International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Volume 2, Number 1, January 2008
Return to current issues pageResearch Article
Abstract
Responses of Study Abroad Students in Australia to Experience-Based Pedagogy in Sport Studies
This paper contributes to research on the scholarship of teaching in the physical education/sport studies fields by examining the responses of study abroad students from overseas studying in Australia to a unit of study in sport studies that placed the interpretation of experience as the centre of the learning process. It draws on research conducted at an Australian university over an 18-month period and involving 170 participants. The study focused on the ways in which student motivations, inclinations, expectations and prior experience interacted with experiences of living in Australia and the experience-based nature of the unit of study shaped their responses and perceptions of learning.
Keywords: Scholarship of teaching, experience, constructivism, sport studies, study abroad, Australia
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Richard Light
University of Sydney
Sydney, Australia
r.light@edfac.usyd.edu.au
I received a Ph.D. from the University of Queensland for a comparative study on young men’s experiences of elite level school rugby in Australia and Japan and the embodiment of class and culture specific forms of masculinity that won the 2000 ACHPER (Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation and AARE (Australian Association for Research in Education) Doctoral Thesis Award. I am a senior lecturer in human movement theory at the University of Sydney where I research on, and teach a) the sociocultural dimensions of sport with a focus on children and young people and b) sport and physical education pedagogy where I focus on student-centred, inquiry-based approaches to teaching and coaching sport such as TGfU (Teaching Games for Understanding) adopting a socio-cultural approach.
Steve Georgakis
University of Sydney
Sydney, Australia
s.georgakis@edfac.usyd.edu.au
I am program director for the Human Movement and Health education program at the University of Sydney and received a Ph.D. from the University of Sydney for a study on Sport and the Greeks in Australia. My research has focused on sport history but I am increasingly becoming interested in physical education pedagogy. In particular, I am interested in research on TGfU (Teaching Games for Understanding), and similar approaches to teaching games and sport in schools, that we increasingly emphasise in our preparation of physical education teachers at the University of Sydney and the ways in which our students implement them in their teaching.