The paper titled ‘Digital technology and teacher digital competency in physical education: a holistic view of teacher and student perspectives’, has been selected as the 2023 Most Outstanding Paper for the journal of Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education.
The main criteria for this award relates to the quality of manuscript in relation to its significance to the field and its theoretical and research frameworks. The lead author Jason Wallace was a PME PE UL Graduate and former Teaching Assistant in the Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences at UL.
This paper aimed to explore teacher competency in applying digital technology into their physical education class and identify if students’ motivation levels change as a result of integrating digital technology into physical education class. In doing so, we have revealed the complexities physical education teachers face in the integration of digital technology in the teaching and learning process. Personal (and student) biographies and contextual school barriers were identified as having a discouraging influence on the integration of digital technology in the enactment of teaching and learning. We provide some practical recommendations. First, teachers must understand it is crucial to marry technology, pedagogy, content, context, infrastructure, student voice, etc., when in the planning phase of a lesson. Secondly, we must create an option for progressive webinars which advance in levels as teachers familiarise themselves with the content and the described complex and entangled relationships. Finally, when designing digital frameworks, there should be a focus on balancing the teaching/learning aspects with effective and appropriate technology integration, and a more holistic understanding of the pedagogy-technology dichotomy.
Full text and reference below:
Wallace, J., Scanlon, D. and Calderón, A., 2022. Digital technology and teacher digital competency in physical education: a holistic view of teacher and student perspectives. Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education, 14(3), 271-287. https://doi.org/10.1080/25742981.2022.2106881
PESS News & Information 