Narratives from YouTube: Juxtaposing stories about physical education

The aim of this paper is to explore what is performed in students’ and teachers’ actions in physical education practice in terms of “didactic irritations,” through an analysis of YouTube clips from 285 PE lessons from 27 different countries. Didactic irritations are occurrences that Rønholt describes as those demanding “didactic, pedagogical reflections and discussions, which in turn could lead to alternative thinking and understanding about teaching and learning.” Drawing on Barad’s ideas of performativity to challenge our habitual anthropocentric analytical gaze when looking at educational visual data, and using narrative construction, we also aim to give meaning to actions, relations, and experiences of the participants in the YouTube clips. To do this, we present juxtaposing narratives from teachers and students in terms of three “didactic irritations”: (a) stories from a track, (b), stories from a game, and (c), stories from a bench. The stories re-present events-of-moving in the data offering insights into embodied experiences in PE practice, making students’ as well as teachers’ actions in PE practice understandable

Young people’s uses of wearable healthy lifestyle technologies; surveillance, self-surveillance and resistance

An international evidence-base demonstrates that healthy lifestyle digital technologies, like exergames, health-related mobile applications (‘apps’) and wearable health devices are being used more and more within educational settings. Despite this, there is a lack of in-depth empirical evidence on young people’s experiences and uses of healthy lifestyle technologies. In this article we focus on young people’s uses of a wearable health device – Fitbit – and the associated health app. Informed by the work of Foucault, the purpose is to investigate the surveillance, self-surveillance and resistance that occur by young people. One hundred 13-14 years olds (53 females, 47 males), from five physical education classes in two UK schools participated. Data were generated through 8 focus group interviews, and the nominal interview group technique was applied. Data were analyzed using key concepts from Foucault’s theoretical framework. The results demonstrated that, the daily 10,000 step and calorie burning targets set by the Fitbit device encouraged the young people to do more physical activity. Increases in physical activity occurred because of the self-surveillant practices promoted by the Fitbit through; (i) the monitoring and recording of steps and calories burned, and (ii) peer comparison (or monitoring). Surveillance and self-surveillance practices, however, were clearly connected to health equating to fitness and being ‘fit’ or not being ‘fat’. These narrow interpretations of health, equally, underpinned resistance. Daily step and calorie burning targets, (i) did not sustain young people’s engagement with the device beyond a few weeks, (ii) promoted negative feelings, and (iii) the device was resisted because it did not record physical activity accurately as part of young people’s daily lives. In turn, the young people resisted the educational value of the Fitbit and demonstrated a sceptical stance toward introducing health devices in school and physical education settings

What did they learn in school today? A method for exploring aspects of learning in physical education

What did they learn in school today?: A method for exploring aspects of learning in physical education. Abstract This paper outlines a method for exploring learning in educational practice. The suggested method combines an explicit learning theory with robust methodological steps in order to explore aspects of learning in school physical education. The design of the study is based on sociocultural learning theory, and the approach adds to previous research within the field, both in terms of the combination of methods used and the claims made in our studies. The paper describes a way of collecting and analysing the retrieved data and discusses and illustrates the results of a study using this combination of explicit learning theory and robust methodological steps. European Physical Educatio

Knowing in primary physical education in the UK: negotiating movement culture

This paper aims to understand how pupils and teachers actions-in-context constitute being-a-pupil and being-a-teacher within a primary school physical education (PE) movement culture. Dewey and Bentley's theory of transaction, which views organism-in-environment-as-a-whole, enables the researcher to explore how actions-in-ongoing activities constitute and negotiate PE movement culture. Video footage from seven primary school PE lessons from a school in the West Midlands in the UK was analysed by focusing upon the ends-in-view of actions as they appeared through the educational content (what) and pedagogy (how) of the recorded PE experiences. Findings indicated that the movement culture within the school was a monoculture of looks-like-sport characterised by the privileging of the functional coordination of cooperative action. Three themes of pupils' and teachers' negotiation of the movement culture emerged U-turning, Knowing the game and Moving into and out of games. This movement culture required teachers to ensure pupils looked busy and reproduced cooperative looks-like-sport actions. In fulfilling this role, they struggled to negotiate between their knowledge of sport-for-real and directing pupils towards educational ends-in-view within games activities. Simply being good at sports was not a prerequisite for pupils' success in this movement culture. In order to re-actualise their knowledge of sport, pupils were required to negotiate the teacher's ‘how’ and ‘what’ by exploring what constituted cooperative actions within the spatial and social dimensions of the activities they were set. These findings suggest that if PE is to be more than just the reproduction of codified sport, careful adjustment and consideration of ends-in-view is of great importance. Without regard for the latter there is potential to create significant complexity for both teachers and pupils beyond that required by learning and performing sport

A salutogenic, strengths-based approach as a theory to guide HPE curriculum change

The draft Australian Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2012c) takes a strengths-based approach that emphasizes questions such as ‘What keeps me healthy and active?’ rather than ‘What risks, diseases and behaviours should I learn to avoid?’. This paper explores a salutogenic approach to the strengths-based orientation that has been identified as one of the five key propositions in the new Australian HPE curriculum. A salutogenic approach to a health literacy unit provides some initial insight into the possibilities and challenges posed by the implementation of a strengths-based orientation to HPE. Questions of relative emphases and potential weaknesses are subsequently raised as means of identifying the influence of curriculum interpretation, design and pedagogical practice in securing the implementation of a strengths-based oriented Australian HPE

Program DCALC - datastream calculator

Fortran Program "DCALC" is described. It uses "FORTH" like words to perform data manipulation and analysis. The program is useful for analyzing data generated by the data acquisition systems at the Institute for Marine Dynamics.NRC publication: Ye