Experiences of Learning to Teach Physical Education: Navigating Tensions

Abstract

This narrative inquiry explored two pre-service teachers experiences of learning to teach Physical Education during a 16-week internship. The inquiry emerged from my experiences as a student, pre-service teacher, teacher, cooperating teacher, supervising faculty, and teacher educator. A research puzzle was named: how learning to teach is experienced by pre-service teachers and how they dwell in spaces of tension between curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-lived while learning to teach Physical Education.

            Two pre-service teachers in secondary urban school settings met with me over a six month period before, during, and after the 16-week internship. Field texts included audio recorded and transcribed group and one-on-one conversations, field notes from school visits and teaching observations, journal writing and reflections, artifacts from the participants internship, and text message conversations. Narrative accounts that inquired into their experiences were co-composed with each participant.

Three threads of narrative connection reverberated, moving toward new wonderings related to the research puzzle: shifting identity, teaching their way, and working alongside teachers. Questions arose about how we might be able to use this inquiry to reflect on our own experiences and practices and how narrative inquiry may be a valuable methodological approach for Physical Education teacher education.

Key words: teacher education, Physical Education, field experience, identity, teaching, narrative inquiry, curriculum