I have spent the past few days grading some unit plans which university students created for teaching games activities through the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) approach. One major benefit of teaching through this approach is the ability for teachers to link pupils' tactical understanding (the chicken) to the technical aspects of play (the egg), rather than treat these as two separate entities.
The university students' referred to above had limited prior experiences of teaching tactics, for example, only during game play portions of sport education units and/or during direct instruction units where games were played after technical skill learning. While the students all responded positively to the TGfU approach in principle, some were considerably challenged when having to plan units of work that prefaced 'situated learning' tasks and designing lesson sequences that enabled the tactical aspects of play (the chicken) to come before and/or alongside the technical aspects (the egg). Turner (2005) recommends that teachers of TGfU follow a lesson sequence, say in a soccer lesson, of:
By focusing the lesson design on leading with the game, followed by questioning and the tactically focused task, this ensures that teachers simply do not default back to isolated 'drills' after the initial game form, as well as miss the questioning period that follows the initial game form, which allows for a Segway to the first tactically focused situated task. Thus, this permits the pupil to develop 'understanding' (the chicken) before the technical skills (the egg), which come later and/or when needed. Moreover, the teacher has at their discretion the ability to modify any of the tasks by changing either the size and/or space of the playing area, the equipment being used, the attacker/defender ratio, the conditions or rules of the task/game, etc. These adaptations therefore make playing the game and/or situated task easier so that 'understanding' (the chicken) is developed in advance of and/or alongside the technical skills (the egg). As I wrote on a previous post, task design in physical education is very important and in TGfU lessons the importance of good task design is multiplied because of the need to connect tactical understanding (the chicken) with the technical skills (the egg). That said, teachers need to be well versed in the content to be taught (in this case soccer) but also possess (or at least be willing to try to learn by doing) the pedagogies supportive of the TGfU approach, which include following the sequence of tasks laid out above. Resolving potential conflicts between the chicken and egg at a conceptual level is a difficult but necessary step in teaching with TGfU, because without an understanding of the chicken and the egg, teachers will be unlikely to offer the pupils they teach an authentic experience of games. Reference: Turner, A. P. (2005). Teaching and learning games at the secondary level. In L. L. Griffin & J. L. Butler (Eds.), Teaching games for under-standing: Theory, research and practice (pp. 71–90). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
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I was in Washington DC this past weekend taking in the plethora of sights that there is to offer. As you may know if you have been to 'DC' there is a lot to cover and I definitely fell foul of trying to see as much as possible in the short space of time I was there. We walked from the hotel to the White House, then to the monument - where we were lucky to find a friendly ranger who allowed us to join the queue and enter the monument and ride to the top! - before moving to the World War II memorial and the Lincoln Memorial where we took some time to rest and reflect on all that we were doing.
As I sat there, I was so pleased we had got to go to the top of the Monument and see everything DC had to offer. As I thought about the journey up to the top and then back down something struck me about what the ranger said in the elevator on the way back down. He said, "if you don't know much about George Washington, then its not an issue, but you may want to take some time to go find out some things about him when you leave here today to understand his affect on American history". As I pondered the rangers (wise) words, I could not help wondering if what I was doing was wrong. I was simply running around trying to see as many sights as possible just so that I could 'tick the box' and that I had 'been there'. What is wrong with this you might ask? In addition, what the heck has this got to do about physical education? Well my answer is quite easy. Are there times in education where we simply rush learners through the curriculum so they can, like I was doing, get to see all the sights? I would argue, yes. Is education simply about running people through a curriculum, a rite of passage so to speak? Many might say 'yes', but I am sure many would also say 'no'. Education cannot simply about 'getting people through the curriculum' or around all the sights. There must be times for reflection, pauses for contemplation, debate, discussion, further reading and critique in order to simulate higher order thinking and a greater depth of learning. Only then, to me, are we truly educating people and stopping our learners being merely a (not very good) 'tourist', like I was in DC this past weekend. This past week, and for the next two weeks after this one, I am teaching a summer class to a cohort of 22 pre-service teachers. The class have been introduced to the teaching games for understanding (TGfU) approach as I thought that this offered a way of challenging their pre-existing beliefs about what good teaching is. After demonstrating a TGfU lesson yesterday, I had the students take the Japanese idea of 'lesson study' and plan a TGfU lesson of basketball (to circumvent issues with content knowledge) together that one of them would teach to their peers dot 30mins - the time of an average elementary/middle school lesson here in the states. So, one of them was the teacher and one the 'observer' acting as a 'critical friend' to support reflective processes and the co-construction of their emerging pedagogical knowledge in using TGfU. The 'observer' also videoed the lesson. Today students began micro teaching to peers. Before we started I was very apprehensive about not only how the lessons would run but how the students would respond to the 'approach' as it seemed at first a little out of left field for them as it was different to most of their previous experiences both growing up and in the previous courses they had taken on their teacher education program. By the end of the session I was truly inspired by the group. Most importantly, they understood the need to engage their participants in the game-skill-game format which allowed the participants to appreciate the need for the skills in the game. While there were still some kinks in the Armour in terms of stepping back and using questioning, it was clear to me that this group were receptive to TGfU as a viable pedagogical approach for teaching physical education to young people. My final thought was that if this cohort of students can achieve what they did today after only two previous class periods, I am excited to see what more they can achieve in the days and weeks to come. Moreover, my hope is that they can be an inspiration to other teachers to continue their journey as lifelong 'learners' and not simply teachers of physical education. I have been doing a bit of reading recently and it seems that the big conclusion from a these studies is that the days of the short unit in physical education seem to be numbered. For example, Hastie and colleagues (2013) compared units of track and field athletics taught using Sport Education and a Direct Instructional approach. Both groups significantly improved their technique and skill execution after meeting for 10 90-minute lessons, albeit the groups taught using the Sport Education groups out-performed the groups taught using the Direct Instructional approach. While the main aim of this study was to examine the relative effectiveness of the two approaches, an unintended consequence of this study was the demonstration that no matter what approach is taken by the physical education teacher, the main point is that students need to be provided with enough time to learn to content to be taught.
Notwithstanding the amount of time needed to learn the content to be taught, Ward (2013) has also encouraged both researchers and practitioners to consider the quality of the task as a mediating influence on student learning. Citing work from his own professional development work in Sport Education and the work of others, he noted that the instructional core of teacher, content and students must be right (much like Goldilocks' porridge) in order for learning to occur. He quoted work from City, Elmore, Fiarman, and Tietel (2010, p. 26) to suggest that: There are only three ways to improve student learning at scale. The first is to increase the level of knowledge and skill that the teacher brings to the instructional process. The second is to increase the level and complexity of the content that students are able to learn. And the third is to change the role of the student in the instructional process. That’s it. If you are not doing one of these three things, you are not improving instruction and learning. In conclusion, teachers must focus on this instructional core, and think carefully about task design. For this to occur, they must know their content, but also their pedagogical approach and their students. Not only will learning not occur if the teacher does not attend to this common core, but learning will also not occur unless the teacher does not provide enough instructional time for the students to learn the content being taught. Hastie, P.A., Calderón, A., Rolim, R.J., & Guarino, A.J. (2013) The development of skill and knowledge during a Sport Education season of track and field athletics. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 84 (3), 336-344. Ward, P. (2013) The role of content knowledge in conceptions of teaching effectiveness in physical education, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 84 (4), 431-440. |