Engaging pupils and teachers in successful Physical Education learning through Professional Learning Communities - A proposal for an intervention model

Author(s):

Joao Costa(presenting / submitting)Marcos Onofre

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

18. Research in Sports Pedagogy

Format:

Paper

Session Information

18 SES 03, Paper Session

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-02

17:15-18:45

Room:

B103 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Fiona Chambers

Contribution

Many European young people remain unconvinced of the need to engage in regular physical activity, for which high quality Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is essential for Physical Education (PE) teachers to develop engaging provision for pupils (Armour & Yelling, 2007; Bechtel & O’Sullivan, 2006; UNESCO, 2013; European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2013). Traditional PE-CPD is, however, largely ineffective for being de-contextualised and too narrow in its focus (Armour & Yelling; Bechtel & O’Sullivan; European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice).

Research presents Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) (Bolam et al, 2005; Hipp, Huffman, Olivier & Pankake, 2008; Hord, 2008) as a potential framework to improve the effectiveness of CPD in its ecological validity. This model facilitates effective career-long teacher learning practices through collaborative strategies within the school-context, namely: shared and supportive leadership; shared values, beliefs and vision; shared personal practice; intentional collective learning and its application; and supportive social and structural conditions (Hord). More specifically, Bolam and colleagues suggest that three main development outcomes - professional learning; pupils’ learning; and a shared understanding of the learning community – emerge from, and influence, four main processes of building and sustaining PLCs - optimising resources and structures; promoting individual and collective professional learning; assessment and sustainability of the learning community; and management and leadership. Hipp, Huffman, Olivier and Pankake add that the processes of building a learning community can have a greater impact when properly sequenced. This hypothesis is concluded from the authors’ study on evolutionary PLCs which indicates that change starts with the leader promoting a shared vision, advancing the community to collaboratively managing resources for pupils’ learning, and only then can professional learning be effectively promoted, assessed and sustained. Yet, despite the clear potential for PLCs to contribute to effective PE-CPD, particularly within PE subject departments (PESD) and in Europe (Armour & Yelling; Costa, Onofre, Martins M.; Marques; & Martins J., 2013; European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice), few investigations establish PLCs in PE (Tozer & Horsley, 2006).

One of the clear advantages of the PLC model is that it supports contextualised and realistic teacher learning to increase the classroom management quality. In this regard, research in the field of Classroom Ecology (Hastie & Siedentop, 2006) has provided powerful PE teaching quality indicators. Balancing the interdependent managerial, instructional, and social task systems under consistent learning orientations is particularly important but seldom found in PE teaching practice (Hastie & Siedentop). This difficulty stresses the need for teachers to continuously learn pedagogies that sustain quality PE provision for pupils (Hastie & Siedentop).

The potential impact of PE-CPD that integrates organisational (PLCs) and individual (classroom ecology) perspectives has remained poorly understood (Armour & Yelling, Bechtel & O’Sullivan; Lieberman & Pointer-Mace, 2009). Furthermore, the PESD as a learning community has been focused as a determinant context to promote high quality learning experiences in PE (Costa et al). As such, the important implications of the PESD for the PE teachers’ professional development (Sirna, Tinning, & Rossi, 2008) need to be taken into account when designing and researching PE-CPD programmes. The question to be addressed, therefore, is: How can a model of PE-CPD that combines PLC and classroom ecology evidence-based approaches within the context of the PESD lead to high quality PE learning experiences for pupils?

This paper proposes to address this question with an experimental approach, grounded in theories of collaborative professional learning (Bolam et al; Hipp, Huffman, Olivier, & Pankake; Hord) and classroom ecology (Hastie & Siedentop), to investigate whether an evidence-based model of PE-CPD could support teachers to be more effective in their pedagogies, by longitudinally monitoring three critical developmental outcomes – pupils’ PE learning; teachers’ PE pedagogical practices; and PE departments’ organisational changes.

Method

The experimental design follows a Concurrent Multiple Baseline Design Across Settings design (Christ, 2007), combined with an integrated multiple case study (Yin, 2010) approach. A primary extensive quantitative study on PESDs as PLCs is conducted to provide the basis to select three cases represented by departments in different developmental stages as PLCs (Bolam et al, 2005). In those departments, teachers and pupils are allocated as integrated units for data collection according stage-specific research needs. Each case is followed through an intervention model during 4 years. Briefly, first year enables the establishment of baseline data across all three departments with the first author adopting a passive stance; years two and three represent the intervention stage per se through the first author as facilitator; and the last year provides data on the effectiveness and sustainability of the intervention by returning the first author to a passive stance. This intervention model anticipates a yearly routine in three integrated phases that comprise complementary sets of activities combining PLC and classroom ecology research and frameworks. Before the start of (and throughout) all phases, a major process of assistance to each PESD coordinator, according to specific identified needs for the role, is provided so that she/he stands as the group’s main driver of the process. Each outcome is monitored through specific instruments and processes. Data regarding the organisational changes as a PLC are gathered through questionnaire (Hord, 1996), observations, interactive teachers’ diaries, and departments’ documents. The Task Structure Observation System (Siedentop, 1994), along with interviews to pupils and teachers on their classroom experiences, provides data on pedagogical changes. Finally, data on pupils’ PE learning is generated by the departments’ collaborative assessment standardized procedures and complemented by interviews to pupils and teachers regarding their conceptions on the PE subject area and curriculum.

Expected Outcomes

Most immediate anticipated results concern the improvement of all outcome measures against baseline data of each department. Specifically, it is expected that an increase of focus and effectiveness is revealed on the departments’ collaborative arrangements and processes towards the development of curriculum, pupils’ learning, and pedagogical practice. This organisational development is also expected to be acknowledged by departments’ teachers revealing a shared understanding of their collaborative work. As for the pedagogical development, it is expected that teachers acquire and develop strategies to effectively balance instruction, organisation, and social relations in such a way to reinforce the projected program of action through content-embedded accountability and alignment with collective commitments and collaborative processes. Concurrently, within this same dimension of outcomes, both pupils and teachers are expected to identify positive differences on their classroom experiences that reinforce their engagement and commitment to success. Additionally, it is expected that teachers reveal less disparity in their assessment procedures and data and that more pupils achieve success in PE reflecting development of organisational arrangements. Finally, pupils’ learning outcomes are expected to grow in the sense that their results reflect a broader accomplishment of curricular goals and that pupils and teachers identify important changes influencing their engagement and commitment. Ideally, these changes would also be reported as an impact in the pupils’ lifestyle inside and/or outside the school-context through more participation on “active activities”. Less immediate anticipated results regard to the possibility to establish a theoretical framework for PE-CPD that conciliates both organisational and individual dimensions of professional learning, while attending to the PE subject area specificities. This framework would definitely open a new line of inquiry where research and practice of PE-CPD consistently and contextually focus on the three developmental outcomes to feed (of) each other in raising young peoples’ awareness and behaviors of active lifestyles.

References

Armour, K., & Yelling, M. (2007). Effective professional development for physical education teachers: The role of informal, collaborative learning. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 26(2), 177-200. Bechtel, P., & O'Sullivan, M. (2006). Chapter 2: Effective professional development - What we now know. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 25(4), 363-378. Bolam, et al. (2005). Creating and sustaining effective professional learning communities. Bristol: Department of Education and Skills. Christ, T. (2007). Experimental control and threats to internal validity of concurrent and nonconcurrent multiple baseline designs. Psychology in the Schools, 44(5), 451-459. Costa, J., Onofre, M., Martins, M., Marques, A., & Martins, J. (2013). A relação do trabalho coletivo do grupo de educação física com a gestão da ecologia da aula [The relationship between the physical education subject department’s collective work and the classroom ecology management]. Boletim SPEF, 37, 61-80. European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice (2013). Physical Education and Sport at School in Europe. Eurydice Report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Hastie, P., & Siedentop, D. (2006). The classroom ecology paradigm. In D. Kirk, D. Macdonald & M. O'Sullivan (Eds.), Handbook of Physical Education (pp. 214-224). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Hipp, K., Huffman, J., Pankake, A., & Olivier, D. (2008). Sustaining professional learning communities: Case studies. Journal of Educational Change, 9, 173-195. Hord, S. (1996). School professional staff as learning community questionnaire. Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. Hord, S. (2008). Evolution of the professional learning community. Journal of Staff Development, 29(3), 10-13. Lieberman, A. & Pointer Mace, D. (2009). Making practice public: Teacher learning in the 21st Century. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1-2), 77-88. UNESCO. (2013). Declaration of Berlin - MINEPS V. Berlin: Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002211/221114e.pdf Sirna, K., Tinning, R., & Rossi, T. (2008). The social tasks of learning to become a physical education teacher: Considering the HPE subject department as a community of practice. Sport Education and Society, 13(3), 285-300. Siedentop, D. (1994). Task-structure observation system (Observation protocol for instruction). In M. O'Sullivan (Ed.), High school physical education teachers: Their world of work (pp. 18-28). Columbus: Ohio State University School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. Tozer, S., & Horsley, H. (2006). Chapter 8: Professional development of teachers in physical education - Where are we now? Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 25(4), 450-457. Yin, R. (2010). Estudo de caso - Planejamento e métodos (A. Thorell, Trans. 4ª ed.). Porto Alegre: Bookman.

Author Information

Joao Costa (presenting / submitting)

Faculty of Human Kinetics, University of Lisbon, Portugal

Marcos Onofre