The AIESEP Limerick conference from my perspective was one of pretty high quality. It was a thoroughly enjoyable conference, during both the academic communications and the social sessions. As is customary with these get togethers, the importance of networking with colleagues close and abroad was important from my perspective as a mechanism to develop my international networks. These opportunities were facilitated from the organising committee as early as breakfast on the morning of the registration where I had the pleasure of meeting colleagues from Germany (Hans-Peter Bred.....), Italy (Attilio Carraro), New Zealand (Ben Dyson), Finland (Hans-Erik ROmar) and France (Olivier Vors).
The opening reception was very pleasant and presented some more wonderful opportunities to further engage with other physical educators from around the world. This was followed by a provocative keynote speech from Professor Scott Kretchmar, Penn-State University, who presented us with a philosophic insight into ‘play disability’ and the importance of physical educators to present or nurture ‘movement playgrounds’. In a genuinely interesting take there was critique on dualisms, the importance of the good life, and role of physical educators in engaging individuals with their movement playgrounds. In my brief discussion with Professor Kretchmar after his keynote, he told me that this keynote was some ongoing and developing work from his book section on Creating Moving Playgrounds in his Practical Philosophy of Sport and Physical Activity book. These continuing developments of ideas were supported by one of his doctoral students, Cesar Torres (so we may need to watch this space!). Scott was also a kind gentlemen thoroughly excited by the prospect of engaging with physical education teachers, researchers and teacher educators to further understand and develop these ideas. (Postscript – when I caught up with Scott towards the end of the conference he was very positive in his praise on what he heard, saw and was presented with across the duration of the conference!).
What was clear from my perspective is the importance of physical education teacher educators to research and reflect on their own practice. This concept, idea, approach developed initially from the keynote address of Professor Fred Korthagen, Utrecht University and was then followed up by Kirsten Petrie (University of Waikato) and Ashley Casey (University of Bedfordshire) as invitees to the conversation by Emeritus Professor Judy Oslin (Kent State University), who presented a response to Korthagen’s work. Judy drew on a diverse set of ideas as ways of informing/different ways of knowing* from emotions (McCaughtry, 2004), caring (Fernandez-Balboa), self-study (Brown, 2011), auto-ethnography (Armour, 2006) and visual images (Pope, 2011). I am lucky that at Monash University there are several researchers who have excelled in this area of research, the now Dean, Professor John Loughran (see books such as What Expert Teachers Do – Allen and Unwin and Developing a Pedagogy of Teacher Education – Routledge) and Amanda Berry are a couple that might be able to facilitate a way forward. Hopefully I will get a chance to catch up with them and further discuss some of these important issues. I also know that there are several researchers that are interested in self-study and what it can provide the profession. I must continue these conversations with the likes of Ash Casey (Beds), Ann MacPhail (Limerick) and others.
Other keynote presentations from Clive Pope and Tony Hall each had the audience in reflective frames of minds. They both pondered questions of importance, Clive’s powerful keynote on ‘Society gets the individual it deserves: implications for sport pedagogy’ was provocative and highlighted the importance of engagement. It resonated strongly with me as it suggested an important link with meaning and meaning-making. I also concur with Clive’s thoughts on the passing of Peter Arnold. Tony’s presentation on ‘Technologies in support of Physical Education, Sport and Physical Activity’ took a very different take on the importance of technology as tools. The engagement of his philosophical background really reiterated the importance of experience in moving related activities, inclusive of technological oriented activities such as Kinect, Wii and other virtual devices. It was refreshing to hear a optimistic and good news story, as opposed to the deficit model of thinking that such technologies are always so neagative and a cause of destruction and disease.
I would encourage any physical educator interested in what is happening in the field to peruse that submitted abstracts at the following URL – http://www.iccbookings.com/AIESEP2011/AIESEP%202011%20Conference%20electronic%20book%20of%20abstracts.pdf . There are so many wonderful areas that research has been conducted on that it is really difficult to list them all here.
Some highlights for mine:
• H-PETE mentoring that is occurring at the University of Queensland (Louise McCuaig)
• Doctoral work by Bronwyn Nicholson (also UQ, under the tutelage of Prof Richard Tinning). One part of the project involves an interesting technique known as citation analysis. A complex but really interesting phenomena which if played out in our field could provide a richness of our citation and referencing approaches.
• Supervision and professional practices with PETE students in Ireland (Dublin City University; Sarah-Jane Belton and Queensland (QUT; Craig Daly)
• The doctoral work of Chang-Hyun Lee (supervisors, David Kirk and Toni O’Donovan) in teacher education at Bedfordshire. The interests are related around the importance of practical knowledge, Arnold and PETE.
• All of Ash Casey’s work – models based practice, cooperative learning (I need to learn more about this one for myself and benefits of my students).
• The really interesting work in the primary ITE PETE session. It was great to see how and what each country was doing with regard to primary level school physical education.
Follow me on Twitter (@DrTrentBrown) or alternatively drop me an email.
Trent
6th July 2011.
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