The three dimensions of Sport Pedagogy are knowledge in context, learners and learning and teachers and teaching. These need to be considered by the teacher or coach when making decisions on which teaching style or learning theory they should follow to ensure effective teaching and learning. It’s important to realise that these three dimensions of sport pedagogy are closely linked and overlap. This can consequently lead to teacher’s decision making on how to teach the pupils very difficult.
Knowledge in context
“The selection of knowledge to be taught, coached or learnt is always a context bound decision” (Armour, 2011, p. 13). For teachers to be able to make decisions on how to approach teaching a certain group in a certain situation they need to consider the knowledge in context. Both management aspects like time and resources should be considered as well as the pupils characteristics. Furthermore the teachers have to follow the current national curriculum. In recent years the power of who decides what to teach has shifted towards more powerful agencies such as the government rather than the teachers. (Evans 1999). Therefore the teacher needs to consider the current government’s policies when planning their teaching. However, I believe that it can be difficult to do as the national curriculum and policies from the government are constantly changing due to social and political factors, therefore this may affect the teachers practice (Armour 2011). For example in 2011 “School games” was introduced by the Conservative government to try and encourage children to play more competitive sports, there’s also been an increase in the development of elite sport. Therefore teachers are constantly having to adapt to these changes in the national curriculum, due to changes in political power and social factors.
Teachings and teaching
Teachers and teaching is a further dimension of sport pedagogy. This is the ability of teachers to make a decision on what approach and teaching style they will use with their pupils and being flexible enough to use a variety of styles. This can again be linked to knowledge in context as it can be dependent on the teacher’s preference and experience. There are 11 different types of teaching style, which were developed by Musska Mosston in 1966. The spectrum of teaching styles range from more teacher centred approaches such as Command and Practice styles to more student centred approaches such as Guided discovery and Self-teaching. The spectrum can therefore be split into two parts, the reproductive styles and the productive styles. Command style is a reproductive style, which involves the pupil responding directly to a stimulus from the teacher (Mosston 1966). For example a teacher may do a demonstration on how to kick a football and then all the pupils will copy this. According to (Thomson, 2009) a benefit of this style is that the pupils have multiple chances to watch the skill from the teacher’s demonstrations before having to copy it. On the other hand Thomson (2009) argued that the pupils who may be more advanced in the skills they are learning, could easily get bored and unmotivated due to the class working in unison and possibly at a slower pace. Therefore it’s essential that when a teacher uses the command style they consider the effect it may have on those who are slightly more advanced, so again considering the context of the situation they are teaching in. Teachers therefore instead may use a reproductive style of teaching. Brunner (1961) described Guided discovery as a teaching style which involves the pupils having a problem to solve on their own with hints and feedback from the teacher. For example using the football example again, the teacher may ask the group to think of different ways of dribbling with the football to get around a defender. In my opinion this will remove the problems of advanced pupils being bored and unmotivated, as pupils will be challenged to think for themselves and use their previous knowledge in football to provide well thought answers. However Mayer (2004) argued that a difficulty teachers and coaches may face with guided discovery is knowing how much support to provide in each circumstance. Therefore this requires further decision making to be done by the teachers, not only do they need to make a decision on what teaching style to use, they also need to decide how to apply the style as well in different contexts.
Learners and Learning
It’s essential that teachers realise that learners are diverse and that they all have preferences on how they learn. They also need to realise that they come from a range of backgrounds such as different ages, experiences and cultures (Armour, 2011). Therefore considering this the teachers can make a decision on what the best learning theory is to use.
One learning theory that a teacher may use is behaviourism. This is the acquisition of new behaviour, which is modified through stimulus – response and selective reinforcement (Chambers 2011). Pedagogy strategies that are linked to behaviourism are instructional ones (Armour 2011). So the command teaching style can be considered be a more behaviourist approach as it involves a learner producing a response due to the teacher’s instruction. For example a teacher may shout run (stimulus) and the pupils will start running (response.) However I believe that the behaviourist approach can be considered simplistic as more must happen beyond an input producing an output, other processes in the brain must occur such as analysing and processing the information which then lead to an outcome. Therefore Cognitivism may be a more beneficial learning theory. This involves the teacher transmitting information to the learners, who will receive the information and process it (Tishman et al 1993). Teachers may use cognitive methods to help the learner to develop further understanding of a concept in sport through both short term memorising and long term learning where they think more deeply. (Armour 2011). An example of cognitivism in practice is when the teacher uses memory techniques to get the pupils to learn the rules of a sport. For example in netball my coach used to shout cues such as “footwork” and “don’t contact” to keep reminding us of the rules of the game. Eventually due to the repetition of the cues they became stored within my long term memory, which I could then retrieve when I needed to when playing a match.
The most effective learning theory in my opinion is Constructivism. Boghossain (2006) explained that Constructivism involves learners being active participants in the learning process, where they use experiences from their activities to find meaning which leads to them building on their knowledge. It can be split into social and cognitive aspects. Cognitive constructivism was mainly developed through the work of Piaget and is based on how children develop through stages of learning. Piaget argued that children learn and develop through accommodation and assimilation of the information presented to them (Chambers 2011). Whereas social constructivism is based on how children learn through the use of experiences. This is explained through the zone of proximal development which suggests that teachers need to challenge pupils, by leaving them to discover somethings on their own which enhances their learning (Chambers 2011). Therefore Discovery learning can be linked to Constructivism and involves the pupils discovering things on their own which can be remembered more easily in the future than when a teacher tells them what to do (Yilmaz 2011). I remember an example of this teaching style from when I was playing netball. My coach left me on my own to try different ways of shooting to see which way was most effective. Through practice and experience I learnt the more I flick my wrists the better my shot, which I remembered and used in the future. On the other hand, a problem with leaving pupils to discover things on their own is that effective learning may be dependent on how successful and motivated they are at discovering things. For example if I didn’t discover that I needed to flick my wrists when shooting in netball, I wouldn’t have remained motivated to learn how to successfully shoot and would have given up. Therefore this approach to effective practice may not be beneficial to all.
Conclusion
In conclusion, effective practice is dependent on a teacher’s decision on what learning theory and teaching style to apply to their lessons, depending on the context of the situation. The teacher has to consider things such as the national curriculum, the student’s characteristics such as age and ability, and also the teachers own ability and training. All three dimensions of sport pedagogy overlap, therefore a lot of complex decision making happens for the teachers to develop effective practice.