Pursuing HPE outcomes through health education

This chapter provides an analysis of how the contemporary curriculum operates in relation to pursuing Health and Physical Education (HPE) outcomes within health education and some of the intended and unintended consequences of such an approach

Characteristics and behaviours of effective social education teachers

A group of undergraduate students in their final year of Bachelor of Teaching Primary at Deakin University were asked 'what makes an effective social education teacher?' They discussed the question and compiled a list from their responses to list the characteristics to describes effective teachers in social education.

The provision of compulsory school physical activity : associations with physical activity, fitness and overweight in childhood and twenty years later

Background
To determine whether the provision of higher levels of compulsory school physical activity is associated with higher physical activity and fitness levels and less overweight in childhood and 20 years later.

Methods
As part of the 1985 Australian Schools Health and Fitness Survey, 109 schools reported how much compulsory physical education (PE) and school sport they provided and were classified as low (<110 and <150 minutes/week for primary and secondary schools, respectively), medium (110–149 and 150–189 minutes/week for primary and secondary schools, respectively) or high (≥150 and ≥190 minutes/week for primary and secondary schools, respectively) compulsory physical activity schools by tertile cutpoints. 6,412 children reported frequency and duration of school (PE and sport) and non-school (commuting and non-organised exercise) physical activity and had height and weight measured; overweight was defined using body mass index (BMI) (m/kg²) cutpoints. 9, 12 and 15 year-olds (n = 2,595) completed a cycle ergometer fitness test (physical working capacity at heart rate 170, PWC₁₇₀). At follow-up in 2004–5, 2,346 participants kept a pedometer record, completed the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and/or a PWC₁₇₀ fitness test; and had height and weight measured (overweight = BMI≥25 m/kg²).

Results
At baseline and follow-up, median total physical activity, fitness and BMI were similar in participants who attended low, medium and high physical activity schools, and those attending high physical activity schools reported only modestly higher school physical activity. There was no difference in the prevalence of high total physical activity and fitness levels in childhood or adulthood across compulsory school physical activity categories. The prevalence of overweight in childhood and adulthood was similar across low, medium and high compulsory physical activity schools.

Conclusion
The amount of compulsory physical activity reported by schools was not associated with total physical activity, fitness or overweight in childhood or in adulthood. Policies promoting amounts of compulsory school physical activity in this range may not be sufficient to increase physical activity and fitness or reduce the prevalence of obesity in children.

Preparing to not to be a footballer : higher education and professional sport

In the commercialised and professionalised world of elite sport, issues associated with career pathways and post sporting career options have a particular resonance. In various football codes, an unexpected knock, twist, bend or break can profoundly impact a player's career. In this high risk and high consequence environment, a number of sports entertainment industries have instituted player development and education programmes to educate and prepare elite level performers for life after football. Drawing on Foucault's later work on governmentality and the care of the self, this paper will discuss findings from a research project funded by the Australian Football League (AFL). The paper presents data that suggests that, elite performers are so focused on establishing and prolonging a career as an elite performer, that other aspects of identity are seen as something to be complied with as a consequence of industry expectations. An industry emphasis on higher education raises issues for the sports industries that promote player enrolment in higher education and for the higher education institutions that must manage this lack of engagement.

Why do young women drop out of sport and physical activity? A social ecological approach

This study explored significant individual, social, and environmental factors and how they interact to influence participation in physical activity for adolescent young women. These factors were explored at two transitional life stages: from primary to secondary school and from middle to upper years at secondary school. Ten focus groups with young women and 10 interviews with teachers were conducted and multiple, interrelated themes emerged. Our findings indicated that there are a number of strategies that could be undertaken to increase the participation of young women in physical activity. These include: (1) enhancing intrinsic motivation for sport and physical activity; (2) appealing to young women’s need for socialising through opportunities for informal physical activity; (3) educating parents about the benefits of sport and physical activity; (4) overcoming gender stereotypes about what is acceptable behaviour for young women; (5) improving physical education teachers’ understanding of gender issues and motivating less physically active students; (6) the provision of accessible sport and physical activity facilities, programs, and services in schools; and (7) prioritorisation of sport and physical activity in the school curriculum. These strategies are not ‘quick fixes’, but rather require a whole-ofcommunity approach and, in some cases, a reorientation of societal values.

Toward a broader appreciation of human motion in education

Motion is a fundamental activity for the healthy functioning human organism. Its importance, however, is increasingly de-valued in Western cultures as they speed toward adopting technologies and virtual experiences as adjuncts to, and even replacements for7 traditional educational structures and processes that involve physical activity. Organised and reflective experience of human motion is becoming increasingly marginalised in teaching methodologies and learning programs in educational institutions at all levels around the globe. This inquiry sets out to gain a greater understanding of why people and human motion become disconnected, particularly during periods of formal education. A central question and two sub-questions form the basis of the inquiry. The central question asks why human motion is not valued and more utilised in education. In particular, why do learning areas that directly represent involvement with human motion, such as physical education, continually struggle in education programs. It directs the investigation to focus on the causes rather than the symptoms of the disuse and devaluation of human motion in Australian education. The two sub-questions split the praxis of the study. The first seeks to understand how the causes of devaluation work in the educational context lo affect the lack of acknowledgement; and the second considers ways to counter the disuse of human movement in education programs. To address these questions, the research focuses on rebutting the notion of a mind-body dualism. Rather, it seeks to better understand how humans learn and function as monists - integrated beings, acquiring self-knowledge in their 'world of being' in which bodily and emotional experiences, and reasoning are inextricably intertwined. I have approached this qualitative research as an ethnographic sociologist examining the issues from a critical high modernist perspective in order to demonstrate the pervading influence in Australian education of strong beliefs and values from the era of Enlightenment. Narrative analysis of 'memoir' in the form of self-defining memories was selected to gain a sensibility of the connectedness between human emotion, motion and reasoning in the lived experiences of students in three primary and three secondary schools across Years 2-12. An opportunity for human movement to be more valued and utilised in emerging educational frameworks that have life knowledge, dispositions and capabilities at their core is identified. The inquiry proposes a conceptualisation of human motion in education for new times characterised by the need for people to develop personal resources and strong positive identities in order to cope with a world of rapid change and uncertainty.

Physical activity for mothers of young children : perceptions of women and health-related professionals

This research develops understanding of women's perceptions and practices around physical activity when they are mothers of young children. The findings inform current approaches to promoting physical activity, helping to bring about better health outcomes for women, their families and the wider community.

Physical activity levels of children during school playtime

School represents a suitable setting for intervention programmes aiming to promote physical activity to benefit health. During the school day, physical education and school playtime offer children regular opportunities to engage in physical activity. However, there is growing concern that, internationally, curricular time allocated to physical education is not meeting statutory guidelines. The effectiveness of the playground environment to promote physical activity has been considered as a complementary setting to physical education.

Physical activity guidelines state that children should engage in at least 1 hour of moderate intensity physical activity a day. Currently no empirically tested guidelines exist for physical activity levels during playtime. However, studies cited in this article indicate that playtime can contribute between 5-40% of recommended daily physical activity levels when no interventions have been utilised.

The limited school-based investigations that have been reported in the literature suggest that boys engage in more physical activity during playtime than girls. Studies that have implemented intervention strategies in order to promote physical activity levels indicate that playtime can substantially contribute towards daily optimal physical activity guidelines. Energy expenditure and physical activity levels have increased during playtime following the implementation of playtimebased interventions. In order to advance knowledge of children's physical activity during playtime, a number of key issues for consideration in future research are detailed. Research on children's use of playtime to be physically active and the extent of the contribution of playtime to daily physical activity guidelines is warranted.

Teacher change in exploring representational approaches to learning science

The researcher worked closely with two biology-trained teachers to plan three teaching sequences in the topics of forces, substances and astronomy that were subsequently taught to Year 7 students. The sequences sought to develop a model of classroom practice that foregrounds students’ negotiation of conceptual representations.

The difficulties encountered by individuals in learning science point to the need for a very strong emphasis of the role of representations in learning. There is a need for learners to use their own representational, cultural and cognitive resources to engage with the subject-specific representational practices of science. Researchers who have undertaken classroom studies whereby students have constructed and used their own representations have pointed to several principles in the planning, execution and assessment of student learning (diSessa, 2004; Greeno & Hall, 1997). A key principle is that teachers need to identify big ideas, key concepts, of the topic at the planning stage in order to guide refinement of representational work. These researchers also point out the need for students to engage with multiple representations in different modes that are both teacher and student generated. A representation can only partially explain a particular phenomenon or process and has both positive and negative attributes to the target that it represents. The issue of the partial nature of representations needs to be a component of classroom practice (Greeno & Hall, 1997) in terms of students critiquing representations for their limitations and affordances and explicitly linking multiple representations to construct a fuller understanding of the phenomenon or process under study. The classroom practice should also provide opportunities for students to manipulate representations as reasoning tools (Cox, 1999) in constructing the scientifically acceptable ideas and communicating them.

Research question: What impact was there on the participating teacher’s practice through the adoption of a representational focus to teaching science?

Data collection included video sequences of classroom practice and student responses, student work, field notes, tape records of meetings and discussions, and student and teacher interviews based in some cases on video stimulated recall. Video analysis software was used to capture the variety of representations used, and sequences of representational negotiation.

The teachers in this study reported substantial shifts in their classroom practices, and in the quality of classroom discussions, arising from adopting a representational focus. The shifts were reported by them as a three-fold challenge. First, there was an epistemological challenge as they came to terms with the culturally produced nature of representations in the topics of force, substance and astronomy and their flexibility and power as tools for analysis and communication, as opposed to their previous assumption that this was given knowledge to be learnt as an end point. The second challenge was pedagogical, in that this approach was acknowledged to place much greater agency in the hands of students, and this brought a need to learn to run longer and more structured discussions around conceptual problems. The third challenge related to content coverage. The teachers sacrificed coverage for the greater depth offered by this approach, and were unanimous in their judgment that this had been a change that had paid dividends in terms of student learning.

Dog ownership, dog walking and children's and parents' physical activity

This study aimed to determine cross-sectional associations of dog ownership, dog walking, and physical activity (PA) among children and their parents. Objective measures of PA were obtained for children ages 5-6 and 10-12 years from 19 primary schools across Melbourne, Australia. Parents self-reported their PA, dog ownership, and frequency of dog walking: 53% of families owned a dog, 41% of children who owned a dog did not walk their dog at all, and 32% reported never or rarely walking their dog as a family. Dog ownership was associated with an additional 29 min/day in PA among younger girls, and 70 and 59 min/week more in PA among mothers of younger boys and older girls, respectively. Among mothers of older girls, dog owners were 1.6 times as likely to meet PA guidelines. Mothers with older boys and girls, and fathers with younger boys, who reported walking the dog regularly as a family, spent more time in PA (105, 90, and 158 more min/week, respectively). Promoting dog ownership and dog walking among children and as a family are potential strategies for increasing PA participation in some families.

A curriculum innovation framework for science, technology and mathematics education

There is growing concern about falling levels of student engagement with school science, as evidenced by studies of student attitudes, and decreasing participation at the post compulsory level. One major response to this, the Australian School Innovation in Science, Technology and Mathematics (ASISTM) initiative, involves partnerships between schools and community and industry organisations in developing curriculum projects at the local level. This project fulfils many of the conditions advocated to engage students in learning in the sciences. ASISTM is underpinned by the notion of innovation. This paper describes the findings of case study research in which 16 ASISTM projects were selected as innovation exemplars. A definition of innovation and an innovation framework were developed, through which the case studies were analysed to make sense of the significance of the ideas and practices, participating actors, and outcomes of the projects. Through this analysis we argue that innovation is a powerful idea for framing curriculum development in the sciences at the local level that is generative for students and teachers, and that these ASISTM projects provide valuable models for engaging students, and for teacher professional learning.