Considering how students make sense of new information is so important for effective teaching. After reading Dervin, Baggio and Clark this morning, I can’t help but think about my own teaching and reflect on how I can improve, as well as what I might already be doing right. Dervin talks about individual levels of understanding and qualitative research… these concepts understand the individual as essential to forming understandings. Similarly, Baggio writes about constructivist learning theory, which emphasizes the willingness, readiness, and autonomy of the learner… When teaching something new in PE, I always strive to have my students learn as through activity or gameplay. Sometimes that can look like classmates helping less experienced classmates to understand the more intricate details once gameplay has started. I generally try to spend as little time as possible frontloading students with the most important/basic concepts for a given game/activity, before letting them get out there to experience it in real time. Sometimes putting a big pause on the game is necessary to bring the class back together for a teachable moment, but now students are able to apply that new lesson to something they’ve actually just experienced. Both Baggio and Clark reveal the importance of effective visual imagery for learning. I believe in this deeply for PE. Verbally explaining new concepts can only be so effective (or not), but when we include whiteboard diagrams, poster board visuals, video learning, or student modeling/demonstrating, students can now very directly see the achievable outcome and try to replicate them. Connecting Dervin, Baggio and Clark: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-KWmVv9LvlaqiNTZmBbydIGcDi2GJdJH3TVX7I_rjdk/edit
4 Comments
Lynda Tuttle Bergner
6/13/2020 01:56:12 pm
HI Dustin,
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6/13/2020 04:16:22 pm
You said that you "spend as little time as possible explaining the basic concepts" and then later stop the game to re-teach. Do you find this method effective? I know you teach high school, so I'm sure that it's very different from my world of elementary.
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Erica Gysbers
6/15/2020 03:26:40 pm
HI Dustin-
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Jason Chatham
6/16/2020 08:54:21 am
Hey Dustin. I think this is really what education is about: taking theory, your subject, more importantly your students... and finding ways to make learning tangible. The fact that you look for and respond to teachable moments and bring in additional stimuli all speak to your professionalism. You are really good at what you do!
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About Dustin Green:High School PE Teacher Archives
March 2021
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