Mapping physical education teachers’ professional learning and impacts on pupil learning in a community of practice in South Korea

ABSTRACT

Background: A new national physical education (PE) curriculum has been developed in South Korea and PE teachers have been challenged to deliver new transferable educational outcomes in character development through PE. In one geographical area, in order to support teachers to make required changes, a Communities of Practice (CoP) approach to continuing professional development (CPD) was adopted. Rather than being based in a single-school, this CoP brought PE teachers together from a number of schools with the aim of sharing learning and impacting on pedagogies, practices and pupils’ learning in character development through PE.

Aims: To map and analyse the ways in which teachers (i) learnt about character education in a CoP, (ii) used this learning to inform their pedagogies and practices, and (iii) impacted on pupil learning in and beyond PE.

Method: The participants were a university professor, 8 secondary school PE teachers from 8 different schools and 41 pupils. Data collection was undertaken in two phases in Autumn 2014 and Spring 2015. In-depth qualitative data were collected in the CoP and the teachers’ schools using individual interviews, focus groups with pupils, observations of lessons, open-ended questionnaires and document analysis. Data were analysed using a constructivist revision of grounded theory.

Findings: There was clear evidence of teacher learning in the CoP and changes to their pedagogies and indirect teaching behaviours (ITBs). Pupils were also able to identify the new intended learning about character development at both cognitive and behavioural levels, although there was little evidence of understanding about or intention to transfer this learning beyond PE (which was the original aim of the Government’s character education initiative). Barriers to teacher and pupil learning are also discussed.

Conclusion: Teachers’ professional learning in the CoP impacted on the development of both teachers’ pedagogies and ITBs which then influenced pupils’ learning, however, linking teachers’ professional learning to pupils’ learning remains challenging. This study has added further insights into the complexity of the processes linking policy, teachers’ learning and pupils’ learning outcomes. While it was possible to trace clear pathways from the CoP to teachers’ learning, and in some cases to pupils’ learning, it was also apparent that a wide range of factors intervened to influence the learning outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Continuing professional development (CPD)
• communities of practice (CoP)
• physical education (PE)
• CPD impact on PE teacher learning
• CPD impact on pupil learning in PE

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Kathleen M. Armour http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1430-7420

Notes

1. As Angrosino (2007) argues that it is difficult for researcher(s) to have a ‘complete observer’ position because of his/her presence in the field which inevitably, directly, or indirectly, impacts on research participants' actions. However, PE class observations undertaken in this project were most close to the concept of ‘complete observer’ among the seven types of roles of observation.

2. The CoP created an online café which is similar to a group Facebook page in 2004. Teachers uploaded their teaching plans and PE diaries so that they were able to share them.