An American in Paris

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

“Thanks for coming all the way from the Swiss Alps. Are the huskiesoutside?”

This was the greeting I received from Garr Reynolds as I arriveda little late to his Presentation Zen seminarin Paris. I quickly fired out some lame retort and a humble apology, settled my80 li... read more...

Primeval me

Wednesday, 15 December 2010

Primeval Me by Nalda Wainwright

The cold weather gripping the country hasmade me very glad of the log burner in my lounge.  Whilst sawing and chopping new supplies ofwood, I was wondering why this is one of my favourite jobs. Perhaps it is thephysicality keeping me war... read more...

A response to Ashley's Blog about Blogging

Friday, 03 December 2010

Blogging as reflecting - By Saul Keyworth

As physical educators’ we are well versed in thedesirability of ‘warming up’ appropriately. On contemplating our researchendeavours it may be apt to consider ‘blogging’ in such light. Pondering overfragments of ideas, will as Ashley ... read more...

Reflection: from 'paper and pen' blogging to the web

Friday, 26 November 2010

A focus in the physical education and sport pedagogyresearch group has been on getting our new doctoral students to use blogging asa reflective tool. The challenge for these novice researchers/bloggers is towrite exactly 200 words once a week on ‘something’ of significance to them. Part... read more...

What has been said about Models-based practice?

Tuesday, 16 November 2010

I have talked before about model-based practice (i.e.alternative approaches to teaching in physical education that put the student’slearning at the top of the agenda and which seeks to align teaching, learningand content). I believe that these models-based approaches are the future ofteac... read more...

Challenges and Opportunities of using Game-Centered approaches to teaching, coaching and learning

Monday, 01 November 2010

Dr. Ashley Casey invited me to contribute a ‘blog’ about Game-Centered approaches to teaching, coaching and learning such as Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU), to his Practitioner Research Network website.  As Armour (2010) has recently stated, sport pedagogy is a field wh... read more...

Working with alternatives pedagogies that work

Tuesday, 26 October 2010

A month ago in my blog ‘are alternative pedagogies good foryour teaching’ I proposed a series on Models-Based practice or MBP. Howeversince then I have been unable to convince my guest bloggers to blog and my timehas been caught up in matters of work. I thought before tackling this series... read more...

The Idea of Professional Development and its discontents

Tuesday, 12 October 2010

In his inaugural lecture at Leeds Metropolitan University Professor David Kirk developed a discussion around the past, present and future of physical education. Drawing on Sheldon Rothblatt’s The modern university and its discontents (1997) David argued that the significance of Rothblatt’s work... read more...

Professional Development: Needs for a new professional role

Tuesday, 05 October 2010

I must open this blog with an apology. In my last blog I promised that it was the first of a series of blogs about models-based practices but, as they say, something came up. I have lined up David Kirk, Ben Dyson and Peter Hastie to write a guest blog in this series but all are snowed u... read more...

Are alternative pedagogies good for your teaching?

Tuesday, 21 September 2010

The pages of research journals, professional magazines, websites and conference bookstands are filled with miracle cures and wonder drugs designed to transform our teaching lives. However, it is like entering a 19th century health store with its interesting aromas and its rows upon rows of pill b... read more...

Schools and healthy lifestyles

Thursday, 09 September 2010

Day four began with a Phys Ed session exploring perspectives on physical education. The first paper explored physical education on YouTube. After examining 1000s of videos, titled as physical education specific, these were then reduced through this initial viewing  into a data set of over 25... read more...

Practitioners researching their own practices

Wednesday, 08 September 2010

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Self-determination theory - helping students to become autonomously motivated in physical education

Monday, 06 September 2010

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Physical Education: re-discovering pedagogy

Tuesday, 31 August 2010

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“Red door and back!” : Bad Habits in Physical Education

Saturday, 28 August 2010

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Back to basics?

Tuesday, 10 August 2010

This blog has emerged out of a manufactured chance retweet on twitter. My preferred means of access my twitter account is through tweetdeck as it allows me to view concurrent columns very easy and navigation between them is simple. One of my column is a search on the term "phys ed" in the hope of... read more...

Filling a gap (or just another brick in the wall)

Thursday, 29 July 2010

Websites. We see lots of them every day; scores in a week, hundreds in a month (you get the idea) but what makes the good ones stand out? Why do people return to a website? We are supposed to be in an age of web 2.0 where everything is about interaction and yet a lot of websites annoy me still. T... read more...

Research into the use of technology in Physical Education

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

The dominant discourse in physical education over the last three decades has been focused on the staid pedagogical foundation of the subject. The teaching of physical education seems to have been set and generations of teachers have been content to replicate the practices of their teachers and th... read more...

Being a Piano Player

Tuesday, 20 July 2010

When I was a young rugby player someone said to me "there are two types of Rugby players: Piano Carriers and Piano Players and you, my son, are a carrier; now let the players' play and the carriers' carry." He was less than subtly telling me that as a forward I should do the heavy lifting and hau... read more...

Student-designed games

Friday, 16 July 2010

I started working with student-designed games (SDG) last year and was excited by the depth of learning it engendered in my pupils. I have subsequently left secondary education and now work in a university but my interest in SDG has remained. We have started to use snippets of these ideas with our... read more...

New ways to the problem of living

Thursday, 24 June 2010

As those who follow me on twitter will know I have been at the 16 International Reflective Practice Conference this week exploring with other practitioners in nursing and education the notion of 'Reflection in Action.' I felt that it would be useful, and possibly mildly interesting, to try and ti... read more...

The hardest part...

Thursday, 17 June 2010

The hardest part...
 
And the hardest part

Was letting go, not taking part

Was the hardest part

And the strangest thing

Was waiting for that bell to ring

It was the strangest start

I could feel it go down

Bittersweet, I co... read more...

The Appliance of Science

Thursday, 10 June 2010

I received my iPad a couple of days ago and I keep trying to find reasons to use it. It is wonderful as a toy but I am yet to really make it work for its money. I have an idea that it will work wonderfully and make the technologically enhanced (and maybe dependant) parts of my day even more enjoy... read more...

Is it time for an anti-ablest pedagogy?

Wednesday, 02 June 2010

We traditionally have an ablest approach to teaching. We definitely have an ablest approach to teaching physical education. Those who can are encouraged to do and those who don't or won't well there just not trying despite our best efforts. But it is these 'best' efforts that encourage those who ... read more...

Teaching Games for Understanding

Wednesday, 26 May 2010

This approach to teaching put the game first. However this is not a playing games just to keep students 'busy, happy and good' this is putting the game first so as to help students become intelligent performers. Teaching games for understanding (or TGfU) was developed at Loughborough University i... read more...

Does Continued Professional Development do anything?

Tuesday, 18 May 2010

I am just reading up about continued professional development (CPD) and it simply doesn't seem to achieve anything of note. Of course I am talking in general terms but the research I am reading is certainly worrying. My own CPD, well at least until I started my personal higher degree acquisition ... read more...

Birth of the un-modern school?

Saturday, 15 May 2010

In his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison Michel Foucault (1977) suggests that schools adopted their current form at around the same time as prisons, factories and barracks. Foucault's chapter Docile Bodies (pp. 135-169) supported the idea that the labour process (Hamilton, 1990)... read more...

Creating a virtual staffroom

Tuesday, 11 May 2010

As I have said previously, I have secured funding available to create a physical education practitioner research network to serve the schools and teachers in the local area. However, I want to help to built something that:

• Is transformative
• encourages collaboration
• i... read more...

I'm a teacher... get me into here!

Saturday, 08 May 2010

This is the sentiment that I would like to inspire in the teachers in the local community. Continued Professional Development (CPD) in Education and physical education has been derided and some have described it as being ineffectual (at best). Why?

Because it's:

• a one-off<... read more...

The expertise of the practitioner

Wednesday, 05 May 2010

Teachers have suffered from bad press of late (and some would argue not just of late). Their professionalism has been questions and every kind of third party, from politicians to business 'gurus', has lined up to take a shot at them and find ways of limiting their creativity and controlling their... read more...

Physical Education is...?

Tuesday, 27 April 2010

I saw this argument discussed (or mentioned) on twitter and thought I would try and answer it. I am not sure that there is a simple response but it tests my understanding and my ability to articulate a balanced argument. It is worth noting that (if you have even read this far) that I am not going... read more...

Cooperation rather than just collaboration

Tuesday, 20 April 2010

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. Albert Einstein

I would have argued that there... read more...

Action Research for the Reflective Teacher

Thursday, 15 April 2010

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

http://www.slideshare.net/DrAshCasey/reflective-teacher

Making Cooperation part of your teaching

Tuesday, 13 April 2010

I have been interested in the use of cooperative learning in my teaching for a number of years. My interest grew out of my realisation that it wasn't enough to believe that cooperation was an automatic and assumed part of my teaching and instead I decided that I had to make it a key component. My... read more...

The action research cycle

Wednesday, 07 April 2010

I thought it might be useful to look at the action research cycle itself and use a technological example, which seems to be on the agenda of many physical education teachers, from my own teaching. However, firstly I will attempt to clarify the action research process. In his seminal paper Action ... read more...

Finding a starting point for teachers-as-researchers

Saturday, 03 April 2010

This first post is dedicated to a number of people:

Kurt Lewin who first coined the phrase "action research" and who envisioned social change as a collaboration with all those involved rather than as a systemic ‘top-down’ hotchpotch solution.

John Collier who tried to find a solu... read more...