Educational kinesiology in health and fitness activities of physical education teacher: ideas and principles

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Dr. Hab., Professor V.N. Irkhin1
Dr. Hab., Professor I.F. Isaev1
PhD, Associate Professor O.V. Amurskaya1
PhD, Associate Professor J.A. Strelkova1
1Belgorod State National Research University, Belgorod

Keywords: educational kinesiology, health and fitness service, physical education teacher.

Backgroundю One of the key missions of the national educational system is to find new effective health protection and improvement systems for young people. Despite the fact that the valid Federal State Education Standards require from the teachers paying a special attention to the students’ health initiatives – including the special physical education events and health technologies applicable in classes – in practical terms such service models are hardly if at all customizable to the individual physical education needs, motivations, emotions, identities and agendas. This is the reason why, as we believe, the educational systems need to prioritize the modern kinesiological ideas and principles to facilitate the regulatory and coordinating functions of the central nervous system through motor activities customized to the actual psycho-physiological processes.

As far as the traditional class education models are concerned, they are known to often restrict the students’ individual spaces and degrees of freedom in many aspects and largely ignore the individual sensitivity; whilst the modern educational kinesiological tools make it possible to increase the individual sensitivity due to their relaxation and stress mitigation aspects [3]. Kinesiological tools including kinesiological practices, role games, sketching exercises, active psycho-technical games, body language trainings, dancing elements etc. – help reduce the physical tension, cope with the pathological synkenysias of harmful effect on the student’s physical and psycho-emotional balances, stimulate attention and memory, facilitate the spatial apprehension, thinking ability and movement controls and harmonize the brain activity on a holistic and coordinated basis [5]. Students will effectively develop motivations for healthy lifestyles through the active training models to increasingly rank own health among their personal life priorities.

Objective of the study was to analyze benefits of the modern educational kinesiology for the physical education teacher’s health and fitness service.

Results and discussion. Analysis of the relevant study reports [1-6] show that the educational kinesiological ideas and principles help the physical education teacher design the physical education service on a sound kinesiological basis to effectively and harmoniously develop the student’s ability to learn by activating inter-hemispheric interactions, memory, attention, speaking abilities, creative and abstract-logical thinking, etc. The kinesiological exercises recommended for application at the start, in the middle or at the end of every class may be designed to intersect the imaginary midline of the body with multiple repetitions and varied movement sequences with special emphases on the movement speed, figurative thinking and/or non-verbal/ body language communication tools. These practices will activate the sensory, motor and associative functional cells of the central nervous system, modify the genetically predetermined functional asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres and, hence, improve the central-nervous-system-controlled movement coordination qualities.

Based on our analysis of the existing kinesiological tools applicable for educational purposes, we would offer them being classified by the educational service missions as follows:

  • Motivational kinesiological complexes, each of them designed to develop specific motivations by the relevant kinesiological exercises; and
  • Role games, sketching exercises, outdoor psycho-technical games using a variety of object manipulation tools, body language/ gestures, dancing elements etc. [3].

As demonstrated by the practical experience of the Belgorod Oblast physical education teaching community, role games and game modeling practices, object manipulation tools, body language/ gestures mastering practices, non-verbal communication and dancing elements may be highly beneficial for the educational service quality improvement projects. Thus the off-class physical education practices geared to mobilize the kinesiological potential were found of special interest for the trainees, with the particularly enthusiastic attitudes to the so-called cardio-dancing classes including special dance and step-aerobics elements. Role game tools were found highly effective for learning the basics of a healthy lifestyle with the body language/ gesture practices with facial expressions and emotional responses.

For example, A.P. Petrov, physical education instructor at Borisov School No. 2 in the Belgorod Oblast developed and piloted in the school pool a set of special aquatic kinesiological practices with multiple physical, verbal and thinking skills activation kinesiological tools with musical illustrations; and these classes are appreciated for their special mentally/ emotionally comfortable climate helping the students mobilize their own individual experiences in the modeled situations.

Conclusion. The educational kinesiological ideas and principles are meant to help the physical education instructor apply the most efficient educational kinesiological tools with the physical activity giving a special priority to the movement plasticity combined with the verbal/ thinking abilities and psycho-emotional domain activation so as to secure improvements in functional coordination of the right/ left cerebral hemispheres. The kinesiological practices may include object manipulation exercises, role games, sketching practices, outdoor psycho-technical games, body language/ gestures mastering practices and dancing elements. These tools are recommended for application with intersections of the imaginary midline of the body to activate the figurative and abstract-logical thinking, with multiple repetitions in a logical sequence, and with a special emphasis on the movement speed, figurative thinking and non-verbal communication tools. Modern kinesiological tools make it possible for a physical education instructor to attain both the immediate and long-term goals in the health improvement process.

The study was completed under the New Models and Technologies for the Physical Education Specialist Training at Russian and European Universities Project, pursuant to the Belgorod State National Research University Board Order No. 737 of 15.08.2018.

References

  1. Bal'sevich V.K. Human ontokinesiology. M.: Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury i sporta publ., 2000. 275 p.
  2. Gudhart D. Dural torsion and muscle functional chains. LFK i massazh. 2005. no. 9. pp. 51-54.
  3. Polshchikova O.V. Future teacher's healthy lifestyle motivation formation by kinesiological means. PhD diss.. Belgorod, 2012. 196 p.
  4. Feldenkrais M. The Art of Movement. The lessons of the master. Transl. Engl. A. Zaslavskaya. M.: Eksmo publ., 2003. 352 p
  5. Dennison Paul, Dennison Gail Brain Gym. Ventura, Calif.: Edu-Kinesthetics, 1994. 45 р.
  6. Hannaford Carla. Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head. Arlington. Va.: Great Ocean Publishers, 1995. 237 р.

Corresponding author: nikulin_i@bsu.edu.ru

Abstract

One of the key challenges faced by the Russian educational system is the search for effective ways to maintain health of the younger generation. The article raises the issue of improvement of health and fitness activities of physical education teachers. It is shown that among the ways to solve this problem is to use during the teaching activities the ideas and principles of educational kinesiology: ideas of implementation of educational motor activity of students; formation of the new neural connections contributing to the effective interaction between the cerebral hemispheres, etc.; kinesiological principles (according to V.K. Bal’sevich): determination (characterized by the conservative and labile components of the morphofunctional profile of a person, as well as the development of his/ her physical fitness); adequacy (organization of health and fitness activities with due regard to the level of readiness of the bodily systems for perception of the training information); phase emphasis (equitable temporal distribution of physical loads of various orientation). It was concluded that effective health and fitness activity of a physical education teacher, which is based on the ideas and principles of educational kinesiology, is possible with the following pedagogical conditions: involvement of students in the health-saving motor activities supported by the kinesiology-based tools; creation of an emotionally-positive background at physical education lessons that would contribute to the accumulation of positive emotions in students through psycho-physiological emancipation; inclusion of incentives of personal meaning of kinesiology-based tools; realization of kinesiological potential of extracurricular health and fitness activities.