Movement matters: the experiences of students and their teacher involved in a combined physical activity and academic program Curriculum and identity making in room 27
Date
2011-03
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
Type
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
As a teacher within a special needs classroom of students ranging in age from 13 to 22, I observed first-hand the outcomes of unhealthy habits, behavioural issues, and academic struggles. In response to these learning and behavioral difficulties within my high school classroom, I created and implemented a Movement Matters Program consisting of a combined exercise and academic program for my students. The program produced phenomenal results within its first year. This thesis is a manuscript style thesis consisting of two embedded papers as central themes. The first paper highlights the development of Movement Matters and the challenges and successes experienced by myself, the classroom teacher, and my students. The second paper is a narrative inquiry that shares the experiences of two students engaged in Movement Matters and myself, as their teacher, and graduate student researcher. Over the course of two months I inquired into the ways that their school experiences and their relationships with the teacher, classmates, and subject matter influenced the way they composed their stories to live by. Also threaded through this thesis is an abundance of data, such as anecdotal records, pre and post academic and fitness tests, and student journals. Field notes, taped conversations and observations with each of the two youth captured stories and realities of their experiences and are inter-twined with the literature and the theory. These experiences and relationships are negotiated carefully using Nodding’s ethics of care. Both my experiences and my students’ experiences are situated alongside Dewey’s Criteria of Experience within a narrative framework. Using research, I wanted to understand and retell their stories as well as link Clandinin and Connelly’s commonplaces of narrative inquiry: place, temporality, and sociality.
Description
Keywords
narrative inquiry, curriculum, Connelly, Clandinin, Dewey, Noddings, movement matters, relationships, obesity, brain, exercise, physical education, physical activity, holistic
Citation
Degree
Master of Education (M.Ed.)
Department
Curriculum Studies
Program
Curriculum Studies