In what ways is a discovery approach useful in game play?
It many ways it is useful in game play because the student learns the basics of an invasion or territory game. A great example was this morning during PE we played an invasion game, protecting the alien, it was so much fun and everyone was laughing and everyone was playful. It soon was a discovery for each student to learn when to move from your alien to try invade someones elses alien. Quickly we learned new strategies. It was so engaging. Then the game was extended by borders and grouping up once your alien was hit/knocked over. What sorts of questions enhanced student learning? New strategy, how to improve. Possibly leading to playing soccer or basketball in your later years. (If we were elementary school students) I did not have many questions, at the time as i was having fun and playing hard. It was a great work out. The modified ‘train capture the flag’ was fun too. Thanks to the group for a fun engaging class from warms ups to cool down.
Today our group presented a lesson plan on invasion games to the class. I have to say no matter how times I have presented to a crowd, the feeling of nervousness always seems to find a way to get to you. It wasn’t a sense of nervousness because we were unprepared but rather from the elements of the unknown. We had no idea how people would react to our game (space invaders/prairie dog pick off) because it was a very new game. We were afraid that people might find the instructions too confusing or that they wouldn’t enjoy the game.
Thankfully, that was not the case as it everyone seemed to enjoy themselves when they participated in the game. I believe team communication and support was a major reason for why the game was so successful. As a group supported each other and remained positive and enthusiastic and I felt everyone else fed off that. Another vital part to our performance was the trust professor McGinley gave us. Instead of stepping in to assist us, he chose to let us to proceed to see what the outcome would be. I think here was a great learning moment for me. There is no way we can control every variable or outcome, sometimes when it comes to doing something new you just have to give it shot, hope for the best, and try your hardest.
PE was exciting today. I even have the minimally skinned knees to prove it. I am looking forward to using the same game in my own PE class one day.
I hope to make all games inclusive for the learners in my classes. In order to facilitate this there are a few things we as teachers must do. We must create a safe environment where students can safely take risks. Game instructions must be clear to all. Explaining verbally, modeling the game and giving game time to explore can help to achieve clarity. Today our teachers allowed us to try the game in small groups before playing competitively and it really helped ensure we were comfortable with the concept of the game. Games must be able to be modified to meet the needs of all students. Games must not eliminate students who are less skilled. Nobody can gain all the skills they need while sitting on the sidelines. I am not sure if students will ever think that the teams we create are “fair.” Nevertheless we must attempt to make teams or groups as equal as possible. I am sure there are plenty of things that are needed for an inclusive atmosphere that I am not aware of yet. I look forward to exploring more and hearing from the rest of the class.
Having done the reading summary for last class, I was able to familiarize myself with the various models associated with teaching Physical Education. I myself liked the Teaching Games for Understanding the most as I really liked the aspect of skills learned in one game being carried over into other games and sports. I also liked how drills are not a part of this model since skills should be developed in context as opposed to in isolation. I remember doing drills in elementary school PE and being so bored as well as not understanding the important concepts and strategies behind the game. I feel like the initial modified game also takes some of the pressure off of students because the game feels less formal than the complex, actual game/sport that some students may already know and excel in.
I think the majority of my high school PE classes followed the Multi-Activity Model with the seasonal sport aspect. I never really liked the seasonal sports except for volleyball and we were stuck doing the same sport for a long chunk of time. I feel like the net sports that involved a net in the middle of the gym, like badminton and volleyball were done out of convenience since our teacher did not want to dismantle and then re set up the net, but the other seasonal ball sports could have easily been swapped for something else given that our amount of time with each sport was long and repetitive over the years.
One of the things I enjoyed about PE today was the way we went outside. We walked in a long line, holding each other’s shoulders. It was a great idea, because it transformed the simple action of traveling out of the gym into an activity in its own right, with a fun sense of movement and rhythm. It is definitely a great strategy we can use in our schools!
Another aspect I found interesting was that we were told before the game the way we would be assessed. I found it useful to know this ahead of time, as it clarified the expectations for the activity and provided me with a tool to assess my learning during the game. I found the assessment in groups also an interesting experience. It gave us an opportunity to reflect on how we played the apple game, and I felt that it fostered encouragement and appreciation between group members. It was, however, quite hard to decide on a category to assign to ourselves and others, because the “good” category did not include a positive attitude, which we felt we demonstrated. I wondered if an assessment with more criteria and more possible answers would be easier or harder to use for a group of children. I also wondered what are some other ways that kids can assess each other in a group setting.
Lastly, I thought the apple game was a good activity because it gave each player a lot of practice catching and hitting the “apple”; there was very little time waiting and being inactive. The only suggestion I have is to remind students to take turns being the catchers and the trees. Thank you for a great PE session!
This week, the group teach focused on invasion games. Jenny, Zoe, and Vivian did a wonderful job in breaking down the fundamental skills and movement, which allowed us to work on the basic skills necessary to play invasion games, such as running, dodging, and working on strategizing as a team. We gradually added one skill on top of the other and were given enough time to really improve our skills. They did a great job keeping in mind the concept of physical literacy and how these basic skills are necessary to develop the ability to understand, apply, and analyze other forms of movement, and demonstrate these movements confidently and competently across other health-related physical activities.
I was in Jenny’s group for discussion, and she did a great job summarizing the concept of Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU). It’s important to expose students to different ways of utilizing basic fundamental skills within various multi activities, to give them the opportunity to succeed in their own way.
This was a really fun class! I noticed that the music instantly made the energy level go up in the group. The games were fun and I loved that everyone was active most of the time. It was great to talk about what was good about the game and what could be improved.
The discussion on assessments was thought-provoking and Emily did a good job of keeping us on track. Vivian was wonderful leading the dance. She made it so much fun!
I thought this week did really well with invasion games! They implemented the TGfU model in such a way that we did not even really noticed how well it worked! (Or at least I did not). They provided a safe environment for us to play and build on our skills. The idea of keeping students in their ZPD – Zone of Proximal Development was well executed this week. Zoe, Jenny and Vivian did a great job of keeping the games simple while building on our skills. Their main activity showcased this as they continuously added various aspects to the game, from just running from one side to another while on team stays on lines to block, to passing a ball to each other to get to other side while the other team is allowed only one step from the lines.
Their explanations of how these sets of skills play into other sports and everyday life was very well thought out. While playing, I was not as aware of how this built on our skills and our physical literacy; I was too busy having fun and participating. I think that this is what we should all strive for as future educators. Being able to keep our students in their ZPD’s while pushing them a little further each time, without them even noticing because they’re having too much fun, is how I think it should be. PE should be a fun place! I look back at my own elementary and high school experiences and think about the fun we had. I think about how the games we played slowly built on our skills. Our teacher was able to break down the skills needed while reinforcing the concepts of fair play and teamwork. And looking back at it now, many of the skills were transferable to other games we played! I think this week’s group teach gave us an ideal example of how to apply the model into a class!
Playing the three games at the end of the last class really solidified my understanding of Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU). My biggest take away from that experience was how much fun I had. I thoroughly enjoyed and was equally engaged in all three of the games, even though I knew that the first two were played to prepare us for the third game. I will definitely incorporate this model into my teaching practice because it is fun, it helps to develop skills for a more complex game, and the skills developed can be transferred to other games in the same category. In the TGfU model, I found step five to be very interesting. Some sources call this Skill Execution and others call it Application of Skills. In this step, students identify and practice the skills they need to improve their performance (Ophea, 2014). The Teacher Candidates that taught the striking and invasion games made sure to follow this step. They stopped us in the middle of our games to ask us what we needed to do in order to be more successful in our objective. I found that this really helped me to refocus and play more strategically.
On the Ophea website, Individual Pursuits was included as a category of TGfU. I am curious to know more about how TGfU can be incorporated in a yoga or gymnastics lesson. I also wondered whether TGfU could be a useful model for a dance lesson. Hopefully we will learn more about this in upcoming classes.
References
Ophea. (2014). Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) Approach. Retrieved from http://www.playsport.net/about-playsport/teaching-games-understanding-tgfu
This week the group teach was led by Jennie, Carrie and Travis. They did a great job at teaching us striking games. I believe the game we played was called Apples to Buckets. I had a lot of fun and will definitely be implementing games similar to this one when I teach striking games to students. One of the guiding questions from this week was what value embodied learning has. I believe it has a great value because many people are visual and active learners, rather than being told or reading about what they need to do. I learn a lot better personally from being active and actually experiencing something, rather than sitting and having someone explain it to me. This week was the first that an assessment was incorporated and implemented into the group teach. It was helpful because it gave me a guideline to follow to see what I was doing well, and what I could do to improve. The rubric that the group supplied us with was straightforward and easy to understand.
