Learning in PE

Throughout the course of a lesson, a teacher may find they are using a variety of strategies to cater for different stage-of-learning – and therefore different approaches to engage with the aims, content and purpose of the lesson.

In attempting to offer appropriate scaffolding for each learner, the teacher helps each student master a task or concept that the student is initially unable to grasp independently. The teacher offers assistance with only those skills that are beyond the student’s capability.

Considering students receive, interpret and process information in ways unique to themselves there is need to make every effort to use individualised learning. Although it would be virtually impossible to truly individualise learning for all students, teachers should employ differentiated approaches where feasible. Here teachers can modify the activity to make it more difficult or simpler, thus providing tasks that are appropriate to the individuals in their class.

When we consider a question like this we need to establish the two types of motivation. Intrinsic motivation is defined as the motivation (the drive to do something) from within. A person with intrinsic motivation will persist with a task even in the face of difficulty, will choose to challenge themselves, and will gain rewards simply from the task itself, not necessarily rewards, praise or winning. Extrinsic motivation on the other hand is motivation which is driven by external reward such as money, prizes, status, fear of punishment etc.

On first reflection, we can often observe children who flourish in the classroom but struggle in PE, or vice versa. Such observations can lead to the belief that children have different ‘styles’ of learning that are fixed, such that a child who enjoys reading and writing may never be as comfortable learning in the physical domain. Each child is at a different stage of a learning journey that spans from the abstract and theoretical to the practical and physical reality.

In keeping with Vygotsky’s theory of ‘scaffolding’, learning is promoted in a variety of ways. These include breaking the task down in to smaller pieces (technique of a skill), co-operative learning (peer support and teacher input), communication (dialogue between teacher and students), prompts, cue cards and modelling (demonstrations). These strategies develop teamwork, peer dialogue as well as a sense of achievement.

Feedback refers to information provided by an agent such as a teacher or parent regarding performance or understanding (Hattie & Timperly, 2007). In a practical subject such as PE there are two types of feedback which are usually deployed; knowledge of results (KR) and knowledge of performance (KP).

Scaffolding is a valuable tool both for planning lessons to achieve learning outcomes and for guiding observation and feedback in lessons. Zhao and Orey (1999) identify these six general features of the scaffolding process as: sharing a specific goal, whole task approach, immediate availability of help, intention assisting, optimal level of help, and conveying an expert model.

The term ‘scaffolding’ comes from the works of Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976). The term ‘scaffolding’ was developed as a metaphor to describe the type of assistance offered by a teacher or peer to support learning. In the process of scaffolding, the teacher helps the student master a task or concept that the student is initially unable to grasp independently. The teacher offers assistance with only those skills that are beyond the student’s capability. Of great importance is allowing the student to complete as much of the task as possible, unassisted.

Knapp (1973) considers learning to be ‘permanent change in performance associated with experience.’ To help expand on this definition and provide some practical application of how learning takes place in PE, the following 3 stages should be considered; understanding phase, verbal motor phase and motor phase. Phase 1 – Cognitive (understanding phase). This stage is inconsistent and performance is not guaranteed. Students rely on the teacher to inform them of what to do and the technique associated with success.