Deborah Sheehy

Addressing Parents’ Perceptions in the Marginalization of Physical Education

ISSN: 0730-3084 (Print) 2168-3816 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujrd20 Addressing Parents’ Perceptions in the Marginalization of Physical Education Deborah A. Sheehy To cite this article: Deborah A. Sheehy (2011) Addressing Parents’ Perceptions in the Marginalization of Physical Education, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 82:7, 42-56, DOI: 10.1080/07303084.2011.10598657 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07303084.2011.10598657

Leveling the Playing Field in Physical Education With Adaptation Games.

A problem that has plagued physical education teachers for years is how to get all students, even the resistant ones, involved in meaningful games and physical activity. The next generation of physical education teachers needs to transform games teaching to create games in which 21st-century learners want to engage, if games are to be a relevant aspect of the physical education curriculum. Almost three decades ago, an approach known as teaching games for understanding (TGfU) was conceptualized as an alternative way to teach games (for a review, see Memmert et al., 2015). Educators were concerned that children were not experiencing the thrill associated with games and that they and adults had little understanding of games (Almond, 2010). Thorpe, Bunker, and Almond (1986) proposed two ways to modify games that form a fundamental cornerstone to TGfU thinking—representation and exaggeration—to help students become better game players. In this presentation, I will share a new principle of game modification we call “modification by adaptation or adaptation games,” which adds another dimension to these pedagogical principles (Pagnano Richardson, Sheehy, & Hopper, 2013) and connects this work to complexity thinking (Davis & Sumara, 2006, 2010). As described Hopper, Sanford, and Clarke (2009), modification by adaptation connects to a concept in video game play that Gee (2003) calls “game-as-teacher.” In adaptation games, the outcome of the game leads to the game structure adapting to the player. The game is modified to increase the challenge to a successful player based on the outcome of the previous game (e.g., changes to space, scoring, rules conditioning play or number of players). The conditions of play are triggered as a result of a winning outcome to the game, so that the winner is faced with an increased challenge. Multiple game outcomes allow the game to adapt to the ability of the players. An example is provided by a volleyball-like game called “Space Adapt,” played in a quarter of a badminton court. After one student scores 2 points, the other student increases the opponent’s play area by changing the boundaries and increasing space by adding on a quadrant of the badminton court. The students play again. The student who does not win then increases the opponent’s play space or decreases their own space and then the students play again. Adaptation allows students even with disparities in skill to engage in meaningful yet unpredictable game play (Hopper, 2011). Preservice teachers noted that adaptation games served to equalize power among opponents and provided a catalyst for learning (Pagnano Richardson et al., 2013). They identified that the student who did not win had the power to make decisions about the constraints of the next game, which served to equalize the power dynamic between the winner and loser. Further, the decentralized control of game play was evident in the theme of “teacher takes a back seat,” whereby the teacher initially sets the broad constraints of the game, yet preservice teachers play the game independently and make decisions based on the interactions between the players involved. Pagnano Richardson et al. (2013) identified three qualities of a complex system: Adaptation, self-organizing, and emergence formed critical elements that allowed learning in games to occur in a nonlinear process. For this to happen in adaptation games, the conditions in the environment needed to offer enabling constraints that limited what the system could do to prevent it from being overwhelmed, but at the same time, it offered an openness to possibilities of which the complex system could take advantage. In adaptation games, the role of the teacher was to provide the enabling constraints (i.e., game designer) as guidelines for emergent engagement by students. Rather than being prescriptive, the enabling constraints oriented the learner to what might happen in the game, rather than what must happen (Davis & Sumara, 2010). Adaptation games created the opportunity for students to engage in and with each other in meaningful game play while matched to their own level of competency, where the flow of the game play engulfed the players. Physical educators should consider adopting a “game as teacher” approach if they value creating delightful games that engage learners of all abilities, backgrounds, and experience levels. To be an effective game designer, physical education teachers need to examine their own social positions, biases, and