“I was looking to create a physical literacy environment based around students’ needs while using situational interest as a catalyst to begin drawing students into the environment in a way that would shift their expectations about what physical education and purposeful physical pursuits could be.”
My question arose through observation of classrooms and frustrations seeing students who were not engaged or motivated in the classroom or gym. I empathized with those students because I saw a mandatory P.E. system that forced them to participate with little or no relevance to themselves. I first perceived the challenge for the unmotivated students was that they lacked the fundamental and sports specific movement skills, so I began inquiring how teaching fundamental movement skills could increase student engagement.
- What ways can physical education teachers format their physical education classroom for students who lack FMS coming into a secondary activity setting from elementary?
While this question explored an aspect (fundamental movement skills) that might increase engagement with physical education, it did not get at the root of the students’ motivations for activity. From here I began to redirect my attention towards what actually motivated students. Motivation became a key driving force of my question, as that was what I was truly interested in. Not only that, I wanted to look at how to keep students motivated and capable towards an end goal of lifelong physical activity.
- How can we motivate students to stay physically active after high school?
It then became apparent that to make students motivated after school, they needed a motivator that was not extrinsic (likely not from the teacher or from the activities we play); they needed to be motivated to be active by their own will and interest, so intrinsic motivation became a focus. But how do you create intrinsically motivated students? Simply assuming that I would be a main motivator for the students meant that I was suddenly thinking in terms of external motivation. To get at intrinsic motivation, I needed to change my thought process to look at what students could do for themselves. Suddenly throwing students the responsibility of motivating themselves with no guidance would likely only cause problems; I still had a majour role to play. My role was to be as a facilitator. To do this, I would have to use many different avenues and continue to model positive behaviour and caring. As my thought process has shifted more, I realize now that I in order to allow for the fostering of intrinsic motivation, the environment needs to be structured in a way that will encourage student motivation and engagement. Focusing on physical literacy also helped me to clarify the goal of my inquiry even more; physical literacy looks at the whole person, most importantly their understanding and motivation to exercise.
- How Does a Physical Literacy Learning Environment Affect Motivation and Engagement?
The environment needed to be fun, inclusive, enjoyable, novel and interesting for the students. It needed to be somewhere that felt safe, like a connected community, where students were challenged to their level of ability, and where students were able to focus on mastery and process rather than a product. I was looking to create a physical literacy environment based around students’ needs while using situational interest as a catalyst to begin drawing students into the environment in a way that would shift their expectations about what physical education and purposeful physical pursuits could be.
- How does a focus on interest in a physical literacy learning environment affect motivation and engagement in high school P.E. students?
As my question and practice continues to evolve, I find myself focusing more on how I can model behaviour and create a community classroom that will motivate students regardless of the content and focus of class. Motivation can occur as a result of many different components. The social emotional aspects and community building has begun to be an even larger focus of how I will structure the environment in the future. The more I learn about how to motivate students, the more I will try and incorporate into my own practice.
As I continue to develop my inquiry, Prithwi Raj Subramaniam’s list of “Ten Ways to Evoke Situational Interest in Physical Education” (2010), which focuses on various ways to create an engaging class through novel task design and structuring of environment continues to guide me. A teaching games for understanding (TGFU) approach will be the basis much of the class format. This will help to keep the class formatted towards gameplay and fun for the students. Margaret Whitehead’s definition and the Canadian Consensus statement of physical literacy have shaped the way I have discussed and think about Physical literacy.
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