Our presentation was first thing on Wednesday morning, the 17th June 2015, and the slides from the presentation can be seen at the bottom of this blog. We began by overviewing the tracking of physical activity in physical education and the policies surrounding this before we gave an overview of the Tactical Games Model. After this, we conducted a practical demonstration of a three part lesson based around the Tactical Games Model similar to the generic invasion game of Harvey (2007) seen in the references section below. We played the games with a gator ball in areas of about 25 x 15 yards. Due to having slightly larger numbers of participants we ended up playing x2 5 vs. 5 games and then we broke off into four 3 vs. 1 skill practices before returning.
During the session, we programmed accelerometers for six out of the 20 participants to wear, 3 male and 3 female. While David taught the lesson, I observed him using the System for Observing Fitness Instruction Tim (McKenzie, 2012). I took record of the lesson context (i.e., management, knowledge, skill practice and game play) and also the level of physical activity (i.e., sedentary, walking or vigorous). To collect these data we use a 10 second observe and a 10 second record protocol, so in one minute we have 3 data points. In total we had 72 intervals recorded, which equates to a 24 minute lesson.
This session was well received by the participants, many of which requested further insights into the Tactical Games Model, which I would contest is not widely practiced here in West Virginia. The data we generated clearly shows the benefits of the Tactical Games Model, particularly in providing opportunities for vigorous levels of physical activity due to the increased time spent in game play. Having said that, not everything in the land is rosy. We focused on invasion games, so there may be differences in physical activity levels in say, net/wall games. Additionally, when examining the data by sex there are some slight differences, so teachers need to be aware of how to differentiate instruction to include all participants in the Tactical Games Model. Finally, teachers need to be aware of how their behavior and how they set up the lesson context can affect physical activity levels. In this particular session, time of cognition and discussion was used by the teacher which took away from potential for participants to be engaged in game play. It is my contention that setting purpose questions which learners can explore during game play, interspersed with short, 30second-1min discussions between bouts of game play can reduce this knowledge time, but still retain a focus on learning. One guideline to follow would be for 10% management time, 20% knowledge time, with the rest of the time focused on practice time in game play or skill practice, with the majority of this practice time (40%) spent on game play. Teachers can use a stopwatch to keep track of practice time to ensure they meet 70% practice time and therefore afford learners the opportunity to accumulate the 50% levels of MVPA recommended in West Virginia policy documents.
Harvey, S. (2007). Using a generic invasion game for assessment.Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 78(4), 19–50. http://doi.org/10.1080/07303084.2007.10598002
Also found at: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ795561.pdf
McKenzie, T. L. (2012). SOFIT. System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time. Overview and training manual. San Diego, CA: San Diego State University.
Mitchell, S., Oslin, J., & Griffin, L. (2013). Teaching sport concepts and skills: A tactical games approach (3rd ed.). Champaign: IL: Human Kinetics Publishers.
Found at: http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/teaching-sport-concepts-and-skills-3rd-edition