Chapters authored
Physical Activity Practice, Sleeping Habits and Academic Achievement
There is a wide body of research that has identified the strong links between health behaviors and academic achievement. The media and official agencies strive to convey to schoolchildren and the public the need to show healthy lifestyles. However, it is striking that sleep habits have been considered in few occasions within healthy behaviors to be developed and promoted. Schools should encourage their students to be active because the effect of physical exercise will promote sleep and will positively affect the performance of academic tasks. Then, it is necessary to revitalize and establish the subject of Physical Education and Sport practice properly where the students can meet a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise per week. This approach will have a direct impact on the school children’s performance and health. Therefore, the key question is to decide whether educational centers must promote active lifestyles where sleep and exercise will be promoting or maintain schools where the body and body intelligence remain an irrelevant matter.
Part of the book: Health and Academic Achievement
Clumsiness and Motor Competence in Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy
One of the main objectives of physical education and sport (PES) pedagogy in schools is to develop motor competence in children. While many schoolchildren practice sports, there is a group of children that does not receive the educational opportunities to be competent. These children show low motor competence and poor motor coordination. International agencies have called this condition as developmental coordination disorders (DCD) and its definition in short is “poor motor performance in daily activities that is not consistent with the child’s age and intelligence, and is not due to medical condition.” Physical education and sport teachers are the first interventionist with these children. They have the first opportunity of providing primary care to these children. In this chapter, motor coordination problems in school, its prevalence, how these children learn, how physical education and sport teachers can detect them, and why physical education and sport pedagogy must be concerned with this problem, will be analyzed.
Part of the book: Advanced Learning and Teaching Environments