Pedagogical principles of learning to teach meaningful physical education

Background: Concerns that current forms of physical education teacher education (PETE) are not adequately providing teachers with the tools necessary for working with the realities and challenges of teaching physical education in contemporary schools has led some scholars to advocate for an approach that prioritises meaningfulness in physical education. There is, however, little empirical evidence of how future teachers might be taught to facilitate meaningful physical education experiences. Purpose: This paper describes a pedagogical approach to PETE to support pre-service teachers (PSTs) in learning how to facilitate meaningful experiences in physical education. We aim to contribute new understanding through sharing pedagogical principles that support PSTs’ ‘Learning About Meaningful Physical Education’ (LAMPE). Participants and setting: The research team consisted of three physical education teacher educators: Tim and Déirdre who implemented LAMPE pedagogies and Mary who acted as meta-critical friend (pseudonyms used for the review process). Results from the LAMPE innovation reported here are taken from implementation across four semesters of two academic years 2013–2015. Déirdre implemented LAMPE in an introduction to teaching physical education course for pre-service generalist elementary teachers. Tim implemented the approach in an undergraduate developmental games course for future physical education teachers. A total of 106 PSTs participated in the research. Data collection and analysis: Data included teacher educator reflections and non-participant observer data from 33 individual lessons, over 7 hours of transcribed teacher educator Skype conversations, 8 ‘turning point’ documents, 15 sets of PST work samples, and transcripts of individual (n = 10) and 9 focus group interviews (n = 18 participants) with PSTs. Data were analysed inductively. Triangulation of multiple data sources and an expert member check supported trustworthiness of the LAMPE approach and data analysis. Findings: We share five pedagogical principles that reflect how PSTs were supported to learn how to facilitate meaningful physical education experiences. Pedagogies included planning for, experiencing, teaching, analysing, and reflecting on meaningful participation. Implementing pedagogies aligned with these five pedagogical principles helped participants learn why meaningful participation should be prioritised as well as how to facilitate meaningful physical education experiences. Conclusions: Pedagogical principles of LAMPE have been constructed from empirical evidence of both teacher educator and PST experiences that supported learning how to promote meaningful physical education. This research contributes new understanding of how to support PSTs in learning to teach with an emphasis on facilitating meaningful physical education experiences.