Shane Pill

Teaching games and sport for understanding Exploring and reconsidering its relevance in physical education

Over 30 years ago the original teaching games for understanding (TGfU) proposition was published in a special edition of the Bulletin of Physical Education (Bunker and Thorpe, 1982). In that time TGfU has attracted significant attention from a theoretical and pedagogical perspective as an improved approach to games and sport teaching in physical education (PE). It has been particularly championed as a superior alternative to what Kirk (2010) and Metzler (2011) described as a traditional method. Recently, however, one of the TGfU authors suggested that the TGfU premise needs to be revisited in order to explore and rethink its relevance so that pedagogy in PE again becomes a central and practical issue for PE (Almond, 2010), as it has not been as well accepted by PE teachers as it has by academics. In order to review and revisit TGfU and consider its relevance to games and sport teaching in PE this paper outlines two areas of the TGfU proposition: (1) the basis for the conceptualisation of TGfU; (2) advocacy of TGfU as nuanced versions. The empirical-scientific research surrounding TGfU and student learning in PE contexts is reviewed and analysed. This comprehensive review has not been undertaken before. The data-driven research will facilitate a consideration as to how TGfU practically assists the physical educator improve games and sport teaching. The review of the research literature highlighted the inconclusive nature of the TGfU proposition and brought to attention the disparity between researcher as theory generator and teacher practitioner as theory applier. If TGfU is to have improved relevance for teachers of PE more of an emphasis needs to be placed on the normative characteristics of pedagogy that drive this practice within curricula.

A narrative approach to exploring TGfU-GS

This paper uses a narrative approach in the form of a fictional dialogue between a physical education teacher educator (PETE) and an enquiring physical education teacher (EPET) in order to both contextualise the problem posed by Almond, that Teaching Games for Understanding-Game Sense (TGfU-GS) has been better accepted in academia than in the ‘natural setting’ of physical education (PE) teaching, and to intentionally provoke change about how TGfU-GS is positioned as a highly conceptualised ‘instructional model’ for games and sport teaching. Drawing on research by Green that PE teachers operate from ‘everyday philosophies’ and not necessarily from highly conceptualised curriculum or pedagogical models, this paper proceeds from the premise that competing descriptions of PE teaching found in the literature and its applications are problematic to the PE teacher because teachers do not necessarily see or want to see the same boundaries between pedagogical models as researchers do as theory generators. It is argued, that the tension suggested by Almond exists in part because of contextual and operational differences leading to each viewing the teaching of PE differently. The EPET is concerned about the praxis of teaching that is theoretically informed by pedagogical knowledge and made real through the experience of teaching; whereas, to the PETE, PE is viewed with a more nuanced interpretation of the complex, non-linear dynamics of the classroom, nature of learning and the need for theoretical informed practice. However, some similarities exist between the EPET and PETE which revolves around bringing order to the essentially unpredictable learning environment by adapting the environmental and task characteristics so that learning may occur. Consequently, we argue that the tension between the EPET and PETE is inevitable because each privilege certain ‘everyday philosophies’ about the design and enactment of PE teaching.

Teaching Game Sense in Soccer.

JOPERD • Volume 83 No. 3 • March 2012 F oster (2010) has suggested that for many young soccer players the experience of training and playing is too often negative. Expectations that junior players should display the physicality of adult games and a focus on results (the score) sometimes undermine the development of technique, good decision making, and game skill at the junior level (Football Federation of Australia [FFA], 2009). According to Carr (2011), junior players are likely to be picked for size, strength, and speed rather than skill and technique, and Williams and Hodges (2005) reported that many coaches continue to hold the erroneous opinion that game skill can be acquired over time through game-day match play. Martin (2010) indicated that coaches frequently

Novel research approaches to gauge global teacher familiarity with game-based teaching in physical education: an exploratory #Twitter analysis

ABSTRACT This paper examines the use of the microblogging platform Twitter as a tool for research in physical education. The research examined teacher use of game-based approaches (GBAs). A rolling Twitter conversation hosted over the course of 12 hours provided the data for the study. Participants were from 18 countries and they contributed on average 11.80 Tweets per person, and the Twitter conversation had a reach of 110,000 people. Two types of data analysis occurred. The first involved quantitative analysis using Twitter metrics. The second involved qualitative analysis using Leximancer software. The analysis showed ‘teacher’ and ‘questions’ as prominent themes. Although GBAs are proposed as student-centred the teacher remains the pedagogical gate-keeper as the choice to use a GBA was largely based on the feeling of the teacher about the use of the approach. The present study showcases a unique contribution to the literature by sharing a process of mixed method research using a contemporary communication platform.

Informing Game Sense pedagogy with constraints led theory for coaching in Australian football

All invasion games are complex and dynamic. This paper focuses on one invasion game, Australian football. It discusses the potential contribution of dynamic systems theory to performance analysis in Australian football, in order to better understand how the complex interplay of collective decision-making evolves within play. The discussion of conceptual issues leading to a theoretically informed practice proposes that the application of dynamic systems thinking enables Australian football researchers and coaches to efficiently analyse patterns of play and identify the information-movement couplings associated with how players produce the functional behaviours that answer the requirements of momentary configurations of play. This paper builds on recent theoretical debate in the areas of skill acquisition, complex learning theory and coaching pedagogy, to connect a constraints-led skill acquisition perspective and Game Sense pedagogy to produce theoretically informed coaching practice.

What’s in a concept? A Leximancer text mining analysis of physical literacy across the international literature:

Physical literacy is developing as a contested concept with definitional blurring across international contexts, confusing both practitioners and researchers. This paper serves the dual purpose of reporting on an interrogation of concepts associated with physical literacy in academic writing and exploring the use of a text mining data analysis tool. The Leximancer text mining software was applied to 49 research papers relating to physical literacy from 2001–2016, sourced from academic repositories and scholarly search engines. The findings from the text mining analysis revealed that the concept of physical literacy is used in a variety of contexts, specifically in connection with ‘education’, ‘activity’, ‘fitness’, ‘health’, ‘concept’, ‘competence’, ‘understanding’, ‘roles’, ‘curriculum’ and ‘assessment’. The concept with the most relevance connected to physical literacy is ‘education’, the very term that is commonly being replaced by ‘literacy’. A number of concepts were identified from the text mining analysis that were not explicitly mentioned within the definitions of physical literacy, including educational components such as ‘curriculum’, ‘teaching’ and ‘assessment’. It was also revealed that many of the strongest relational concepts from the text mining of the physical literacy literature were of a physical domain, with less relevance and connection to concepts of cognitive, social and emotional domains. The study fills an important gap in the literature by showing that while a multiplicity of conceptions of physical literacy exists, the concept gives dominance to the physical domain and the marginalisation of cognitive and affective domains in various constructions of physical literacy.

Telling physical education teacher education tales through pedagogical case studies

This paper analyses two pedagogical case studies (PCS) from a multidisciplinary perspective to highlight the problems of theoretical knowledge in tertiary physical education teacher education (PETE) programmes, school-based physical education (PE) practice and continuous professional learning (CPL) in PE. We argue that a critical view of tertiary PETE and PE teacher educator CPL practice or practices is particularly important if PETE programmes want to develop future PE and current teacher practitioners who are transformative agents. In setting up the pedagogical case study accounts, we recall common conversations about the bodies of knowledge in tertiary PETE programmes that have been positioned as problematic. The accounts highlight the existence of an artificial divide between PE educators as theory generators and both pre-service PE teachers and school-based PE practitioners as theory appliers. We suggest that part of the reason why this divide exists can be attributed to a general misunderstanding of theoretical and practical knowledge that have been wrongly compartmentalised into ‘theory’ and ‘practice’, and hence erroneously taught as isolated entities without any connection or direct link with each other, or the former considered to be less relevant and perhaps even irrelevant in practice.

Game Play: What Does It Mean for Pedagogy to Think Like a Game Developer?.

What could a sport coach or sport teacher within physical education learn from digital game design and the way digital games capture, sustain, and maintain childrens attention? Would the physical education learning experience be different if physical educators designed and enacted sport teaching by attempting to accommodate the learning needs and preferences of the wrap around technology generation by giving deliberate attention to the design principles employed in digital game design? This article emerged from those two questions to highlight how, as games governed by rules of play, sport and digital game play have much in common and, therefore, sport teachers in physical education may enhance student engagement by incorporating learning principles used in digital game design.

Teaching Australian Football in Physical Education: Constraints Theory in Practice

the value of the typical physical education drill-based pedagogy for sport-skill learning and that the notion of a textbook technique is being challenged as an inaccurate idea. There appears to be a growing awareness that skill-learning theory needs to afford greater emphasis to the value of guided exploration at both the coordination and control stages of learning (Davids, Araujo, & Shuttleworth, 2005). One perspective that emphasizes guided exploration of the learning process is the constraint-led approach (Renshaw, Chappell, Fitzgerald, Davison, & McFadyen, 2010). In contrast to the linear “closed-to-open” progressive part structure of skill-drill training (Magill, 2003), a constraints-led approach is a nonlinear process where learning is guided by the manipulation of constraints acting to control game parameters’ action (Chow, Davids, Hristovski, Araujo, & Passos, 2011; Williams & Hodges, 2005). Rather than the idea that sport can be taught through a single and linear recipe (Davids, Button, & Bennett, 2007), physical education teachers manipulate the individual, environment, and task constraints to encourage exploratory sport learning (Chow et al., 2007; Davids, 1998; Williams & Hodges). By Shane Pill Teaching

Student Reflections of Sport Education in One Urban Australian Primary School.

This paper explores a Sport Education pilot project as a case study of the approach in a primary school setting. The data was obtained from the end of unit written reflections of a class of upper primary students in an urban Australian primary school. The Sport Education unit of work was implemented by the schools physical education teacher who had the speculative hypothesis that Sport Education held the potential to be a construct through which to engage students that the teacher considered reluctant participants or socially isolated in class (author, 2008). The results expose an optimistic student response to the experience. Six themes emerge from the analysis of the results. They indicate Sport Education can deliver positive products for the class climate as well as for a students personal and social skill development in a primary school setting. It is evident most students felt more included and motivated, and understood that they had developed skills for working cooperatively with others. Within this optimistic response complexities do emerge and these will be considered for their indications for Sport Education in primary school settings. However, it can be concluded that Sport Education is a curriculum model suitable for primary school physical education.