Designing a Blended Curriculum for Developing Strategic Thinking in Future Physical Education Professionals

In today's world of rapid digital tech development and educational changes, it's super important to train physical education leaders who can think strategically, be flexible managers, and do innovative stuff. The challenges posed by hybrid learning require new approaches to structuring educational programmes, including the integration of digital tools, project-based methods and cognitive-oriented strategies. The study aims to develop and test a blended curriculum aimed at developing strategic thinking in future physical and sports education specialists, taking into account modern pedagogical and technological trends. During the study, an original blended curriculum model was developed, which includes both synchronous (face-to-face and distance) and asynchronous (independent) educational components integrated into the overall logic of strategic thinking formation. The training modules covered topics such as strategic planning in sports, management situation analysis, SWOT analysis, modelling the development of sports organisations, digital leadership, and project management. The results obtained confirm the effectiveness of the proposed blended curriculum model as a means of developing strategic thinking in students of physical education and sports specialities. The combination of digital educational technologies with practice-oriented methods contributes to the development of both professional and managerial competencies necessary for future leaders in sports. The key advantage of the blended approach is its flexibility, which allows the educational process to be adapted to different learning styles, individual student paces, and modern challenges of the educational environment (including distance and blended learning). The author's model can be recommended for implementation in pedagogical higher education institutions as part of the modernisation of curricula and improving the quality of training for a new generation of specialists.