‘Weak’ physical education teacher education practice: co-constructing features of meaningful physical education with pre-service teachers

Figures & data

Table 1. LAMPE pedagogical principles adapted Fletcher et al. (2021).

Principle	Explanation
1. Teacher educators should explicitly prioritise meaningful participation in the planning, teaching, and assessment of PETE.	To explicitly communicate and align learning intentions, activities, assessments, and reflections to learning about meaningfulness. This also involved modelling meaningful physical education by the teacher educator.
2. Teacher educators should model pedagogies that support meaningful experiences.	To use a range of different pedagogies that amplify the features of meaningful physical education, with a specific focus on democratic pedagogies and choice.
3. Teacher educators should support PSTs’ engagement with features of meaningful participation as a learner and as a teacher.	To guide PSTs’ engagement in and evaluation of activities with a focus on the meaningfulness of those activities and how to create them for others.
4. Teacher educators should frame learning activities using features of meaningful participation.	To use the features of meaningful physical education as a framework for professional judgement and decision making, with a focus on planning and analysing of tasks and activities.
5. Teacher educators should support reflection on meaningfulness of physical education experiences.	To support the development of reflective practices and capabilities, by using the shared language of meaningful physical education.

Table 2. Week learning experiences in the co-construction of the meaningful physical education features.

Weeks	Learning experiences
Week 1	- Entry ticket (photovoice) and exit ticket to put together five words/features which capture why/how this picture of a movement space and activity is meaningful
Week 2	- Entry ticket (vignette on best physical education experience) and group discussion on five key words/features which capture why/how the best physical education class was meaningful - Each group had 10 words (five from each ticket) and had to look for commonalities across the 10 words. - Thematic analysis.
Week 3	- Experience the features in the practical class through planned practical learning experiences and reflection after each activity on their individual experience of each meaningful physical education feature. - Opportunities to refine features.
Week 4	- Reflective questions (e.g. let’s think back to memory of significant (meaningful) physical education experience – what made it meaningful?). - Further questioning on ‘why’ certain features. - Opportunities to refine features - In practical class, the PSTs had to reflect if they ‘felt’ the certain features after each practical learning experience.
Week 5	- Further reflect, interrogate, and refine the features. - Seven features reduced to six. - Experience these six features in practical class and reflect on such experiences of the features.
Week 6	- Creation of ‘purpose statements’ for each feature through a world café approach.
Week 7	- Group reflection and refinement of purpose statements through reflection
Week 8	- Creation of ‘beliefs into actions’ statements for each feature through a world café approach in class.
Week 9	- Group reflection and refinement of ‘beliefs into actions’ statements through reflection.
Week 10	- Presentation of A4 page of the co-constructed features of meaningful physical education - Reflection on the co-construction process - PSTs were introduced to the established features, and we critiqued and sought opportunities for these in line with the co-constructed features.

Figure 1. Features of meaningful physical education – a co-constructed shared language.

Fletcher, T., Chróinín, D. N., Gleddie, D., & Beni, S. (eds.). (2021). Meaningful physical education: An approach for teaching and learning. Routledge.

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