Spectrum of styles

1. Spectrum of styles • Based on who makes decisions • Pre-impact: who makes decisions about the content preparation • Impact: who makes decisions about the execution of the content? • Post-Impact: who makes decisions about the content evaluation after the lesson?

2. Style of teaching • A continuum from teacher-centered to student centered • Different styles allow a shift in decisions from teacher to student • Command>>>>>>>>> Self-teaching • All teacher on left, all student on right

3. Command • Teacher makes all pre-impact, impact, and post impact decisions • Students are expected to comply with directions and do activity as desired by teacher • Demonstration is most efficient way to let students know what is expected • Pros: efficient, teacher can control the rate of information • Cons: not sensitive to individual differences, no student creativity, students who deviate are considered off task

4. Practice • Teacher makes all pre-impact, including task sheet • Teacher allows students to make some impact • Teacher makes all post-impact • Decisions allowed: • Where they will do tasks • Order of doing tasks • Speed of doing tasks • Starting and stopping time of each task

5. Practice pros/cons • Task sheets list all items to be practiced and the quantity of practice • Could be individualized • Could be small group • Pros: efficient use of equipment, more participation, works regardless of class size, students aren’t visible, frees teacher to give feedback • Cons: students can hide, more planning time, appears chaotic as students are making decisions and may not all be at same place

6. Reciprocal • Evaluation shifts to peer • Teaching is limited to correction of errors • You as teacher give feedback only to peer teacher (unless safety is a concern)_ • Pros: one to one student teacher ratio, immediate feedback, peer teacher does some cognitive work • Cons: partners may be over-critical, incorrect performance may be reinforced

7. Self-check • Teacher makes all pre-impact decisions • Student makes some impact and some post impact • Teacher’s role: delineate performance cues so the students can assess themselves accurately, cues should focus on criteria external to the body • Students must be led to the point where they can do this style • Teacher must have good subject matter knowledge to break the skills down for students to self-assess

8. Self-check pros/cons • Pros: students develop responsibility for own skill achievement, Students learn to self-motivate and self-assess • Cons: takes a lot of planning time to break skills down, teacher must ‘teach’ responsibility before using this style

9. Inclusion • Multiple levels of performance options are presented to students • Students select their own level of difficulty based on their perception of their ability • Students receive feedback on their decision-making choice rather than their skill performance • Designed to allow students the opportunity to choose activities for success • Increments should be easy enough for low skilled students and high enough for high skilled students

10. Inclusion pros/cons • Pros: more individualization, student choices, no one stands out as ‘bad/good’, helps develop success • Cons: time consuming to plan the gradual increments, subject matter knowledge must be good

11. Guided Discovery • Convergence of general ideas to a specific solution to a problem • Learner discovers the answers • Teacher does pre-impact, but may modify questions based on student responses during impact, post impact may be made by students as answers to questions are interwoven with the impact • Teacher gives reinforcement on responses with the next question

12. Guided Discovery pros/cons • Students have to think more, line of questions may make learning more relevant because of the in-depth discovery> learned better, student feeling of accomplishment • Cons: time consuming, must have good subject matter knowledge, large groups may have trouble staying on task

13. Divergent • Opposite of guided discovery: go from specific to general movement response with many answers • Students explore their own creativity, after exploration of how the body can and should move, specific skills are more readily acquired • Pros: promotes creativity, problem-solving, higher order thinking • Cons: not appropriate if you have a specific result in mind, no uniformity, students may not be able to handle exploration

14. Learner initiated • Students desire to utilize knowledge in a discovery process of his/her own idea • Student does research, develops presentation with teacher acting only as facilitator • Pros: critical thinking skills used by student, freedom experienced by student • Cons: what do other students do? No set schedule of teaching or regular curriculum • May be more used for advanced placement or ‘senior’ level elective class

15. Closing thoughts • No one style is better; consider what your goals are and ability of students to make decisions • If style doesn’t work the first time, rethink the process before you say the style stinks • Mix and combine different styles, even within a lesson • Give yourself a repertoire that shows you are a professional