Abstract

The implementation of the act on 45 min. of daily exercise during lessons made the School Reform of 2014 a challenge to the Danish public schools.
As a launch pad, the present thesis use a two-year, empirical case study of a school district's process of implementing this act and looks into the challenges associated with the educational thoughts and the didactic actions.
Taking basis in John Dewey's pragmatic vision of learning, the thesis examines the school district's user-driven and innovative approach towards implementation, as well as its dynamically developed education process, using both qualitative and quantitative collection of data.
By the use of the theory of collaborative innovation and the method of circle learning by Karin Kildedal, the school district has experimented with and implemented a combination of top-down and buttum-up strategy. This as an attempt to implement an external act through teamwork between the involved participants, who are represented by students, teachers and health ambassadors in the thesis.

The thesis explains how an alteration in an organization can be optimized through the combination of The Three Step Model by Kurt Lewin and The Innovation-process model by William Eggers and Shalabh K. Singh. To develop the understanding of the individual's personal and possible resistance towards innovation, the relation between an individual's motivation and behaviour is examined through Albert Bandura's concept of Self-efficacy.
The thesis will evaluate the purpose of the innovation process as well as the type, by means of Thomas Halvorsen, Johan Hauknes, Ian Miles and Rannveig Røste. Furthermore, this will be displayed by the Danish writers Eva Sørensen and Jacob Torfings, who will provide an insight into which boosting and obstructive factors that can emerge in collaborative innovation.

Overall it is concluded in the thesis that in the particular school district, the scenario is an innovative process with an intentional use of an experimental method, which is still in the phase of implementation. Only 50% of the students experience that the standards of the act are met, and more than 50% of the students experience that the teacher implements limited exercise during lessons. Teachers declare that in spite of received education, they lack knowledge of the extensive purpose and the benefit of exercise and they do not feel motivated or competent to carry out the standards of the act.
The input of knowledge and the skills gained in teachers' education, cannot solely solve the problem. Therefore, the school district made an attempt to impact upon the context. They involved the oldest students and educated some of them as “exercise coaches”. This involvement of students turned out to be a breaking point and the singular, innovative step in this school district's process of implementation, where resistance had been the motivation, which triggered the innovative thoughts of changing the traditional context of teaching.

The thesis shows that the teamwork between teachers and students holds educational and didactic challenges. “Exercise coaches” are only used sparingly, which is frustrating as the classmates indicate that the “exercise coaches” are the ones who handle the exercise task best. The teamwork is especially dependent on the teacher's choice and identification of their own identity of profession and challenged by habits, roles and traditional power relationship in the context of teaching. This part has not been recognized in the education provided by the school district. However, it appears that the investment in education of “exercise coaches”, made by the school district, is a success.

Teachers and health ambassadors experienced time pressure during the implementation, whereas the students requested more assignments.
Therefore, it is concluded that the implementation has its strength in the participants, sharing responsibility and the possibility to influence each other and share resources, but at the same time it also appears to be a weakness, as the teamwork is depending on the individuals and is, therefore, vulnerable in the choice of participants. The teamwork must be characterized by trust, adequate authority and equality. Otherwise, the process can stagnate and disintegrate. However, it needs still to be seen that their efforts improve practice. If the participants do not experience this within a short period of time, it will destroy, not only the faith in the involvement of users, innovation and the teamwork in the implementation, but possibly also in future implementations.