Despite the benefits associated with teacher development through participation in communities of practice, many questions about these groups remain unanswered. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine a group of elementary physical education teachers as a community of practice whose objective was to develop and disseminate district-wide elementary curriculum. Participants included four teachers, the district curriculum coordinator, and project facilitators. Results identify the importance of a catalyst, a vision for students and the project, the importance of support, the significance of personal and professional relationships, and the realization of empowerment as critical. Ultimately, the development of curriculum was a meaningful, purposeful, and authentic task that allowed the transformation of this group. Adhering to the assumption that learning takes place within social practice, these data provide valuable insight as to the contexts that underlie the ability to mediate change, the relationships between individuals, and their ability to transform individual and group identity.
In a cross-sectional sample of 428 employees, the job demand-control-support and effort-reward imbalance job stress models were amalgamated and expanded to include modifiable risk factors and noncontrollable genetic factors related to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. With structural equation modeling, the constructs of lack of job resilience, lack of personal resilience, and job demand were used to examine how employer and employee factors related to psychosomatic strain and risk indicators of CVD. Negative perception of job demand predicted perception of lack of job resilience but not lack of personal resilience. Lack of job and personal resilience predicted strain. Women reported greater strain than men. CVD risk was predicted by strain, age, sex, and family history.
Concerns have been raised in the Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) doctoral education literature regarding: (a) the narrowness of research preparation, (b) the emphasis on disciplinary silos, (c) the lack of competitiveness and innovation within and beyond academia, and (d) the role of graduate assistants. These concerns mirror those in the professoriate at large regarding doctoral education. There is, however, little research that has examined these issues in our field. In this paper we report on the content studied in the core curriculum of doctoral programs, admission requirements, number of full and part time students, number of faculty serving these students, funding supporting students, and type and scope of research classes. Data were collected from websites as well as other public domain sources and open-ended interviews with faculty members in each program. We discuss the findings and implications for PETE.
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