Tag Archive for 'Scuola'

How to reduce the school drop-out

Published on April 6, 2023 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: .

Allen, KA., Jamshidi, N., Berger, E. et al. Impact of School-Based Interventions for Building School Belonging in Adolescence: a Systematic Review. Educ Psychol Rev 34, 229–257 (2022).

A student’s sense of school belonging is critical to school success, yet internationally, a large proportion of secondary students do not feel that they belong to their school. However, little is understood about how schools can address this issue, nor what evidence-based interventions are available to increase belonging among secondary school students.

The aim of this study is to identify and critically review the evidence on school-based interventions that increase a sense of school belonging in adolescents. Seven electronic databases and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were searched from 1999 to February 2021 using ‘school belonging’ and ‘intervention’ amongst the key search terms. A total of 22 controlled trials were identified with 14 studies reporting effective school-based interventions for enhancing a sense of adolescent school belonging.

Successful interventions targeted students’ strengths and promoted positive interactions between students and between school staff and students.

Overall, this review found a paucity of interventions that intentionally aimed to develop adolescent school belonging. Inconsistencies in terminology use and definitions describing school belonging were identified even when similar measurement tools were utilised. Findings of this review have important practice implications and provide information to support schools to select evidence-based interventions to improve students’ sense of school belonging.

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How computer job increases the sedentariness

Published on January 14, 2022 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Shirin Panahi and Angelo Tremblay, 2018, Sedentariness and Health: Is Sedentary Behavior More Than Just Physical Inactivity? Front. Public Health, 10 September 2018     

The World Health Organization recommends that adults aged 18 or older participate in at least 150 min of moderate-to-vigorous activity per week or the equivalent of 30 min of daily activity . Currently, just over 15% of Canadian adults are meeting these guidelines.

The problems of sedentariness may not only be attributed to a lack of movement, but also to the stimulation provided by replacing activities.

In addition to the changes in human activity, globalization and technological changes have favored a progressive switch from physically demanding tasks to knowledge-based work or mental activity soliciting an enhanced cognitive demand. Screen-based leisure activities (e.g., television watching, video games, and internet use) and screen-based work activities (e.g., computer use for work purposes) have often been considered together while they may not trigger the same stress response and/or use of substrate. Furthermore, from a physiological perspective, the biological requirements and effects of physical and cognitive work are not the same. Mental work, for instance, may significantly increase glycemic instability (i.e., wide fluctuations in blood glucose concentrations) leading to an increase in the desire to eat and thus, higher energy intakes.

Thus, the problems of sedentariness may not only be attributed to a lack of movement, but also to the stimulation provided by replacing activities. In a context where there is exposure to cognitive work, novel strategies to increase physical activity and improve energy balance regulation are needed.

 

As has been previously suggested, from a physiological perspective, the biological requirements of physical and mental work are different because knowledge-based work is a type of activity that relies on the brain which utilizes glucose for the metabolism of energy compared to physical activity which uses skeletal muscle and relies mostly on fat metabolism, depending on the type of physical activity.

However potential solutions that consider approaches to counteracting the negative impact of mental work may be possible with the readjustment of daily physical activity schedules.

In the context of a school or work environment, recent data has suggested that combining mental and physical work (e.g., active pauses/meetings), may be one strategy to reduce sedentary time in a context where potential neurogenic stress may be high.

An acute bout of interval exercise after mental work was shown to decrease food consumption compared with a non-exercise condition suggesting that it may be used as an approach to offset positive energy balance induced by mental tasks.

In the workplace, sit-stand desks were found to be effective in decreasing workplace sedentary behavior in office workers with abdominal obesity, with no change in sedentary behavior or physical activity outside of work hours; however, these changes did not alter markers of cardiometabolic risk in these individuals. Furthermore, the use of sit-stand desks in sedentary office workers was also associated an overall sense of well-being and energy, decreased fatigue, and reduction in appetite, food intake and lower self-perceived levels of hunger.

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10 reasons to increase the young physical activity

Published on December 3, 2021 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Let’s remember why exercise is essential for the young development.

  1. It improves the cardiovascular system, so aerobic activity and its ability to circulate blood and oxygen has been used to explain improvements in brain function and cognition (increased capillary growth).
  2. Increased neural network due to greater diffusion of neurotransmitters.
  3. Growth of new neurons in areas of the hippocampus that promote learning and memory.
  4. In young people the greater the demands of school performance, the greater the need for breaks.
  5. Free, unstructured play reduces cognitive interference, promoting learning. More evident in children than in adolescents and adults (cognitive immaturity hypothesis).
  6. Affective relationships and collaboration with peers support learning and inhibit antisocial behavior.
  7. Gradual development of “executive skills” (response inhibition, memory, and decision-making flexibility).
  8. The amount of time children are involved in motor activity and sports is proportional to their school performance; the more time the greater the educational benefits for children and adolescents.
  9. An important consideration for school administrators is the impact of motor activity programs on academic achievement. Schools with more minutes of physical activity have higher levels of academic achievement.
  10. A program called “system-fit” that integrates age-appropriate physical activity is an opportunity to help children who can be defined as kinesthetic-student and children who do not adjust well to the school environment.

 

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Sport and school performance

Published on October 7, 2021 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: .

Katherine B. Owen et al., (2021). Sport Participation and Academic Performance in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise

Introduction: Physical activity can improve academic performance; however, much less is known about the specific association between sport participation and academic performance and this evidence has not been synthesised. Our aim was to systematically review and combine via meta-analyses evidence of the association between sport participation and academic performance in children and adolescents.

Methods: We conducted searches of five electronic databases using sport and academic performance related terms. We combined evidence from eligible studies using a structural equation modelling approach to multilevel meta-analysis.

Results: From 115 eligible studies, most of which had a high risk of bias (k = 87), we meta-analysed 298 effect sizes. Overall, sport participation had a small positive effect on academic performance (d = 0.26, 95% CIs 0.09, 0.42). Moderator analyses indicated that sports participation was most beneficial for academic performance when it was at a moderate dose (i.e., 1-2 hours per week), compared to no sport or a high dose of sport (3+ hours per week).

Conclusion: Sports participation during school hours was more beneficial for academic performance compared to sport participation outside of school hours. Based on mostly low-quality studies, we found some evidence that sport could positively impact academic performance in children and adolescents. It appears that sport participation of a moderate dose and at school could be used to promote academic performance. However, if this field were to inform policy, high-quality studies are needed that provide insight into the effect of dose and sport characteristics on academic performance.

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Our responsibility as adults toward the young athletes

Published on October 6, 2021 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

At the beginning of this new century, the concept that sport can become a valid and viable professional mainstream for young people has taken hold. Years ago, pursuing a career as an athlete was an option little considered by families, so young people continued to attend the schools in which they were enrolled until the end of their studies. This was the Italian situation characterized by a total disconnection between the school Institution and the sporting world, the latter generally opposed by teachers. Families, on the other hand, rarely asked themselves the question about the sporting future of their children before they reached adulthood. Today the situation has changed. Sports organizations press for promising athletes to train many hours a week, families think that a sports career is an opportunity like any other, sometimes even the best and easiest to pursue, and young people are caught between these two demands and at the same time they too are tuning in to this opportunity. Moreover, teaching in Italian schools is rather backward and little different from how it was done 100 years ago and, therefore, adolescents in general do not find an environment oriented towards their development as a person and the acquisition of the skills characteristic of their curriculum.

Certainly, sport appears to be more fun, exciting and varied, even if daily practice does not correspond to this stereotype, but in my opinion the sporting environment in which young talents enter is usually stimulating, and guided by coaches who are more interested in the development of the person and the athlete. We are talking about young people who train at least 30 hours a week for 10 months. An amount of time, however, not different from that of students who want to achieve equally positive results at school.

The question that no one asks is not about the notions to be learned, but about understanding to what extent dropping out of school or schooling in private schools where the study of the program is totally conditioned by the sports activity represents a limit to the development of these young athletes. To date, each family and each sports organization pursues a path and there are no guidelines developed by the Ministry of Education and those who govern the sport. In this choice, families are left without guidance and the federations choose the paths that can be taken according to the needs of their sport. A discussion would be helpful as well as a better understanding of other countries’ models.

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Basket-Mathematics school program

Published on May 14, 2021 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

New study with 756 first through fifth graders demonstrates that a six-week mashup of hoops and math has a positive effect on their desire to learn more, provides them with an experience of increased self-determination and grows math confidence among youth. The Basketball Mathematics study was conducted at five Danish primary and elementary schools by researchers from the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports.

 

In recent decades, there has been a considerable amount of attention paid to explore different approaches to stimulate children’s learning. Especially, there has been a focus on how physical activity, separated from the learning activities, can improve children’s cognitive performance and learning. Conversely, there has been less of a focus aimed at the potential of integrating physical activity into the learning activities. The main purpose of this study therefore was to develop a learning activity that integrates  and mathematics and examine how it might affect children’s motivation in mathematics.

Increased motivation, self-determination and mastery

Seven-hundred fifty-six children from 40 different classes at Copenhagen area schools participated in the project, where about half of the them—once a week for six weeks—had Basketball Mathematics during gym class, while the other half played basketball without mathematics.

“During classes with Basketball Mathematics, the children had to collect numbers and perform calculations associated with various basketball exercises. An example could be counting how many times they could sink a basket from three meters away vs. at a one-meter distance, and subsequently adding up the numbers. Both the math and basketball elements could be adjusted to suit the children’s levels, as well as adjusting for whether it was addition, multiplication or some other function that needed to be practiced,” explains Linn Damsgaard, who is writing her Ph.D. thesis on the connection between learning and physical activity at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports.

The results demonstrate that children’s motivation for math integrated with basketball is 16% higher com-pared to classroom math learning. Children also experienced a 14% increase in self-determination compared with classroom teaching, while Basketball Mathematics increases mastery by 6% compared versus classroom-based mathematics instruction. Furthermore, the study shows that Basketball Mathematics can maintain children’s motivation for mathematics over a six-week period, while the motivation of the control group decreases significantly.

“It is widely acknowledged that youth motivation for schoolwork decreases as the  year progresses. Therefore, it is quite interesting that we don’t see any decrease in motivation when kids take part in Basketball Mathematics. While we can’t explain our results with certainty, it could be that Basketball Mathematics endows children with a sense of ownership of their calculations and helps them clarify and concretize abstract concepts, which in turn increases their  to learn mathematics through Basketball Mathematics,” says Ph.D. student Linn Damsgaard

Active math on the school schedule

Associate Professor Jacob Wienecke of UCPH’s Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, who supervised the study, says that other studies have proved the benefits of movement and physical activity on children’s academic learning. He expects for the results of Basketball Mathematics on  and academic performance to be published soon:

“We are currently investigating whether the Basketball Mathematics model can strengthen youth performance in . Once we have the final results, we hope that they will inspire school teachers and principals to prioritize more  and movement in these subjects,” says Jacob Wienecke, who concludes:

“Eventually, we hope to succeed in having these tools built into the school system and the teacher’s education. The aim is that schools in the future will include “Active English” and “Active Mathematics” in the weekly schedule as subjects where physical education and subject-learning instructors collaborate to integrate this type of instruction with the normally more sedentary classwork.”

(Source: phys.org)

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Survey: adolescents and school

Published on February 11, 2021 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Libri, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

National survey: Educational Poverty in Children and Youth in Italy

Economic poverty is often caused by educational poverty. The two feed off each other and are passed on from generation to generation.

In Italy, the most affected group by poverty is children. In 2005, 3.9% of minors under the age of 18 lived in absolute poverty and that number currently triples and exceeds 12%. In today’s Italy, the younger a person is, the more likely is to experience absolute poverty.

Educational poverty, on the other hand, prevents too many boys, girls, and young people from having equal “opportunities” for growth, by lacking access to child services, education, training courses, culture, musical education and art, sports, meeting places, and health care. Fighting against educational poverty, therefore, becomes a fundamental action for the development of the country. A real change is possible only by guaranteeing all minors equal access to quality education. To achieve this, there should be a common link between the local educational institutions, primarily between schools and families, but also between educational institutions and organisations from the third sector. By and large, it is a process that involves all those who are part of the “educational community”, including the children themselves, who from being recipients of services become protagonists in their own future.

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Less sport, more youth distress

Published on February 5, 2021 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

In this period we talk a lot about the positive role of sport for young people and the serious problems that this pandemic has exerted on its development, basically preventing the practice of sports in swimming pools, at school and in all contact sports.

In fact, youth activities that are not of national interest have been almost completely prohibited, and the activities of thousands of sports clubs have been stopped. This is a serious matter that no one has been concerned about and for which no one has been interested in finding solutions. I have already written about this several times and I have not read statements that emphasize a sense of community with those who work in schools and in sports, but only categorical statements that the gyms will no longer be available for sports. From a social point of view, the lack of sports as well as distance learning has increased the discomfort of young people and increased the frequency of states of anxiety, depression and conflict within families.

This dramatic situation and its negative effects on the health of young people is part of an Italian context that is extremely lacking in opportunities for young people to participate in sports. In fact, in our country only 50% of 15-17 year olds practice sports on an ongoing basis and only 41% of schools have a gym (with the highest peak in Friuli Venezia Giulia where gyms are in 57% of schools: therefore, a consistently low data).

Thus, the pandemic has disproportionately expanded an already serious problem. Pragmatic solutions would have been necessary, but instead solutions have been sought by using the same spaces (the classrooms) that obviously contradict physical distancing. The same goes for sports, we could have thought of forms of collaboration between sports clubs and the school to bring students to outdoor spaces to do physical activity. A country less bureaucratic and concerned with young people would have found solutions.

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Sport is a right for all

Published on October 7, 2020 in Allenatori, Calcio, Corsa, Generale, Giovani, Olimpiadi, Stress, Tennis and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

E’ veramente sconcertante assistere alle polemiche nate dalla dichiarazione di Roberto Mancini, ct della nazionale di calcio, per avere affermato che bisogna pensare prima di parlare e che lo sport è un diritto come la scuola e il lavoro. Aggiungerei anche che bisogna conoscere prima di parlare.

Bisogna sapere ad esempio che la sedentarietà è la quarta causa di morte e che secondo quanto documentato dalla rivista Lancet, nel nostro Paese i costi diretti di questa inattività motoria sono 906.680.000 milioni di dollari (di cui 707.210.000 a carico del sistema sanitario, 32.267.000 dei privati e 163.202.000 sostenuti dalle famiglie) mentre quelli indiretti sono 498.021.000.  Sono cifre enormi che dovrebbero obbligare la politica italiana a valutare appieno il valore dello sport. Chi ne ha la diretta responsabilità deve essere pienamente consapevole che la mancanza di attività fisica e di sport è ancora oggi un problema misconosciuto, altrettanto grave come lo sono le malattie cardiovascolari, il diabete, il cancro al seno e al colon e richiede un’azione globale a breve e a lungo termine, se non per amore di una buona salute dei cittadini almeno per ragioni di buona economia.

Va aggiunto che lo sport non è una questione collegata alla richiesta di pochi che vogliono svagarsi e a cui è stato sottratto un gioco ma rappresenta il modo per mantenere uno stile di vita fisicamente attivo e sviluppare il benessere individuale e della comunità.

A questo riguardo la sua centralità è stata ribadita da un Memorandum d’intesa firmato a maggio tra il Comitato olimpico internazionale (CIO) e l’Organizzazione mondiale della sanità (OMS), incentrato sulla promozione e la difesa della salute attraverso lo sport e l’attività fisica durante questo periodo.

Inoltre, se volgiamo la nostra attenzione ai giovani in età scolare e a quelli con disabilità è evidente che l’accesso allo sport non deve diventare un ulteriore modo per discriminare alcuni rispetto ad altri. Così come lo è già stato lo scorso anno scolastico per molti studenti, e le loro famiglie, la difficoltà di accesso a internet e il non possedere almeno un computer per seguire le lezioni da casa.

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