La etapa de Educación Infantil está directamente relacionada con el desarrollo personal y es crucial en el proceso de crecimiento personal. Las experiencias de aprendizaje no pueden ser desgajadas en áreas diferenciadas de desarrollo cognitivo, social, emocional y físico, sino que se encuentran integradas y son dependientes. Este equilibrio se puede lograr a través del juego creativo e interactivo, que soporta y proporciona andamiaje a todas las áreas de desarrollo y de contenido curricular. Desde esta perspectiva, el presente trabajo realiza una puesta en común entre legislación y conocimiento científico en relación al juego y la actividad física en Educación Infantil finalizando con una propuesta de aplicación práctica. Los objetivos de la investigación son: (I) Revisar el conocimiento científico y legislación en relación a la utilización metodológica del juego en educación infantil, (II) revisar el conocimiento científico y legislación en relación a la actividad física en Educación Infantil y (III) realizar una propuesta de aplicación práctica. Se concluye que el juego y actividad física son dos variables fundamentales para lograr una metodología globalizadora, significativa y motivante que aporte calidad al proceso formativo del alumnado en la etapa de educación infantil que puede complementarse con la utilización de recursos digitales y tecnológicos para el aprendizaje. A su vez, se presentan unas líneas generales de intervención, por áreas y bloques de contenidos, al objeto de mejorar la calidad del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Abstract. The stage of Early Childhood Education is directly related to personal development and is crucial in the process of personal growth. Learning experiences cannot be split into differentiated areas of cognitive, social, emotional and physical development, however they are integrated and dependent. This balance can be achieved by means of creative and interactive play, which supports and provides scaffolding to all areas of curriculum development and content. From this perspective, the present work brings together legislation and scientific knowledge in relation to play and physical activity in Early Childhood Education, ending with a practical application proposal. The research objectives are: (I) Review scientific knowledge and legislation regarding the methodological use of play in early childhood education; (II) Reviewing scientific knowledge and legislation in relation to physical activity in early childhood education; and (III) Making a practical implementation proposal. It is concluded that play and physical activity are two fundamental variables to achieve a globalizing, meaningful and motivating methodology which provides quality to the students’ formative process in childhood education stage which can be complemented with the use of digital and learning technological resources. At the same time, general lines of intervention are provided, in areas and blocks of contents, in order to improve the quality of the teaching-learning process.

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the educational landscape worldwide. One year after the disease outbreak, blended learning, which combines distance and face-to-face learning, became an alternative to fully online learning to address the demands of ensuring students’ health and education. Physical education teachers faced an additional challenge, given the experiential nature of their subject, but research on teachers’ perspectives is scarce. This study aims to explore high school physical education teachers’ perceptions of the potential, advantages, and disadvantages of the blended learning model of instruction. An online survey was used to register the views of 174 Spanish high school physical education teachers (120 men and 54 women). The main findings revealed that physical education teachers considered that blended learning, compared with full face-to-face learning, implied a work overload, worsened social relationships, and did not help to increase students’ motivation. Likewise, most teachers considered the physical activity performed by students during the blended learning period as being lower than usual. Furthermore, teachers reported that the students from lower-income families were the ones that experienced a lack of technological means the most. These results may guide both present and future policies and procedures for blended physical education. More research is needed to analyze the usefulness of blended learning in high school physical education.

The purposes of this study were to examine how fitness at the baseline could predict both academic achievement and academic achievement changes one school year in advance. A total of 194 adolescents (mean age: 14.15 ± 0.97 years old, 112 boys) who attended secondary school participated in our study. Cardiorespiratory fitness was measured with the 20 m endurance shuttle-run test. We also assessed the lower-limbs muscular strength with the standing long jump test and flexibility with the sit-and-reach test. The academic achievement was assessed by school grades. We performed linear regression analyses. Additionally, we examined the relationship between fitness and changes in the academic performance following the same statistical methodology. Cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with mathematics one school year in advance (p = 0.025). Cardiorespiratory fitness was also positively associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.005), mathematics (p = 0.023), and the grade point average (p = 0.006). Muscular strength was also positively associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.040) and mathematics (p = 0.010), while flexibility was associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.039) and the grade point average (0.027). Our results suggest that cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with academic achievement in adolescents.

Physical fitness, intelligence and academic achievement are being studied from a multidisciplinary perspective. In this line, studies to advance our understanding of intelligence and academic achievement could be relevant for designing school-based programs. Our study analyzed the relationship between components of physical fitness including cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength and flexibility and general intelligence and academic achievement in adolescents. We recruited 403 adolescents (53.6% boys) with a mean age of 13.7 ± 1.2 years from a secondary school in Spain with a medium socioeconomic status, during the 2015/2016 school year. Cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed by the 20-m shuttle run, muscular strength with the standing long jump test and flexibility with the sit-and-reach test. General intelligence was measured by both the D48 and the Raven tests. School grades were used to determine academic achievement. Linear regression analyses showed that cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with intelligence in both the D48 (all β ≥ 0.184, p ≤ 0.016) and the Raven tests (all β ≥ 0.183, p ≤ 0.024). Muscular strength, flexibility and overall fitness were not associated with intelligence (all β ≤ 0.122, p ≥ 0.139). Cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength and flexibility were positively associated with academic achievement (all β ≥ 0.089, p ≤ 0.038), except muscular strength, which was not significantly associated with Spanish language or mathematics, (all β ≤ 0.050, p ≥ 0.200). Overall, cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with intelligence and academic achievement.

General intelligence may not predict fitness, but it may predict academic achievements in adolescents one year later. Further studies are needed to examine our findings.

El sistema educativo está tratando de responder de manera eficaz a los retos y cambios en materia educativa provocados por la COVID-19. El proceso de transición de una enseñanza predominantemente presencial a una virtual ha supuesto un esfuerzo considerable para el profesorado de Educación Física (EF) con la finalidad de adaptar el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. No hay evidencias de estudios que hayan analizado las iniciativas de EF en casa realizadas por los docentes. Esta investigación tiene como objetivo analizar, desde una perspectiva curricular, diferentes propuestas de EF en casa con la finalidad de conocer sus características, compartir ejemplos de buenas prácticas y ofrecer al profesorado orientaciones útiles que les ayuden a diseñar propuestas de calidad en el futuro. Los resultados evidenciaron que el perfil predominante de actividad fue un ejercicio individual de carácter motriz centrado en el desarrollo de la condición física y presentada como un reto, donde el alumnado repite una secuencia específica de movimientos con ayuda de internet. Abstract. The education system attempts to effectively respond to the instructional changes and challenges caused by COVID-19. The adaptation process of predominantly face-to-face teaching to virtual one has involved a substantial effort for Physical Education (PE) teachers with the aim of adapting the teaching and learning process. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have analyzed the different at-home PE units done by teachers. This research aimed at examining, from a curricular perspective, distinct at-home PE proposals in order to ascertain their characteristics, share instances of good teaching practices, and provide teachers with useful guidelines to help them design quality proposals in the future. The results evidenced that the predominant activity profile was an individual motor exercise focused on physical fitness and introduced as a challenge, in which students repeat a specific movement sequence with the aid of the internet.

Ante situaciones de emergencia que obligan al conjunto de la población – en especial a los adolescentes – a permanecer en casa, la Educación Física (EF) representa una buena estrategia para contribuir a mantener los niveles de actividad física diarios desde casa. Por tanto, el objetivo de este trabajo fue mostrar una propuesta didáctica que, basada en el currículum de Educación Física de educación secundaria obligatoria, contribuya a promocionar la actividad física en casa. Para ello, esta propuesta se fundamenta en un enfoque competencial, incluyendo tanto tecnologías de la información y la comunicación como el establecimiento de retos, con la finalidad de abordar los diferentes contenidos curriculares relacionados con la calidad de vida y salud, condición física y motriz, juegos y deportes, expresión corporal y actividades físicas en el medio natural. La evaluación se plantea mediante una serie de instrumentos (rúbrica, diario, portafolio, hoja de observación y cuestionario) que permitan conocer el grado de consecución de los criterios de evaluación. Después de todo, esta propuesta abre nuevas vías para que el profesorado de EF desarrolle otras propuestas didácticas que faciliten no sólo seguir con las clases de educación física, sino la realización de actividad física en casa. Abstract. In emergency situations that force the whole population – particularly adolescents – to stay at home, Physical Education represents an optimal strategy to contribute to adolescents’ physical activity at their home. Therefore, this study aims at showing a didactic proposal that, based on Middle Secondary School Physical Education curriculum, promotes adolescents’ physical activity at home. For this end, this proposal relies on a competence approach, including both communication and information technologies and the establishment of challenging activities, in order to tackle the different curricular contents related to health and quality of life, physical and motor fitness, games and sports, body expression and physical activities in natural environment. Assessment focuses on a series of instruments (rubric, diary, portfolio, observation sheets, and questionnaire) allowing to evaluate the degree of accomplishment for each assessment criterion. Finally, this proposal offers new avenues for Physical Education teachers to develop other didactic proposals facilitating not only Physical Education classes, but also physical activity at home.

El presente trabajo realiza un análisis reflexivo sobre la incidencia que ha tenido la situación de confinamiento en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje de la asignatura de Educación Física. Partiendo de los efectos en el sistema educativo de forma genérica se llega a una concreción en Educación Física y su incidencia en los diferentes elementos del currículo como los contenidos, atención a la diversidad, rol docente, metodología, etc. Posteriormente, se diserta sobre la relación entra la pandemia de la obesidad y el sedentarismo. Se finaliza con un planteamiento que trata de extraer aprendizajes de la situación vivida para avanzar hacia una Educación Física de Calidad y Éxito.