Teaching is a dynamic process. It is not merely about enhancing learning and there is no such thing as ‘obvious’ in teaching. With today’s generation of tech-savvy learners who have unlimited access to information and idiosyncratic learning needs, we need educators who can continuously develop their skills and capabilities to adopt new and innovative teaching methods and pedagogical strategies to engage and motivate these students. 

Towards this end, educators in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) need to develop effective learning paradigms that can adequately prepare the Physical Education (PE) workforce of the future and address the needs of other key stakeholders, including instructors, institution and the industry. 

At the Physical Education and Sports Science Academic Group (PESS AG), various educational technologies are used to transform learning materials from hard-wired knowledge into tools that can generate flexible yet impactful knowledge capital for student teachers. A good example is the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to create effective and contextually relevant instructional situations that enhance learning and the learning experience. 

In the early years, readily available ICTs like videos, Internet, computer games, podcasts, Edmodo and social media provided PETE educators with new ways to harness collective intelligence, generate learner-centric and comprehensive content, and nurture an interactive and collaborative classroom ecosystem. They were simple but effective for their purposes.

Periodic surveys showed that from less than 25% of the PESS AG adopting ICT in 2009, we now have the entire faculty using some forms of technology to complement their teaching and content delivery. This evolution towards ICT-savviness has led to greater impact in PETE learning with better content quality and delivery, accessibility to knowledge, and connectivity between educators and student teachers. The learners themselves have also become more motivated to learn beyond the classroom. 

With the rapid development of educational apps, digital literacy in PETE has also evolved. Demands like enhancing learning through anywhere-anytime content access, accommodating different paces of learning, stimulating higher-order thinking and knowledge construction, and nurturing the aptitude for life-long learning have prompted PESS AG to adopt and develop innovative pedagogical strategies to maximise student engagement, keep the PETE programmes relevant to the curriculum, and enhance return on investment in higher education for all stakeholders. 

Some examples of pedagogical innovations include 3D interactive software and apps to create realistic virtual learning environments for enhanced learning experiences; blended learning that uses online digital contents to complement face-to-face learning; and flipped classroom and team-based learning that blend technology and conventional teaching methods to provide a new learning approach for students. Many of these innovations have delivered positive learning outcomes with very encouraging feedback from the students.

“The flipped classroom and team-based learning were useful. I appreciated how association and layering were used to help us learn better. The videos, smartphone apps and 3D programmes were effective in keeping us engaged. They also made learning fun and easy!” 

“The use of animations, videos and 3D apps really helped us in visualising the human anatomy and in developing skills we can use with confidence. It made classroom discussions very engaging. We have to think critically and develop soft skills for the applied lessons.”

“The team-based learning approach was helpful. Looking through the notes and preparing myself for the team-based learning activity each week helped me remember the lessons better. I also really liked the interactions with my friends where we shared our answers. They have helped me clarify and deepen the understanding of the lessons, especially when I have to explain it to my group.”

The next era in PESS AG’s innovative pedagogies is to explore the use of drones for learning and assessment. Drones enable the collection of extensive and complex data that both teachers and students can use to deepen learning insights, especially in assessing movement patterns, decision making of different players, and evaluation of tactics and learning outcomes. Drone-enabled footages will allow students to obtain immediate and individualised feedback, analyse their performance and take ownership of their learning progress. 

Droning, as an innovative and technology-enabled pedagogical option, can be used in PE teaching skills, like Instructional Methods, Instructional Strategies and Fundamental Movement Skills, as well as activity-based courses like basketball or soccer. Artificial intelligence can also be incorporated to enhance the system’s analytical capabilities, as well as enable automatic data filtering, automatic motion tracking and faster information processing, with ready reports to facilitate feedback and learning for both educators and students.   

From evolving alongside technology to actively harnessing technology for innovations in pedagogical methods and strategies, PESS AG has been able to catalyse the advent of a pedagogically and didactically evolved era of higher education in PE. Our aim is to use these innovations to provide gateways to new and mobile learning environments, enhance learner engagement, provide personalised teaching and learning, and offer novel ways of evaluating learning. 

In time, PESS AG will gain the capability to inspire other teaching innovations and content delivery competencies. Ultimately, our goal is to enhance and enrich the learning experiences of student teachers in PETE – to encourage greater ownership of learning, stimulate knowledge construction, and develop the appetite and skills for lifelong learning.