How will implementation of team and community building activities affect student motivation and sense of belonging of middle school Physical Education students?

Seminar Title

How will implementation of team and community building activities affect student motivation and sense of belonging of middle school Physical Education students?

Community Building/Motivation

Middle School

Middle School

Phys. Ed.

All Disciplines

“I don’t wanna do this, ugh.” “Do I have to? I’m bad at this and people will laugh at me.” Have you heard these or similar phrases muttered in your class? Or have you watched students stand on the edge of class, avoiding all interaction with the activity and other students? I am excited about my research because my students have become more motivated, comfortable, and cooperative in the physical education setting! There have been less students being disrespectful to others or standing around, and more students laughing, helping each other, and enjoying being active. The main concepts in my research include community, safety, motivation, and relationships. My research is applicable to most levels of physical education, and could be adapted to the regular classroom setting. If you want to learn, try, and discuss team and community building activities that can affect your students’ and classes’ motivation and relationships, come to this session!

Ian Anderson St. Cloud Blended 3 Learning Community idande16@smumn.edu (TITLE) How will implementation of team and community building activities affect student motivation and sense of belonging of middle school Physical Education students? (INTRO TO AR) The question guiding my research is as follows: How will implementation of team and community building activities affect student motivation and sense of belonging of middle school Physical Education students? Based on a review of the literature, the main concepts that stood out were community, motivation, safety, and relationships. To be part of a community, students need to: have a sense of belonging, feel physically/socially/emotionally safe, and build and maintain positive relationships. As a result of my findings, my instruction has changed to directly teaching relational skills in an effort to make students capable of being a true community. A classroom that is a community maximizes meaningful learning and enjoyment for everyone. The classroom environment becomes closer and closer to ideal as students learn, refine, and implement the skills to grow the class community. Those relational skills that need to be taught within a community need to be assessed in physical education in addition to the traditional assessments like skill and effort. (METHOD AND DATA) For my research I replaced traditional physical education warm-up routines with team and community building activities. Through the research I have learned how to use those and other activities to help teach relational skills and build classroom community. I am finding that student experiences become more positive when those strategies are used. I am also finding that students know what the relational skills and the aspects of each skill are, but do not know or recognize how/when they use the skills. (CONCLUSION) As a result of my implementation of team and community building activities and direct teaching of the relational skills, I am finding that classroom community and environment can be positively affected. The relational skills and their importance will become part of my regular curriculum and be taught throughout the school year. In addition, I will look into how I can best weave those skills into a curriculum, and how similar strategies would work with high school physical education students.