An innovative teaching and learning approach
Nigel Clarke
Introduction
although pe teachers have been using information communication technology (iCt) for years within their teaching, it is only since the national Curriculum (1999) made its integration into key Stage 3 pe teaching statutory that teachers have heightened their awareness of its possibilities. iCt use in pe is not as radical an idea as it first appears. the use of whistles, stopwatches, tape-measures, photographic equipment, video and audio cassettes has been widespread for several decades or longer. more recent emphasis on health-related fitness within the curriculum has led to the recruit- ment of skin-fold callipers and heart-rate monitors. in all cases the primary role for the particular piece of equipment is to ‘communicate information using technology’, whether that be to stop a game (e.g. to communicate an infringement of the rules to the players), or communicate an assessment of how fast an athlete has performed or how hard they have worked. it is, however, the rapid advances in digital technology that have offered the modern pe teacher the opportunity to champion the role of
‘trail-blazer’ within the teaching profession. our subject, having teaching and learn- ing opportunities for auditory, visual and kinaesthetic learners, perhaps lends itself to recent advances in iCt better than many other curriculum areas.
Reasons for employing the use of ICT in Pe
it is a statutory requirement for the national Curriculum for pe (nCpe) at key Stage 3. i would also argue that there is an extremely strong case to be made for its inclusion at key Stage 2, as often children of that age have started to explore iCt both within the other curriculum areas and in their wider life experiences outside school. key Stage 2 pupils are often more exposed to, and comfortable with, both the technologies and the teaching and learning styles iCt offers than many key Stage 3 and 4 pupils. with the current focus on key Stage 2–3 transition, there may be a valid case for capitalising on these iCt experiences by encouraging the key Stage 2 pupil to take a lead role in supporting their older peers, boosting their self-confidence and esteem and possibly smoothing intra-key Stage transition.
it is now commonly accepted as ‘good practice’ for the pe teacher to select the
•
effective use of iCt to support and enhance their teaching. indeed, it is com- prehensively embedded within the professional Standards for teachers Qualified teacher Status (tda 2007):
Information and communications technology in physical education 93 Q17 know how to use skills in literacy, numeracy and iCt to support their
teaching and wider professional activities.
Q23 design opportunities for learners to develop their literacy, numeracy and iCt skills.
it supports and complements the dfeS
• 2020 Vision. this review recommends the
need for greater personalised teaching and learning that is both learner-centred and knowledge-centred.
Learners are active and curious: they create their own hypotheses, ask their own questions, coach one another, set goals for themselves, monitor their progress and experiment with ideas for taking risks, knowing that mistakes and ‘being stuck’
are part of learning.
(dfeS 2007: 6) another key point for personalised learning is making the experience assessment- centred for the pupils.
techniques such as open questioning, sharing learning objectives and success cri- teria, and focused marking have a powerful effect on the extent to which learners are enabled to take an active role in their learning. Sufficient time is always given for learners’ reflection. whether individually or in pairs, they review what they have learnt and how they have learnt it. their evaluations contribute to their understanding. they know their levels of achievement and make progress towards their goals.
(dfeS 2007: 6) one of the key concerns for the pe teacher must, therefore, be how to assimilate this proposed personalised teaching and learning approach into the effective use of iCt in pe. Later in this chapter a case study of just such a situation will be presented.
the world of employment and training into which the current key Stage 2 and 3 pupils will emerge within the next decade is likely to expect and demand fluency of understanding and usage of the latest communication technologies. the current expansion of motion analysis software, such as kandle and dartfish, for work with an ever-increasing range of elite, professional and amateur sports performers and teams, supports this premise. indeed, the dfeS 2020 Vision goes as far as to say that ‘the pace of technological change will continue to rise exponentially. using iCt will be natural for most pupils and an increasing majority of teachers’ (dfeS 2007: 9).
there has been a growing body of research evidence since 2000 that documents advantages for both the teacher and learner when iCt is used innovatively within our subject. however, one word of caution should be highlighted at this point. physical education is still perceived to be a physically literate and practically based subject and the teacher needs to consider this point carefully when integrating iCt into their lesson planning. Just because iCt is available does not mean that it should be used in every lesson! it should only ever be used to support and enhance teaching and learn- ing. it is sometimes easy to become preoccupied with the technology at the expense of the pupils’ learning and/or activity levels.
94 Clarke
national Curriculum (dfee and QCa 1999) states that iCt must become an integrated tool of a pe teacher’s delivery, yet in ofsted’s report on secondary pe (2000), the lack of iCt inclusion in lessons is regarded as a weakness. with the rapid development in, and availability of, new technologies, coupled with trainee teach- ers and newly qualified teachers’ apparent confidence and willingness to use these (koh and khairuddin 2004), the task now becomes the development of this tool in promoting effective teaching and learning. thomas and Stratton suggest that ‘models of good practice are certainly now required to ensure that the best use of iCt is given to pupils’ (2005: 26). Bush highlights ‘the potential pivotal role that trainees and newly Qualified teachers (nQts) might have to play in disseminating good practice in iCt among their more “experienced” peers’ (2004: 49). the current challenge is, therefore, to ‘tap into’ this enthusiastic knowledge base and provide developmental ideas for the creative use of iCt in pe.
examples of current ICT use to support teaching and learning in Pe
1 the internet is a knowledge and information resource. increasingly, teachers’ use of it has moved away from traditional search engines towards more focused and appropriately tailored and controlled virtual learning platforms, such as Blackboard and moodle. these allow the teacher to upload supporting documentation, homework and direct internet web-links (including video clips), to enhance the pupils’ learning experience, onto a readily accessible electronic format. however, care must be taken when using the internet in a class setting, as often pupils will wander off-task or enter too broad a search term to gain access to the information they need. it can sometimes be beneficial to provide complete address pathways to save unnecessary search time. another issue when using the internet as a resource is the current viability of addresses or pathways. these can often lapse or change and necessitate regular checking by the teacher. it is possible to use the pupils to perform this task as part of an introductory task (table 6.1). the class or pe staff could be provided with a starting list of useful pe internet sites and asked to carry out the evaluative task suggested.
Table 6.1 The potential of the Internet in physical education
Explore and critically evaluate the key features of your selected websites for group presentation. You may wish to consider features such as: ease of navigation, ‘user-friendliness’, graphic design and visual impact, usefulness and accuracy of content, how it might be used by a PE teacher (e.g. as a teacher resource or interactively with pupils) and what Key Stage it is most appropriate for.
Web address Brief description of site
Reference information for pupils
Interactive resources for pupils
Resources for teachers, e.g.
video clips
Lesson plans, schemes of
work Evaluation of site
Information and communications technology in physical education 95
Formations
!The 4 – 3 – 3 formation is usually adopted by teams who have good attacking qualities.
!For example, Chelsea use this formation as they have very skilful attacking players.
!This formation is very similar to the 4 – 5 – 1 formation as both wingers maybe asked to help out with defending too.
Figure 6.1 Screen-shot of PowerPoint slide introducing football formations.
2 Software can support the teacher in administration, communication, lesson planning and resources, record-keeping and assessment. many teachers will already be routinely using microsoft programs such as access, excel and outlook express to ease their administration and communication burdens. word and powerpoint particularly lend themselves to information presentation in a format not normally encountered by the pupils in pe lessons. pupils can use their own cross-curricular iCt skills to produce powerpoint resources for sharing among their peers, an easy way of producing a ‘class library’ of electronic knowledge resources. this becomes widely available if burned onto Cd or uploaded onto the school’s or department’s intranet or virtual learning platform. an example of a screen-shot from such a powerpoint presentation on introducing football formations to key Stage 2 and 3 classes is given in Figure 6.1; a screen-shot addressing the ‘acquire and develop’
key strand using a reciprocal teaching approach for cricket is given in Figure 6.2;
and the menu screen from a GCSe anatomy and physiology resource powerpoint presentation is shown in Figure 6.3.
3 key Stage 3 and 4 pupils, particularly those studying GCSe pe, often enjoy interactive presentations in the format of topical gameshows such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire? this can be a particularly useful revision format for the end of a block of work. again, the pupils could be set a particular topic to revise and produce their own presentations to share as a whole-class resource. the first slide from such a GCSe revision interactive powerpoint presentation is shown in Figure 6.4. powerpoint templates for formats such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire? are readily available on the web for pupils to use.