‘Swim like a knife slipping on fresh cream’ The role of metaphors in struggling students’ engagement with learning activities in physical education

Abstract

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Student engagement with learning activities is considered in educational research as a primary facilitator of academic achievement and student learning. Teachers play a major role in student engagement with learning activities. The use of metaphors is a way to promote this engagement, especially when students are struggling in school. This case study investigated a teacher’s activity when she interacted with struggling students. We were interested in the repeated use of metaphors by the teacher, associated with concerns of promoting student engagement with learning activities. More specifically, we characterized (a) the teacher’s concerns about student engagement with learning activities when the metaphors was used from the beginning of the school year; (b) these concerns’ dynamics when metaphors were used during the PE unit; (c) the effects of the use of metaphors, as perceived by the teacher, on student engagement with learning activities. This study was conducted following a situated approach from the theoretical framework of the ‘course of action.’Methods: Sophie, an expert PE teacher, agreed to participate in this research. The class included twelve struggling students of the first grade of the Middle School. Two types of data were collected: (a) audio-video recordings of the lessons and (b) teacher’s verbalizations during self-confrontation interviews. The data were processed in five steps: (a) constructing a two-level protocol; (b) constructing the teacher’s course of experience when the teacher aimed to improve the student engagement by using the metaphor; (c) identifying and categorizing Sophie’s concerns; (d) describing these concerns dynamics; (e) highlighting the effects of the use of metaphors, as perceived by Sophie, on the students engagement in learning activities.Results: The teacher promoted student engagement with learning activities using a singular metaphor throughout the PE-unit in this class, ‘the knife slipping on fresh cream,’ to name the learning content in swimming lessons. The results are presented in three stages: (a) the concerns to promote student engagement with learning activities by using the ‘knife on fresh cream’ metaphor; (b) the concerns dynamics presentation during the PE unit; (c) the effects perceived by the teacher of the ‘knife on fresh cream’ metaphor on student engagement with learning activities.Discussion and conclusions: The results are discussed in three stages: (a) using metaphors to promote student engagement with learning activities; (b) promoting student engagement with learning activities over time from the first day of class; (c) measuring the effects of metaphors on student engagement from the teacher’s experience.