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. 
​
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. 

A few years ago, the first unit of each school year at STS was Cross Country running. The culminating event was the ES Cross Country race, where students would race at set distances (depending on their grade level). Results from 1st to last would be posted on the bulletin board outside the PHE office. For some students, this was meaningful. The thrill of competition and the pride of crossing the finish line before your peers was motivating and garnered excitement for the following years race. For others, the anxiety associated with the pressure to perform, and seeing your name near the bottom of the results list was detrimental. For them running may have become associated with thoughts of dread or embarrassment. Much credit goes to Laura Boudens (@LauraBoudens) and Michelle Bartoshyk for critically examining their own beliefs and practices in re-thinking the annual Cross Country unit/race. Laura writes about her process as part of the Meaningful Physical Education book.  I've been fortunate to work with these two and build upon the great work they've been doing. 

Outlined below is our approach to a unit devoted to students developing an understanding of 'Who We Are'. Through allowing students to make choices of how they engage with our campus trails and understanding the motivations behind those choices. What is not described are some of the more contextual items, such as connections with certain grade- level homeroom classes who were also looking at the trans-disciplinary theme of Who We are (IB-PYP), as well as the annual Terry Fox Run which occurred part way through the unit. 

Purpose: To continue re-imagining how students engage with our campus trails, and through a process of reflection come to a greater understanding of 'who we are' as participants in PA. 
Grade/Age: Grade 3-6 (8-12yr olds)
Theme: Who We Are
Central Idea: Reflecting on our experiences in outdoor physical activity can effect the connections we feel with movement. 
Time: 4 Weeks (16 x 40min Lessons)

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Lesson 1 - Nature Walk 

In our first lesson, students walked along one of our campus trails. Students had freedom to walk at their own pace, and just needed to check in at certain points.  At the end of the lesson, we debriefed on what we might like / dislike about walking. 
In addition, students used a numbered/coloured sticker (i.e. #3 Red, was always the same G6 student) to identify which feature they connected with on the walk. 

Lesson 2  - Orienteering / Scavenger Hunt 

In our second lesson, students were given a 'Pokemon' scavenger hunt, where Pokemon cards were placed around our campus. Students received a list of hints as to the Pokemon's location, and had the class period to find as many as they could. 
At the end of the lesson, students reflected on why they/someone might find a scavenger hunt relevant to their interests. Once suggestions were made, students once again used their specific sticker to indicate which they connected with.  

Lesson 3  - Trail Running

For our third lesson, the task for students was to run on one of our campus trails. While students were encouraged to run, we also made it acceptable to walk when tired.  Before beginning, we talked about some reasons why an individual might find running meaningful. 
At the end of the lesson students once again used their sticker to select the feature they connected most with through running of which social and challenge were the most popular choices. Through offering a choice of "something else" we understood that students were often motivated to explore - to see a new trail, or all the trails within a lesson. 

The Routes​
For the next couple weeks (about 10 lessons), students would have the opportunity to engage in a number of 'loops' or routes that went around our campus. Initially, we started with only 3 loops, then every couple lessons we would add an additional route as students became more comfortable navigating the trail system (this was a supervision/safety precaution). The progress of these additions is highlighted below (from left to right)

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The Choice Board

Each day students had the choice of whether the wished to run/jog, walk or do a scavenger hunt/orienteering activity. In addition, we also wanted to encourage students to think about WHY they were making that choice. Students would first select an activity, then a route, and lastly, what they hoped to get out of it. For example, a student would choose to run the Siksika route to challenge themselves. While another group may choose to walk the Tsuut'ina loop to catch up with friends. When students returned near the end of the class they moved their magnet back to "returned" so we knew whether there were students still out on the trails. 

Final Reflection
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At the end of the unit, students completed a "gallery" walk, where the choice board, their early thoughts on walking, running, searching as well as our Meaningful Experience Mural (left). Students completed the attached handout as a rough draft, intended to help them come to some concise statements about who they are as a PA participant in the outdoors. 

The rough copy was used during the final task, which was to complete a video reflection answering those questions. You can listen to the audio recording of a G5 student's response below. 

Is there any activity in Physical Education more polarizing than dance? In my experience, it is the one activity that is as likely to be greeted by cheers as it is groans. At the end of a unit, students inevitably ask what unit is coming up next. When I told them that "next week, we will be dancing" the student responses followed an interesting, almost linear trend. In Grade 1 & 2, there was nearly unanimous excitement. In Grade 3, most students were excited while a much smaller portion seemed less enthused. However, in Grade 4 & 5, there was outright objection to dancing, as well as students who were eager to start right away. Certainly there are many factors that may influence one's attitude toward dance, or any activity. However, I was none the less interested in why there was such a major shift in student attitudes towards dance as they aged. While acknowledging that this may be simply a matter of chance, that the unique perceptions and experiences of each student in these classes just happened to result in what I viewed as a somewhat linear polarization of attitudes towards dance over time. Perhaps this pattern of changing perceptions is natural and would be observable in all activities, not just dance (dance just happened to be the first unit I've done at the same time across multiple grade levels). 

My initial hypothesis was related to meaningful experience; that students in Grade 1-2 had no yet acquired enough experiences in dance (positive or otherwise), that the prospect still feels novel and exciting. Whereas the older Grade 4-5 students had perhaps accumulated enough experiences in dance, that in the case of the "anti-dancers" had been meaningless or detrimental. In a conversation with @ImSporticus he reminded me that students often become aware of their participation in comparison to others later in childhood. Perhaps the students in Grade 1-2 simply enjoy dancing because they perceive they are just as competent as their peers as long as they are trying hard. Whereas in Grade 4-5, as students begin to understand themselves in relation to others, students begin to realize that perhaps they are not as competent as their peers (despite their effort), and thus may deter a willingness to engage. 
.   Another theory is related identity formation. I've noticed during informal conversations with students, that students in Grade 4-5 often identify or describe each other based on an activity. For example, students often says " Student X is the parkour kid in the class" or the "gymnast" or the "artist". While very few students in Grade 3, and none in Grade 1 and 2 ever speak in those terms (to me at least). Are there ways that students identify themselves that are anti- or in opposition of an identity associated with dance? 

To the point, alongside the curricular outcomes associated with these grade levels, what I aimed to do was:

1.  Understand through a lens of meaningful physical education (MPE), why/how students had formed negative attitudes towards dance? If you're unfamiliar with the features of MPE. They h are below, as outlined by Beni et al (2017). 

• Social Interaction 
• Movement Competence 
• Challenge 
• Personal Relevance 
• Fun

2.  Based on the above, use the features of MPE to engage reluctant students to freely choose to dance, and not just sit out on the sidelines. 

3. Do No Harm. Having followed some of the work of @coachnateb on Twitter, what I did not want to do, was further harm the relationship between students and dance. I did not want to 'force' a student to participate by leveraging their grade or any other form of threat such as calling parents. I wanted them to choose to participate on their own. 

In the Beginning

At the beginning of the unit, I used the results of a survey to group students who had negative attitudes towards dance with those who had more positive perceptions for a small group discussion during which students shared what they respectively liked or disliked about dance. A reporter from the group shared out to the larger class. The opportunity to express themselves, the non-competitive environment and its uplifting nature were reasons cited for enjoying dance by the dance lovers. As this post is focused on engaging reluctant dancers, below is the list of responses as to why students did not like dance. In the sub-bullet, is a potential explanation related to the features of MPE in support of these statements. 

• Embarrassing - did not like the feeling of others watching them.
  • ​Motor Competence/Social Interaction - Students who are not confident in themselves are unlikely to be willing to have their performance publicly displayed. 
• Did not like following along with dance moves - wanted to dance freely. 
  • Personal Relevance / Challenge - Students want autonomy in their learning and perhaps ability to create and express themselves in their own way, as opposed to prescription from the teacher. The reason for this response, may be that they find following movements too challenging or too easy or just not relevant to how they dance. 
• Did not like dancing freely, wanted movements to follow (lol) 
  • ​Motor Competence / Challenge - A number of students specifically mentioned a lack of 'moves' as their reason for disliking dance. For these students, prescribed dance moves may help them acquire new ones and feel a greater sense of belonging as being on the same page as their peers. 
• "All we ever do is  line dance" 
  • Personal Relevance / Fun - While line dancing is often a common starting point and perhaps popular in some contexts. What came out of these conversations was that students no longer found line dancing fun, and perhaps if this is a type of dance that they will not perform in their immediate futures, holds less relevance. 
• Music was not relevant and boring. 
  • ​Personal Relevance / Challenge / Fun - With respect to Mr. C the Slide Man, the Cha Cha Slide wasn't going to cut it for these kids. Dance and music can both be very emotional, and if I wanted students to experience greater connection to dance, using music they actually like is probably a good starting point. 

 
Based on the information provided by students, I would take the following actions to attempt to address the reasons why students may dislike dance with the intent of creating a connection that would motivate students to dance. In reality, the strategies presented below were far more 'messy' during the unit. 

1. Provocation - I still remember watching Andy Vasily's (@andyvasily) keynote during the first APPEC (now PHASE) conference in Hong Kong. Using the powerful story of Team Hoyt as an example, Andy shared an inspiring talk on the importance of emotionally engaging hooks to learning. If MPE is about emotional connection, this seemed like a strategy worth investing in.  The video we watched was of the "Dancing Guy" who has appeared on numerous videos 

2. Choreographed dance would involve group steps (during the chorus) and free dance during the verse. 

• This was done in response to students who both wanted prescribed movements and others who did not. The first dance was BTS Dynamite which was a popular choice amongst students. Students were taught a basic 16-count that was repeated three times during the chorus, followed by free-dancing throughout the verse.  This was repeated for a number of different songs. 

3. Dances would be performed while moving through space, as opposed to in an orderly fashion

• During my time at the U of A, one of my colleagues, Susan Shearer (@SusansShearer), led us through a DancePl3y activity. An approach to dance, where students move through the entire space while dancing. As opposed to in a line or stationary position (where it could feel like all eyes are on you). I really liked this strategy for the purpose of making students feel less embarrassed.  So when I led students through dance steps, I often jumped/skipped/slid to other areas of the gym, so students wouldn't feel like they were always front and center.​

4. Dances would be performed in a context similar to one they are likely to encounter. 

• I'm sure we all remember our school dances. While they were certainly awkward, if they were anything like mine, then they were not comprised of adults instructing you how to dance with the lights on. Instead at the end of each class, we often ended with a "dance party" that was meant to simulate a school dance. With the surprisingly powerful $20 disco ball from Amazon, we played popular (clean) music of the students choosing, and ended with a dance disco party which combined some of the dance moves we had learned earlier in the class as well as free dance periods. Over time, I began to teach dance with the lights down low, as I noticed that the reluctant dancers were more likely to get up and engage "in the shadows" (literally) where they felt removed from the judgement of their peers (real or not). 

Eventually we started building towards our final 'Dance Party' where I wanted to emphasize the following...

5. Personally relevant music would be selected​​​

• Based on a survey response, some of the artists students wanted to list to were compiled into an audio clip, students were informed that all songs would be played at a dance party. Finding a clean Eminem song is a bit of a challenge. ​

6. Students would have the opportunity to create their own dances 

• ​Using the musical selection above, students choreographed their own dances to one song of their choice. The idea was that during the Dance Party, students would dance to their song with choreographed moves, and free dance to the song of their peers. For the students who felt like they had no moves. An emoji sheet was provided, and we imagined what dance moves we might make up to represent that emoji.
  
  

7. Students would not be required to perform the dance in front of classmates, unless they chose to 

• While the above was a group activity, students had the choice of whether or not they wanted to perform in front of their class mates prior to the Dance Party. Some students of a group chose to perform, while other members of the same group did not. ​It is worth noting, that in a number of instances, students who were reluctant to perform initially, chose to do so, after seeing their peers perform. 

The Final Dance Party: As mentioned, I wanted the dance environment to represent one they are likely to encounter in their post-COVID future. Even if a student didn't love dance, I wanted them to be excited about attending the event. In addition to the previously mentioned disco ball, Amazon also had cheap glow sticks, with each student receiving one. During this dance party we played the songs we had learned choreographed dance moves to throughout the unit, as well as pre-mixed songs of their choosing.

This GIF was a big win. The student in the light pants who you see dancing/spinning around was one of my most reluctant dancers at the beginning of the unit. When creating his own dance to a clip of Eminem's - Lose Yourself, he said to me in private  "I used to hate dance, but now I love it" ...you can't make this stuff up! 

However, I can't claim that the strategies or approach I took were 100% successful. We did frame success as being personal for each individual. Success could be taking a risk, being brave or continuing to further their love and passion for dance. For the reluctant dancers, many took a risk and chose to dance, often with encouragement from a friend. While others would do so periodically depending on the song. Anecdotally, our Admin Assistant popped in to look through the gym doors and noted that she was impressed that so many students were dancing, citing the previous reluctance of some specific students. However, there was also one boy in Grade 5 that I couldn't get to engage, I couldn't negotiate with him, couldn't get him to dance to his favorite song and his reflection revealed little as to why he was so opposed to dancing. He helped record and give feedback, but wasn't interested in dancing himself. I chose not to pressure him into trying, and am comfortable in saying that at the very least - no further harm to his perception of dance was done. 

Student Reflection: 
At the end of the unit, students completed a "2 Stars, and 1 Wish" reflection, in which they identified two things they liked, and one thing they wished would have been different / included next time. Below is a summary of responses. There was likely some recency bias here, as the glow-stick/dance party was still fresh in their mind. 

Liked (Stars)

• Dancing in the dark (unfortunately, not the Bruce Springsteen song) 
• The Dance Party / Glow Sticks
• Music was relevant 
• Not Forced to Dance 
• We Weren't judged (not sure if by me or others) 
• Break Dancing 

Wish (Next Time) 

• Different Music (more rock songs)
• More Time playing Dance Tag - a frequent warm up game, we used to introduce new moves
• More Break Dancing - when I was isolating as a COVID close contact, I planned two break dancing lessons, but since I was unable to observe them, were not described in depth in this post. 

Overall, for my first time teaching dance to ES students, I was happy with the unit, and proud of the students who now have a more positive attitude towards dance. However, it was messy as lessons were adjusted each day pending my observations and conversations with students. Next time around would look to make it more coherent and as per the student request, incorporate more diverse genres of music. I guess in reality, not every student is going to have a positive connection to an activity (while no student should have a detrimental one) but I am left wondering about how I could have engaged the aforementioned reluctant student. 

Finally, as a reluctant dancer myself, I would be remiss if I didn't thank my partner @missalberts11 who choreographed all the dances for me. Often dealing with my "this is too hard, teach me something easier" requests.  

References: 

​Stephanie Beni, Tim Fletcher & Déirdre Ní Chróinín (2017) Meaningful Experiences in Physical Education and Youth Sport: A Review of the Literature, Quest, 69:3, 291-312, DOI: 10.1080/00336297.2016.1224192

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As kids around the world have sport opportunities taken away from them due to  the COVID-19 pandemic. What I felt my ES students were struggling with most was not the loss of being physically active but rather the loss of belonging and/or identity that the activity has provided them. 

In planning for an upcoming Floor Hockey unit, I wondered if it was possible to recreate this sense of belonging and team atmosphere in our physical education class. A decade ago, I recall  spending time during my undergrad learning about  Seidentop's Sport Education (SE) model.  If you're unfamiliar with the SE model, essentially this model aims to give a complete representation of the sporting experience and the various roles that make it possible. Teams are formed, who have their own unique cheers, logos etc. and students perform roles such as coach, manager, trainer, scorekeeper, referee etc. in addition to their participant roles.  While the SE model has not been one I've utilized frequently, over the past few years as I dug deeper into the features of meaningful phys-ed, the SE model was repeatedly referenced as having positive correlations with social interaction/belonging as well as fun/enjoyment. If you're interested in reading more about it, the Complete Guide to Sport Education is a great resource.  It is worth noting that in this unit I had not remained entirely faithful to SE model but rather modified elements in consideration of my context. 

In addition, as part of the Alberta Teaching Quality Standard (TQS), teachers must apply foundational knowledge of First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities to promote greater intercultural understanding and to acknowledge the strength and diversity of FNMI communities. Having taught the previous 8 years abroad, I had little understanding of how this is to be achieved (my perception is that it is commonly taught through a unit on FNMI Cultural Games or Dance). 

Taking all of this into consideration, my goals were to utilize the Sport Education model to engage students in a 8 Week (18 x 35minute lessons) Floor Hockey unit in which students would consider how they could contribute to the sense of belonging of others  as well as develop a greater understanding of First Nations communities. 

To frame the unit, students would be competing for the Lacquette Cup, named after Brigette Lacquette - the first First Nations woman to compete for Canada's Women's Olympic Hockey Team. Bridgette grew up as a member of Cote First Nation, and as a young child participating in hockey was not always made to feel like she belonged as competitors would often make racially insensitive insults targeted towards her First Nation status. Through the encouragement of her father and her own persistence, Brigette continued to participate and went on to represent Canada at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. In addition, while I did not engage students in discussion related to the gender inequality that exists in hockey, between the PWHL, NWHL and NHL etc. some of my students have already begun to see hockey as an activity for boys. With this in mind, I hoped using Brigette's story as a focus for the unit would also provide students with an example of a strong female athlete and draw more attention to the women's game. 

Lessons 1-4  
These lessons were devoted to 'fun' floor hockey related activities designed to give students as much skill practice as possible. This included variations of common games such as British Bulldog, Sharks & Minnows, King Pin etc. This also allowed me time to complete a baseline assessment of each students skill level so I could ensure teams were evenly matched later on. During this time, 'inclusion' and 'belonging' were introduced and defined with each class. At the end of this introductory phase, students shared how they felt they might be able to contribute to the belonging of others. 
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Lessons 5-10

During these lessons, students participated in small sided games with an emphasis placed on contributing positively to the belonging of others as stated above. We used a variety of tactical challenges/constraints such as defenseman and forwards being restricted to their half of the court and talked about reliance upon teammates. This time was also devoted to introducing the class to Brigette Lacquette and the challenges she faced from competitors who tried to make her feel like hockey was not a sport for her. 

The people of Cote First Nation were originally a group of Saulteaux people who settled in Saskatchewan near the Manitoba border. The Saulteaux are part of the Anishinnaabe culture who have 7 Sacred Teachings (love, humility, respect, courage, honesty, wisdom and truth) sometimes referred to as the 7 Grandfathers, which are to be applied in our daily lives. These 7 Teachings are also represented by animals, four of which, would serve as our teams for the Lacquette Cup. In their newly formed teams, students wrote on a handout how they could uphold the values of their animal during Floor Hockey (i.e. Buffaloes, how will you demonstrate respect throughout the tournament?)

During the next lesson, students determined the roles for their team, which were listed below.

• Scorekeeper - Kept score of the game by flipping the score chart during game play. 
• Stick handling Coach - Created a stick handling drill for their team 
• Passing /Shooting Coach - Created a passing / shoot drill for their team 
• Captain - During gameplay, settled any disputes with the other teams Captain 
• Coach - Determined the positional assignments of the team (Defense or Forward) 
• Puck Designer - Designed a team logo on a hockey puck (more on that below). 

Lessons 11-12
These lessons were devoted to team skill-based practices 'Team Practices', where the stick-handling and passing coaches created drills for their teams (it was a lot of slow moving around pylons) and teams participated in exhibition games. 

During this time we also discussed what is often referred to in many First Nations cultures as the 'Medicine Wheel', and the importance of the circle in promoting equality. During tribal councils it is tradition to sit in a circle formation to represent the equality of power. Often, an 'object of power' or 'talking stick' is used, so that only the person holding the object is permitted to speak while others are active listeners. This was the purpose of our logo designers. The puck they designed would serve as the object of power for the teams sharing circle. At the end of each game, students would gather in their sharing circle and either discuss the prompts shared on the board or share something else they were feeling at the time.  In comparison to small group strategies I would normally use, I hoped the addition of the talking object would create a greater sense of belonging amongst the team,  with participants feeling their voice was heard, as opposed to vocal / experienced students dominating the conversation. 

Lessons 13 - 15 (Round Robin)
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Students participated in a 4 Team Round Robin, playing one team each day. Prior to beginning the tournament, students created a team cheer that they would perform before the start of each game.
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​At the conclusion of each game as part of the sharing circle, students would complete an assessment relating to sportsmanship and inclusion. 

• Game 1 - Assessment of the Opponents 
• Game 2 - Assessment of Your Team 
• Game 3 - Assessment of Yourself (Individual) 

These scores were added to the points table and factored into the final standings leading into the playoffs. 

Lesson 16-17 (Playoffs)
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As we drew closer to the championship, students were becoming increasingly excited, eager but also nervous at the same time.  Outside at recess one day, I found a student (right) who had brought his dad's coaching board to school and was laying out the 'winning' strategy for his teammates. However, a couple of their classroom teachers mentioned that a few students had a difficult time coping with losing. With this in mind, before the single-elimination playoff began we watched a clip from the gold medal game at the Pyeongchang Olympics (a game I was fortunate to be at). After winning gold for 4 consecutive Olympics, Canada goes to sudden-victory shootout against Team USA. I set the scene with a few slides and then clipped to together the video of the final shooters for both teams. Spoiler Alert - Canada loses. I found the Olympic footage from the game and clipped together the reactions of the Canadian players (upset, but respectful) and we had class discussion about how to lose gracefully and maintain composure in difficult situations.  It was a timely lesson, as a couple of the semi-final match ups went to overtime, there were tears, but the students did maintain their composure and congratulated their opponents on the victory. 

Eventually, the champions were crowned, and the students were excited about being able to keep a physical 'Lacquette' Cup (made of a tin cup from Dollarama with a base of 2 hockey pucks) in their classes. 

Wrap Up

The day after the championships concluded, students gathered in their last sharing circle and shared what they were proud of (as an individual or a team), memorable moments etc. We conclude with an 'All-Star' game, which was just random teams. We spoke about the spirit of the All-Star game as being non-competitive and a celebration of achievements.  At the conclusion of the game, we reviewed what we had learned about inclusion and belonging and why we should never treat people the way Brigette was treated as a kid. 

Of course, when there are notable events in professional sports, they often appear on Sportscenter. Using a green screen and some clips from the games, I put together a short Sportscenter video which was shared on the school-wide morning announcements. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure class cohorts do not mix during recess, our school divided our outdoor spaces into 4 recess zones. During supervision, I noticed that students seemed to lack activity ideas in the zones which had less play structures (Zone 3 & Zone 4 have playgrounds) and thus I decided to conduct a recess unit hoping to expand students movement opportunities during recess time. An additional COVID-related challenge was that students did not have access to the same amount of equipment they might have traditionally had at recess. 

As students became more comfortable with skipping, I began differentiate the challenges and allowed students to choose each day. 

Of course, Recess is a time that allows for considerable student autonomy and I wanted to honor that as we continued through the unit, while continuing to expose students to other recess options. Much to my surprise, students were not very familiar with 4-Square. Like Skipping, there was opportunities to play 4-Square in a variety of recess zones. For the next 4 lessons, students progressed through various four-square challenges at their own rate. We started with 2-square variations, and encouraged students to catch the ball if needed. We discussed how to play four-square competitively but provided students the option to play socially as well. 

For the following few lessons, students now had a choice, similar to the choices they had at recess, four-square or skipping? Students were not confined to their choice, and often switched between skipping and 4-square challenges in the same class period.  Regardless of the activities they chose, we continued to discuss optimal / just-right challenge as we went. Each student had a pre-assigned magnet with a number on it, and each class had their own colour. At the end of class students were asked to reflect on the question written on the bored and place their magnet. 

The third (and final) recess activity that was introduced was 'wall-ball'. Some students were familiar with wall-ball but it was primarily a focus of students in Zone 2, where the wall was. In observing students at recess, I noticed that often students played 'whole class' or very large group games (12-15 students) and when a student was eliminated, they sat out for a long time. In the gym, the walls were divided into 7 different wall ball courts where  we practiced some wall-ball lead up activities (small group, cooperative, modifications allowed). A few lessons later when it came time to choose (now) between skipping, four square or wall ball, I asked students playing wall-ball how it felt to be eliminated early from the game at recess? Not surprisingly students had a lot of negative feelings towards the experience. It was a simple transition into asking students to think of their own 'special' rule that allowed players to re-enter the game. Interestingly, each class came up with something slightly different, some added a tossing the ball into a basketball net as a 'revival' of all players, while others added a fitness component (i.e. 5 push ups and re-enter the game).  At this time, we began to discuss how challenge was related to fun. As shown in the photo below (right) we placed fun on the vertical axis, with challenge on the horizontal axis. It appears that a number of students found less challenging activities more fun, which is perhaps not surprising as based on their responses they are associating the degree of challenge with their confidence in their own abilities. 

At this point it seemed we had been using the magnets for a while and I wanted more qualitative information from the students. Towards the end of the unit, students wrote on a piece of paper which recess activity they found the most challenging and why. There was really no consistency in responses and students found each of the activities challenging for different reasons. However, I selected a few of the responses (anonymous to their peers), which described a challenge related to social interaction (i.e. a lack of inclusion or clarity on the rules). As a class we discussed the implications of those feelings for recess time and how we could mitigate them. Students described the importance of extending play invitations to their peers and many took on leadership roles to ensure joiners to the group were briefed on the rules (often times, I had no idea what modifications or rules students were playing by). 
At the conclusion of the unit, students completed a video reflection (at a set up iPad station). Where they responded to questions of their choosing

• Describe a moment you experienced 'just-right' challenge? 
• Has your recess time become more enjoyable? Why or why not? 
• What did you learn about challenge in this unit? 
• Share anything you want...

As the culminating activity, students worked in groups to re-design recess. 

Despite the allure of the snow, I was pleased to see that a number of students continued to skip (or at least attempt it) in the snow. 
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