Purpose: Many Australian schools are failing to provide children with the necessary skills or opportunities to become physically active across the lifespan. Education authorities, school executives and teachers are reluctant to make policy and programming changes for issues they perceive to be outside the core business of student learning. Integrating physically active lessons into the mathematics curriculum has the potential to increase physical activity, reduce sedentary time and enhance learning.
Methods: Building on the success of the EASY Minds cluster RCT for improving student physical activity levels, and academic outcomes an evidence-based professional learning workshop (Thinking while Moving) and online resources were developed for dissemination. During 2016-2017, 21 workshops were presented across NSW, Australia, for teachers (n=482) from public schools (n=282). Follow-up surveys were administered and a stratified random sample of participants were interviewed using a semi-structured discussion framework.
Results: Evaluation revealed high participant rating (out of five) for positive impact on teaching skills 4.83 (.43) and confidence to teach movement-based mathematics 4.71 (.47). Survey and interview data revealed that 87.5% of attendees developed their own lessons since attending the workshop, and over 50 % have integrated physical activity in other curriculum areas. Themes emerging from qualitative analysis included improved student mathematical engagement and motivation, and barriers to implementing integrated lessons prevail. Interestingly 95% of participants expressed a desire to attend similar training to align physical activity with the school English curriculum.
Conclusions: The Thinking while Moving program was successfully implemented as dissemination supported by the Department of Education, and was highly rated by teachers. Programs that are designed to increase children’s physical activity and also enhance their academic outcomes are likely to be particularly attractive to teachers, especially if they are designed in partnership with education authorities (e.g., NSW Department of Education), who have a vested interest in dissemination.
