Research School Network: Remote KS3 Physical Education Using peer interactions to boost student motivation

by Katie Wills, Teacher of PE and Research Lead

Although lockdown has put an end to sport worldwide, exercise and physical activity have never been more important. One small thing to celebrate in the current climate is that the government decided to prioritize exercise as a basic human need alongside food and medicine. Unlike other countries, we were given the privilege of leaving the house once a day to gain the physical and mental benefits of participating in physical activity and I am sure all PE teachers rejoiced that the basis for our subject was being championed. However, just because our students have the opportunity to take part in daily exercise does not mean that they will. Some students, and adults, are extremely intrinsically motivated and will run, cycle or workout without being prompted but others need extrinsic motivation. Despite all having more time, the slow, isolated and sedentary nature of our lives at the moment doesn’t lend itself to enthusiastic exercising and consequently it is our role as PE teachers to support students with inspiration and motivation of how to stay physically active in lock-down.

Before we left school, my department and I discussed the challenges of remote PE, including restricted space, facilities, activities, equipment but most importantly motivation and engagement. We knew that competition and peer interaction were going to be essential and thus we formed the idea that is the base of our current KS3 remote delivery. The EEF remote learning rapid evidence review was, of course, released after we began to implement our strategy, however, when it was released I was pleased to see the evidence supporting the importance of peer interactions to motivate and improve outcomes. Although the evidence seems based on strategies, such as peer feedback and collaborative work, that have been remotely delivered in theory-based subjects, the tenets of the evidence certainly support the remote delivery strategy we chose. I hope that by talking through the idea and how it has been received by our students, it may inspire others to use peer interaction to positively enhance their remote learning.

The initial idea was based on an activity app, called MyZone, that uses a heart rate monitor to allocate points based on intensity and duration of activity completed. Like a lot of activity apps, it lets you set targets, post your workouts for others to see, attach pictures and like or comment on the workouts of others. We used these principles to create a google spreadsheet that allows students to input the physical activity they are completing and uses an intensity rating for a range of lock-down-possible, physical activities to calculate the points for each workout. The spreadsheet contains a tab of links that directs students to possible home workouts and the more activity they log the more points they receive.

Each class was given their own spreadsheet so they could directly compete with peers. Without heart rate monitors to track activity, the strategy relies on students being honest about the exercise they are completing but we drew up a list of rules to make sure students understood our expectations and hoped for the best! Each lesson we provide additional challenges and encourage students to climb the leader board to be crowned ​‘Activity Champion’ of the week. To replicate the social side of the activity app, we ask students to use the google classroom feed to post evidence of their workouts. They can share photos and/​or videos of themselves to show their peers what they had been up to as well as comment, positively, on the evidence of others.

Overall we are very pleased with how well our students have engaged with the remote delivery. Generally participation is high, particularly with the younger students, and evidence is posted regularly on google classroom. In the classes where the strategy is particularly successful, it is great to see students asking questions and congratulating one another on their workouts. Not all classes (Year 9s) are as motivated as we would like but we are adapting challenges, target setting and expectations as the weeks go on to keep engagement high. The key is giving students the opportunity to positively interact in a way that they feel connected and thus as the evidence suggests motivated to keep working towards positive outcomes.