Game -centered approaches (GCAs) such as Teaching Games for Understanding (Bunker & Thorpe, 1982) and Game Sense (den Duyn, 1997) have been promoted as learner-centered and inquiry-orientated approaches to teaching and coaching. Consequently, these approaches provide a context within which to ensure learning is positive. The features of GCAs that provide the context for this positive learning experience are, a) designing and managing the learning environment/experience, b) asking questions to generate dialogue and thinking, and c) providing opportunities for formulating, testing and evaluating solutions.
To ensure learning is positive, the teacher/coach designs learning experiences that have the appropriate amount of 'stretch' (Coyle, 2009) or what pedagogues might term scaffolding. Once this learning experience is designed and in place, the teacher/coach focuses on using questioning and providing opportunities of formulating, testing and evaluating solutions. This collaborative problem-solving nature of GCAs can encourage a solutions-focused approach through the teachers/coaches judicious use of questioning to encourage dialogue, discussion and debate (Light, Evans, Harvey, & Hassanin, 2015; Pill, 2013). Thus, the teacher/coach is repositioned, and rather than tell their pupils or players what do do to 'fix' their mistakes, the coach works with and alongside their learners to promote a positive environment, using negotiation skills to arrive at potential solutions which can then be tested and reviewed via further reflection. The process outlined above seems pretty straightforward, but building this kind of learning environment can be challenging, particularly when the focus is on winning rather than long-term development and where the teacher/coach has a history of using a 'banking' approach to learning (Friere, 1993). However, through a greater focus on a 'problem posing' approach the teacher/coach generate dialogue and reflection to encouraging deep learning through a positive pedagogy such as a GCA. Read more about using a GCA as a positive pedagogy: Light, R. L., & Harvey, S. (2015). Positive Pedagogy for sport coaching. Sport, Education and Society, 1–17. doi:10.1080/13573322.2015.1015977 Selected Additional References: Coyle, D. The talent code: Greatness isn't born. It's grown. here's how. New York: Bantam Books. Pill, S. (2013). Using Appreciative Inquiry to explore Australian football coaches' experience with game sense coaching. Sport, Education and Society. doi: 10.1080/13573322.2013.831343.
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I have written before on my blog about an analogy of teaching as fruit, TGfU the chicken and the egg and the tourism metaphor. So are you ready for another?
Let's take reading. I am not an English teacher but please consider this question. Do students get to the end of a unit of work and only at that time get to practice reading? Or do students in schools learn to read by actually reading? One would hope it would be the latter, although one may argue that there are some basic developmental requirements that need to be met for them to read, but again I would imagine that these bases are covered somewhat by teachers reading books that reflect these different developmental levels (like small-sided and modified/conditioned games). So what is my point you might ask? Well, if I were only to teach letters and words and did not teach how to put them together into a sentence or to 'make sense' when reading a sentence then there would not be much point in doing it? However, if I taught students the links between words and the meaning of these words as they make up a sentence, which the students practice by reading, then one would assume that this would help the students more as they went through the unit more than leaving this process to the end of the unit. So, why do we in physical education teach all the technical skills first and then haplessly hope that the students will miraculously do all of the skills when in an actual game, especially when this game is left right until the end of the unit? Going back to the reading metaphor, surely if one wants to develop the application of skills into a game then this must be taught for it to be caught? Moreover, the likelihood of skills application - from a holistic (technical and tactical) perspective - is higher if the context in which the skill is being taught aligns to the actual context it is needed, i.e. the game! This begs the question why so many practitioners persist in teaching game skills in this way? To read (play the game) one must read (play the game) so...let's play the game, or something very close to it! In his book Diffusion of Innovations, Everett Rogers (1983) lists countless 'innovations', such as the Dvorak keyboard (a typing keyboard that is more 'efficient' than the QWERTY keyboard) , that have failed to become part of everyday practice because existing inertia has allowed other more 'tried and tested' practices to persist. These numerous examples and the explanations given by Rogers, help provide some background to the challenges that are faced when beginning to consider utilizing different and possibly 'innovative' practices in teaching and coaching. They also offer insight into how long it may actually take to change cultural practices because, even if the 'innovation' if considered favorable, it simply takes time to build interpersonal networks so that the 'innovation' can take off and become common practice. This process is certainly made all the more challenging when, for example, there are not enough what Rogers calls, 'early adopters' and/or 'early adopters' in positions of power to ensure the diffusion process occurs in a more expedited manner.
Rogers' diffusion theory certainly offers some explanations to why pedagogical 'innovations' such as Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) and other games-based approaches (GBAs) have struggled to gain a foothold in modern-day teaching and coaching settings. Indeed, observations of teachers and coaches show that, particularly coaches, spend the majority of time 'instructing' and providing feedback (monologuing) with less time spent asking questions, discussing and supporting students/players/athletes in formulating solutions (dialoguing). Monologuing is therefore 'the norm', and teachers and coaches that depart from these cultural norms could face similar challenges to those described by Rogers in introducing citrus to cure scurvy in the late 1400's and 1500/1600's. It took until 1865 for scurvy to be eliminated in the merchant navy. So, physical education and youth sport can act now to mobilize a greater number of teachers and coaches as 'early adopters' who 'step back', ask questions and 'facilitate' rather than 'direct' learning, and/or wait nearly 400 years for alternative pedagogical approaches such as TGfU and other GCAs to be commonplace. However, one would not want to hazard a guess as to what might happen if the two professions wait that long? References Rogers, E. M. (1983). Diffusion of Innovations (3rd Ed). New York: MacMillan. One of the imperative aspects of games-based approaches (GBAs) is the teacher or coach's use of questioning. However, research reports show that both teachers (e.g. McNeill et al., 2008) and coaches (e.g. Harvey et al., 2010; Roberts, 2011) struggle with this aspect of using GBAs. And not only do they struggle with using questions in the first place, when they do, they tend of be low level comprehension or recall questions, ones that largely necessitate a yes no answer, like the one below which is speaking about a players use of space during a small-sided soccer game:
Q: Do you think that 'Player X' ran into a good space? A: Yes / No These questions can be easily changed to higher order questions, but, arguably, this requires planning. While planning, it is recommended that teachers and coaches plan 'question starters' linked to the activity to be delivered. Some examples of question starters that may be used to re-construct the above yes /no exchange such as interpretation, elaboration and evaluation, can be seen in bold below in the following exchange, still about off the ball movement in a small-sided soccer game: Initial question - Interpretation question Q: What is the significance of 'Player X's' run ahead of the ball? A1: Well, it meant that this opened up space for another player to move into. A2: Also, it helped stretch the field so it opened up space between players in the midfield. Probing question - Elaboration question Q: Can you tell me a little more about that? A3: If the play becomes stretched, then this gives us, the team with the ball more space to either dribble into, or have players move into. Summarizing question - Evaluation question Q: So what is the main importance of off the ball movement ahead of the ball in this small-sided game? A1: Stretch the game and create more space in between the player with the ball to make it harder for defender because the play on the ball has more choices. On face value it would seem that to re-construct the first exchange to the second one was quite an easy process. I can, however, tell you that this took me quite a while to re-construct. As a first step, I would therefore encourage teachers and coaches to pick one of the lessons/sessions they have previously delivered, and have a go at changing the lesson/session (if needed) so it focuses learning within a small-sided and/or conditioned game (see overview of TGfU page and TGfU videos page). Once this has been completed, I would begin to write out a list of questions using the question starters above that link to the specific aspects of what you expect the pupils/athletes to learn in that session. It might take a short while to plan the question starters, but once they are on your plan and they are in your mind, the transition to using higher order questioning through a GBA will be a lot easier. References Harvey, S., Cushion, C. J., & Massa-Gonzalez, A. N. (2010). Learning a new method: Teaching Games for Understanding in the coaches’ eyes. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 15, 361–382. McNeill, M., Fry J. M., Wright, S., Tan, C., & Rossi, T. (2008). Structuring time and questioning to achieve tactical awareness in games lessons. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 13(3): 231–249. Roberts, S. J. (2011). Teaching games for understanding: The difficulties and challenges experienced by participation cricket coaches. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 16, 33–48. When considering different approaches to teaching physical education content, there has been discussion regarding the value of 'comparing approaches'. Metzler (2005) suggested that there was little value in comparing approaches in research studies because each approach has different learning outcomes. Kirk (2005) supported this view and has championed the use of practice-referenced approaches to research on different teaching approaches which "is concerned with making judgments about the usefulness of Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) [or other approaches] for achieving learning appropriate to the model itself and to the circumstances in which it has been applied." (p. 218).
That being said, Metzler and Kirk's comments raise an interesting analogy of teaching to fruit. If we take fruit, there are many different kinds of fruit, and lets face it, many of us do not like every kind of fruit and, moreover, have preferences for specific fruits. For example, my children both like bananas and strawberries but my daughter likes blueberries and my son does not. Vice versa, my son likes oranges and my daughter can take them or leave them. These notions of fruits, therefore, are very much similar to the various teaching approaches available to teachers and coaches such as TGfU, direct instruction, cooperative learning, sport education, Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility, etc. Not all of your kids are going to like every approach and they may have preferences for certain approaches that you use. However, if you can adopt a variety of approaches to teaching your content, then you will more than likely reach more learners. On the other hand, restricting yourself to one type of teaching (or one fruit) you are assuming that all the learners you are teaching like that one approach (fruit), and this may compromise the ability of your learners to reach their full potential. References Kirk, D. 2005. Future prospects for teaching games for understanding. In Teaching games for understanding. Theory, research and practice, ed. J.I. Butler and L.L. Griffin, 213–27. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Metzler, M.W. (2005). Implications of models-based research for research on teaching: A focus on teaching games for understanding. In Teaching games for understanding. Theory, research and practice, ed. L.L. Griffin and J.I. Butler, 183–97. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. |