This article describes the implementation and evaluation of an initiative to promote active learning through facility renovation and faculty training. Twenty faculty representing a variety of academic areas from 2 departments participated in a 3-part active-learning professional development workshop series. Department of Health and Human Performance faculty (N = 14) teaching 19 courses and 416 of the students in the new active classroom were surveyed on their attitudes on the facilities, room design, professional development, and active-learning instruction. Consistent with previous active-learning research, there were subtle differences between student and faculty perceptions of the importance of renovation features, active-learning exercises, and philosophy of the learning process. The initiative was effective in helping predisposed faculty to implement active-learning experiences in their classes and engaging in more scholarship of teaching and learning, as well as enhancing the visibility of the department as a leader in active learning and the scholarship of teaching and learning at the university.
Browse
Promoting Active-Learning Instruction and Research (PALIR) in Kinesiology Departments
Duane Knudson and Karen Meaney
Promoting Quality Undergraduate Education in Kinesiology
Thomas J. Templin, Jason R. Carter, and Kim C. Graber
Undergraduate Enrollments and Faculty Resources in Kinesiology at Selected U.S. Public Universities: 2008–2017
David R. Bassett, Jeffrey T. Fairbrother, Lynn B. Panton, Philip E. Martin, and Ann M. Swartz
Undergraduate enrollments in kinesiology have grown over the past 20 years as the popularity of this major increased among students interested in the health professions. A panel discussion at the 2018 American Kinesiology Association workshop provided an overview of challenges facing kinesiology departments. Department leaders at four public universities discussed enrollment trends, faculty resources for teaching undergraduates, and budget models used at their universities. Comparisons were made with kinesiology departments at Big Ten universities to reflect more broadly on what is happening at U.S. public research institutions. At several universities, undergraduate kinesiology enrollments grew between 2008 and 2017, but at others, they leveled off or declined. In many cases, faculty resources have not kept pace with enrollments, leading to unhealthy student-to-faculty ratios. The panel discussed methods of coping with scarce resources for teaching undergraduates and how department leaders can use comparison data to stress the importance of adequate resources.
Undergraduate Research in Kinesiology: Examples to Enhance Student Outcomes
James A. Carson, John K. Petrella, Vanessa Yingling, Mallory R. Marshall, Jenny O, and Jennifer J. Sherwood
Undergraduate research is emphasized as a critical component of today’s science-based undergraduate education and widely accepted as an important part of the overall undergraduate education experience. While educators agree on the value of undergraduate research, significant challenges exist related to the design of the undergraduate research experience and the faculty member’s role in it. Additional challenges include providing high-quality research experiences that benefit the education of a large number of students while maintaining feasibility and cost-effectiveness. The scope of this review is to provide an overview of research and service-learning experiences in kinesiology departments at 3 institutions of higher learning that vary in size and mission.
Catherine Ennis Shaped My Career and My Life
Pamela Hodges Kulinna
Cathy Ennis, A Colleague and Friend
Jane E. Clark and Bradley D. Hatfield
Cathy Ennis—A Master Gardener of Plants and Scholarship
Melinda A. Solmon
Cathy Ennis: Reflections on Our Collaboration and Friendship
Stephen Silverman
Creating Powerful Curricula for Student Learning in Physical Education: Contributions of Catherine D. Ennis
Haichun Sun and Tan Zhang
In this article, the authors honor Catherine D. Ennis’s legacy by highlighting her unique and significant contributions to physical education research on curriculum and instruction. First, they discuss Ennis’s curricular philosophy and her empirical work along her career path. Then they review the major school-based curricular interventions she implemented, including the Movement Education; Sport for Peace; Science, PE and Me!; and The Science of Healthful Living curricula to demonstrate Ennis’s commitment to curricular development in physical education. In this process, they share with the reader Ennis’s contributions to curriculum development theories, curriculum intervention research, and physical education practices.
Curriculum Intervention Research as a Source of Knowledge of Most Worth
Ang Chen, Bo Shen, and Xihe Zhu
A major portion of Catherine Ennis’s scholarship and career was devoted to developing culturally relevant physical education curricula for K–12 students. She held a strong conviction that the efficacy of a curriculum lies in its ability to enhance students’ knowledge and skills of most worth for their lives. The approach she adopted for curriculum development is an evidence-supported curriculum-design process through which a curriculum is put to the rigorous process of intervention research to determine its efficacy. In this article the authors reflect on the experiences they had with her in these curriculum interventions, share the ideas and practices in the research as Ennis envisioned, and discuss challenges and solutions in conducting large-scale, school-based curriculum intervention studies.