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Title: Pre-service teachers articulating their learning about meaningful physical educationAbstractThe purpose of this research was to examine pre-service teachers’ articulation of their learning through the development of a shared professional language of teaching practice focused on meaningful physical education. Qualitative data gathered from 90 pre-service teachers over four years in Canada and Ireland were analysed. Framed by a didactical research framework, pre-service teachers used elements of the shared language to articulate why they would promote meaningful experiences in physical education, what the features of meaningful experiences tend to consist of, and how they would use particular strategies to promote meaningful experiences. This research demonstrates how a shared language that reflects a coherent approach in physical education teacher education can support pre-service teachers to access, interpret, and articulate their learning about teaching in ways that support meaningful experiences for pupils. Keywords: teacher education; vision; pedagogy; innovation; curriculumIntroductionMeaningful physical education has been identified as one area deserving of renewed attention in contemporary physical education and physical education teacher education (PETE) programmes (Ennis, 2017; Quennerstedt, 2019; Thorburn, 2018). This comes at a time when curriculum and policy demonstrate a privileging of health-based and personal fitness outcomes (Penney, 2017), alongside a concurrent emphasis in scholarship on ‘how pedagogies of the body and pedagogies of new media impact on young people’s understandings of and engagement with sport and physical activity’ (O’Sullivan, 2014: 169). We see value and indeed a necessity in addressing relatively diverse foci in curriculum, teaching, learning, and research in physical education and do not believe that meaningful physical education should become the focus at the expense of other valid foci. However, there has for some time been debate that too many purposes are promoted in physical education, which has led to fragmentation and distortion in the field (Kirk, 2010; Lawson, 2017). Quennerstedt (2019) acknowledged that, along with several other approaches, meaningful physical education might provide a helpful sense of direction at a time when fragmentation places physical education at risk of losing sight of its purposes. Kretchmar (2008) argues that meaningful experiences that lead to changes in how pupils become self-motivated to actively engage in movement, identify themselves in relation to movement (e.g. from a person who can dance to a dancer), or that improve the quality of their existence are sufficient aims upon which to justify physical education as a school subject. Thorburn (2018) goes further to suggest: … a need for greater clarity in thinking through how personal meaning can become part of subject purposes and the extent to which physical education can be a suitable learning context for initiation into a range of worthwhile social and cultural practices […that…] connect contemporary physical education with a democratic way of life (5).From this perspective, personal meaning becomes part of the core purpose of physical education. It also aligns with the educational purpose of transformation (Ennis, 2017), where ‘different ways of being in the world as some-body are both possible and encouraged’ (Quennerstedt, 2019: 611). If, as Dewey (1938) suggests, education is a continual transforming of experience, meaningful physical education experiences should encourage pupils to search for further experiences rather than avoiding them. This is similar to Quennerstedt’s (2019) claim that one of the main aims of physical education should be ‘more physical education’. Yet, pupils will seek more physical education when it is educative rather than noneducative or miseducative, and it is in the educative sphere that we position our interpretation of meaningful physical education and its alignment with the educational purposes of physical education. An emphasis on the quality of an experience rather than its quantity is crucial in approaches that emphasise meaningfulness, whereby participation in physical education and physical activity are viewed as enriching lives, not just extending them (Kretchmar, 2006; O’Connor, 2019). In this way, a focus on meaningful experiences in physical education is offered as being more valuable than what Kretchmar (2008) described as a utilitarian emphasis, whereby movement is framed as a duty that should be pursued primarily for the health benefits (e.g. disease prevention). Because personal meaning is subjective, it also counteracts one-size-fits-all approaches to physical education, which often privilege discrete sports skills and techniques (Kirk, 2010). Meaningful experiences are therefore defined as those that have personal significance for the individual learner (Kretchmar, 2007; Metheny, 1968), and which provide motivation to seek further opportunities for participation and engagement in physical education and other contexts for movement outside of the school. Although there appears to be general agreement in the value of promoting meaningful experiences, there is similar agreement that teachers need to be better supported in how they can enact practices that promote meaningful experiences for pupils with intention and regularity (O’Connor, 2019). As Kretchmar (2000: 19) argued, teachers struggle to develop and use skills that help children find meaning in physical education, adding that ‘almost nobody in professional preparation programs is being trained to do it well’. Kretchmar (2008: 169) also cautions against the risks of integrating utilitarian approaches with those that emphasise meaningfulness because they are ‘poorly aligned; they attempt to achieve different things, and they tend to generate a disabling ambiguity’ for both pupils and teachers. Rather than being moments that occur by chance, there is therefore a need to develop and outline pedagogies that support how teachers can prioritise pupils’ experiences of meaningfulness in physical education, and make purposeful pedagogical decisions that support these experiences. Based on this rationale, for several years we have been developing and implementing a framework for PETE practice called Learning About Meaningful Physical Education (or LAMPE), which is aimed at examining how teacher educators can be explicit in teaching pre-service teachers to prioritise meaningful physical education for their pupils (Ní Chróinín, Fletcher and O’Sullivan, 2018). The purpose of this paper is to share pre-service teachers’ articulation of their learning through LAMPE over four years and within two PETE programmes in Canada and Ireland. We describe and analyse the ways LAMPE fostered the development of a coherent professional language for pre-service teachers, a language based upon meaningful experiences. We view coherence as the integration of the why, what and how of teaching and learning in physical education. Our research question was: How does the LAMPE framework support pre-service teachers in articulating their learning about meaningful physical education and in describing their evolving teaching practice? Learning about meaningful physical education: A framework for PETE practiceThrough our longitudinal research, we have shared the challenges of developing and enacting pedagogies of LAMPE (Ní Chróinín, Fletcher and O’Sullivan, 2015; Fletcher, Ní Chróinín, Price and Francis, 2018). In particular, we sought to identify ways LAMPE could be both similar and distinct from generic descriptions of ‘good teaching’ shared with pre-service teachers; similar in that key features of good teaching practice are evident, but distinct in that a particular idea, approach, strategy, or emphasis (i.e. ways pupils experience meaningfulness in physical education) provides a filter for all pedagogical decision-making by both teacher educators and pre-service teachers. A major outcome from several earlier studies in the LAMPE project was the identification of five pedagogical principles that supported our roles as physical education teacher educators as we sought to promote meaningful experiences in PETE (see also Ní Chróinín et al., 2018):Meaningful experiences should be explicitly prioritised in the planning, teaching and assessment of PETE. The content of PETE courses – the design and selection of learning experiences, and the expression of specific and general PETE outcomes – should capture experiences that have the potential to foster meaningfulness. Teacher educators should model pedagogies that support meaningful experiences. For example, this may include the teacher educator being intentional and explicit in developing appropriate personal-professional relationships with pre-service teachers, using autonomy-supportive strategies (e.g. enabling pre-service teachers to use voice and choice in their learning), and providing experiences that support the development of motor competence. Moreover, it is crucial that teacher educators articulate the reasons for their pedagogical decisions regarding meaningful physical education. This articulation should involve pre-service teachers unpacking and critiquing the teacher educators’ reasons for their practice so it is made a site for pedagogical inquiry (Loughran, 2013).Teacher educators should aim to position pre-service teachers simultaneously as learners of learning about meaningful physical education (i.e. engaging in and experiencing the tasks of physical education) and learners of teaching about meaningful physical education (i.e. developing pedagogical skills, knowledge, and thinking). PETE tasks, activities, and experiences should be designed, selected, and reflected upon based on their potential to support engagement with the features of meaningful physical education (i.e. social interaction, fun, challenge, motor competence, personally relevant learning, and delight) (Beni, Fletcher and Ní Chróinín, 2017). Pre-service teachers should be provided with opportunities to reflect on the meaningfulness of their own physical education and PETE experiences, and how these experiences are informing their future practices. In Ní Chróinín et al. (2018), Fletcher et al. (2018) and Fletcher, Ní Chróinín and O’Sullivan (2019) we have described how our enactment of the pedagogical principles of LAMPE led us to better align our pedagogical actions as teacher educators with our beliefs about teaching and learning in physical education (i.e. prioritising meaningful experiences). One outcome of this work was our ability to engage in and describe what we felt was a coherent form of PETE practice. In those studies our interpretations were drawn mainly from data that served as evidence of our practices as teacher educators (i.e. teacher educator-generated data), with some corroboration from pre-service teacher data to offer provisional support for our claims. In this particular paper, our focus shifts away from our practices as teacher educators, toward a specific and considered examination of ways pre-service teachers articulated their learning about meaningful physical education from PETE course experiences framed by the pedagogical principles of LAMPE. Articulating professional knowledge of teachingEarly literature on teacher thinking showed that teaching practice was intensely thoughtful, complex, and problematic work that involved far more than mimicking and enacting learned behaviours from other teachers and teacher educators (Clandinin and Connelly, 1987; Shulman, 1986). Freeman (1993) suggested that the challenges new and experienced teachers have in making sense of the complexity of practice resided in lack of access to coherent ways of conceptualising teaching. Freeman (1993) showed that naming and renaming – or articulating – aspects of teaching practice was ‘a crucial feature of the process whereby […] teachers renegotiated the meaning of their actions and thus constructed different, more critical, ways of understanding what they were doing in their classrooms’ (486). Freeman (1993: 489) defined articulation as: the process through which teachers gain access to their thinking about their classroom practice… [which] comes when the teachers combine the professional language of the teacher education program with their local language explanations to reflect on and critique their practice.Thought of in this way, encouraging articulation through naming and renaming specific understandings of practice can support how beginning teachers can actively construct their knowledge of teaching by making their tacit knowledge about teaching – or their local language of teaching – explicit to themselves and to others. In turn, this can lead to the development of a shared professional language of teaching (Bakkenes, Vermunt and Wubbels, 2010; Zanting, Verloop and Vermunt, 2003). Loughran (2010) supports the value in generating a shared professional language of teaching and learning because it:… allows sharing of understanding in ways that can commonly be used within the profession and shift the intention of sharing from an over-reliance on activities that work to more informed examination of the pedagogical intent underpinning practice… [It] allows us to discuss what we know and how we know it in meaningful ways which, inevitably, are embedded in understandings of practice at a much deeper level. (48)The reasons for generating a shared language of teaching and learning described by Loughran (2010) are argued for in a similar way by those who draw from the European tradition of didactical approaches to teaching and learning (Hudson and Meyer, 2011; Quennerstedt and Larsson, 2015), where there is an emphasis on understanding and connecting the why, what and how of teaching. In this view of didactics (also didactique or didaktik) the why, what and how of teaching are considered to reside in knowledge of the relationships between teachers, pupils, and subject matter, which must also take into account contextual considerations at the individual, school, and societal levels (Hudson and Meyer, 2011; Klafki, 2006). A shared language of teaching and learning may then be generated by thoughtful examination, integration, and articulation of the why, what and how of teaching practice and the different contexts in which teaching practice occurs (Loughran, 2010). While these theories and associated arguments provide relevant reasons for encouraging teachers to articulate their thinking about teaching, and thus their professional knowledge, articulation is a challenging process for beginning teachers (Carter, 1990). One reason for this is the lack of a shared language in teacher education programmes that enables participants (both teacher educators and pre-service teachers) to experience, interpret, apply, and critique the relationship between theory and practice (Badia and Becerril, 2016; Darling-Hammond, 2006). Thus, in helping beginning teachers to actively construct their knowledge of teaching to themselves and to others, there is a crucial need for teacher educators to model this by making their knowledge of teaching explicit and accessible for pre-service teachers, using teacher educators’ practice as a platform for inquiry and debate (Loughran, 2013). The challenges of articulation for pre-service teachers in a broad sense are also prevalent in PETE. For example, research by Rovegno (1993) and MacPhail et al. (2013) demonstrated how teacher educators being explicit in their practices supported how pre-service teachers make sense of and understand physical education subject matter (what and how) grounded in particular theoretical frameworks that support learning about the why of physical education. In this paper, we examine ways the LAMPE framework was used to develop a shared language in PETE through creating a coherent platform for teacher educators and pre-service teachers to articulate their professional knowledge by reimagining (why) and recreating (what and how) the practices of physical education to better address the needs of learners in contemporary schools.Methodology and methodsThe research reported in this paper is part of a longitudinal project focused on the development and implementation of pedagogical principles of LAMPE by teacher educators (Fletcher et al., 2018; 2019; Ní Chróinín et al., 2015; 2018). In this particular paper we focus on examining data generated by pre-service teachers about their learning; learning that was facilitated by the teacher educators’ enactment of the LAMPE principles. Our approach was qualitative and, as such, we generated rich, naturalistic data from a relatively small sample of participants, where our purposes were to describe and interpret the data in ways that represent the participants’ lived experiences in their PETE courses. Research ethics boards from Brock University and Mary Immaculate College approved the research.ContextThe research was conducted over four years. Participants were 90 pre-service teachers drawn from three courses nested in two undergraduate/pre-service PETE programmes (one based in Canada and the other in Ireland) where the first two authors developed and implemented the pedagogical principles of LAMPE. There was a total of 62 participants from Canada and 28 from Ireland. Table 1 shows the distribution of participants across the four years of the project. Table 1. Distribution of ParticipantsYearCanada ParticipantsIreland Participants11182310334104140*Total6228*Déirdre was on leave from teaching in Year 4.The courses that provided the context for this study were Introduction to Teaching Physical Education and Advanced Teaching and Learning in Physical Education taught by Déirdre to prospective primary generalist teachers in Ireland and Developmental Games taught by Tim to prospective specialist physical education teachers in the second year of their programme in Canada. In both cases, the pedagogical principles of LAMPE provided a foundation for PETE practice. Specifically, the content of PETE coursework was designed and chosen to provide pre-service teachers with opportunities to experience and critique meaningfulness; the features of meaningful physical education (Beni et al., 2017) provided a basis for a shared language, which was used to unpack particular PETE experiences and to imagine future teaching experiences; pedagogical strategies were named and modelled by teacher educators and pre-service teachers were encouraged to interrogate their experience of particular strategies in relation to the features of meaningful physical education; and pre-service teachers were encouraged to reflect in- and after-the-moment to identify the ways they experienced meaningfulness as learners and to imagine ways to enact similar approaches as teachers in the future. Data sources and analysisPre-service teachers were invited to participate in two to three individual and/or focus group interviews (at the beginning, middle and end of the course where they were exposed to LAMPE). Because the authors were involved in teaching the pre-service teachers who participated in the research, several research assistants were employed as gatekeepers – data collectors who were not affiliated with the courses – to collect all pre-service teacher data. Over the four years the research assistants conducted 107 individual interviews (87 with participants from Canada and 20 with participants from Ireland), and 14 focus group interviews with 35 participants (5 focus groups with 17 participants in Canada and 9 focus groups with 18 participants in Ireland). Individual and focus group interviews were both semi-structured. Research assistants in both Canada and Ireland used the same sets of guiding questions, which were followed up by unstructured prompts and probes to generate depth of response and to ensure understanding or to clarify certain points. The choice to use an individual or focus group interview was based mainly on logistical considerations, such as whether sufficient space or time was available to conduct interviews. Throughout the project, participants in Canada were mostly involved in individual interviews across all four years, while participants in Ireland participated mostly in focus groups in the first two years of the project and individual interviews in the third year. The overarching purpose of individual and focus group interviews that took place at the beginning of the course was to gain an understanding of what participants found meaningful in their previous physical education, physical activity, and sport experiences, and to gather initial thoughts on how they might go about making physical education meaningful for pupils. Individual and focus group interviews conducted at the end of the course focused on participants’ learning during the course, with a particular focus on what and how they learned about teaching meaningful physical education, and why they thought meaningful physical education should or should not be promoted in schools. Examples of the types of questions asked in the end of course interviews are: What does a meaningful experience in physical education tend to consist of? What are some specific things the teacher educator did to support how you learned about meaningful physical education? How might you go about teaching in ways that prioritise meaningful physical education for pupils in schools? All interview data were audio recorded and transcribed by research assistants.Analysis was led by Tim, Déirdre, and Stephanie and was guided by Braun and Clarke’s (2013) six-step process for thematising qualitative data. The first step involved familiarising ourselves with the data, which we did over the four years of the project. The second step led to the generation of initial codes, which were developed using a blend of inductive and deductive analysis. Inductive analysis was carried out each year as we became familiar with the data and began to make sense of it by asking ourselves the general question: How are pre-service teachers articulating their learning about meaningful physical education? During initial scanning of the data we noted that participants were able to articulate their learning in terms of the why, what, or how meaningful physical education. This led to a search of literature for appropriate frameworks to support the analysis. The European view of didactical research was identified as a useful, holistic view of teaching and learning that bridged theory and practice (Quennerstedt and Larsson, 2015), and we saw how this both reflected what we had been noting in the data to that point and could also be used as a solid platform from which to help us interpret the data. To do this, we searched the coded data for excerpts that: (a) represented a specific moment in the participants’ learning, (b) included a reference to one or more of the features of meaningful physical education, and (c) captured participants’ articulation of learning about one or more of the why, what, and how of meaningful physical education. This deductive coding, allocation of data excerpts, and initial thematisation comprised the third and fourth steps, as they led to the development of preliminary themes. The fifth step was finalising the preliminary themes based upon articulation of the why, what, and how of meaningful physical education. The final themes are: articulating a rationale for meaningful experiences; articulating features of meaningful experiences; and articulating strategies for meaningful experiences. The sixth step (reporting) is presented in the following sections. Processes undertaken to establish trustworthiness included gathering several data sources from a large data set, member-checking, and seeking negative or disconfirming cases. Results and discussionParticipants’ articulation of their learning provides evidence of the value of teacher educators using the pedagogical principles of LAMPE as an anchor for their practice to support pre-service teachers’ learning about meaningful physical education. Data showed that in many cases participants could articulate some aspects of why to prioritise meaningful experiences, what features often lent themselves to meaningful experiences (e.g. challenge, social interaction, personal relevance), and how they would enact approaches that foster meaningfulness for pupils. With that said, there was some variance in ways participants articulated the different aspects of meaningful physical education, particularly as we considered the nature of participants’ responses across the four years of the project.Articulating a rationale for meaningful experiencesIn many instances, participants explained and could justify why meaningful experiences should be promoted in schools by discussing how meaningfulness supported broader purposes of physical education, its perceived value for learners, and expressed a commitment to using practices that promoted meaningful physical education in their future practices. For example, participants mentioned that meaningful physical education: helped provide teachers and pupils with a purpose that focused on the quality of pupils’ educational experiences (Jason IRE., Yr 3, Ava IRE., Yr 3, Luke CAN., Yr 3, Tessa CAN., Yr 3, Kristen CAN., Yr 3, Shayla CAN., Yr 3), was inclusive (Leanne IRE., Yr 3, Ashley CAN., Yr 3), provided a holistic experience that addressed various learning domains (Taylor CAN., Yr 1, Rob CAN., Yr 2, Rachel IRE., Yr 3, Luke CAN., Yr 3), may be more likely to have pupils look forward to physical education (Laura CAN., Yr 1, Focus Group (FG) Participant 7 IRE., Yr 1, Madison CAN., Yr 3, Fran CAN., Yr 4), and it enabled pupils to experience how physical education applied to their lives outside of school (Shannon CAN., Yr 2, Rob CAN., Yr 2, Leah IRE., Yr 3, Kristen CAN., Yr 3, Felicia CAN., Yr 3, Lauren CAN., Yr 3). Some participants also positioned LAMPE in contrast to other approaches, suggesting it was not teacher-directed, not overly competitive, or it was not exclusive (i.e. it was inclusive). While most agreed with the value of meaningful experiences, our interpretation is that for many their rationale was quite vague (e.g. ‘I really like it’: Natalie CAN., Yr 3), often fragmented, and partial. For example, few observed ways that meaningful physical education experiences could be transformative or foster engagement with democratic practices. Despite the prioritisation of meaningful experiences in the courses, some participants, such as Jordan CAN., Yr 1, felt that physical education should maintain a utilitarian orientation, focusing primarily on health outcomes. Others, such as Eric CAN., Yr 3 struggled to come to terms with the pupil-centred emphasis of LAMPE, particularly in relation to thoughts about competition: ‘I would kind of be like: No, we are playing to win, not just to have a good time’. Certainly, some pupils may also find competition meaningful, yet Beni et al. (2017) found that this was rarely mentioned by pupils as contributing to meaningful experiences in physical education. What Eric’s comment highlights to us is a very teacher-centred approach (in that he is making the decisions about what is being focused upon) that runs counter to the pupil-centred ethos of promoting meaningful experiences in physical education. This may be due in part to challenges pre-service teachers face in acknowledging what made their own physical education experiences meaningful while appreciating and privileging what their pupils may find meaningful. Thus, while many articulated a commitment to meaningful experiences, they often could not do so in a comprehensive way to support their commitment. Others (albeit a very small amount) remained unconvinced about the value of prioritising meaningful experiences in relation to their own beliefs and priorities about the value and purposes of physical education. When participants were able to articulate a comprehensive rationale, they discussed why they felt the teacher educators prioritised meaningful experiences and, in turn, why they might do the same in their future teaching practices. Participants often used the professional language captured by LAMPE pedagogies, referring to the features of meaningful experiences (Beni et al., 2017). This language provided some participants with the ability to articulate why meaningful physical education should be promoted by linking these types of experiences to the perceived benefits for young people, both inside and outside of school. Making a clear connection to her experience of the pedagogies of LAMPE in her PETE course, Heather CAN., Yr 4 said: I think that's one of the things that I've taken away from this course because I didn't know anything about meaningful experiences or never thought about it in that way. I think for sure incorporating social, fun, challenge, and the others... So I think incorporating all those will again benefit the whole child. Similarly, Rachel IRE., Yr 3 referred to the features of meaningful experiences to describe why she would promote it in her practice: [Prioritising meaningful experiences] just makes it that bit more of a rounded lesson for the children; it just gives a better outcome for them. If you include the elements – that they enjoy it more, that they actually are still active, they’re still having fun, and that they’re kind of interacting, and they’re taking their own responsibility again. Kristen CAN., Yr 3 also referred to making physical education memorable and significant (Metheny, 1968), describing what she hoped pupils would experience in her classroom: I guess I would want them to not want to leave. I would want them to be caught up in the moment so much that they wouldn’t be waiting for it to be over… Giving them something that makes them think about it more. I think that’s really important, not to just say, ‘[PE] is over; I don’t have to think about it for a week.’ They should say, ‘I can’t wait till next week,’ or ‘I want to try this at home and show my brother or sister.’In identifying that she did not want pupils to leave, Kristen alludes to the continuity inherent in meaningful experiences are educative (Dewey, 1938), in that her pupils would find their physical education experience leading to a desire for more similar experiences (Quennerstedt, 2019). Something that stood out from the analysis was the ways in which LAMPE helped participants identify and describe a rationale for meaningful physical education that was previously tacit in their professional knowledge. For example, Kristen CAN., Yr 3 explained how her exposure to LAMPE through PETE coursework enabled her to better explain a rationale for meaningful experiences to herself and move beyond general descriptions about its importance: It’s one of those things you’re trying to instill as a life-long thing; to do sports or be physically fit, and if you have any sort of meaning attached to it, that’s kind of what makes it more important I think… It puts like the meaningful things into words, because before this class it was more of an abstract kind of feeling, but now it’s more like, ‘OK, I can see that’, and it’s better because then you can make it happen more often. Kristen’s reference to meaningfulness being ‘more of an abstract kind of feeling’ demonstrates how her tacit knowledge about meaningfulness had been difficult for her to pinpoint and explain prior to participating in the course. It might be inferred from her statement that Kristen already aspired to a particular kind of physical education that valued meaningfulness prior to being exposed to LAMPE. If that inference is upheld, her experiences in the course provided a practical and accessible language to describe that type of physical education. We interpret this using Freeman’s (1993) ideas about ways articulation helps beginning teachers to reconcile their local language of teaching – developed mainly through personal experiences of teaching and learning as school pupils – with a professional language of teaching suitable to formal contexts of teaching and learned from the PETE programme. These comments provide a snapshot of ways the enactment of LAMPE by teacher educators provided participants with access to a shared language for their intentions that some had struggled to identify previously. Data indicated that many participants expressed a commitment to promoting meaningful experiences. Some could articulate their learning about the why of meaningful physical education; however, we noted relatively few rich articulations amongst the complete data set. This may be due to our own understanding and enactment of LAMPE as teacher educators, which was developing in parallel with that of participants; at times, we faced similar struggles in articulating the why to ourselves and our students (Ní Chróinín et al., 2015). It may also be due to our own respective emphases of various aspects of LAMPE; for example, our teacher education practice may have led to a perceived emphasis on the what over the why. Articulating the features of meaningful experiencesAlthough participants’ articulation of why they would prioritise meaningful physical education often lacked a comprehensive rationale across the duration the project, this stood in contrast to articulation of the features of meaningful experiences. The features of meaningful physical education provide an indication of participants’ ability to articulate what meaningful experiences tend to consist of, while also being provisional and subjective. We noted several areas of promise and progress in how some participants used the features to articulate their learning.Consistency in the use of the features is demonstrated by considering a cross-sectional sample of participants’ responses across the duration of the project when asked what they could do in order for their pupils to experience meaningfulness in physical education. For example, Laura’s CAN., Yr 1 and Tara’s IRE., Yr 2 comments below are representative of the way in which many participants articulated the features of meaningful physical education in the first two years of the project, making reference to one or more features: [I would focus on] the development of the social, that kind of stuff. It really does put you in real life experiences and working together. It has a lot of life skills that people overlook. (Laura)I think emphasising the importance of fun in PE and in playing sport or in PE – the importance of having fun and enjoying playing with your friends… [I want pupils to say] that they learned a new skill, and that they enjoyed it, and I suppose that they could take home that sport is fun, and they’re confident as well. (Tara)Both Laura’s and Tara’s comments clearly show that their participation in LAMPE led them to prioritise certain features in their future teaching practice. For Laura, she suggests emphasising social interaction and personally relevant learning, while Tara refers to the role of fun, social interaction and motor competence. Similarly, Jason IRE., Yr 3 acknowledges the influence of the PETE course, stating: Before coming into this module I thought that fun and learning were the main things, but obviously if you get the just-right challenge, it will make it even better instead of children who are less able not being able to do it, and say the children who are advanced in their learning – instead of them being just bored. It can be inferred from Jason’s quote that the LAMPE framework provided him with the language to describe his tacit knowledge while also expanding it to include more specific aspects of practice (e.g. challenge) to support pupils’ experiences.These quotes taken across the first three years of the project provide evidence of some participants being able to articulate their learning through describing what they would do to promote meaningfulness; what they might focus on as part of their teaching practice and what they wanted their pupils to experience. Specifically, these participants identified features of meaningful physical education such as social interaction (both student-student and student-teacher), fun, personally relevant learning (learning ‘something good’), and challenge to guide what they would do. However, there were few clear indications that participants could readily tie these features to some of the broader purposes of physical education, explaining, for example, how personal relevance could lead pupils to become more agentic in seeking or advocating for movement opportunities they find valuable for their lives. It should also be noted here that several participants in both Canada and Ireland struggled to use the language of the features when asked to describe what they would do to prioritise meaningfulness in their practice. For example, several offered generic descriptions of ‘good’ pedagogical practice related to circulation around the gymnasium, body positioning, use of questioning, and so on.Participants in both Canada and Ireland articulated many common aspects of meaningful experiences but many emphasised different features. Specifically, many participants from Canada emphasised social interaction (e.g. Lauren Yr 3) while in Ireland challenge was frequently referred to (e.g. Gale Yr 2, Emery Yr 2). We suggest this reflects the flexibility of the LAMPE framework in that teacher educators can prioritise and draw from their own preferences and approaches (e.g. emphasising challenge or social interaction), while still providing a coherent form of PETE through using the shared language of meaningful experiences. It also allows pre-service teachers to reconcile their personal beliefs about teaching physical education with particular approaches, such as LAMPE, advocated in PETE programmes.Although most participants could articulate what features they would emphasise, many did so by simply listing them. Only some articulated ways they saw the features as integrated, with one informing and having implications for how pupils experienced others. In the two examples below Steven CAN., Yr 4 and FG Participant F IRE., Yr 2 make reference to the pedagogical principles of LAMPE as enacted in the PETE courses. Both participants noticed ways in which fun, social interaction, and motor competence could be integrated: I’m thinking back to the target games class specifically when [Tim] would have […] whoever’s standing off to the side start a conversation and you’d say three things about you when you’re not playing. So that definitely makes it more social, and I find that made it so much more fun… I find that makes it really meaningful. (Steven)Kind of getting the skill across and getting them to practice it, but in a fun way so they weren’t just throwing it for the sake of it. They were actually getting involved and running around laughing and having fun at the same time. (FG Participant F)In these quotes, Steven identifies how social interaction can lead to more fun, while FG Participant F infers that fun, motor competence (‘getting the skill across and getting them to practice’) and personally relevant learning (‘so they weren’t just throwing it for the sake of it’) were integrated. We suggest that participants who could articulate the integrated nature of the features perhaps have a more sophisticated pedagogical understanding of meaningfulness, particularly when compared with responses from other participants who may have listed the features in rote fashion. Thus, while these data demonstrate that many participants acquired and used the shared language of the PETE programme, there remained a distinct variability in how participants understood ways in which the features could be used to inform complex pedagogical decision-making and selection of appropriate strategies for pupil learning, or how the features could lead to engagement with some of the broader subject purposes of physical education. Articulating strategies for meaningful experiencesParticipants’ ability to articulate pedagogies and strategies to support meaningful experiences developed in parallel with our own. For instance, in the first two years many participants expressed a commitment to promoting meaningful experiences (why) and could name and identify features of meaningful physical education (what); however, their articulation of strategies (how) was often limited to general descriptions of pedagogical practice, for example: learning names and getting to know pupils based on their interests (Shannon CAN., Yr 2, FG Participant 1 CAN., Yr 1, FG Participant 3 CAN., Yr 1), being willing to veer from the original lesson plan (Thomas CAN., Yr 1, FG Participant 4 CAN., Yr 1, FG Participant F CAN., Yr 2), selecting developmentally appropriate activities (Laura CAN., Yr 1), encouraging maximum participation (FG Participant B IRE., Yr 2), and being enthusiastic about physical education (FG Participant 1 IRE., Yr 1, FG Participant J IRE., Yr 2). Similar responses were also readily apparent in analysis of data from the third and fourth years. We do not feel there is anything wrong with these general descriptions; indeed, they represent good physical education teaching in a broad sense. However, they do not necessarily emphasise meaningful experiences. Although participants were lacking in their ability to articulate how they would enact teaching strategies for meaningful physical education in the first two years of the project, there was some growth in the last two years. For example, many participants could link specific strategies to particular features of meaningful experiences, such as: using small groups to encourage social interaction; regularly modifying tasks to adjust and achieve an appropriate level of challenge; using new and novel games to build skill development and maintain interest; and asking students about their interests in physical activity outside of school. Regarding social interaction, Kristen CAN., Yr 3 suggested she would publicly acknowledge positive social behaviours in her classroom: ‘give them some sort of really positive feel-good thing about it, it wouldn’t matter if you were the strongest; you’d still feel good in class’, while Karlie CAN., Yr 3 said she would make a point of ‘talking to the kids one-on-one’. Others spoke about small group organisation, suggesting that groups should be altered to encourage social interactions amongst all of the class throughout a unit or term: ‘You get way different relationships in a group setting and not always with the same people’ (Nicole CAN., Yr 3). Motor competence and fun were other features that some participants felt could be experienced through using small-sided, novel games. In addition to using the features to help participants articulate strategies for meaningful experiences, pupil-centredness was commonly referred to as an appropriate overall pedagogical approach. Participants articulated what being pupil-centred meant or looked like both in general and specific terms. For example, in referring to pedagogies used in school placement, FG Participant 2 IRE., Yr 1 stated in general terms: ‘[My approach] was kind of student-focused because you kind of want to do what the kids enjoy as well.’ When asked to be specific about what they might do to foster pupil-centredness, the following are representative of participants’ thoughts: ‘Ask them what do they want to do’ (FG Participant 5 IRE., Yr 1) and: ‘Being flexible to keep going with an activity if they are enjoying it or move on if they are not’ (Shayla CAN., Yr 3). Our interpretation of these data is that these participants felt that asking pupils about their experiences – particularly related to the perceived quality of an experience – could inform how they made pedagogical decisions in their future teaching practice. However, these decisions were perhaps being attached to an overarching teaching philosophy aligned with pupil-centredness without a corresponding alignment with specific purposes of physical education. Along with suggesting what they could do to provide pupils with choices in their learning, several participants articulated why they felt this was important and identified several possible outcomes for pupils. Katie CAN., Yr 1 suggested she would have pupils themselves modify a task or activity stating: You give children or students very simple and very few rules so they themselves can learn by using their creativity to change the game in a way that makes it a ‘just right’ [challenge] … for them and their actual ability level. In Katie’s quote she suggests that encouraging pupils to think of ways to modify tasks could stimulate their creativity, their interest in the activity, and experience an appropriate level of challenge. Rachel IRE., Yr 3 felt that choice also had positive effects on pupils’ development of personal responsibility and their overall experience in physical education, stating: I think if you give them the responsibility for their own learning… they’re actually getting to do it by themselves, and their own ideas are being used and stuff. I think that the more responsibility they have, the more that they get out of it and the more that they enjoy it. We find it encouraging that many participants (as beginning teachers) demonstrated a willingness, and in some cases could articulate how, to support pupil choice through purposefully selected pedagogical approaches, taking on a role as ‘activity broker’ (Kretchmar, 2006), supporting pupils in making responsible decisions based on enjoyment, interest, and personal relevance for their learning. While we do not have data to support claims about them implementing these approaches, their responses may be indicative of their evolving beliefs about teaching physical education.While pupil-centred and autonomy-supportive strategies were mentioned most frequently by participants, other approaches identified – though far more infrequently – were to provide pupils with opportunities to set goals for themselves and to reflect on their learning. For example, Sarah CAN., Yr 3 felt goal setting provided pupils with levels of personal challenge, while Ava IRE., Yr 3 explained that goal setting helped her provide more specific feedback to pupils in relation to their goals. Kelsey CAN., Yr 3 recognised that pupils’ personal goals did not need to be limited to the physical domain, suggesting she might encourage pupils in her classes to set goals such as making ‘a new friend in this class’. Along with goal setting, Madison CAN., Yr 3 felt that reflection helped pupils understand why they were doing what they were doing and to recognise the relevance of certain experiences: ‘A lot of discussion really helps… to get them to understand why they are doing certain [tasks] or even getting them to understand how they can transfer those skills to everyday life.’ Hera CAN., Yr 4 made a similar observation: ‘I feel if you're not reflecting on what you've done or you don't know why you've done it then it’s lost its purpose.’ In Fran’s CAN., Yr 4 response, she linked pupil reflection to her own reflection as a teacher: I guess I would say I would try and focus more on making sure they’re enjoying themselves by talking to them and asking them, ‘Okay, do you like what we did today? Did you have fun doing what we did today? Are there things that I can do to help you more?’ because I feel we focus a lot on executing a skill but don’t focus as much on kids enjoying the activity.Also evident in Fran’s response is to have pupils reflect on the quality of their experience in physical education, focusing as much on their affective engagement as their physical engagement in the classroom.ConclusionsIn this paper, we examined how the pedagogical principles of LAMPE created a shared language through which a longitudinal sample of 90 pre-service teachers from two countries could articulate their learning, whereby meaningful experiences served as their filter for pedagogical decisions and thinking. Using a didactical research framework (Hudson and Meyer, 2011; Quennerstedt and Larsson, 2015), we sought to understand ways in which LAMPE helped participants identify and articulate a coherent approach to physical education by reimagining and recreating its philosophies and practices. By connecting and enabling the articulation of the why, what, and how of meaningful physical education, the shared language of LAMPE may provide one direction for reducing the theory-practice gap and for focusing the purposes of PETE (Badia and Becerril, 2016; Darling-Hammond, 2006; Quennerstedt and Larsson, 2015). There are several main findings. First, the LAMPE framework enabled many participants to elucidate tacit ideas using specific language to express a commitment to many of the ideas (the why) of meaningful physical education. In participants’ responses, strong emphasis was given to inclusive opportunities that gave attention to heightening the quality of pupils’ physical education experiences across learning domains. In many instances participants used the shared language of LAMPE by referring to the features of meaningful physical education (Beni et al., 2017) to support their ideas. Second, the features also provided a clear and accessible language for participants to articulate what they would do to promote meaningful experiences. Importantly, participants were able to identify different features based on either what the teacher educator in their PETE course had emphasised or what the participants themselves believed was important as part of a quality physical education experience. Those who demonstrated more complex understanding described the integrated nature of the features. Third, participants drew from their experiences of LAMPE to articulate both general and specific pedagogical strategies that would support the enactment of meaningful physical education. Some participants described strategies they believed enabled pupils to engage with the features of meaningful physical education (e.g. small groups provided a focus on social interaction or asking pupils to modify tasks, skills or equipment attended to challenge), while others referred in broad terms to approaches that supported autonomy, goal-setting, and reflection. As with most professional knowledge, the knowledge of teaching that pre-service teachers possess is often tacit and hard for them to articulate (Carter, 1990; Loughran, 2010). Our research shows that participants were to some extent able to articulate their learning about meaningful physical education by reconciling their local language of teaching with the professional knowledge espoused in the PETE programmes (Freeman, 1993). As Loughran (2010) suggests, helping pre-service teachers articulate their knowledge of the why, what, and how of teaching may enable the development of a deeper conceptual and pedagogical understanding of practice compared to simple recollections of ‘tips and tricks’, which often results in a disconnected understanding of the complexities that underpin teaching practice. Participants in this research often drew from their experiences in their PETE courses where the principles of LAMPE were articulated and enacted by teacher educators who made their practice a source of inquiry and knowledge for the participants (Loughran, 2013); that is, participants often connected their experiences as learners in the PETE courses with their visions for future teaching practice. This was in some ways surprising, as we thought many participants may have struggled to connect the meaningfulness of their own participation as learners in the PETE context with the meaningfulness we are aiming to have their pupils eventually experience as the participants become teachers. This attends to a call by Kostiainen?et al. (2018), who argue that more understanding is needed of how pre-service teachers personally construe and construct their learning experiences. Our research provides some insight on this based on ways participants made connections between their experiences of LAMPE as learners in the PETE courses and how they would approach future teaching. While we lacked sufficient data to demonstrate the enactment of these ideas in participants’ school teaching practice, their expressed intentions provide hope for their envisioned actions. While we are encouraged by many of the findings, and despite the longitudinal and international data set, we acknowledge several gaps in how participants articulated their learning and identify areas for future focus. For example, some participants could not articulate the why of meaningful physical education comprehensively and were not able to link ways in which meaningful physical education might support pupils in achieving some of the broader purposes of physical education, such as engaging in democratic practices or experiencing transformation; several used vague descriptions that lacked depth in justifying a rationale for meaningful physical education, while for several others, the purposes underpinning meaningful physical education did not align with the purposes they believed were important (e.g. obesity prevention or a win-at-all-costs attitude). As mentioned throughout the paper, this may be partially due to the ongoing development of our own understanding of pedagogies to support meaningful experiences throughout the duration of the project (Ní Chróinín et al., 2015) and our own attempts to explicitly connect the purposes of meaningful physical education (i.e. enriching quality of life) with what we see as congruent purposes of physical education. We acknowledge the challenges in achieving this type of comprehension in one course amongst many in a PETE programme and without a significant amount of school-based teaching experience upon which to apply their learning, but feel these observations may serve as a guide for future attention or emphasis. It may also be that some of the evidence of learning we observed was at least partially due to the self-selection of participants in the research process. That is, many participants may have volunteered to participate in individual or focus group interviews because they felt an affinity to the ideas of meaningful physical education in the first place. We therefore recommend that other teacher educators experiment with the principles of LAMPE (Ní Chróinín et al., 2018) in their own contexts and examine instances of alignment and misalignment of purpose, understanding and misunderstanding for themselves and the pre-service teachers with whom they work. Moreover, in order to extend the chains of inquiry from teacher education and into schools, there is strong value and potential to identify ways in which the principles of meaningful physical education impact upon pupil learning in schools. If meaningful physical education is indeed one way to help reduce distortion and fragmentation in physical education (Ennis, 2017; Thorburn, 2018) then there is value in further exploring pedagogies that support its enactment.This research makes a significant contribution by demonstrating how a specific pedagogical approach to PETE (LAMPE) focused on promoting meaningful experiences supported a longitudinal sample of pre-service teachers in accessing their tacit knowledge of teaching to articulate their learning in terms of the why, what, and how of meaningful physical education. The LAMPE framework therefore provides direction on ways that PETE can influence pre-service teachers’ understanding of how to create coherent physical education programmes and experiences that links the why, what and how. Specifically, LAMPE offers a coherent and shared language that can be used across teacher education programmes, while also being flexible enough to allow individual teacher educators and pre-service teachers to emphasise certain features of meaningful physical education (such as social interaction, challenge or motor competence) based on personal beliefs or, more importantly, the needs and interests of pupils in their local contexts. Reference ListBadia A and Becerril L (2016) Renaming teaching practice through teacher reflection using critical incidents on a virtual training course. Journal of Education for Teaching 42(2): 224-238.Bakkenes I, Vermunt JD and Verloop N (2010) Teacher learning in the context of educational innovation: Learning activities and learning outcomes of experienced teachers. Learning and Instruction 20(6): 533-548.Beni S, Fletcher T and Ní Chróinín D (2017) Meaningful experiences in physical education and youth sport: A review of the literature. 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Curriculum Inquiry 43(1): 118-141.Metheny E (1968) Movement and meaning. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.Ní Chróinín D, Fletcher T and O’Sullivan M (2015) Using self-study to explore the processes of pedagogical innovation in physical education teacher education. Asia-Pacific Journal of Health, Sport and Physical Education 6(3): 273-286.Ní Chróinín D, Fletcher T and O’Sullivan M (2018). Pedagogical principles of learning to teach meaningful physical education. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy 23(2): 117-133. O’Connor J (2019) Exploring a pedagogy for meaning-making in physical education. European Physical Education Review 25(4): 1093-1109. O’Sullivan M (2014) Where we go from here: Developing pedagogies for PETE and the use of self-study in physical education and teacher education. In A Ovens and T Fletcher (Eds) Self-study in physical education teacher education. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. pp.169-180. Penney D (2017) Big policies and a small world: an analysis of policy problems and solutions in physical education. Sport, Education and Society 22(5): 569-585.Quennerstedt M (2019) Physical education and the art of teaching: transformative learning and teaching in physical education and sports pedagogy. Sport, Education and Society 24(6): 611-623.?Quennerstedt M and Larsson H (2015) Learning movement cultures in physical education practice. Sport, Education and Society 20(5): 565-572.Shulman LS (1986) Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher 15(2): 4-14.Thorburn M (2018) John Dewey, subject purposes and schools of tomorrow: A centennial reappraisal of the educational contribution of physical education. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 19(1): 22-28. Zanting A, Verloop N and Vermunt JD (2001) Student teachers eliciting mentors’ practical knowledge and comparing it to their own beliefs. Teaching and Teacher Education 17(6): 725-740.Author biographiesTim Fletcher is an associate professor at Brock University, Canada.Déirdre Ní Chróinín is head of the Department of Arts Education and Physical Education and Senior Lecturer at Mary Immaculate College, Ireland.Mary O’Sullivan is professor emeritus at University of Limerick, Ireland. Stephanie Beni is a PhD candidate at Brock University, Canada. ................
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