Current HSL Projects 

Turning the Tide on Teacher Attrition: Building Resilience in Early Career Educators (SSHRC-PDG)

To reach one of UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goals, the world needs to recruit 69 million new teachers by 2030.1 High attrition among early career teachers is a major contributor to this global shortage, affecting both staffing and student outcomes.2 This trend not only exacerbates staffing challenges but also impacts student outcomes and the overall effectiveness of education across the country. This project explores how physical and health education (PHE) teacher education programs and the PHE Canada Student Chapters (PHECSCs) can support teacher development, build resilience, and improve early career teacher retention. 

Creating a Common Vision for Health Education in Canada (SSHRC-PDG)

Educators have long recognized the interconnection between health and learning – healthy children are more productive learners. Canadian HE curricula provide students an opportunity to acquire knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to adopt and maintain healthy behaviours. Outcomes within Canadian HE curricula focus on critical skills and topics of our children and youth, including: mental health, sexual health, diversity, equity and inclusion, and social and emotional competencies. Despite the potential of HE, the subject area faces several challenges due to the often-narrow focus of school priority (literacy and numeracy) and devoted curricula time to other courses. To address these challenges, we have established a partnership (SSHRC Partnership Development grant) with PHE Canada, pre-service teacher education programs, practitioner representatives from provinces and territories, and collaborators in the field of HE.

Professional & Contextual Impact of Graduate Education Programs for HPE Teachers: A Deweyan Exploration 

The rationale for teacher-focused graduate education encompasses diverse motivation, including: enhance salaries, elevate professional status, meet licensure requirements, and improvement of teacher effectiveness (professional development) (Horn & Jang, 2017). Despite the proliferation of graduate programs for in-service educators, their impact on teachers, their contexts (schools), and their students remains unclear. Our research focuses the Health and Physical Education (HPE) MEd Cohort program that we began in 2018. We explored graduate studies as professional learning across three linked but separate studies:

1.What IS the graduate student experience in a cohort MEd program?

2.How might a Deweyan framework be used to evaluate such a program?

3.Does program impact (professionally and contextually) remain and perhaps evolve long after (5 years) graduation?

Enhancing Physical Education Experiences for Students with Disabilities: Preparation and Professional Development (SSHRC-IDG) 

The following research is comprised of three studies. Study 1 inquired into existing professional development opportunities and their essential qualities for teachers and educational assistants regarding inclusive physical education for students with disabilities. Study 2 invesitgated pre-service teacher perspectives to better support preparation programs. Study 3 is focused on the implementation of the Inclusive Physical Education-Professional Development (IPE-PD) framework (Morrison, 2019). The framework facilitates practitioners’ development of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to enhance PE experiences of students with disabilities, and supports a collaborative community of practice amongst practitioners, which is essential for inclusion to occur.

Champions for Meaningful PE (SSHRC-IG)

We will conduct a longitudinal, cross-cultural examination of teachers' experiences of learning to implement the Meaningful Physical Education Approach (Meaningful PE). Many children find PE in its current form to be inadequate due to an emphasis on obesity reduction and a limited range of sport techniques (Hastie, 2017). Large numbers of students drop out of PE because they believe it lacks meaning and relevance (Ladwig et al., 2018). This may be because there are few concrete examples of how teachers can prioritize meaningfulness for learners in PE (Kretchmar, 2008) Our current SSHRC-funded research addresses this gap directly. The Meaningful PE approach consists of democratic and reflective pedagogical principles (Fletcher & Ní Chróinín, 2021). Teachers' knowledge and beliefs strongly influences their implementation of Meaningful PE (Beni et al., 2021a; Vasily et al., 2021). Teachers value learning about Meaningful PE in professional learning communities (PLCs), particularly with the support of more experienced teachers. We describe these teachers as "champions" of Meaningful PE, in that they offer exemplary implementation. 

Online Professional Learning Community 

We have recently begun a PLC focused on meaningful PE with our Cohort alumni. More details to follow but all readings and processes will be shared in the link below.