Content-Knowledge Acquisition During Undergraduate Teacher Education: Overcoming Cultural Templates and Learning Through Practice

Abstract

This article describes aspects of physical education teacher education (PETE) that 12 participants reported were instrumental in the development of understanding of and commitment to a movement approach. The movement approach was a constructivist and developmental approach that was discrepant from the participants’ prior knowledge of curriculum. Based on in-depth interviews, observations of teaching and coursework, and documents, 12 case studies were prepared. Students’ understanding and commitment developed through a critique of K–12 experiences, learning to read the political text of their subject matter, confronting negative stereotypes of physical educators, understanding the movement approach as a program that they could be proud of, feeling part of a bigger collective mission to bring better physical education to children, and learning through practical experiences. Coursework gave students a broader context for interpreting field experiences and served as a catalyst for the power of learning through doing, whereas learning through doing instantiated and integrated theory learned at the university.