Team Teach Group 5 – Chapter 4 and 5 Summary

Lisa Jensen, Cristina Moretti, Christine Park and Audrey Sargent

Discussion Questions:

1. Which considerations must a physical health educator take into account while planning a lesson or unit, and why? Are there any considerations that you would add to the ones discussed in the textbook?
2. How might physical health educators communicate with and give feedback to students effectively?
3. Why is it important to reflect on different teaching styles and take risks in your teaching methods?

Ch 4: Planning for Instruction

• The “instructional process” according to Randall and Robinson has three components: planning, teaching, and assessment (p. 47).

• Planning has to start from the intended learning outcomes, that is “what students are expected “to know, value, and be able to do” (p. 49). While the learning outcomes derive from the curriculum, it is up to the educator to choose which activities will help their students reach those goals. To ensure that outcomes are met, both a long-term plan, spanning the entire year, and more specific unit and lesson plans need to be articulated.
• These are some aspects/elements that need to be taken into account when planning:
  • Documents and guidelines such as the curriculum and policies
  • The attributes and culture of the school and of its surrounding community
  • The needs, interests, and age of students; teachers must also consider carefully if what they teach benefits all students or whether it disadvantages some of them
  • The knowledge, values, and approach of the teacher
  • When, where, how long, and with which resources the educator will teach P.E.
  • The “hidden curriculum” (p. 53), the messages and values that are indirectly transmitted to the students during the lessons
• While outcomes constitute the general goals, objectives (that Randall and Robinson divide into “motor, cognitive, and affective”, p. 56) are smaller in scope and refer to shorter periods of time. They are the starting points for units and lessons plans.

Ch 5: Teaching

– Communication is a crucial aspect of teaching. To be effective, educators should communicate clearly, demonstrate movements and techniques, use cues throughout the lesson, and check that students have an understanding of the activities and are engaged. Actively observing students is also important for an effective communication.

– When teaching, educators should offer positive, specific feedback as soon as possible after the activity. Rather than always telling what they saw, they can ask student what they think they can do to improve.

– It is important for teachers to reflect on their teaching style and on the relationship this establishes with the student. Teaching styles can be more teacher centered, or give more freedom and responsibility to the students. The “Gradual Release of Responsibility” model, for example, encourages intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation and gives students the opportunity to direct some of their learning.

– Educators need to set up routines and rules to make the PE class more predictable and effective.

– When organizing students, teachers should be aware of a variety of group formations and how these will help students learn (ie. formations for instruction, game play)

– Minimizing transition time is important to maximizing learning/play time. Transitions should be well thought out and students should know what to do during a transition.

The invasion games and curriculum models lesson was very impactful last week. The group teach activities really inspired the kind of games I would want my own students to take part in. I most enjoyed the “prairie dog pick-off” game; what was most mind boggling was the notion that once you lose, you join the winning team, he who is your opponent becomes your team mate. We played this game only a few times, but I am confident that we could have easily continued to play this game for hours on end. This game was a prime example of the TGFU curriculum model. The carousel activity was great in that it was a effective way to look at all curriculum models and make educated decisions about which models best suit each individual’s teaching pedagogies. It was interesting to hear the opinions of my classmates, many of which influenced my own view on the curriculum models. Personally, I believe that an effective way to teach physical education is to mix and match the curriculum models. For example, if I was employing the “Sport Education Model” I would want to infuse that model with important “Fitness for Life” and “TPSR” components, such as to respect one another in and outside of the gym while understanding and valuing sport, with a conscious ownership of one’s lifelong physical health. I am a firm believer in the “TGfU” model in that the “skill and drill” is eliminated, games are not withheld until the end of class; children are able to begin exercising their physical skills immediately in a fun, non-competitive manner, while scaffolding the fundamentals of the sport or activity. The team teach group did an incredible job of demonstrating the TGfU model, and the benefits this model can provide for young students, and for their life long journey with physical health. Discovering personal strategies is of utmost importance, not only in P.E. but in life, and this curriculum mode exemplifies both. TGfU is a great approach to bringing a class closer together, to create a real sense of community in the classroom, with mutual respect for one another and a positive outlook on physical health, and learning.

Physical Literacy Assessment

Sorry this is being posted so late guys! Thought that us posting this on the group Facebook page was okay.

Thanks and hope it helps!

-Isis,  Meghan and Tiffany

What a great game and so fun. I enjoyed this game and exercise simply because it was a blast to play and one doesn’t need to be a great athlete to play it. Have a little luck and the desire to run and have fun and that is all you need. I used to work at a boys and girls club in Kamloops before i started the education pursuit of education. I found a game called nuts and squirrels where the game was simply four hoops and a bunch of balls to represent the nuts, the kids were the squirrels.

The kids couldn’t defend their hoops but they had to collect as many nuts as they could. There was one child who was very smart and really competitive and he saw that there could never be a definitive winner because without the ability to defend his hoop the kids would always be stealing his nuts. He was so angry that he stomped off and refused to play saying that this was a dumb game because there would never ever be a winner. He wrote me an essay titled “this game of yours is so dumb.”

The point of this story is that while i knew there could never be a winner and it was a great way to run all the energy out of the kids, I didn’t expect this response. I forgot how competitive our society can be and that some will always expect an outcome of their actions to measure against. I asked him to give the game another chance without expecting to win, to just play the game for fun, the second time he enjoyed the game and he told me a number of times that there didn’t need to be a winner, that sometimes a game is just a game.

While being introduced to the teaching game for understanding (TGFU) model, I began to think about the assessment techniques that value performance. Why is it that we assess learners on their performance when they are able to show an understanding of everything else?! The reality is that some children are not capable of learning a formal game of soccer and may never achieve success in their outcome or performance, but may appreciate the game of soccer and fully understanding the skills one needs to play the game. Therefore, I really like that we are moving away from techniques based approaches of learning sports and to a more concept based approach. However, its important for us, as educators, to be careful to not straight up tell the participants of the strategies and techniques that are involved in any game, and instead allow learners to discover them on their own. We will then facilitate their understanding, and once we allow them to figure out these skills, we will see an increase in their performance as well. I also like that this model is very much focused on the abilities and needs of the learner. This is represented in the last stage of the model in which the game is modified to adapt to the learner. Through observation, teachers can choose to exaggerate a move to make it more difficult or simpler. Finally, this model emphasis inclusion of all participants, which was nicely demonstrated by our group teach last week, in which no one was left out and competition was taken away. Great job Sam, Krystal, and Eric !

This was a very enjoyable class!  It really demonstrated how getting out of the gym and classroom can be inspiring and energizing.  The new environment and fresh air

Katy, Brianna, Jackie, and Lexi prepared activities that challenged our minds as well as our bodies.

The discussion with Katy got me thinking about how I will structure gym time.  The reading prompted me to think about the amount of structure that would facilitate learning, and how that would depend on the group of students, and would change over the course of the year.  The idea of gradual release of the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student is a concept I plan to think about, practice, and learn more about

I learned many interesting things about the UBC campus, and will take some time to walk around the neighbourhood of my practicum school and talk to the staff, parents, and students about the area.

Thanks for the great and inspiring class!