Teacher renewal through curriculum innovation: Changing teachers' pedagogies and programs

This paper outlines the development of a new pedagogy for the health and physical education learning area based on teachers' stories from the national trial of the sport education curriculum model. Against a backdrop of subject marginality, a crisis in physical education and recently encountered difficulties facing physical educators in delivering learning outcomes for the postmodern youth culture some dysfunctional aspects of school physical education are addressed. Our research findings have led us to a position that when curriculum innovation moves beyond surface change teachers will renew both their pedagogies and their programs. Teacher renewal within this framework has led to widespread and ongoing curriculum development, program restructuring, improved outcomes for adolescents and is positively affecting the expectations teachers have for learning outcomes in physical education. Our work provides evidence that student-centred sport education curriculum model seems responsive to the changing social world of adolescents. However it will be teachers who will tell us whether their initial renewal through sport education improves their professional lives and the lot of their students