Lyndal Riley EDUC4729 6th April 2017

ID# 2121870 A1(b) Shane Pill

PEER TEACHING PART B - EVALUATE A PRACTICAL LESSON TAUGHT IN A SENIOR YEARS PE
SIMULATED WORK ENVIRONMENT
* Evidence of teaching at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zixSEwHrs2k
INTRODUCTION

If I expect my confidence and teaching ability to improve I strongly believe constant reflection of my
lessons will be crucial. My teaching performance is not unlike the skill execution of professional
athletes, in that, research shows self-assessment and video analysis promotes improvements at a
much faster rate than any other method of feedback (Liebermann, Katz, Hughes, Bartlett,
McClements & Franks 2002; O'Donoghue, 2006). While the experience of watching myself on video
was initially difficult, it has given me an opportunity to not only direct the lesson, but evaluate it
based on my own goals and visions. Providing safe environments and targeted questioning are
elements of my teaching I feel were successful in the delivery of my volleyball lesson. However, upon
watching the recorded lesson, it became clear I do not demonstrate a number of effective physical
education teaching elements. Of particular note to improve is my use of appropriate and effective
feedback to improve individual movement competency during game play.

SAFE ENVIRONMENTS

All teachers are expected to provide safe and healthy learning environments for their students
(Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership [AITSL], 2014) and this is especially
pertinent in the physical education setting (Gallahue & Donnelly, 2007; Winnick & Porretta, 2016). At
the beginning of the lesson (1:01) I assessed whether students were injured or otherwise unable to
participate to ensure maximum safety. Not only is this beneficial for students, by doing so, I am
making an effort to protect myself from legal action should an incident occur (Gallahue & Donnelly,
2007). Moving forward, I continually observed student interaction on court and when needed,
addressed off-topic or dangerous behaviour. An example of this is seen at (17:08) where a male
student deliberately kicks the volleyball to keep the ball in play. I paused the lesson at this point to
ask all students to refrain from kicking the ball, as it was not a safe course of action. I was initially
challenged by the student, for kicking is not against the rules of volleyball, however when I explained
why I wanted students to refrain from this behaviour in future, he was accepting of my safety rule. In
addition to potentially accidentally injuring a student on another court, the lesson objective was to
move under the ball (Appendix A) therefore kicking was not an effective defending strategy. To
conclude the practical (22:27) I asked students to shake hands with the opposing team to further
foster the healthy learning environment. Research has shown students who are encouraged to
practice sportsmanship are likely to have increased moral development (Bailey, 2006; Vidoni &
Ward, 2009).

TARGETED QUESTIONING

Questioning is a key element of the TGfU (Bunker & Thorpe, 1986) and Play Practice (Lauder, 2001)
approaches to physical education, of which this lesson is built on. Unfortunately, research suggests
teachers give students a mere one-second after a question is asked, before expecting an answer
(Walsh & Sattes, 2016). This haste for answers is something I can see in my teaching. I have
previously feared the awkward silence that befalls the class immediately after I ask a question. To
compensate for the students unwillingness to answer, I often rush to provide follow up questions,
with language used to guide students to answer in the way I was anticipating, as evident at (6:08).
Rather than letting students comprehend and synthesise an answer, I quickly filled the blanks in an
effort to keep the lesson moving. The downfall of this approach to questioning, is it removes the
Lyndal Riley EDUC4729 6th April 2017
ID# 2121870 A1(b) Shane Pill
students responsibility to learn, which is key to the curriculum frameworks (Bunker & Thorpe, 1986;
Launder, 2001). Furthering this, I noticed the same few students would answer the questions, while
the remainder of the class remained silent. This links with Sadker and Sadkers (1985) research,
which found particular students in the class answered three times the amount of questions than
their peers, while 25% of students did not respond to a single question. Partway through the lesson I
became aware of the ineffectiveness my questions were having on the class and instead employed
targeted questioning (Tofade, Elsner, & Haines, 2013; Franke, Webb, Chan, Ing, Freund & Battey,
2009). By asking a specific student to answer a question (seen at 5:45 and 12:1) I was hoping to
engage more students and use best practice to promote reasoning ability (O'Dell, Grayson &
Essaides, 1998).

FEEDBACK

Feedback is an area of my teaching of which I should spend time improving. Based on Tomlinsons
theories of differentiation (2014), feedback should be explicit in nature and provide the student with
encouragement and advice on how to improve for best practice. In the physical education setting,
this could be applied by ensuring teachers give both feedback to shape the player and to shape the
play (Bunker & Thorpe, 1986). Upon reviewing my lesson I was able to see that all of my feedback
comments to students were of encouragement (4:25, 5:59, 14:40 and 18:30) directed to individual
students during game play. I made no effort to pause the game play and highlight successful skill
executions or remove a player from the game and question why their performance was unsuccessful
(18:18). By failing to address movement competency when giving feedback, my students had to rely
solely on their intrinsic feedback of movement performance. Moving forward, I will need to develop
this area to ensure my students are given the best possible chance to succeed in the practical
element of physical education (Lubans, Morgan, Cliff, Barnett & Okely, 2010).

CONCLUSION

Teaching is a complex craft and there is a wealth of information available on the practices and
factors that promote high quality teaching and student success. An element of effective teaching is
the ability to adapt and reflect on lessons and student understandings. By recording myself teach a
lesson of volleyball I could clearly identify areas of teaching I demonstrate well in and elements of
my teaching that need improvement. As physical education is not my strongest subject, different
pedagogies, practices and structures are areas I will continue to explore during my upcoming
placement.
Lyndal Riley EDUC4729 6th April 2017
ID# 2121870 A1(b) Shane Pill
References

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (2014). Retrieved

from http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers/standards/list
Bailey, R. (2006). Physical education and sport in schools: A review of benefits and outcomes. Journal
of school health, 76(8), 397-401.
Bunker D and Thorpe R (1986) The curriculum model. In: Thorpe R, Bunker D and Almond L (eds)
Rethinking Games Teaching. Loughborough, UK: Loughborough University of Technology.
Gallahue, D. L., & Donnelly, F. C. (2007). Developmental physical education for all children. Human
Kinetics.
Launder, A (2001) Play Practice: The Games Approach to Teaching and Coaching Sport. Adelaide:
Human Kinetics.
Liebermann, D. G., Katz, L., Hughes, M. D., Bartlett, R. M., McClements, J., & Franks, I. M. (2002).
Advances in the application of information technology to sport performance. Journal of sports
sciences, 20(10), 755-769.
Lubans, D. R., Morgan, P. J., Cliff, D. P., Barnett, L. M., & Okely, A. D. (2010). Fundamental movement
skills in children and adolescents. Sports medicine, 40(12), 1019-1035.
O'Dell, C. S., Grayson, C. J., & Essaides, N. (1998). If only we knew what we know: The transfer of
internal knowledge and best practice. Simon and Schuster.
O'Donoghue, P. (2006). The use of feedback videos in sport. International Journal of Performance
Analysis in Sport, 6(2), 1-14.
Sadker, D., & Sadker, M. (1985). Is the OK classroom OK?. The Phi Delta Kappan, 66(5), 358-361.
Tofade, T., Elsner, J., & Haines, S. T. (2013). Best practice strategies for effective use of questions as a
teaching tool. American journal of pharmaceutical education, 77(7), 155.
Tomlinson, C. A. (2014). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Ascd.
Vidoni, C., & Ward, P. (2009). Effects of fair play instruction on student social skills during a middle
school sport education unit. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 14(3), 285-310.
Walsh, J. A., & Sattes, B. D. (2016). Quality questioning: Research-based practice to engage every
learner. Corwin Press.
Winnick, J., & Porretta, D. (Eds.). (2016). Adapted Physical Education and Sport, 6E. Human Kinetics.

A very good reflection, Lyndal. A perceptive description that provided lots of insight into your
thinking about your teaching. 13/15
Lyndal Riley EDUC4729 6th April 2017
ID# 2121870 A1(b) Shane Pill

Questions
1. Can we think of three things from last lesson: where does a setter stand? Where
does a hitter stand? Why do they stand on the outside? Where is the server going to
stand? Where are they going to serve to?
2. If were standing there and the ball is coming, what should we do Leticia? And Kellie,
what if its coming right at you, why is that ? You might get a bit more ____ (power)?
3. What would we prefer [ re isolation drill or central focus]?
4. @12min. what should you be doing if youre on the other side of the net? But what if
youre, jess what if youre about to spike that ball, where are you going to go Kellie?
Wheres the ball going to go. Whats Kellie going to start to do?