of conditions leading to a productive disciplinary engagement during a physics lesson in a deprived area school. International Journal of Educational Research. DOI:0.1016/j.ijer.2013.07.003

Author Information

Emmanuelle Forest (presenting / submitting)

université Paris Descartes

UFR STAPS

Paris

Chantal Amade-Escot

Université Toulouse 2 - Le Mirail - EFTS MA 122

School of Education

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