Rethinking the Teaching and Coaching of Games Part 1 (1 of 4 Blog series)

11/28/2015

Rethinking the Teaching and Coaching of Games

By Len Almond

Introduction

This blog represents the starter for a series of 4 blogs to generate debate and discussion and it invites your contribution.

In the first instance I shall outline the key principles of TGFU in its original form and invite colleagues to articulate the principles that guide their practice in the approach that they use. There are important differences that need to be accessible and carefully considered to enable us to advance our thinking.

I believe that it is important to articulate these more clearly so that readers can form a clear conception of what is entailed. As a result, I am inviting colleagues who are advocates of different variants or approaches to the teaching and coaching of game to articulate their key principles. This does not exclude anyone who feels that they can make a contribution to the discussions

When we have a range of these insights it will enable readers to generate a much better understanding of the task of improving the teaching and coaching of games and how to make them accessible to a wider audience

This initial blog will be followed by three more on the following topics:

2. The idea of a Curriculum Framework for Games Education
3. The development of a Practice Framework that articulates the key processes to guide our thinking in making games
accessible to a wider audience, providing a rich environment for learning and shaping games.
4. How we can construct A Pedagogy of Engagement and develop the idea of a Pedagogical Capability?

Once again your comments, reactions and contributions are key to the success of this project.

What did TGFU bring to the teaching of games that was innovative – 36 years ago?

It provided an alternative way of making games accessible to young people.
It challenged accepted practice.
It highlighted that game forms facilitate ‘learning in context’, they are situated in practices that represent what young people will experience in a game.
It emphasised ‘Understanding in Games’: everyone talks about Understanding but no one explains what it entails.

Understanding: why is this important?

We want children to understand games (make sense of them)
We want them to understand why they should play games.

2. Intelligent Performance

We want players to understand what an intelligent performance entails and to enable them to demonstrate this in games

However, what does this mean in practice?

A focus on ‘understanding’ –

Understanding of a game
Understanding in a game (intelligent performance) as well as
Understanding how to shape a game (for teachers and coaches).

Learning about games and learning what they can offer – appreciating games.

It introduced the idea of Primary and Secondary rules and their relevance to learning about games
It developed a Games classification
Problem posing - in the form of a game that would provide learners with puzzles to unravel – how do you outwit your opponents?
It provided a structure to enable teachers to think how they can shape the way that games are presented to young people.
It highlighted the need for Modification Principles to enable and guide the shaping process
Self-directed learning to unravel the puzzles within a game became a key element.
It sought to give young people the opportunity to contribute to how the game was played and seeking their views – in today’s terminology – giving them a ‘voice”.
The focus on games making was seen as a way of enabling young people to understand the role of rules, modification principles, how to improve a game and helping young people to devise their own games.
It posed the question: how can we enable players to ‘make sense of games’ so that they can understand what they can do and turn it into an intelligent performance?

This outline provides a set of key statements that underpinned the development of TGFU.

Postscript
Alan Launder in his first book “Play Practice” raises a number of key points that go beyond the original conception of TGFU. I shall highlight 3:

Misunderstanding the difference between techniques and skills.
Our understanding of Games Sense
Creating a platform for skilled play

Misunderstanding the difference between techniques and skills.

Alan Launder was very critical of traditional methods that he saw as ineffective because they overemphasise technical ability i.e. the ability to control and direct the ball, and ignore the importance of a close alignment between a practice and the real game. On the other hand, he felt that tactical approaches are often of little value because they minimise or can even ignore the importance of technical ability in skilled play. Like the TGFU team he felt that we should clarify the nature of skilled performance in sport by defining the actions of controlling and directing the ball in games as techniques, not as ‘skills’, not as ‘the basic skills’ and not as ‘the fundamentals’. Skills are the application of appropriate techniques in a game.

Nevertheless, Alan believed that by adopting a TGFU framework there was a danger of neglecting technical competence and I believe that he has made an important point. I shall return to this in a future blog in outlining the idea of a Games Capability.

Our understanding of Games Sense

There appears to be three different ways of speaking of Games Sense and clarification of how they are used would be very useful.
Making sense of games (Rod Thorpe) in TGFU.

Games Sense as a title for a specific way of thinking about teaching and coaching games
Alan Launder’s use of games sense in Play Practice

Creating a platform for skilled play

Alan speaks of creating a platform for skilled play. This is an important point that does not appear to have penetrated the conceptual thinking underpinning the teaching and coaching of games and outlined in the literature.

Understanding how the rules of the game and their interpretation can influence play
Coping with all the different time demands in a game, in practice time or the time to make good/effective decisions
Physical courage and toughness
Athleticism/Endurance (the ability to cover the ground – pitch or court - for a whole game)
Mental toughness when under pressure
Ability to read the play and develop the instinct to recognise meaningful information/cues and meaningful patterns in a game
Ability to think ahead of the play
Clear communication between players and the coach
Attention span

For me, creating a platform for skilled play (aka intelligent performance) requires a ‘Set of Capabilities’ that go beyond a focus on technical and tactical aspects of a game. These need to be thoroughly discussed and shared in future blogs.

Conclusion

I invite colleagues to contribute to the process of articulating what guides and informs our practice so as to enable readers to consult the wealth of thinking that has gone into our understanding of improving the teaching and coaching of games. Please contribute to this debate.

7 Comments

TGfU SIG Executive

This blog has been set up in response to the growing interesting in developing a global community for discussions on game-based approaches in Physical Education and Sport. The following pedagogical approaches have been identified with game-based approaches: Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU), Play Practice, Game Sense, Tactical Games approach, Games Concept approach, Tactical Games Model, Tactical Decision Learning model, Ball Schulle and Invasion Games Competence model.

Ben Colley

11/27/2015 03:50:43 am

I personally prefer to adopt the constraints approach as you can utilise the same playing space and general frameworks of an activity and elicit multiple responses. This is where I see the constraints approach to be most effective in promoting the ideals of game sense. This approach allows the adjustments of various components whether it be directly influencing the task, the individuals or the environment, it has the potential to influence the overall desired outcome of the activity. Take touch football for example, traditional pathways to learning a rucking exercising could include the use of marker up the field. A student runs toward the marker (symbolising ruck hole or that A defender) where they are to dump the ball, seeing the acting half then dish the ball off the the next runner and the process continues. I look at this and wonder what are the students learning here. They are learning how to dump the ball, run toward a cone and to pass off the ground. Although explicit in its requirements, there is simply no congitive decision making or strategical elements involved. Not only will this promote an educationally stale classroom, it doesn't accommodate (differentiate) for those students who may be already competent in this area.

To adopt a constraints or TGFU approach to the same concept can easily be achieved through game play scenarios. To promote the ideal of rucking you can incorporate rules, such as trying to commit two defenders. Through utilising this rule you are encouraging the runners to run into the vacant ruck hole where the previous defenders are retreating from. To promote the ball runner running onto the ball and making it over the advantage line you can incorporate a rule that promotes this ideal, such as obtaining an extra touch for each time you make it over the advantage line. Whilst incorporating this rule you are also changing the constraints of the defenders as they are trying to develop strategy that can allow them to prevent this attacking aim.

Already through applying the constraints approach to a simple touch footballl rucking focus, the different in cognitive processes is astounding. We need to ask ourselves as PE teachers, are we doing this profession to have all students able to pass a ball the same way, or be able to throw the perfect spiral pass? I know personally I am wanting to create a classroom adopting a holistic approach encompassing all students in a highly engaged manner. In order to achieve this, the game sense/constraints approach allows this to be achieved on a far greater platform than the traditional approaches we have been exposed to in the past.

Len Almond

12/10/2015 03:30:50 pm

Ben

Thank you for your thoughtful response and your ideas about teaching a game.

In the blog I was trying to stimulate the development of a dialogue so that we can start to construct a shared understanding of principles that could guide our practice. Not in the sense there is only one way of doing things. My concern is to generate an informed understanding that helps teachers to explore ideas so that we can learn about different ways of doing things. This understanding would have its basis in key principles that advocates of specific approaches can identify and illustrate. So I shall pose a number of questions for consideration by all readers of the blog and comments.

I understand your concern about traditional ways of viewing the learning of a game but what is it that is different?
What aspects of TGFU do you use to guide your practice?
How do we design and shape the game scenarios?
In what ways do you use the constraints led approach?
How do you use modification principles?
What do we want our students to learn?
Where does an understanding of the game appear in your thinking?
Have you tried other ways of thinking about how to develop an informed

These are all questions that we need to address in creating a better vision of helping students learn about games, how to play a game.

Ben

12/15/2015 08:54:28 am

Hi Len, Thank you for your reply.

off the bat I have to clarify that I %100 agree with what you said in regard to it not being the only way of teaching, I must have misinterpreted the post. I believe that there is a time and a place for each, students need to have an adequate skill base, prior to implementing this to high pressure strategic scenarios. I guess it goes back to the old principle of you must crawl before you walk.

The aspects of TGFU that I hold in highest regard is that you can elicit multiple skill sets through a single contextualised activity. Through playing a simple endzone game you are eliciting responses that can be used across multiple invasion styled contexts. I use in my coaching and practical experiences the environment and individual constraints to form my game scenarios. I think how can I alter the environment and what rules can I implement to either make this harder, easier to elicit a new response.

Thats what I think is so effective as you can play a single game, adjust it as you go, minimising transitions, classroom management and potentially general waiting for setting up time etc. Ultimately through minimising time spent waiting, you are maximising engagement and promoting positive student behaviours.

At the end of the day my personal philosophy is that students go to PE to be active, play games and have fun. We need to cater to this need to ensure we are promoting holistic education practice and promote participating in healthy activity beyond schooling.

Through personal experience I often ask my students which method they prefer and I am open with them and say to them today we are going to try a new approach, let me know what you think and they respect that I am considerate of their opinion. More often than not the game sense approach comes up trumps, due to the fact they are engaged for a longer duration and are able to develop strategic plans and become immersed at a greater level.

I believe an understanding of the game appears in our personal thinking through questioning, rather than having to spend time explaining aspects of the activity to students, you can utilise questioning as a feedback mechanism to promote a desired response. Rather than saying Billy, move to space. You may simply ask Billy, "where can you move to get the ball Billy....". A simple question can elicit a response more profound than I personally believe the drill itself can.

I am always looking to improve and am always open to try new things, so far I have tried a few approaches and game sense/constraints approach so far has been the most beneficial for me and my students.

I hope this answers the proposed questions and ellaborates a bit more of my personal approaches and philosophies in terms of my teaching practice.

Alan Keane

11/28/2015 02:27:18 pm

Is there many PE departments out there that have constructed their PE schemes of work purely on TGFU, Game Sense, constraints approach? As a national team coach I have very much moved towards this approach not only in my PE lessons but also with national team camps.

12/10/2015 03:32:12 pm

Alan

Thank you for your response. It raises two points:
1. How do teachers construct their schemes of work? Are they guided by a set of principles or 2nd and 3rd hand interpretations?
2. As a coach, how do you adopt an approach that guides and informs your practice? How do you decide which approach is appropriate?

These are key questions because they highlight a very important issue. We simply don’t know because there is very little research to illuminate our understanding. If this research does exist then it needs to be more accessible.

My reactions and thoughts on this issue focus on the need to clarify much more clearly what all the different approaches to teaching /coaching games bring to our understanding of what counts as informed practice and what is unique to their thinking that should be part of essential practice. The responsibility for doing this lies with the advocates of these approaches to enable teachers/coaches to make comparisons and identify key characteristics that will help their teaching/coaching. It is asking too much for hard-pressed and under pressure teachers/coaches to trawl through all the literature and arrive at an informed perspective.

The teaching/coaching of games will be enhanced enormously if advocates of different approaches would articulate their key characteristics and what is unique that makes them stand out.

ff14 gil link

12/30/2015 08:34:24 am

I am inviting colleagues who are advocates of different variants or approaches to the teaching and coaching of game to articulate their key principles. This does not exclude anyone who feels that they can make a contribution to the discussions

Balbinder Singh

2/23/2016 05:14:43 am

I am from Singapore and heading a PE department. Over here emphasis on inquiry, questioning approaches, teaching for understanding, etc has taken a hold on all our class-based academic subjects and rightfully so to put our students in good stead post-school. My personal encounter for PE however is a reluctance to embrace this non-direct teaching method. Our teachers are trained via GCA but also heavily influenced by very direct instructional approaches. I believe this is an issue that is possibly prevalent in many places and the biggest contributing factor (possibly) may be the simple lack of knowing what to do on the ground for the very busy and stressed PE teacher. Related to this is the believe that committing to any one approach means neglecting others. They need to see different approaches as being in a continuum of teaching styles that correlates closely to student abilities/characteristics or to different teaching contexts. The confidence that is lacking is also contributed to by the lack of understanding on the basic ethos of TGFU, ie for me it is the design of authentic-ish learning situations and creative interactions, to allow learning by understanding. Our 2nd and 3rd hand interpretations dilutes very quickly to discourage.
With clear National directed curriculum/outcomes for PE, it is possible to be very mechanical in our SOWs without the need to incorporate any deep demonstration of pedagogical approaches on paper. However, our teachers need the guidance of SOWs and first hand experiance. We try our best to state milestones necessary for us to be convinced that learning by understanding is taking place. This is translated to lesson plans, both formal and informal. It will be a battle though (and it is for me) for teachers/departments who are more concern about end objectives that are easily achieved by skill demonstration mainly, not looking at teaching processes.
I agree, we need clarity of what different approaches look like on the ground and this clarity needs to reach the teachers in a way that is not intimidating, ie not a academic/research paper. They also need to be clear collaboration seen in the articulation of the different approaches. This needs to be coupled with policy makers who are in-align with on the ground expertise on what is needed.
Hope this international opinion contributes…

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