Comportamiento agronómico y productivo de materiales de Panicum maximum

Students can engage in 12 predominantly practical units in years 1 and 2 at

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University of Brighton. In years 3 and 4 they take select one practical unit each year and one additional unit that can be either practical and or discipline knowledge oriented. The key practical areas of the pre-2008 NCPE are clearly evidenced in the practical physical activity units undertaken at University of Brighton: Dance, Track and Field, OAA, Games and Gymnastics. The following table outlines the knowledge bases for each unit prioritised in rank order by the unit leaders.

Table 2. Result of 14~16 units of physical activities which were analyzed by Shulman’s components

Title of units Credi

ts T C K PR AC K G P K P C K C C K K E C K L C K D G First year Dance 10 2 1

Track and Field Athletics 10

Outdoor and Adventurous Activities 10 1 2 2 3 4

Games 10 3 1 4 2

Gymnastic Activities 10 2 1

Swimming and Water Safety 10 1 1

Seco nd year

Learning and Teaching Through

Outdoor and Adventurous Activities 10 1 1 Learning and Teaching Through

Games Activities 10 2 1 3 3 3

Learning and Teaching Through

Swimming and Water Safety 10 4 2 1 3

Learning and Teaching Through

Athletics 10

Learning and Teaching Through

Gymnastics activities 10 2 1 3

Learning and Teaching Through

Dance 10 2 1 3

Third year

Selected Practical Activity 10

Choices 10

Fourt h year

Selected Practical Activity 10

Choices 10

sum 16~18 units and 364~416 hours

First year units concentrate on improving PRACK, while second year students learned a variety of Shulman’s components through physical activities. One lecturer who taught the unit of Dance and Learning and teaching through Dance explained her units as follows:

In general, the Level 1 module is what we would call a subject study module. We don't stop and say “how might we teach this?”, there’s no explicit pedagogic input, it’s all about the study of dance, them as a

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performer, a choreographer – the person who makes up a dance and like a critic, an appreciator of dance.

The processes that they go through, for example they learn about dance technique, they learn an introduction to simple aspects of dance technique or simple aspects of choreography, at Level 1 we don't then go “how will you help a child to make up dance content?”, “what might a child find difficult about this?”, it tends to be more focused on them and their subject knowledge.

So that when it comes back in Year 2, we look at it from the teacher’s point of view and say “as the teacher, how will you help a child?”. There is some reference back, for example in the Year 1, we might look at a professional choreographer, we might watch a video of a professional choreographer, we might make up a piece of choreography in the style of the professional choreographer.

In Year 2 we would stop and say, “why would you do that?”, “is that a good strategy to use for the children?”, “as the teacher, how are you going to make a selection, how are you going to progress it?”, so the general principle is that in Year 1 it’s pure subject study, in Year 2 it’s about them teaching and understanding (lecturer1 University of Brighton).

It is clear that the practical curriculum was spiralled to focus on content knowledge in the first year followed by how to teach dance and how to design a curriculum of dance for second year students. This is reaffirmed in table 2. Moreover, all lecturers who taught physical activities for first year students selected PRACK as a first priority with various components such as PCK, GCK and KLC included in second year units of physical activities. Student teachers concurred with this view:

In Year 1 it’s mainly about the physical ability but in Year 2 these two kinds of mix, we learn the activities through the sport but learning about how to teach it, so it is a bit mixed up. For swimming, we did that all in the swimming pool and then they would let us know how is the best way to teach, same for gymnastics (Student1 University of Brighton).

In the second year one student teacher illustrated the opportunities to engage in PCK, GCK and KLC:

They taught it in the lectures, then they gave us a chance, our teaching scenarios, they would get a class of 20 kids in, for instance in swimming, then we had to put it into practice so they make sure we can write an essay on it, make sure you have the theory and knowledge, they don't just leave it there, they make sure you can do it in practice (Student7 University of Brighton).

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Highlighting the focus on PCK for example during the teaching of swimming the lecturer directly gave feedback on the student’s teaching in the swimming pool. Through these systematized units for first and second year, they developed their physical abilities and teaching abilities. In addition students could select two or four units of physical activities in third and fourth year. Among these four units, they had to select two units of physical activities as compulsory units. However, they could also select two additional practical units as options. The course leader mentioned that many student teachers selected physical activities as their additional options rather than units of discipline knowledge.