3) Personal Viewsteaching Games For Understanding

3) Personal Viewsteaching Games For Understanding Students
3) Personal Viewsteaching Games For Understanding People

The Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) approach was developed by researchers at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom to tap into children’s inherent desire to play. Bunker and Thorpe (1982) developed TGfU around the concept of teaching kids games by playing games. Butler et al. (2008) identified six Basic TGfU Concepts:

Teach games through games.
Break games into their simplest format - then increase complexity.
Participants are intelligent performers in games.
Every learner is important and is involved.
Participants need to know the subject matter.
Need to match participants’ skill and challenge.

Beliefs, assumptions, characteristics, and patterns can provide a better understanding, which can lead to a more satisfying life. A greater level of self-understanding about important life skills is often necessary to make positive, self-directed changes in the negative patterns that keep repeating. A systematic review of the research conducted on Teaching Games for Understanding in Physical Education in the last six years (2014–2019), updating and expanding with new categories the last published review by Harvey and Jarret in 2014. Four databases were used to select those articles that included information on the implementation of Teaching Games for Understanding in different.

Recent approaches to TGfU have advocated for a thematic approach to teaching games. Rather than teaching sport-specific units (e.g., volleyball unit, soccer unit), children and youth gain skills and knowledge to apply to different sports by playing a variety of games associated with 4 game categories:

Target Games in which the participant propels an object, preferably with a high degree of accuracy, at a target.
Net/Wall Games in which the participant propels an object into space trying to make it difficult for an opponent to return it.
Striking/Fielding Games in which the participant strikes an object so it is placed away from defenders in the field.
Territory Games in which participants invade an opponent's territory to score.

These categories represent games and activities that are similar in structure. By exposing children and youth to the primary rules, fundamental skills, and tactical problems associated with each category, they become literate in a variety of games, activities and sports and develop an understanding and competency of the skills and tactics associated with playing sports.

The skills and strategies used in the PlaySport activities are applicable to several different sports. For example, if a child understands the basic concept behind keeping possession of an object in an territory game (e.g., use short passes, shield the ball, support the player with the ball), this will help them to play a variety of territory games whose tactics can be applied to related sports (e.g., basketball, soccer, handball, lacrosse, wheelchair basketball, goalball).

In PlaySport, activities have been grouped into specific categories which represent games and sports which are similar in structure and include aspects of certain sports. For example:

Target

Net/Wall

Badminton
Sitting Volleyball
Squash
Tennis
Volleyball
Wheelchair Tennis

Striking/
Fielding

Territory

Basketball
Goalball
Handball
Hockey
Lacrosse
Soccer
Wheelchair Basketball

Individual
Pursuits

To promote lifelong healthy, active living for all, it is important not to limit children and youth to game and sport activities. Many children and youth prefer activities that do not involve team play, and these can provide plenty of opportunities for fun through the development of fitness and movement skills related to control of body rhythm, movement aesthetics, creativity, sequencing, composition and stability. With this in mind, PlaySport also includes Individual Pursuit activities. These are games in which children work individually with their own equipment, or in some cases interact with others, monitoring their own behaviour, movements and physical expenditure.

Teaching Games for Understanding is a child-centred approach where the leader acts as a facilitator and the participants make their own adaptations in order to maximize the level of challenge and fun! The following steps are elements of a Teaching Games for Understanding approach:

Activity Appreciation: trying out a version of the activity in a small-group
Tactical Awareness: developing understanding of common elements of games and tactics needed for success
Decision-Making: learning and practising making decisions in action, in response to different situations
Application of Skills: identifying and practising the skills needed to improve play
Performance: putting it all together, applying the skills, decision-making and tactics in game situations

The process is a cyclical one with participants continuing to adapt and change as needed for the best playing experience.

Good teaching starts with an operational definition of teaching. There are three common views of what constitutes teaching: teaching as transmission, teaching as transaction, and teaching as transformation (Miller, 1996).

Teaching as Transmission. From this perspective, teaching is the act of transmitting knowledge from Point A (teacher’s head) to Point B (students’ heads). This is a teacher-centered approach in which the teacher is the dispenser of knowledge, the arbitrator of truth, and the final evaluator of learning. A teacher’s job from this perspective is to supply students with a designated body of knowledge in a predetermined order. Academic achievement is seen as students’ ability to demonstrate, replicate, or retransmit this designated body of knowledge back to the teacher or to some other measuring agency or entity. From this perspective standardized tests are considered to be an apt measure of students’ learning. While there are specific instances when this approach is useful, I find little research support for this as a general approach to teaching and learning.

Teaching as Transaction. From this perspective, teaching is the process of creating situations whereby students are able to interact with the material to be learned in order to construct knowledge. Constructivism is an educational philosophy consistent with this view. Here, knowledge is not passively received; rather, it is actively built up or constructed by students as they connect their past knowledge and experiences with new information (Santrock, 2004). And just as each student’s past knowledge and experiences are different, so too is the interpretation, understanding, and meaning of the new information that each ultimately constructs.

Teachers are not expected to pour knowledge into the heads of learners; rather, they assist learners in their construction of knowledge by creating experiences where students’ old information can transact with new information to create meaningful knowledge (knowledge that is connected to something students already know). Academic achievement from a constructivist perspective is seen as students’ ability to use this knowledge to solve real-world problems or to create products or performances that are valued in one or more cultural settings.

Teaching as Transformation. From this perspective, teaching is creating conditions that have the potential to transform the learner on many different levels (cognitive, emotional, social, intuitive, creative, spiritual, and other). Transformational teaching invites both students and teachers to discover their full potential as learners, as members of society, and as human beings. The ultimate transformational goal is to help develop more nurturing human beings who are better able to perceive the interconnectedness of all human, plant, and animal life (Narve, 2001). Holistic education is an educational philosophy consistent with the transformative view (Miller, 1996). Learning is said to have occurred when these experiences elicit a transformation of consciousness that leads to a greater understanding of and care for self, others, and the environment. Academic achievement from this perspective is similar to self-actualization. That is, it is perceived as discovering and developing each individual’s unique talents and capabilities to the fullest extent possible. Academic achievement also involves becoming aware of the multiple dimensions of self and expanding one’s consciousness.

TRANSFORMING EDUCATION

`Learning can take place using all three views or approaches; however, it is my observation that the most powerful and sustaining learning experiences are created when transactional and transformational approaches are used predominately.

3) Personal Viewsteaching Games For Understanding

The transformational view of teaching incorporates the basic elements of constructivism and adds meaning, consciousness, and interconnectedness. Public schools operating from this perspective are places of inquiry where questions become just as important as answers. The primary role of teachers here is to enable students to discover and embrace their inner core and develop their interests and unique talents to the fullest extent possible; in other words, self-actualization. Curricula are a means to this end, not an end in and of itself. Academic achievement becomes closely linked with self-actualization and is highly individualized. Personalized goals as well as authentic assessment are used to describe learning. Schools and teachers are held accountable by assessing students’ and teachers’ movement toward personalized goals and by examining the extent to which students are engaged in meaningful learning experiences.

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