Theory and Practice of Physical Culture № 12 2016

Dr.Hab., Professor I.V. Manzheley
Tyumen State University, Tyumen

Keywords: physical education competence, elective physical education environment, elective courses, integration, computerization, differentiation, cluster-networking design.

Background. As provided by the valid third-generation Federal State Higher Education Standards (FSHES), presently the curricula of the national higher education system for the academic Physical Education discipline includes the following two parts: a principle part of 72 hours (2 credit units); and a variable part of at least 328 hours of elective courses. The general cultural competences that must be mastered by the bachelors in Physical Education are unified for all education sectors and designed in a frame format free of specific practical recommendations and guiding programs for the discipline.

Topicality of our study is due to the fact that the physical education teachers trained in accordance with the traditional Soviet education system and generally quite successfully working under specific programs and instructions are reported to face serious difficulties in trying to design a variable educational process [3].

Objective of the study was to design an efficient model elective physical education environment to facilitate due physical education competency building in students.

Study results and discussion. The environment-centred approach in the academic physical education is what we consider herein as the education and cultural process building tool that implies the teacher giving a top priority to the physical education and sporting environment building efforts in the educational establishment rather than the student’s personality modifying efforts [6]. Methodologically, the environment-centred approach is based, first of all, on the James Gibson’s Theory of Affordances [7] making an emphasis on the activity of the subject conquering its living environment (“ecological world”); second, on the eco-behavioural study reports by R. Barker and E. Willems [7] that offer the “behavioural settings” that determine the individual’s behaviour depending on the physical and social surroundings; and, third, on the developmental education theory and practice originating from the hypothesis by L.S. Vygotskiy on the dynamic correlation of the education and development processes.

A semantic core of the environment-centred approach in physical education is the variable physical training and sporting activity which, on the one hand, takes place within the frame of the behavioural settings determined by the physical surrounding specifics (sport grounds, courts, nets etc.) regulated by the relevant rules of competitions that limit the competitors’ behaviour; and, on the other hand, offers a range of affordances for the voluntary choice of physical activities, places, formats of sessions and social environments by the subjects depending on their physical training and sport needs; and may be considered a powerful educational tool for the students’ socialization and intercultural communication.

It should be noted that for the last decade a group of researchers under leadership of V.K. Bal’sevich and L.I. Lubysheva [2] has made good progress in the children and youth sportizated physical education theory and practice, with their educational model having basically the same semantic roots as the environment-centred approach. Furthermore, A.I. Zagrevskaya in her works presents a kinesiological approach to the physical competences building process based on the non-sport university students’ physical and mental development being integrated within the relevant applied physical culture and sport education [5].

We would support A.V. Khutorskiy [8] in his definition of physical competence as individual's fitness rates for certain physical education and sport activity (and the formal requirement to the bachelor’s background); and definition of physical education competency as the ability to apply this fitness in practice (i.e. the ready personality quality/ characteristic). Physical education competency refers to both the level of acquired knowledge, skills and action models – and the individual focus on the active physical education and sport activity plus the ability to independently attain a variety of health improvement and physical training goals. Therefore, the bulk of attention in the competency building process will be given to the students’ personal physical education and sport experience being accumulated in the academic educational process via relevant practices (i.e. physical education, health and mass sport projects) in the physical education and sport clusters/ environments including the ones connected with the relevant social/ cultural environments.

Pursuant to the idea of the information-education environment content [1, 4] and based on the relevant provisions of the eco-psychological approach [7], we have developed and implemented at Tyumen State University a model elective physical education environment [9] (see Diagram 1 hereunder).

Diagram 1. Model elective physical education environment

Elective physical education environment means herein the integrity of facilitating spatial, temporal, informational, technological, social and interactive conditions and affordances created in an educational establishment as required by the valid educational standards and the students’ self-expression needs in the physical education and sports domain. 

The authors model is specific in the content of the physical education environment customized for the education/ cultural process goals and the physical education and sport needs of the students; and, therefore, dominated by the relevant practice-focused micro-environments (health improvement, sport-centred, conditioning and developing, applied professional, recreational, educational etc.) to stimulate the cognitive and physical activities of the bachelors. Due emphasis is made on the positions of educator (tutor, facilitator, consultant); the model describes the obligatory conditions including: socializing and interactive (physical education and sports values, ideals and traditions being cultivated in the environment; constructive interaction of the subjects; broad social network) conditions; informational and technological (modular structure of educational material; progress rating system; computerization, differentiation and integration in the class and off-class activity; and the physical education conditions and progress monitoring systems) conditions; and the spatial and temporal conditions (cluster-networking design: transformability, ecological compatibility, authenticity, symbolism and correlation of the functional zones); and the model specifies the expected result characteristics (reflexive, cognitive, physical conditioning, somatic).

Integration of the class and off-class physical education activity is ranked among the key conditions of the environment-centred approach that is attained based on the academic schedules being duly harmonized with the mass sporting activity, with the relevant progress rating system including a crediting system for the students actively contributing to the physical education and sporting life of the university. The system is geared to notably expand the frame of the Physical Education discipline, encourage the physical education and sport activity, help accumulate physical education experience of an individual (acting as event organizer, referee, competitor and/ or volunteer) and personify the academic physical education process.

Computerization of the physical education and sport environment is designed to include the following resources: (a) institutional and control resource to improve the education and cultural process (ECP) control system (supported by the relevant computer software including the Students’ Physical Condition Monitoring Software (Patent #2008612389); Computerized Analytical System for the GTO Complex Data (Patent #2015612698) etc.; (b) programmatic-informational resource geared to improve the ECP content (training packages in Physical Education; Healthy Lifestyle University Program; teaching aids, presentations, lectures, video-lectures, video gymnastics sessions available on websites); (c) training resource designed to differentiate and personify the ECP (including Health Cards, Physical Education and Sport Portfolios etc.); (d) advertising-informational resource geared to encourage positive attitudes to physical education and sports and facilitate the physical training and sporting activity of the students (by the relevant advertisement and information on the website).

Differentiation means the choice of elective courses in the Physical Education discipline including 14 sports and physical training courses, plus due customizing of the physical loads in the practical training sessions as required by the actual health conditions and physical fitness rates of the trainees.

Prior to the academic year, all students’ data are downloaded to the computer database. Students of the principal and preparatory health groups then opt for elective courses. Students with different health issues qualify for special health groups with their own physical education programs being designed based on the diagnoses and preferred/ recommended motor activities as fixed in their Health Cards. Athletically gifted students qualify for the relevant sport excellence groups where they keep their Physical Education and Sport Portfolio as a reflexive card. For the progress assessment purposes, the students collect the relevant progress rating points in the subject discipline (61-100 points) both by attending academic sessions and actively contributing to the physical education, health and mass sport life of the university. The minimum credit rate is set at 61 point, with the additional points giving the means to compete for the title of the Best Student of the university and thereby apply for benefits to the scholarship. Part-time and advanced-education-course students may organize their self-reliant work and qualification process using the virtual cooperation webinar system on the Cisko WebEx platform supported by the computerized testing system based on the Moodle platform.

Monitoring of the physical education process results and conditions gives the means to make timely adjustments to the education and cultural process and employ the resource required for the latter; expand the feedback capacities in the teacher-student interaction format; establish a database on the staged, current and real-time conditions of the students to select adequate progress adjustment tools. Moreover, the monitoring system helps visualize the “current versus required condition” for the students thereby encouraging the young people for more active physical training and sport activity.

The cluster-networking design of the spatial and temporal environmental components means that the sport/ recreation facilities, the relevant grounds and parks provided by the university for the physical education and sporting sessions must comply with the educational and cultural process missions and the relevant ecological compatibility, authenticity, symbolism, correlation and transformability standards of the functional zones.

Conclusion. For the due physical education competences being successfully built up in the students, the educational establishment must create a facilitating physical education and sporting environment including different micro-environments and motivations to encourage the students for their individual progress in the class and off-class activity by setting favourable conditions for their individual self-expression via academic physical education and mass sports.

The elective physical education environment is specific in the following aspects: openness and flexibility (i.e. compatibility with other environments and micro-environments, compliance with the standards and customization for the students’ needs); cluster-networking design (transformability, ecological compatibility, authenticity, and correlation of functional zones within the clusters); technological effectiveness (computerization, integration); personality-focused design (axiological focus, differentiation, individualization). Success of the students’ physical education competency formation process was found to depend on: their physical and sport activity growth rates (from the below-average to the average rates at least); motivations for the sessions (р<0.05) and knowledge in the physical education domain (p<0.001); plus the positive variations in their physical condition and physical fitness rates (р<0.05). The study has found that line sessions in elective courses (by the academic sport disciplines) in different universities and training fields help expand the range of social contacts and encourage the students’ physical education and sport activity.

References

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Corresponding author: mangeley60@mail.ru

Abstract

The article considers the issues of the updated higher education standards being implemented and the relevant physical education competences being formed in university students in an elective physical education environment. The study offers and discusses an efficient elective physical education environment model, with a special emphasis on its specific requirements and practical implementation specifics. The elective physical education environment is designed based on the following requirements: openness and flexibility (interconnection with other environments and micro-media; and compliance with the standards and students’ needs); cluster-networking design (transformability, ecological compatibility, authenticity, functional zone interlinks in different clusters); due technological standards (in terms of information processing and integration); and personality-focused design (axiology-sensitive, differentiated, individualized).