ACTivate classroom teachers – Teachers on the move Erasmus Project

Project Title

ACTivate classroom teachers – Teachers on the move

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

Despite the well-recognized benefits of physical activity (PA), 80% of European children do not meet recommended guidelines of at least 60 minutes of daily PA (Tremblay et al, 2016). A recent report stated that PA promotion among children in 49 countries was a ‘serious worldwide and European concern’ (Aubert et al. 2018). In response to this, the World Health Organization (WHO) highlighted school-based programs as a ‘best investment’ for PA promotion among children (GAPPA & ISPAH 2011). The PA strategy for the WHO European Region (2016-25) and the Global Action Plan on PA (2018-30) (WHO, 2016; 2018) both highlight the need to strengthen the training of education professionals while creating school environments that encourage children to be physically active. Schools present the only setting where children of all social, cultural and economic backgrounds can be supported to engage in PA for an extended period of time (Naylor et al 2009). Unfortunately, children spend most of the school day being sedentary (Holt et al, 2013); thus, classroom time consistently contributes to sedentary behaviours (Bailey, 2012).

Schools are dynamic, complex systems where the core business is learning (McQueen et al, 2007). Therefore, it is exceedingly difficult to develop school-based PA programs that teachers support. Among the many reasons for this are competing demands between time for academic pursuits versus time spent in PA. Physically active learning (PAL) was designed to address this ‘tug-of-war’ between competing priorities. PAL is a pedagogical approach where pupils are physically active while learning academic content (Bartholomew et al, 2011). Although a young science, PAL has received widespread attention as it produces consistent increases in PA levels with a neutral or positive effect on academic performance (Norris et al 2015; Martin and Murtagh 2017; Daly-Smith et al, 2018; Singh et al, 2018). Moreover, unlike other school-based PA interventions (e.g. recess), PAL benefits all demographic subgroups (Bartholomew et al, 2018).

The primary challenge for any school-based programme is how to achieve high levels of adherence and compliance from teachers and other school stakeholders. A reason for this could be that programmes are often developed and implemented using researcher-led push approaches that rarely involve teachers (Rutten et al, 2017). As a result, many teachers lack the capability, opportunity and motivation to embrace PAL (COM-B, Michie et al, 2011; Quarmby et al, 2018). To address this issue and ensure sustainable practice, high-quality open access PAL teacher training programmes are required. To achieve this, programmes should be created in cooperation with teachers (Norris et al, 2015). To recognize teachers as pivotal partners at the forefront of realizing this vision, we established a six-nation partnership, ACTivate. The main objective of ACTivate is to co-create, with teachers and other school stakeholders, an innovative European-wide open access PAL education programme, web portal and community of practice (CoP, see concept map, appendix).

ACTivate consortium partners; Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL, Lead organisation), Leeds Beckett University (LBU, UK), LIKES (Finland), Amsterdam UMCA (UMCA, Netherlands), University College Denmark (UCD), University of Porto (Porto, Portugal).

Partners have substantial skills and experience to design and deliver the six intellectual outputs:
1) report: core competencies for PAL teacher training and implementation programmes
2) report: outcome measures of importance to teachers
3) an evidence-informed European PAL student and qualified teacher curriculum
4) an open-access web portal and CoP to facilitate PAL adoption and implementation practice
5) two e-learning courses (e.g. MOOCs, videos) to enhance i) student, and ii) qualified teachers’ PAL capability, opportunity and motivation
6) report: pilot the feasibility of the ACTivate online platform and e-learning courses

The six intellectual outputs in ACTivate will facilitate the following (long-term) results,
Increase the number of teacher training organisations across Europe that incorporate PAL within teacher training curriculums
Enhance the quality of PAL training for student teachers
Enhance the quality of PAL qualified teacher training CPD courses
Impact on the future development of teacher standards and training curriculums
Increase primary school teachers’ capability, opportunity and motivation to adopt and implement PAL
Increase the proportion of teachers implementing PAL and the frequency of delivery
Create school environments that facilitate and activate the adoption and implementation of PA
Increase in the size and depth of PAL research networks

Furthermore, pupils will be the end beneficiaries of the ACTivate project in the form of increased lesson time and school-based PA, increased enjoyment of academic lessons, and improved classroom behaviour and time on task.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 449650 Eur

Project Coordinator

HOGSKULEN PA VESTLANDET & Country: NO

Project Partners

• STICHTING VUMC
• LIIKUNNAN JA KANSANTERVEYDEN EDISTAMISSAATIO LIKES
• UNIVERSITY COLLEGE SYDDANMARK
• UNIVERSIDADE DO PORTO
• LEEDS BECKETT UNIVERSITY
• Stichting Mulier Instituut
• JYVASKYLAN AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU