In discussing the Meaningful Physical Education framework with colleagues, or in my own experiences with implementation I find the features of MPE (challenge, social interaction, fun…etc.) resonate with many. Further discussions related to the pedagogical principles as outlined by Fletcher & Ní Chróinín (2022) that prioritize such experiences; language, community orientation, democratic practice are often met with support. However, the principle that can sometimes give pause (including myself) is the idea of reflective practice. Not so much as whether reflection is beneficial, but whether it is worthwhile when conceivably anytime taken to spend reflecting is time away from physical activity, which may be a tough sell, especially in school contexts where time students may spend in physical education is severely limited. Over the past several years, I’ve wrestled with several questions related to reflection…

• How necessary is reflection? Can students have meaningful experiences without it?
• ​What purpose(s) does reflection have?
• Does reflection need to be communicated to the teacher?
• How much or how often do we need to reflect?
• When is the best time for reflection?
• ​Will students actually be able to convey what they find meaningful in their reflections?
• Do my students find reflection beneficial?

The purpose of this blog is to explore possible answers to those questions.

ACCURACY, COMMUNICATION & PURPOSE

In his book Meaning in Movement, Sport & Physical Education, Arnold (1979), describes experience as a continuous flowing stream, from one moment to the next, days or lessons may seem to blend together to the extent they may become indistinguishable from one another. It is only when we pause, and turn back against the stream, to notice the qualities an experience may have or consider the personal value it might hold, that an experience can become meaningful. Arnold states that it is therefore incorrect to claim an experience is meaningful as it is occurring, an experience can only become meaningful once grasped reflectively. You could argue that humans are a reflective and meaning-seeking species by nature, but I would contend that is unlikely students are reflective on the features of an activity they find meaningful (I didn't think about it until I was 30). In addition, if a goal of physical education is to promote lifelong pursuit of physical activity outside of the school gate, and we believe that a meaningful PE experience will help achieve that, and reflection is identified as an essential component of an experience becoming meaningful... should the reflective component of PE classes really be an afterthought or something left to chance?
While reflection is an important tool in the facilitation meaningful experiences, to what extent does the reflection need to be communicated?  As the teacher, do I need to know the content of my students reflections?  How reliable or accurate are those reflections? In her book, Movement & Meaning, Metheny (1968) outlines concerns about whether or not we should ask students to describe what is is they find meaningful in their participation, as the meaningfulness was found in a nonverbal form (in movement). I don’t believe this is meant to be taken literally,  and should not suggest that we should never ask students to reflect, but rather we can understand that there is a gap between what an individual might know as meaningful (because it is felt) and the extent to which they are able to express it in verbal or written forms. Certainly, the MPE framework helps narrow that gap, by providing teachers and students with the language to guide reflection, but likely a gap still remains, as students (especially younger ones or second-language leaners) are able to perceive and feel more than they can explicitly communicate (Arnold, 1979).  However, an inability to communicate or express themselves fully does not make an experience any less meaningful. ​ 
        To “make-meaning” is one of the key purposes of reflective practice, and if that is the sole purpose then perhaps, I (teacher) don’t really need to always know the content of the reflections. In his blog Andy Milne (@carmelhealth) provides an excellent resource of a back pocket question guide, which he describes several possible uses for students including students discussing questions on a walk n’ talk, an excellent way for students to connect with their peers around the shared language of MPE while simultaneously making sense of their experiences, albeit without the teacher knowing the details of every conversation. 
     Of course, there is also added value in the teacher being aware of how students are experiencing their classes. Student reflections can not only make-meaning of past experiences but also help direct future experiences. For example, in a unit of volleyball, I could ask students to think about a goal they wanted to achieve, perhaps a skill they wanted to improve on, and I could encourage them reflect at the end of the lesson or unit whether or not they’ve make progress towards that goal - with all those reflections being unbeknownst to the teacher. Presuming that students do what is asked of them, and I lucked out by structuring the class in a way that allowed them to pursue their goal, then yes, perhaps their evaluation of their experience will be seen meaningful. However, the time taken to simply jot down those same goals on a sticky note, allows the teacher to begin to design the educational experience around those students specific goals. Taking time to have students use red, yellow, green stickers to signify ‘not yet, getting there, got it’ (or similar), helps the teacher understand where students are in their learning and co-create the next steps. 

FREQUENCY & DEPTH / RECENCY

If an experience only becomes meaningful when attended to by an act of reflection (Arnold, 1979), then how often do we need to attend to it? When is the best time to reflect? How far do I need to look back? If you’re hoping for a conclusive answer you won’t find one here. ​

Beginning or End of a Unit
​
Prior the unit, it is worthwhile to have students look back and consider what they already know about heading into a unit, and what they might like to get from it. At the end of the unit there are a number of ways to help students make-meaning from a period of learning. Some of my favourite sentence stems come from Mel Hamada's blog on an Individual Pursuits Unit, including:

• What learning will you take from this unit to other classes/units/life?
• What are you most proud of? 
• What is the next step for you in your learning? (Ex. skills, strategies or student-as-a-learner

Considering how you might get students to consider the possibilities for continuing this activity outside of school, now that the unit has ended, is also a great way to promote continued physical activity. 

Beginning & End of a Semester or School Year

In her Chapter within Back to School: Teachers Professional Learning in a Health & Physical Education MEd Cohort, Riley Derksen, describes that despite the desire to lock in a yearly plan, she often begins the year with a survey to find out what students enjoy about PE and what they hope to achieve or experience during the school year. By retaining some flexibility in her planning, she is able to better meet her students needs. While this is asking students to think about the future, and not a look back, it is reflective in nature as students hopes for the future are influenced by their experiences of the past. 
While the end of the school year is always jam packed with celebrations and planning for the future. It is also an opportune time for students to consider their growth throughout the year and perhaps highlight moments that really stand out in their PE experience. Joey Feith's (@phys_educator) idea of "Story worthy Moments" is one example of way students could be encouraged to reflect on the most meaningful moments of the year. 

• If you were telling someone about your year in Physical Education which moments would make it into that story & why

Past "Peak" Experiences 
​
The experiences that students carry with them are, as Nilges (2004) describes, like lint on a sweater, always operating in the background and influencing the way students perceive present experiences.  Unpacking these 'peak' experiences from years past, which Arnold (1979) describes as those being intensely felt, standing out like mountain tops in the landscape of past experiences, often being recalled with little difficulty. Reflecting on these experiences is a great way to not only get to know students, and what they find meaningful but also unpack "deeper" features of meaningfulness such as joy, delight, belonging etc.  As an example, our Elementary PE team often begins the school with year with students bringing in a photo of such an experience, and code it using stickers to represent the most prominent features. 

CONCLUSIONS

I assume (with no evidence to support the claim :)) that reflection at consistent  intervals, of various depths, with various forms of expression, is the best bet to try and facilitate meaningful experiences students. However, I was still bothered by one last question of, do my students find the time we spend reflecting on our experiences to be valuable? Or would it be better spent being physically active? So I asked! 
Overwhelmingly, students expressed that the time we spent on reflection was beneficial for them, noting: 

• “Reflection has been beneficial, keeping those things [the features] in mind really helped improved the whole experience"
• "Totally [beneficial], it [reflection] basically help me discover if I think about it, the reason why I like this sport is this this and this…”
• “They [features] are [beneficial], they help me learn more about what I find fun and what's relevant to me” 
• "The categories (features) open my eyes to what I am really doing with biking and I really like it”

An unexpected theme from the interviews with students was that the public reflection (i.e. discussion, magnets, walk n' talk) helps students consider why their friends find something to be meaningful.  They are a socially motivated group, and knowing what their friends either wanted from an experience or already found meaningful helped them view it from a new perspective. 

If you're interested in more examples of how to build reflective practice into your teaching, check out this link.

References

Arnold, P. J. (1979). Meaning in movement, sport and physical education. Heinemann.

Fletcher, T., & Ní Chróinín, D. (2022). Pedagogical Principles That Support the Prioritisation of Meaningful Experiences in Physical Education: Conceptual and Practical Considerations. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 27(5), 455–466. 

​Metheny, E. (1968). Movement and meaning. McGraw-Hill.

Nilges, L. M. (2004). Ice Can Look like Glass: A Phenomenological Investigation of Movement Meaning in One Fifth-Grade Class during a Creative Dance Unit. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 75(3), 298–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367.2004.10609162

One of the often stated goals of physical education is to promote engagement in physical activity outside of the school gate. However, when I ask my own students what opportunities exist for them to be active in their communities, they are quick to point out the spaces where the activities are pre-defined (i.e. basketball, tennis court, golf course etc.) and while they are also able to identify trails and parks nearby, they had a harder time thinking more abstract about the movement possibilities that could be found in these open, undefined spaces. As we sought to address this, the challenge was that our school is a rural campus, which draws students from all over the surrounding area - some students live in rural farm communities while others live in the suburbs or city. To explore how students could be active in their community, would mean identifying activities that were transferable to many communities. 

The activities we chose for the unit were trail biking, soccer, softball. While soccer and softball can often use specialized facilities, they are also games that can be organized in open spaces with minimal equipment, with substitutes for bases or markers for goals. The towns and cities our school draws from, have  strong trail and pathway systems which students could access via bikes. For one class, park games (target/law games, and slackline) were chosen instead of soccer. 

Lesson Progression
For 3-4 lessons, student sampled each activity. The biking progression we used started on pavement and flat trails before moving to more difficult trails, and finally student-directed biking challenges. At the end each 'activity sample' students reflected on the features of each activity that resonated with them most.  As 'fun' seemed to be the dominating feature, we spent some more time unpacking exactly what about each activity was fun (through which the other features became more prevalent). In interviews, students mentioned how the sense of freedom and adventure were what made biking fun, while previous positive experiences, confidence and social dynamics were motivators for fun experiences in softball and soccer. 

After the periods of sampling were complete, it came time for student's to make choices of which activity they chose to engage in. The below photo shows the choice board. At the beginning of class, students would move their magnet to indicate their choice but also consider why they were making that choice. Logistically, on some days we would only offer 2 of 3 choices so we could manage supervision. This process continued for an additional 3-4 lessons. ​

Heading Out into the Community
We ended the unit by actually heading out into a nearby local community where these activities could take place (and nearby where some of our students live). The local park recently built a pump track (left), which seemed to be the popular choice for many, while others preferred to head out on the pathways or find some dirt jumps. Of course, there were a number of students who were quick to organize softball and soccer games as well. 

Student Interviews
As part of an on-going project to better understand how implementing the meaningful PE framework is impacting our students, we interview a group of 15-20 students at various points throughout the year. At the end of this unit, one pointed question we asked was "through this unit, explain how your understanding of how to be active in your community improved, or stayed the same?". About 60% of the students noted their understanding of how to be active in the community improved, noteable responses include:

• "My understanding of how to be active in my community has improved, because after we did the biking unit, I found myself biking more frequently to get better"   - Grade 8 Student 1 
• "Oh, it's definitely improved. I never would of never really thought of that until you said it, and just assumed the unit was 'field games', even hearing 'active in my community' makes me think oh I can go biking and play soccer where I live"  - Grade 8 Student 2
• "It has improved, I used to bike a lot when I was younger, but forgot I could actually bike around my house. I liked it before and this unit has got me back into biking, I do it every day now"  - Grade 8 Student 3

Quantitatively, we have been surveying this entire grade anonymously for the past 2 years using questions related to the features of MPE, and a likert scale. After stagnation in questions related to 'seeing the connections between PE and life outside of school' we have seen a notable uptick in students 'agreeing' or 'strongly agreeing' that they now see these connections.  

While I think this unit certainly speaks to the importance of democratic and reflective practice when applying the meaningful PE framework, I believe it also speaks to the importance of being intentional  with our learning design. A "Field Games" unit, might very well imply opportunities to engage in these activities in the community. However, if the one of the goals of PE is to inspire participation outside of school, then this shouldn't be something left to chance. 

There is no doubt that Physical Education has many aims and employs a variety of different practices in order to achieve those aims. Regardless of the the approach, I believe PE still has 3 broad outcomes (pictured below) of which the greatest outcome is a participant becoming motivated to pursue physical activity in their own lives across the lifespan. I think that many teachers probably believe in some iteration of this, but often teachers (myself included) can also forget that the opposite can also occur. We want to believe that PE is good for all students and lean on the health benefits or more recently the enhancement of academic performance to advocate for its importance. While there is certainly merit to those arguments, we often conveniently ignore PE's potential to cause harm. Earlier in my career, I've been guilty of stating "they will eventually find an activity they enjoy" (as part of a multi-activity approach) or nodded in agreement when someone states that PE is just "not student X's thing".  If you would like read more about do no harm mindests check out Alex Beckey's (@ImSporticus) blog here 

To understand more about how students experience our PE classes, last year, we collected survey data from our MS students that asked them questions related to their experiences in PE the past semester. Many of the questions were connected specifically to the features of the meaningful physical education (MPE) framework. You can read more about how this data provided evidence for a meaningful PE approach here. Two of the questions asked students to describe a positive and negative experience in PE during the past semester, with a final question asking students to generally summarize their PE experience as being generally; very positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative or very negative. ​

As you can see above, the sources of the negative experiences (based on the frequency of mention) amongst our Junior High / Middle school students seemed to arise primarily from Cross Country running and Gymnastics units. Our revised approach to a Trail Running / Challenge unit (né Cross Country) can be found here. 

It has since come time for us to revisit our Gymnastics unit to see if we can facilitate a more positive student experience. In the survey, students indicated that a lack of relevance and having to display their performance in front of others were the most common reasons for a negative experience. It is important to note that our curriculum (MYP) requires students to complete a movement composition piece each year, so avoidance is not an option! We begun by asking the question of "why", why do we want students to participate in gymnastics? Not surprisingly, it was not because of our own aspirations to have an Olympic gymnast represent our school. Rather, gymnastics is seen as an opportunity to demonstrate creativity and improve our general movement capabilities. If that is the 'why', then certainly there are more activities that meet that criteria that just gymnastics.  With that in mind, we wanted to focus on three different activities, to explore how performers can apply relationship concepts (matching/contrasting, with obstacles, with implements) to create an aesthetic performance. The purpose of exploring a concept, is that it lends itself to multiple forms of expression. Students would sample each activity before making a choice of which they would use to create an aesthetic performance. 

During that period of sampling, I was particularly interested in students perceptions related to dance. In our Semester 2 data collection, students also had fairly negative perceptions towards dance (as I write that sentence, it occurs to me that combining students two least favourite units into one might not result in the desired outcome....). 

After an introductory lesson on dancing, each student was given an equalizer reflection (credit: @ImSporticus). After explaining how the equalizer works, I asked students to fill it out for their favourite activity, rating it on each feature of MPE. After that, I asked students to repear that process and fill it out for dance in a different colour. If the favourite activity and dance were the same (I had a hunch it would not be), then they would just make a note. Some examples below: 

Not surprisingly, no students indicated that dance was there favourite activty to do, with the exceptions of one student who preferred a different style of dance.  As a follow up question, students compared the two activities and were asked "Which feature has the biggest gap between your favourite activity and dance?" Interestingly

• Class A: The biggest gaps were equally relevance and confidence 
• Class B: The biggest gap was fun

The next class, students were asked for their suggestions on how we could close the gap we identified previously. 

The strategies that the class came up with were very different. Class A ended up deciding that they wanted to build confidence and continue to practice 'Cadillac Ranch', but were going to approach it with a different mindset and focus on connecting with friends rather than worrying about how they might look. Class B tried to enhance fun by creating dances that represented their favourite activity. Some students performed dances with hockey sticks, where they incorporated 'the Michigan', while others focused on creating a line dance to a Taylor Swift song. ​

Culminating Activity

After exploring additional activities (free-running & x-disc), students made a selection of which one they would like to emphasize in creating an aesthetic routine in which application of relationship concepts, complexity and flow were the common criteria. Below are a couple videos of students practicing some of the activities. Rather than insisting on a live student performance, students had the option to perform or submit a video. As we had several options, with students rehearsing different skills, students never seemed to notice whether anyone was watching or not. 

2023 Questionnaire
At the conclusion of the unit, we repeated the same questionnaire we repeated the previous year. While all the data will be analyzed at another point in time, the first question I looked at was students general perceptions of PE this semester (with a revised approach to both Cross Country Running and Gymnastics).  In the graphs below we see a significant reduction in the reporting of negative PE experiences of last years Grade 8 students from semester 1,  2022 (left) to the current years Grade 8 students in semester 1, 2023 (right). 

Whereas the graph above shows the differences between students in the same grade level in two different school years - the graph below shows the self-reported experiences of the same group students,  when they were in Grade 7 the previous year ('same', is used loosely as there is changing enrolment). In Grade 7 students, also would have participated in running and gymnastics units. Again, with a greater emphasis on the MPE framwork, we observe a noticeable decline in the reporting of negative experiences 

Concluding Thoughts
The goal of the MPE framework is to empower students to take responsibility for engaging in physical activity outside of the school gates. With that in mind, has this revised approach to a movement composition achieved that aim? Well, I did not receive any Christmas cards from the local parkour, gymnastics or dance studios - so perhaps not! In terms of the data, the amount of students reporting an at least somewhat positive PE experience has remained consistent when comparing Grade 7 to Grade 8 data of the 'same' group of students. However, as Alex Beckey cites in his blog post (linked in the opening paragraph), a negative experience may be more powerful than a good one (Baumeister et al, 2001). While this approach (alongside others applied this semester) may not have led student to the 'peak' of physical education, at the very least, it has perhaps prevented students from a detrimental experience that may otherwise dissuade them from participation. 'Raising the floor' of our physical education program, where a neutral (and perhaps one day, a 'somewhat positive') is the bare minimum of student experiences, seems like a worthwhile endeavour, and the MPE framework has certainly been useful in that regard. 

References
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is Stronger than Good. Review of General Psychology, 5(4), 323-370. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.4.323

We began by using the TARGET PE model as a way to reflect upon our previous approach to this unit. Not surprisingly, as we were heavily aligned with a formal sport offering, much of the unit design was ego-oriented. Task and authority were controlled tightly by the teacher (as influenced by the governing body), students had very little autonomy in the challenges they wished to pursue. Recognition was given to students based on rank, classes were grouped based on their formal sport designations (gender / age) and the timing of the unit was built around the formal sport calendar (i.e. ensuring our in school- -meet was done in time to get kids qualified for the divisional meet). ​

At different intervals, we would ask students to identify what it is they were struggling with most in relation to trail running (below)​. As we had two classes and two teacher's at the same time, we offered different ‘workshops’ to support students' needs. ​

We considered this unit as an 'experimental' unit, and thus wanted to correlate the data from numerous sources to determine it's success. In addition to student performance and reflections discussed below, qualitative survey data and focus group data, has not yet been collected at this time but will be in the coming weeks. 

Student Performance: 
One area of concern within the department related to what impact would offering students choice have on their performance? In theory, they might very well enjoy the unit more than previous years, but if students just opt for the easiest challenge and don't actually demonstrate persistence themselves, is that defeating the purpose? So, after the event, I crunched the numbers from the 4 previous years of races, and looked at performance across similar grade levels as well as performance of the individual sudents across multiple (I will term the 3 previous years as formal sport years, and the version above as the MPE year). 

• Across the Middle School, this MPE year had greater improvement than any of the previous formal sport years. This was measured based on 1km pace time, as students were choosing different distances which made year to year comparison difficult for some. 
•  Traditionally in the formal sport years, we would see a decline in girls times as they age but we did not see that in the MPE year (91% of our Grade 8 girls improved, 62% of our Grade 9 girls). 
• In the MPE year, students ran further, and ran those kilometers faster than previous years.

I would love to say that all of the performance-related success was due to a MPE approach, but there are likely innumerable other factors that can contribute to this performance. However, their inclusion in this blog is to help to dispel the myth that if we give students choice, they won't step outside of their comfort zone and achieve their personal best, and instead take the path of least resistance. In looking at our data of 200+ MS students, there is no evidence of negative correlation between this approach and performance. It may be more likely the opposite is true, and by providing students greater autonomy in their learning, performance may be enhanced. 

Student Reflections: 
At the end of the unit, students completed a private reflection. I provided some sentence stems that I 'borrowed' from one of Mel Hamada's blogs (thanks, Mel!). 

• Now I know
• ​I am proud of…
• I have changed my thinking about… because…
• When I think about this unit and what I have learned, I feel… because…

Some responses from my one of my classes below:  

I have changed my thinking about running because last year I just ran because I had to but now I actually enjoy running 

I was able to cut my time down by 5 minutes. Even though it may not seem like a major difference but to me that is a lot because in grade 7 I’m pretty sure my first ever time was 25-27 minutes and I’m very proud that I was able to start being quicker. 

I have changed my thinking about what a successful run is because at first I kept comparing my times to others to decide whether I was proud of myself or not and now I compare my times to my own times and I am just trying to achieve a personal best. I also improved on my persistence by a lot. I got better at not stopping to walk when I got a cramp and it improved my time a lot.

I am proud of myself because I never thought I was a good runner or that I could run. Now I know that if I try my best and push myself every run I can get better.

 I have changed my thinking about my abilities, as now I have experienced Race Day, I know what I really am capable of, and know I can be so much more. When I think about this Unit and what I have learned, I feel that if you “feel” like you are outside of you comfort zone, you can push through so much more, and achieve the unthinkable.
​

Our approach is this unit was never anti-formal sport. Formal sport has a lot of meaning for some of our students, but wasn't engaging or inclusive of every kid. Our aim was to connect students with challenge, allow them to make some choices in their participation, celebrate the success of each individual and hope to foster a connection to running that students can take with them in the future. A purpose which we see as serving the needs of every student, regardless of whether they intend to compete in formal sport or not. But wouldn't you know it, with this new approach and removal of the ranking system for qualification - the # of students interested in our formal sport team has never been higher! After the conclusion of our school event, we had over 110 students (more than 50% of our MS population) who chose to compete in the divisional meet, the largest runner population of any school (despite being half their size).  This past week, that group went on to compete in the Zone championship and won it (as high as it gets for us in Middle school). 

​While there is still data to collect and sort through - prioritizing meaningfulness and shifting away from feeding formal sport in our PE classes, has neither jeopardized performance or formal sport in anyway, while also importantly better serving all our students. Sometimes, you can have your cake and eat it too (I think). 

Summary: The Content of PE & Meaningfulness 

While we are not quite at a finished product (some fine tuning for the exact # of lessons is still required), we do feel that we've tried our best to honor designing a program that represents students interests amidst a changing contextual landscape. In my ideal world, the units would focus less on activity and more on categories or concepts that would allow multiple forms of exploration within each concept or activity category, however, the bandwidth for what would be another significant change in an already chaotic end of the school year just wasn't there. 

It is important to note that while the categories proposed in O'Connor et al's article, which informed how we designed our survey, will certainly allow students to participate in content (activities) that may become meaningful to them - that is only one piece of the puzzle. For example, a student may be interested in soccer, but if during our soccer unit all we teach are tactics and skills that be used to gain a competitive advantage in soccer: then how will a student who simply wants to engage in an informal game of soccer for social reasons find it to be meaningful? In the article, the authors propose a number of example questions/outcomes that extend beyond tactics needed for winning or losing. For example, what could we do to make the competition more equal or more enjoyable? In what ways can I support the team? While the content of PE can certainly set the stage for meaningful experiences, there is still a need to align the content (the what) with the pedagogy (the how). 

References: 
Justen O’Connor, Laura Alfrey & Dawn Penney (2022): Rethinking the classification of games and sports in physical education: a respect to changes in sport and participation, Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy. DOI: 10.1080/17408989.2022.2061938

Olivia J. Gillispie, Emi Tsuda, James D. Wyant & Eloise M. Elliott (2023) Selecting Content to Teach in High School Physical Education, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 94:3, 11-16, DOI: 10.1080/07303084.2022.2156939 

Facilitating meaningful experiences for students is not without challenge. While it is perhaps simple enough to understand that the features of meaningful physical education; challenge, social interaction, enjoyment, personal relevance and social interaction are influential in the way students experience PE and thus, deserving of prioritisation, it is the different ways in which students interact with those features wherein lies the challenge. Some students will prefer social settings with their friends, while others may prefer new social situations to work with new people. A challenge that is optimal some students may be too easy or too hard for others. What one student mind find interesting and fun, others find boring and irrelevant. Accounting for the diversity of student preference and experience, while rewarding, can be difficult in terms of pedagogy. 

Fortunately, Ní Chróinín, Fletcher and O'Sullivan (2021), outlined two key pedagogical principles that support the prioritiziation of  meaningful experiences; democratic and reflective practice. Democratic practice generally refers to students having a sense of autonomy in their learning whereas reflective practice a tool for students to make sense of their experience and inform future directions. While the purpose of this blog is to explore primarily democratic structures, it is important to note that these two principles do not exist in isolation. Rather, they exist in lockstep with one another in a form of democratic and reflective 'coupling', where democratic practice allows students to direct their experience reflective practice allows students to evaluate their experience. 

Implementing democratic principles doesn't necessarily alleviate the challenge of teaching for meaning in PE. Differentiating instruction and activities becomes increasingly difficult as interests broaden, goals narrow, and perhaps class size increase. However, when I speak with teachers about democratic practice, a common assumption emerges; that the choice of activity is the only / most impactful way to offer choice. While that may be a great way to build democratic practice into a PE program, it is not necessarily logistically feasible in many school contexts. Fortunately, that is not the only form of choice that we may offer students. 

The purpose of this blog is to try and categorize / visualize different ways that students might be offered choice in PE. Many of the diagrams below will start with the concept or learning outcome as the first step in instructional design. This is a product of my own teaching context in the International Baccalaureate curriculum which is concept / inquiry-based. While not all curriculums are structured in this way, a conceptual approach to learning does align itself with effective implementation of democratic practice (in my opinion, at least). For example, Nathan Horne's (@PEnathan) inquiry based unit titled 'What Moves You?' , which focuses on a connection to physical activity (as Nathan describes here) opens the door to a number of exploratory and democratic possibilities.  If you're interested in learning more about concept-based teaching as it relates to meaningful PE, Lee Sullivan's book Is Physical Education in Crisis? is a great place to start. 

Note on Assessment - Assessment plays an important role in a child's education. For the purpose of this blog, assessment is shown primarily in the structures below as Assessment Of Learning or summative assessment occurring at the end of a period of learning. The exclusion of formative, assessment FOR or AS learning is not meant to diminish their importance, as both play a key role in determining the types of choices that may matter most to students. The exclusion of the role of formative assessment in the diagrams is only meant to avoid muddling the diagrams and focus more explicitly on the types of choices that we may offer students. 

Example: Intentionally timetabling two classes of the same grade level (or similar) together to allow students to choose from two different activities offered by two different teachers. 

Examples:
Applying the MPE Framework to the Grade 5 Spartathlon In this unit, students participate in an adventure triathlon in which they choose the distances they wish to run and whether or not they wish to do so SOLO or with a partner.
​Learning to Love Running ​- In this LAMPE Pedagogical Case Study, the teacher allows students to make choices between different forms of running (obstacle, short & fast, long & slow etc.). For more case studies visit the LAMPE website here. 
Meaningful Experiences on a Bike - In this unit, Andy Vasily (@andyvasily) & co. set the learning outcome as exploring challenge on a bike, through on going reflection / self-assessment students identified goal areas and were empowered to pursue them. 

DEMOCRATIC CURRICULUM DESIGN - Every year teachers make decisions about learning is to be included in the scheme of work for that school year. To what extent do students have a voice in that design? To what extent are the activities that are relevant to students prevalent in their PE experience? How do we gather student voice to ensure that they are? 

DEMOCRATIC DURATION - In most contexts, teaching and learning occur in discrete blocks of time, 8 lessons for this, 5 weeks for that and so on. While the duration of units can be dedicated by a number of factors (e.g. facility schedule, weather, etc.) is there opportunity to structure units in a way with a more flexible start and end time, so students have a voice in when it is they may wish to progress from one unit to the next?

DEMOCRATIC LEARNING OUTCOMES - Much of what is written above has been written with the identification of the desired learning outcome or concept as the primary step in instructional design. However, we know that there are a variety of learning outcomes that can be addressed through a single activity. To what extent is it possible in your curriculum for students to determine the learning they wish to demonstrate in the given activity. In this example, the teacher might select football as the chosen activity but provides students choice on whether they wish to focus on developing character, strategic or skill-related outcomes through their participation. ​

DEMOCRATIC PRODUCT - As mentioned in the introduction, the role that assessment plays in the learning process is not fully represented in this blog.  A democratic approach to summative assessment would give agency in what they would produce to demonstrate their learning (which may be connected with the above on a democratic approach to learning outcomes). Perhaps in reflective tasks, this could be providing students options over the questions prompts they respond to or allowing a personal response to subject matter. In our departments self-study, we identified that in our movement composition units some students associated  performing in front of peers with a negative PE experience (while others, whom likely more confident, found it positive). Is a live class performance, the only product that students can create to demonstrate learning in movement composition? 

In her blog posts (Part 1 & Part 2) Mel Hamada (@mjhamada) & colleagues expertly apply multiple layers of democratic practice in an Individual Pursuits unit. Her department chose to explore the concept of challenge with her students and provided students with a choice of medium (activity) through which challenge could be explored (XC Running, Dance, Gymnastics and Rock Climbing). After students selected their activity, Mel continued to implement democratic practice by orienting her teaching towards student goals with a number of process-related choices. 

    In their book Switch: How to Change when Change is Hard, Chip and Dan Heath open the book with the metaphor of the elephant and the rider to explain how individuals are motivated to action. The Rider represents our rational and logical thinking brain, whereas the Elephant represents our emotional side. As you can imagine, oftentimes it doesn’t matter how much the rationale rider attempts to exert control over a situation, ultimately the emotional elephant is the one who is in control. This would explain why despite knowing something is beneficial for us, we lack the motivation to begin. Chip and Dan argue that when companies seek to implement change, they often only attempt to engage the Rider; they present the research, statistics, clear visuals, etc. but fall short due to the lack of emotional investment by those whom they wish to create change with. I was given this book at the end of the 21-22 school year as I prepared to begin as the Learning Leader (HoD) of a new department with new colleagues in the Middle / Senior school. As luck would have it, the gift was about 1 month too late, as I had already failed to introduce the meaningful physical education (MPE) framework to my new team by only accounting for the rationale rider. 

The purpose of this blog is to share the process of change we’ve undergone as a department since then, as we seek to find common ground between our schools' renewed strategic plan and our individual philosophies in an effort to create more meaningful PE experiences for our students. 

Contextual Background: At the end of the 21-22 school year, our school released its strategic framework, with the dedicated purpose of creating students who flourish. Many other components of the strategic framework align themself quite closely with student-centeredness, joy and meaning-making.

Step 1 - Establishing a Vision Statement 

What does it mean for students to flourish in Physical Education? If this was to be the centre of our schools educational philosophy, then we should have an agreed upon definition of what that means in a PE setting. I selected two readings:

• Flourishing - Alex Beckey @ImSporticus
• Physical Literacy and Flourishing - Dr. Liz Durden-Meyers
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After reading those articles, we wrote down ideas on chart paper of what we believed it meant to Flourish in PE:

• Motivated for a lifetime of activity to improve the quality of life 
• ​Meaningful connection to action - an individual why? 
• Develop competence and confidence in movement
• Experience joy (deeper than fun) in movement 
• See personal connections to movement
  • To the activity itself 
  • To the learning from the activity
  • To other activities 
• Engagement
• ​Through deep learning, able to understand and apply concepts 
• Develop a mindset that is focused on growth, open to new experiences and willingness to engage with challenges. 

I took all those ideas and attempted to craft them into 3 different vision statements, each attempting to encapsulate the ideas we had in relation to flourishing. At a later meeting, the three options were distributed for feedback from each member of the department who suggested edits / omissions / additions etc. Eventually we landed on some agreed upon components and sought to provide clarification to exactly what certain terms were meant to encapsulate.  

On a PD day, we met as a department and analysed the data using another liberating structure; ‘What, So What, Now What’ or W3. This thinking routine encourages an initial objective analysis of simply what does the data say or suggest? Followed by a determination of why it is important and finally a decision on what action should be taken. At this initial meeting, each individual was assigned 1-2 grade levels that they taught and we focused on primarily the first two questions (or Ws), what and so, what? The guiding questions we used are found below. In addition, to identify the conditions that impact meaningful experiences (or flourishing), we conducted a thematic analysis, where we analyzed students written responses to "describe a positive experience you've had in PE" and "describe a negative experience...", based on the reason WHY it was negative, and not the activity itself, example: 

• Bowling, I had fun interacting with my friend
• Gymnastics because it isn't fun, is boring, and I will never need it in the future.

In the above statements, we are not concerned with the activity (bowling / gymnastics), but the condition they identified as being responsible for that experience (positive or negative), in these examples the 3 conditions identified were: fun, social interaction, relevance. 

What? 

• What observations can be made? 
  • Females and non-binary students, especially in MS/SS have a more negative PE experience than their male peers.
  • In MS, the greatest differences between those reporting a very positive experience and those having a neutral or negative experience is the amount of enjoyment they have; the degree to which they look forward to PE, and the degree to which PE inspires them to be active outside of school. 
• What are the strengths of the PE environment at this grade level? What are the areas for growth? 
  • ​Strengths: Students believe they are improving their skills and have opportunities to interact socially (physical and social domain). 
  • Areas for Growth: Affective domain / connection between PE and activity outside of school 
• What conditions or themes emerge from students' descriptions of positive and negative experiences (focus on the condition, not simply the activity)
  • ​Social Interaction (working with friends, meeting new people, collaboration)
  • Enjoyment ( including new novel experiences) 
  • Confidence (learning something new, improving, perceived competence)
  • Challenge (too easy, too hard) 
  • Relevance (when will I need this?) 

So What? 

• Why are these observations important? 
  • We believe a core part of PE is the ability to inspire lifelong movement, while there are strengths to the program, there is a % of a students we're not reaching. 
• ‘Who’ is flourishing? Who is not? 
  • ​Depending on the data metric you wanted to use (and presuming any single metric could accurately indicate flourishing), then we might be able to say that 40% of our students are flourishing. My guess is, that these are probably the athletes of the school, but that is based on speculation. 

Conclusion
The irony of this process, is that it lead us in someways to uncover the exact same things that were already evident in the research by Beni et al (2017) as well as in our appreciate inquiry. Students associate social interaction, challenge, relevance, fun and competence with positive experiences in PHE. So why was taking the time to go through the data more effective than simply reading the research? In many ways, data is emotional - we are passionate about our subject and believe in the value of PE. When confronted with data that suggests despite all your best intentions, students have had a negative experience; that can be hard to digest but also is hard to ignore. On the other hand, reading data that highlights the positive impact you've had on students can be very fulfilling. This data, as it represented our students experiences, was very moving for us a group and could have resulted in hours upon hours of discussion. It is this engagement of the Elephant that has enabled us arrive on common ground and will serve as motivation for future action (now what). 


References

Beni, S., Fletcher, T., Ní Chróinín, D. (2017). Meaningful experiences in physical education and youth sport: A review of the literature. Quest, 69(3), 291-312.

All credit for the planning, organizing and execution of the ROGAINE is a credit to the passion and dedication of Dale Roth and Bruce Hendricks. The below is based on my perceptions and conversations with colleagues during the event. There are many risk management and safety considerations that go into this event, for brevity, many of these have been excluded. The purpose of this blog is not to provide every detail of the event but to examine it through a lens of meaningful physical education.  

For those of you who, like me, have never heard of a ‘rogaine’ (excluding the hair growth formula for men), it is an acronym for a Rugged Outdoor Group Activity Involving Navigation and Endurance and the culminating activity of our Grade 10 Outdoor Leadership program. The event focuses on developing leadership skills as students seek to find as many of the 29 markers as they can in 16 hours from the hours of 7pm to 11:00am the next day. 

As I prepare to shift from Elementary school back to Middle/High school I find myself looking for examples of what meaningfulness might look like with older students. At some point in the early morning, waiting for another student group to check in, it became clear that the ROGAINE may be one of those activities that makes effective use of the meaningful physical education framework; the critical features and as well as democratic and reflective practice which I will attempt to articulate below. 

OVERVIEW
The purpose of this overview is only to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the event for the purpose of understanding its potential for meaningfulness. 
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DAY 1

• Students arrive at the trailhead around 9am, complete a brief walk to orient themselves in the areas that will be used for the ROGAINE. 
• With the support of student leaders (last year's Rogaine participants) students map out the coordinates for the markers, discuss strategy, set personal and group goals and do some team-building activities. 
• ​7pm - Students set out and begin navigating for the markers. They are required to check-in at staff stations every 4 hours and their whereabouts are tracked via GPS to ensure they are within the designated boundaries. 

DAY 2 

• 11am - The ROGAINE ends as students return to base camp at the trail head. 
• Students return to the campground and get some much deserved sleep.
• ​In the evening, there is a large group meal where stories of the event are shared. 

DAY 3 

• Student leaders guide students through a reflective process where students consider their triumphs and challenges in relation to their leadership goals. 
  
  

CRITICAL FEATURE: SOCIAL INTERACTION
Aspects of the ROGAINE remind me very much of Siedentop’s Sport Education model. After students are formed into teams, they select a team name and develop a team cheer (The ‘Heffers’ ‘ mooooo cheer was my favourite). The students also determine roles, such as ‘lead navigator’, who takes the lead on route finding with the use of map and compass. Other student roles include ‘team mom’, who looks after the rest and nutritional needs of the ground, or the motivator whose job is self-explanatory. 
A unique feature of this event are the student leaders, who were ‘survivors’ of the ROGAINE from the previous year. These student leaders work with the current years teams by leading them through team-building games, and sharing their insights learned from the previous years successes and failures as they plan their strategy. In my observation, there is a noticeable sense of camaraderie and tradition, as the experience of others is passed down throughout the years.
 
CRITICAL FEATURE: PERSONAL RELEVANCE 
The emphasis of the ROGAINE is placed upon students building their capacity as leaders. Students are required to set an individual goal for leadership based on the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership model. Some students' goals were to be more assertive by ‘challenging the process’, while others were to ‘encourage the heart’ and motivate their teammates.  What I really loved about the way Dale and Bruce set up this event is that each team member was required to know the individual goals of everyone else in their group. In addition, teams established group norms for collaboration, and a team goal (such as find a certain # of markers, or to stay together as a team). While a winner of the ROGAINE was determined based on the number of markers found (and their respective point value), the reflection of the experience is not based on winning or losing but the degree to which each individual achieved their goal. 

DEMOCRATIC PRACTICE 

“Having an opportunity to make decisions that are relevant and meaningful and experience both the positive and negative consequences of those decision seems to be influential in students’ willingness to engage in curriculum” (Ennis, 1999)

During the ROGAINE, students are responsible for their own decision making. As a group, students develop their own strategy, they decide which markers are priorities, the order they will be found, and what route is the best option for getting there. In addition to the navigational challenge, rest and sleep are determined by the group needs. Students do not have traditional camping gear and cannot simply set up camp for the night. With the exception of the time when students are able to check in at staff stations (at least once every four hours), students are on their own, and their teacher is not looking over their shoulder to guide or ‘correct’ their decision making. While students do not have a choice over whether they do the ROGAINE or not, they do have significant choice within their learning. 

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE 

I think if there is one point I wish to highlight in relation to meaningfulness is that negative experiences are not necessarily detrimental or harmful experiences. In many regards the ROGAINE is a negative emotional experience. Through fatigue, the weather, fear of the dark, sleep deprivation and the challenge of finding orienteering markers at night - students become frustrated as conflict arises between group members. It could be argued that success in the ROGAINE is contingent upon how much suffering you can endure as a team while remaining focused on the task at hand. When I observed students returning to the trailhead (16 hours after it began) many looked utterly defeated. 
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Earlier that night,  I sat with a student leader (volunteer) assigned to our staff station. I asked her about her previous ROGAINE experience. She noted that “In the moment it was really hard and frustrating, but now it’s one of my favorite memories”. We know that meaningfulness is uncovered in retrospection, but it is harder to know just how retrospective that reflection needs to be. With that in mind, I believe the most important part of the ROGAINE is not the actual event itself but what happens after it’s concluded. Students do not simply board the bus, and go home to be left with some of those negative emotions. Instead, they stay together at a campground where the first task is to catch up on their sleep. When they wake up that evening, there is a large family style dinner, where students share the stories of their experience with one another. At this point, the previous negative emotions may begin to subside as students develop a greater sense of community through their shared experience. The next day students complete their final reflection where they consider the evidence in support of their individual leadership goal. I believe it is over the course of the 24 hours after the ROGAINE ends, that the real magic happens. 

Taking the entirety of this event into consideration, it is no surprise why on the night of graduation (2 years after their participation in the ROGAINE) many students state that Outdoor Ed trips such as these, were the highlights of their school careers. 

Before I get into the unit, I would like to thank Zack Smith (@mrzackpe) for the inspiration to attempt to use storytelling as a provocation for learning in PE. In addition, the wonderful Tracy Tuttosi (@Readervator), for making sense of my babble, in helping me select a book for the unit. 

The What: 

• For students to learn how to play together (listening to the ideas of others, advocating for oneself, resolving conflict, inclusion etc.) 
• To cultivate student creativity and imagination 

Assessment Outcomes

• Demonstrates leadership & teamwork 
• Demonstrates self-management
• Actively engages in learning experiences. 

The How 

• Aaron Becker's "Journey" is a picture book that 'tells' the story of a young girl who is lonely and has no one to play with. She finds a red crayon, that she uses to draw a door into a world of her imagination. 
• Using a combination of loose parts and regular PE equipment (in a non-traditional way), students will engage in collaborative play in re-creating scenes from the characters imaginative 'journey', as well as create scenes of their own.  
• Attempt to apply principles of non-linear pedagogy to engage students in development of various locomotor skills.  This is a new area of learning for me, much of which has been influenced by the work of James Rudd & colleagues

The Why 

• Learning how to advocate, resolve conflict and listen to one another is an important part of being able to play in a variety of environments such as recess or within the community. In reflection, I find the way I've traditionally approached this to be teacher-centered / controlled and not reflective of how students would engage with each other outside of class. 
• The desire to build/imagine/create is something that is innate/intrinsic to young children (I thinks so at least - didn't we all love building forts?). I believe this connects with Kretchmar's conceptions of joy/delight. In addition, due to the socially interactive nature of play, I hoped that through democratic practices found in this unit, these features would work together to facilitate a meaningful experience for students in the class. 

Lesson 1 

• ​We introduced the book, and went over the first pages which introduce us to the character. We talked about how the character (whom we named 'Annie') was feeling and made connections to times we may have felt the same as her. (SEL Connection)
• ​When Annie first uses her red marker, she draws a door with enters into a forest, which was our first scene. 
  • Which animals have you seen in the forest? How do they move?  You'll notice in the video that students have their own ideas of which animals move in which ways
  • Variations of Animal Tag / Grasshoppers, Shrew, Falcon were played

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In one particular lesson, Annie rescues a purple bird (my students insist it was a phoenix) from a cage by passing along a bridge. Students use loose(ish) parts to make a series of bridges to retrieve the laminated birds I stuck to the wall. This problem solving task resulted in a various solution involving asymmetrical balance.