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Hi Reader,

As physical education teachers, we all know what it feels like to sit through PD that feels irrelevant, unimportant, or completely disconnected from what we want to focus on in our teaching.

What if that experience was not occasional?
Imagine it was your lived reality every day, for a full semester, or even an entire school year.

The topics are chosen for you.
The way you are expected to engage is already decided.
Your interests, experience, and preferences rarely, if at all, factor into the design.

Chances are, you have experienced PD that felt very much like this.

If this was your reality…

How long before you begin to disengage?
How long before you start looking for ways to get through it rather than get something from it?
How long before you quietly decide that this kind of learning is not for you, and find yourself just waiting for it to be over?

Now shift the lens

Replace PE teachers with students.
Replace PD sessions with PE classes.

If this were a student’s everyday experience in physical education, what might we make of their disengagement?

Would it make more sense why some students seem disinterested or hesitant to participate?
Would it help explain the moans and groans when they are asked to do more of something that does not feel interesting, meaningful, or within reach for them?

Not as defiance.
Not as a sign of apathy or fixed personality traits.
But as a normal response to an experience that does not feel designed with them in mind.

A simple way forward

A simple place to start is by learning more about how students prefer to engage in physical activity.

Not which sport they like best.
Not who is “motivated” or “unmotivated.”

But how they prefer to engage in physical activity, such as:

• Independently or with others
• High intensity or moderate intensity
• Structured or more open
• Competitive or cooperative
• Indoor or outdoor

This kind of information gives us options and helps students feel seen.

It allows us to design or adjust learning experiences in our PE classes so students have more than one way to meet the same learning goals.

When students see that their preferences are considered and valued, participation stops feeling forced and starts feeling more natural and possible.

A practical next step

If you would like a simple way to gather this information from students, here is a short, ready-to-use PDF that helps students share how they prefer to participate in physical activity.

It is designed to be quick for students to complete and easy for teachers to use when planning lessons.

​Download My Physical Activity Preferences.pdf​

Curious to hear more?

I was a recent guest on a podcast where we explored the many ways motivation in PE can be influenced by our assessment and teaching approaches.

If you are interested, you are welcome to listen to the conversation here.

​Listen to the podcast conversation​

What’s happening inside the Blueprint What we’re exploring this month

Reframing Behaviours and Learning in PE

This month we are examining how behaviours and learning are situated in our PE classes, and how separating them can create greater clarity and impact. We are also exploring how both can intentionally support each other through our teaching and assessment approaches.

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