Search

Teachers in contemporary schools carry a host of work-related responsibilities. As such, the act of teaching (delivering content) is only one aspect of being a teacher. Interactions with colleagues, administrators, and students combine to form a complex socialization process as teachers, especially novice teachers in their induction years, learn to navigate the sociopolitical climate and culture of schools. In many schools, professional learning communities (PLCs) are utilized as one method for continuous professional development, but these formations introduce unique considerations for a teacher's socialization because of the various ways they are structured. Guided by Occupational Socialization Theory, this self-study explores Molly's experiences navigating two school cultures during her induction years. Molly's graduate school experience coincided with her induction years of teaching in the K-12 setting. As Molly learned more about PLCs in her master's program, she desired to learn how she could more fully contribute to them. Molly found her reflections returning repeatedly to the notions of belonging and community while striving to find her way as a beginning teacher. Implications from this study include the necessity to conceptualize teaching as more than delivering content. Schools are political spaces with built-in mechanisms designed to reproduce the culture. Teachers in physical education have often reported feeling marginalized within the school community. Physical education teachers may need more experience with cross-curricular collaborative work designed to improve the learning and well-being of young people. Learning how to specifically contribute to and navigate PLC school structures is perhaps underemphasized in teacher preparation programs.

Purpose: Drawing from occupational socialization theory and social capital theory, the purpose of this study was to investigate the socialization of physical education teachers in a professional learning community during induction. Method: Because this investigation consisted of a single school, a single instrumental case study design was utilized. The school was purposely chosen given its status as a "model professional learning community." Two physical education teachers, three school administrators, and the founding principal participated in this study. Data collection consisted of a combination of dyadic interviews, focus groups, observations, and documents. Results: Data analysis revealed three overlapping themes with supportive categorical subthemes: (a) Dispersed and Inclusive Leadership, (b) Teacher Empowerment, and (c) Culture of Belonging. Discussion: Implications for physical education teachers include the necessity of ongoing collaboration with administrators, cross-curricular colleagues, and physical education teaching peers. Physical educators should seek to develop strong social capital within the school professional learning community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Using the assessment literacy framework, the purpose of this study was to explore preservice teachers understanding and enactment of the message system during an early field experience. Method: Six PTs employed SE seasons totaling 540 min. Seven qualitative data methods were utilized. Data analysis included deductive and inductive analysis using a thematic approach. Trustworthiness included data triangulation, peer debriefing, negative case analysis, and the maintenance of an audit trail. Results: Three main themes derived from the data included: instructional decisions were driven by the SE model and informal assessment; formal assessment was driven by the structure of SE; and high assessment value but low assessment literacy. Discussion/Conclusion: The SE model drove PTs to use formal assessment, but primarily in an evaluative manner. The PTs lacked assessment literacy, felt pressure to follow the model, did not use assessment to inform teaching, and had concerns for future assessment use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employed occupational socialization theory to explore three physical education preservice teachers' (PSTs) perceptions of assessment during an alternative field-based experience. A phenomenological approach guided this study, and data were collected through autobiographies, lesson plans, video recordings of teachings, and three rounds of interviews per participant. Data were examined through thematic collaborative qualitative analysis. Three major themes emerged: (1) out of sight, out of mind: assessment disappears in actual teaching practices; (2) PSTs valued assessment; and (3) PSTs' socialization impacted assessment practices. There were subsequent subthemes within each theme. The results suggested PSTs valued assessment; however, their socialization influenced their lack of assessment implementation even with supports at the alternative field-based setting.

Purpose: Drawing from Occupational Socialization Theory, the purpose of this study was to examine a middle school physical education team's perceptions and experiences piloting standards-based teaching and grading within an organizational professional learning community (PLC). Method: Using an instrumental case study design, (n = 3) teachers and (n = 1) a principal from a middle school in the upper Midwest participated in this study. Data sources included individual and focus group interviews, observations, and relevant documents collected across three school semesters. Results: Inductive data analysis revealed three themes: (1) Increased Status and Appreciation in the School Community; (2) Growing Pains; and (3) Emotional Safety and Engagement, along with related subthemes. Conclusions: Through actively participating in the school PLC structures, physical educators may proactively facilitate leadership opportunities within the school community notwithstanding perceived limitations. However, physical educators may experience greater success in PLCs as they become increasingly literate in common assessment practices.

Purpose: Framed by occupational socialization theory, this study examined relationships among teachers' perceived quality of assessment practices, workplace factors, and their conceptions of assessment. Methods: Ninety in-service physical education teachers from Alabama completed an online survey that attended to perceptions of organizational support, marginalization, valuation toward assessment, assessment quality, and class size. Associations were estimated using ordinary least squares regression. Results: In contrast to our initial hypothesis, no significant relationships were found between perceived assessment quality and perceived organizational support, marginalization, and class size. However, our regression analysis yielded significant results when "assessment's importance for education" was the outcome variable. Discussion/Conclusions: The results indicated that teachers' valuation of assessment included holding students and schools accountable, but was irrelevant to improving education. In addition, marginalization and perceived organizational support impacted teachers' valuation toward using assessments to improve education. Research on assessment quality may depend first on widespread adoption of physical education teacher education assessment practices.

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are becoming more commonplace in K-12 education. As PLCs represent a departure from isolation toward a culture of collaboration, physical educators may be ideally situated to shape school culture. Physical educators often serve the dual roles of teaching and sport coaching in schools. Sport coaching inherently involves principle PLC components of collaborative teaming, data-driven decision-making, and results orientation. This article highlights the congruent nature of sport coaching and the educational framework of PLCs. Drawing from the PLCs at Work framework and SHAPE America's 2019 National Standards for Sport Coaches, the purpose of this article is to encourage physical educators to utilize the PLC framework with the focus of a skilled sport coaching staff.

Although more nuanced understandings of assessment have been proposed in the physical education literature, assessment practices remain relatively underdeveloped, and when used, tend to focus on traditional, summative evaluations of learning. However, physical education teacher education programs can be used as an intervention to help pre-service teachers develop assessment knowledge and skill. Toward this end, the purpose of this article is to propose an evidence-based framework for helping pre-service teachers develop assessment literacy that is rooted in occupational socialization theory. The framework provides a four-phase approach to integrating assessment into teacher education, and includes suggestions for how physical education teacher educators can progressively help build pre-service teachers' assessment knowledge in line with the focus given to instruction and planning. These suggestions acknowledge the technical and sociocultural aspects of learning to use assessment. Implications are discussed along with the need to help graduating pre-service teachers transfer lessons learned into the workplace.

Doctoral education programs in physical education teacher education have a responsibility to train aspiring faculty members to be effective researchers and good teachers. Using occupational socialization theory as a framework, this article proposes a progressive approach to helping physical education teacher education doctoral students gain experience in the role of teacher educator. The authors acknowledge socialization factors that influence one's learning to become a teacher educator, discuss activities in which doctoral students can be engaged through a four-year Ph.D. program, and describe the potential role of larger university and professional structures. While doctoral training is context-specific and contextual differences result in this model being more feasible in certain contexts, it is believed that the general progression of activities would be beneficial for all aspiring faculty members.

Background: In many countries around the world, physical education (PE) has been identified as a marginalized subject. PE teachers have been found to feel negative consequences associated with marginality, such as stress, burnout, and early career attrition. Recent evidence also indicates that physical educators can develop a sense of perceived mattering both in relation the subject of PE and their role as that teacher of that subject. Less is known, however, about the relationship between perceived mattering and marginalization, and how teachers navigate social messages associated with each that they receive while teaching. Role socialization theory has emerged as an approach to studying teachers' experiences in school environments, and can be used to understand their experiences with marginality and mattering. Aims: The purpose of this study was to understand how the social environment of schools influences PE teachers' perceptions of marginalization and perceived mattering, and how these two constructs interact. Method: The investigation was conceptualized as an interview study, and framed using a social constructivist epistemology. Participants included 30 in-service PE teachers (16 males, 14 females) from the Midwest region of the US. Data were collected using in-depth qualitative interviews, and analyzed through a collaborative approach to data analysis that drew upon both inductive and deductive forms of analysis. Results: Participants identified experiences with both perceived mattering and marginalization in their work, and noted that sometimes these messages were contradictory. Some participants felt the effects of marginalization as their discipline was viewed as a dispensable commodity that is only meaningful for the service it provides to other teachers (e.g. gives elementary classroom teachers a break for planning). Some of the teachers internalized their marginal status and began to see their primary function as supporting the work of teachers in other subjects. Nevertheless, the participants derived a sense of mattering by building relationships with colleagues, administrators, and students, and by advocating for the discipline. Teachers also felt validated when colleagues acknowledge their attempts to implement effective practices, but struggled when working with colleagues who are resistant to change. Conclusions: PE teachers experience both marginalization and perceived mattering, which are shaped largely by social interactions within the school environment. This study specifically lends to the view of marginalization and perceived mattering as two constructs at opposite ends of a continuum, rather than a binary conceptualization. This suggests that it could be the summation of marginalizing experiences and those that promote mattering that lead physical educators to develop overall impressions of their role in schools. Furthermore, this study adds to the literature indicating that physical educators may eventually internalize feelings of marginalization when consistently told that they do not matter. This has implications related to the washout effect whereby teachers who no longer feel as if they are making meaningful contributions to children's education may compromise their teaching practice.