Blended professional development in physical education: merging long-distance with face-to-face ongoing support

Abstract

The study focuses on the use of blended professional development (BPD).That is, merging long-distance and face-to-face professional development (PD) characteristics to introduce a physical education pedagogical model to a primary (i.e., elementary) school physical education teacher. This study sought to: (a) to contextually describe how a BPD in Student-Designed Games (SDG) approach was designed and delivered, and (b) identify how the BPD was aligned with O’Sullivan and Deglau (2006) Principles of PD Design and Delivery. Data collection included lesson plans, observations and interviews. Data analysis was undertaken through the BPD indepth description and a systematic process of deductive analysis using O’Sullivan and Deglau (2006) as the theoretical framework. Three key finding emerged relating to: (1) empowering the teacher, (2) meaningful learning in contextualised environments, and (3) ongoing support. The BPD incorporated 4 stages of delivery: preparation, learning game categories, adjustment to students’ background and supporting students to refine games. Through these stages the BPD was able to provide: (i) a balance between the teacher’s background knowledge and PD vision; (ii) meaningful learning in contextualised environments; . However, it should be recognised that the nature of this PD project was challenging to implement because of the high level of time commitment required.