Internet-based Professional Learning to help teachers support Activity in Youth: The iPLAY Project

This trial will test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the “Internet-based Professional Learning to help teachers support Activity in Youth (iPLAY)” intervention. The aim of this project is to modify, scale-up and evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention previously shown to be efficacious in improving children’s physical activity, fundamental movement skills and cardiorespiratory fitness. iPLAY will include six components to promote physical activity participation and fundamental movement skill competency. These components are 1) quality physical education and school sport; 2) classroom movement breaks; 3) physically active homework; 4) active playgrounds; 5) community physical activity links; 6) parent and caregiver engagement. Teachers will be trained in the components using a mixture of face-to-face workshops, online learning, and individualised observation and feedback. iPLAY Mentors (employed by the project) will deliver the intervention to teachers. Mentors will be current and retired teachers with NSW Board of Studies Teaching and Educational Standards (BOSTES) specialist accreditation in Health and PE. Mentors will complete two days face-to-face training from the project team to deliver the intervention. Workshops will include: (i) familiarisation with the intervention components and procedures, (ii) review of answers to pre-determined ‘frequently asked questions’, (iii) discussion regarding methods to establish mentors’ credibility, ‘relatability’ and likeability, (iv) problem solving exercises regarding likely challenging scenarios and (v) role-playing exercises. The iPLAY Mentors will deliver a 2 hour face-to-face professional learning workshop to classroom teachers within each primary schools. Materials for the workshops include professional learning videos, presentation slides, and discussion questions, which will all be provided to mentors by the project team. For each teacher, mentors will observe one PE or school sport lesson teacher and use a structured template to provide individualised feedback to the teacher during a 30-minute meeting. The observation will occur once per teacher during the 3 terms following the workshop (i.e., 1 observation per teacher total). In the 3 school terms following the face-to-face workshop, teachers will complete 8 x 30-minute online learning modules (i.e., 4 hours). Each module will consist of short (i.e., 3-5min) videos describing strategies and good and poor practice examples. Teachers are requested to complete the modules within the 3 terms following the workshop. Teachers will be prompted to reflect on the strategies learnt, and set action plans to assist them in implementing the learnt strategies. Teachers are also asked to reflect on their implementation at the beginning of each online module. The face-to-face workshop and 8 online modules are designed to assist all classroom teachers to implement three of the six iPLAY components – 1) quality PE and school sport; 2) classroom movement breaks; and 3) physically active homework. To support implementation, teachers will also have access to the following resources: 1) the resource section of the iPLAY website, which includes suggested games, activities, classroom breaks, and example physically active homework tasks; 2) the iPLAY smartphone app, which will provide reminders to implement teaching strategies from their action plan with customisable frequency; 3) a physical activity monitoring system (one per school) consisting of a smartphone with software and 25 digital pedometers, which provides teachers with information on their student physical activity levels during a PE or sport lesson. Teachers are continuously able to access resources on iPLAY, including after the main intervention delivery period (i.e., 12-months after baseline). Within each school, up to three classroom teachers will be identified as “iPLAY Leaders”. Leaders will deliver the remaining three iPLAY components - 1) active playgrounds; 2) community physical activity links; 3) parent and caregiver engagement. Additionally, iPLAY leaders will support other teachers with their implementation of the iPLAY components. The iPLAY leaders will complete an additional 3 hours online learning (6 x 30min modules) over a period of 4-5 weeks, and and will have 4 face-to-face meetings with their iPLAY mentor (approximately once per term). Teachers will be expected to deliver the intervention across the entire duration of the trial (i.e., 24 months).