Active breaks in the classroom to improve thinking skills

ARM 1 Brief name: cognitively challenging active breaks. Short description: teachers and children assigned to this group performed cognitively challenging active breaks in their classroom, twice a day for 5-6 weeks. The breaks were designed to last 4-5min. They consisted of physically active games combined with a cognitive task intended to challenge one or more executive functions (i.e., response inhibition, working memory and/or cognitive flexibility) of the participants. ARM 2 Brief name: non-cognitively-challenging (or ‘simple’) active breaks Short description: teachers and children assigned to this group performed non-cognitively-challenging active breaks in their classroom, twice a day for 5-6 weeks. The breaks were designed to last 4-5min and had similar intensity but low cognitive demand compared to Arm 1. ARM 1 and ARM 2 Procedures: Three mainstream primary schools were recruited at convenience from greater Melbourne to participate in the study. Five classrooms (Grades 1 and 2), out of nine from two schools, were randomly assigned to Arm 1; the remaining four classrooms were assigned to Arm 2. All teachers attended a one-off 20-min training on how to conduct active breaks in the classroom, including the rationale for research and a practical demonstration of the breaks. Teachers were asked to select the active breaks from a specific repertoire of seven activities (different sets for each arm), designed to last between four and five minutes, and to use them to break up children’s prolonged sitting twice a day (between 9:00 am and 11:00 am and between 11:30 am and 1:00 pm) for 5-6 weeks. The trial was conducted in October-December 2017 (school Term 4). Activities: Arm 1 was required to perform the following activities: i) "My Clock is Late!" – an imitation of a coordination sequence with a time delay between teacher and children (Tomporowski, McCullick & Pesce, 2015); ii) "Silent ball Q&A" – children toss a ball to each other, each time the thrower asks a question to which the catcher has to answer; iii) "Simon says…" – Children perform the actions that are preceded by 'Simon says…', but do nothing in absence of that phrase; iv) "Robot remote control" – a stimulus-response game that requires children remember and perform the appropriate positions/actions associated to each of the teacher’s prompts; v) "One, two, three…star (+ moon, + sun)" – a game that requires children to quickly respond to the stimuli provided by the curator of the game (Tomporowski et al., 2015); vi) "Crazy traffic lights" – children are required to move or stop according to the visual signs presented by the teacher, disregarding the inconsistent verbal cues that the teacher will sometimes provide (Tomporowski et al., 2015); vii) "Dance off!" – children dance over a music track and freeze their position every time the music stops. Arm 2 was required to perform the following activities: i) "Quick fit!" – a simple imitation of a movement sequence; ii) "Silent ball" – children try to toss a light ball to each other without talking, making sounds or dropping the ball; iii) "As if…" – children enact the actions described in the sentences read by the teacher; iv) "Fitness dice" – children perform the activity associated with the result from a dice roll; v) "Over, Under, Around and Through" – children form lines of four/five and go over, under, around and through imaginary or real objects following their leader; vi) "3-speed car" – children pretend to be cars travelling at different speeds as suggested by the teacher; vii) "Let’s dance!" – children dance for the duration of a fun music track. Resources: Teachers were provided with an hard copy of a manual, including a description of the activities, specific instructions to be followed for each session, an activity log to record teacher’s daily progress, suggestions on additional resources and equipment that could be used, as well as some equipment (i.e., a light-weight ball, visual cards, action prompts, dices and music). Program deliverer(s): one researcher conducted the face-to-face trainings for teachers involved in the trial; teachers who completed the training implemented face-to-face active breaks with their children in the classroom. Adaptations: The suggested teaching progression allowed teachers to modify the active breaks to match children’s skills. This was possible by applying at least one of the following: segmentation, modulation of interlimb coordination demand, and adjustments in the ratio between repetition and change. For example, teachers could break down the task to a fewer number of movement types (segmentation), simplify the type of motor tasks performed – e.g., jumping instead of hopping – (modulation of coordination demand) or increase the number of repetitions of each movement to allow children to have more time to synchronise with the whole group (adjustments in the ratio between repetition and change). Adherence: The following strategies helped researchers to control for the fidelity to the program: i) teachers were asked to complete an activity log to record the number and type of active breaks performed on each trial day; ii) one-on-one interviews were conducted with teachers at the end of the trial. Some of the interview questions related to fidelity to the program; iii) researchers incidentally observed teachers’ implementation of active breaks during in-class observations of children’s time on-task; iv) children’s sitting time collected at mid-trial was also considered as one measure of teacher’s adherence to the program.