Valuing movement: A case study of the pedagogical potential of embodied learning in physical education

Innovative and transformative teaching strategies for enhancing learning outcomes ‘in’ physical education (PE) are of interest to most practitioners. This is especially true in the context of re-imagined approaches to the... [ view full abstract ]

Innovative and transformative teaching strategies for enhancing learning outcomes ‘in’ physical education (PE) are of interest to most practitioners. This is especially true in the context of re-imagined approaches to the discipline which centralise the lifewide and lifelong health, wellbeing and movement needs of young people. Supporting young people to value movement is emerging as a substantive educational purpose as well as pedagogical approach with potential to also influence leisure and occupational outcomes by focusing on the ways in which meaning making occurs ‘in’ movement over time. We argue this educative purpose should include providing learning moments where young people are moved by the feel (sight, sound, smell, taste) of moving and then supported to make meaning from this embodied experience (now and in the future). By engaging with phenomenological concepts through the work of Smith (2007), Kretchmar (2000, 2011) and Stolz (2015) we seek to provide pedagogical examples that are underpinned by these kind of ‘embodied learning’ moments and that can be deployed as ‘embodied pedagogies’ in PE. Using a variety of data collection methods (ranging from observation and interviews, to document collection and photography) from our separate research projects in two quite different contexts (a secondary school and fire fighting camps) we present a narrative inquiry case study about young people feeling, making sense of and experiencing embodied moments ‘in’ movement. Together we re-consider the future role of PE as a space that is responsive to the ways in which movement is experienced and felt, and the embodied meanings and learnings to be derived from that. To that end we use the case studies to interrogate and extend the notions of ‘valuing movement’ and ‘embodied learning’ to identify and then build a repertoire of practical ‘embodied pedagogies’ which we present as teaching and learning activities for PE classrooms.