2015: A New Start

To understand my reflective choices up to this point in my Physical Education module, refer to:

I call the 2015 year a new start because even though the 2014 year was a difficult one, working with a new student group provided me with the opportunity to start afresh. Before I reflect on the 2015 student feedback, in addition to my reflections on 2013 and the 2014 years I reflected on the following:

Large class pedagogy and hence the need to divide the group of 115 students into two.
I changed my morning lecture pedagogical approaches to include video footage, debates and brain breaks that were movement based, Physical Education Teacher Education research together with student-centered research guided this process.
Peer based-assignments where reintroduced but with an emphasis on reflections in class that required students to answer questions based on the work they had completed.
I added four facilitators which helped me implement the module with the large classes
Other than continuing my own practical experiences at lower socio-economic schools I decided to join a higher socio-economic school for additional opportunities to collaborate and work with teachers in schools.
I added a research project on the health and skill related components of fitness of first year foundation phase students to share with students.
I engaged more with literature pertaining to movement-through-education and kinesthetic, visual and auditory integrated lessons to improve educational experiences and fundamental movement skill programming.
I engaged more with literature on student-centered learning.

Table 1 highlights the major changes to my 2015 Physical Education module and the accompanying student perceptions of the value-added to the learning process out of 5. A score of 1 to 3 refers to low to average value whereas a score of 4 and 5 refers to much and extreme value added. These perceptage reflections are from a sample of 115 students.

When interpreting the results in table 1, refer to the literature I sources hyperlinked above which pertain to namely large class pedagogy, peer based learning, education-through-movement and hence kinesthetic, visual and auditory integrated activities for learning and student-centered learning.

It becomes clear that the activities students enjoyed the most were those that were visually, auditory and kinesthetically engaging. Namely the afternoon practical sessions with the seven facilitators (76%) and the morning lectures where visual content and debates where used to engage students (81%). The afternoon sessions were based on pedagogically sound physical education programming and conducted by the facilitators which I aimed to train well. Physical activity is an endorphin releasing, peer engaging, cognitively stimulating and 'get out your comfort zone' type of module and so it is not surprising that students experiences in physical education where positive. With the reflections on my personal experience and literature from the year 2013 and 2014, the year 2015 was a definite success is terms of my practical sessions.

What I became aware of this year was that training four facilitators was no easy task, especially considering that these facilitators had no formal background in physical education. The student body and my reflections on the facilitators additionally got me thinking about mentorship programs and improving how I engage with my senior students. As this was my first year managing four facilitators I felt that I had to find a way to pay them for the long hours they invested and to improve my mentorship. This resulted in my applying for the Teaching and Development Innovation (TDIF) fund for the year 2016.

To understand the poorer results for the group based assignments (written and practical), class test feedback and the moodle site, the following can be considered:

Interaction with the lecturer, me, seemed to receive poorer scores (68% indicated it added value). Reasons noted for the poorer reviews where that I tend to talk a lot. Hence although certain activities I had mastered in terms of a student-centered approach, I was not using these techniques in my class setting yet.
The low rating for the written group assignment marks (only 45% of students rated that it added much or extreme value) was found to be due to students either splitting the questions between each other and not fully engaging with the content in groups and students living off campus not having the opportunity to engage with their peers. My personal opinion and based on peer based learning is that students do not know enough about group work dynamics and hence do not fully value the learning experience. Future group based initiatives would have to start in class and be explained and the scaffolded.
What I found interesting was that more than half the class did not value the class 1 and 2 test feedback sessions we did in our lectures together (48%). I would have thought students would want to reflect on their test marks so that their next test scores can be improved upon. Perhaps the teacher-centered approach used to going through the questions explains this (reading out answer).
The peer practical presentations only 65% of students valued highly. The main reasons noted was that students felt awkward presenting to their peers . Although Kim, Lee, Ward and Lai (2015:14) state that peer teaching is a way to improve content and pedagogical knowledge of physical education students, I find that with first years the group moral, the Ubuntu culture students and self-confidence barriers overshadows the benefits of group activity. As mentioned earlier, students need to be trained to work in groups and to learn effectively. These are soft skills many do not possess but are crucial for the real-world experience. The reflections on student soft skills and academic literacies started to become a prominent feature in my thinking.
Peer practicals were additionally valued highly by only 65% of the student body as real world application with Foundation Phase students needed (as indicated by Brown, Wilmot and Ash, 2015). Unfortunately since the year 2013 I have not been able to organise school visits. What I have done though is request that the module be placed in their third year where practicals are part of what they do.
The moodle site use and blended learning scored poorly with 61% of students deeming it as highly valuable (see feedback) . The reasons noted for the negative reviews was due to me being 1) one of the only lecturer using Moodle site and hence most students not being accustomed to it (no departmental culture of blended learning), 2) the fact that many students come from lower socio-economic areas and hence do not have smartphones and or money to access videos, pdfs, websites and so forth, 3) the university has not got enough computer labs and 4) a printed user-manual was deemed more user-friendly.

The following summarizes the implications of the 2015 findings:

Apply for funding support to senior facilitators and aim to investigate mentoring as a mode of interaction.

Find someone to critically analyse how to teach as the teacher-centered approach tends to feature often

Find out about first year student academic literacy and how to merge soft skill training into the physical education course.

Revise the use of blended learning as the student body does not have the computer and or funding support to use it. Also, look at creating a more user-friendly website

Revise the use of peer based assignments

To see what happened in the year 2016 based on these reflections, refer to 2016: Habits Die Hard.