Week 7 – Group Discussions in a Physical Education Classroom
Comments(1) In physical education, there are many opportunities to incorporate group work into
the classroom, however traditionally this group work often does not involve much conversation or deep discussion. Standard group work in a physical education class involves working with a partner or small groups on specific skills and progressive activities. After this, the class is usually put into two different teams and at the end of the class the teams play in a full-court/field version of the game or sport being taught. However, this week in our physical education pedagogy class we learned how we can incorporate an inventing games unit into our year plans, and I think it can also be a great way to increase the amount of group discussion and conversation that typically takes place within group work. Inventing games requires the student groups to choose their equipment, develop rules and structure for the game, as well as ensure that their game flows and is fair for both teams playing – among many other things. For these aspects to be created, the groups need to be able to effectively
communicate and diplomatically make decisions. This gives the instructor the opportunity to teach students about how to create an effective discussion forum, for example, appointing ‘jobs’ such as a scribe to record the information, a facilitator who keeps the group on task, as well as how to ensure all members have the opportunity to contribute to the conversation. While going through their ‘inventing
games checklist’, groups are able to read the physical education specific language – such as offense, defense, boundaries, scoring, etc. – as well as use it in their conversations while they work on developing their game. Once they have decided on some rules and structural components, the groups can test out their ideas and find out what is working and what is not. With helpful cues and probing questions from the teacher, the students will continue to test their ideas and reconvene, continuing to use the discussion forum to problem solve and develop more aspects of their game. I think this is also a great way to get ELL’s and non-participant students involved in a class they may not particularly like or understand as well because everyone gets an opportunity to listen to others and present their own ideas.
You might say it is ridiculous, but in Korea I learned PE in a class completely composed of writing instead of actual exercise. In other words, I learned all rules and techniques from written PE textbooks. Unfortunately, the reality of most Korean PE classes is that students learn sports by the book but they don’t know how to actually play most of those sports. Just after immigrating I was embarrassed that I didn’t know how to play any of those sports, and there was no chance to learn specific PE language since it was only being said during play. (It was difficult to catch those vocabularies and rules as an ELL student) I became one of non-participant students, and I lost my interest in playing sports. I always thought what if it could be mixed half and half: half theoretical study and half activity, then it students who are genuinely not good at physical exercises like me may participate in some part of PE class. Therefore, I strongly agree that inventing game is a great way to get ELL’s and non-participant students involved in a class. Before I completed reading your posting, I wonder how physical education can implement group discussion in class. As students can learn a great deal from interactions with peers (Johnson & Johnson, 1989), it will be great chance to learn PE language from peers for ELL students, and for non-participant students, they can have opportunities to contribute in a class.