Chapter 10 – Improving your teaching effectiveness

Chapter 10 – Improving your teaching effectiveness • Staying current • Graduate courses? • Conferences? • Professional journal? • Professional development opportunities • Having a student teacher

Planning • “Teachers who plan for organization, management, and task-appropriateness promote learning better, because their students present fewer behavior problems, spend less time waiting, and have more practice time during the lesson.” • Need unit plans • Need lesson plans

Using time effectively • Student engagement time: the amount of time in which students are actively involved in physical education content (but not necessarily at the appropriate level for success.) – 70% of class time at least • Lecture time: the amount of time for which students sit and listen while the teacher provides information – 15% of class time or less

Using Time Effectively • Management time: the amount of time spent on non-instructional activities such as roll call, disciplining students, and handing out equipment. – 15% of class time OR LESS

Cut management time by . . . • Establishing and following routines • Give brief but precise directions and demonstrations followed immediately by practice time • Use enough equipment to keep lines short and groups small • Move on to a new activity when interest wanes.

How do you know when it is time to change an activity? The students will let you know one way or another

Using students’ names • Take the time to learn student names • Use their names when calling on them, when giving feedback • Need to know names for discipline reasons • How to learn them: • Digital pictures • Name games

Providing model demonstrations and explanations • Must have an effective model when teaching new skills • You – but only if you can do it accurately • A video clip • A student – used girls and boys • Must know the critical components of the skill • Show entire skill at normal speed

Providing model demonstrations and explanations (Cont.) • Accompany demonstrations with an explanation that focuses on the critical features highlighted in the demonstration. • Explanations include examples and non-examples, as well as 1-2 ideas or cues, and are brief and logically sequenced.

Check for understanding • Check for understanding BEFORE you send students out to practice • Signaled answers – thumbs up or down on T/F questions • Choral responses • Or sample student responses

Alternative to sampling individual responses • A cooperative learning process -students work with partners. • Ask the question • Give partners time to discuss the answer • Then call on a sampling of students to determine their level of udnerstanding

Steps to asking questions effectively • Ask the question • Wait at least 5 seconds (some may need more time) • Call on one student • Affirm or correct the student’s answer (this indicates to the students that you are interested in the response • Follow up with a 2nd or 3rd question when you receive an incorrect answer to clarify or to lead student to correct answer

Providing Effective Practice • This means having students receive a maximum amount of practice at the appropriate level of difficulty (80%) and using the correct technique

To increase at amount of ALT-PE • Increase engagement time – this makes more time for practice • Set up the instructional environment so that students get as many times to practice as possible • Reduce complexity of task • Reduce number of players • Modify the equipment • Reduce the number of defenders

Active Supervising • Move around – active monitoring keeps them on task • Movement should be unpredictable • Even when working with one group, keep your eye on the others – over-lapping • Back to the wall

Providing Feedback • Base your feedback on the critical features you introduced during the demonstration and explanation of the skill so that the student knows what you are looking for in his/her performance

Types of Feedback • General - “Way to go” or specific “Way to bend your knees” – specific is better • Effective teachers provide their students with 2-3 specific feedback comments per minute during practice • Positive “Great job” or negative “Not that way” • Or corrective – “Try bending your knees more • Effective teachers avoid negative feedback and focus on positive, specific, and corrective comments often at the rate of 3-4 positive to every corrective

Treating Students Equitably • Effective teachers have high expectations of all students and are enthusiastic and use effective teaching behaviors with all students. • Typically teachers call on high achievers, give boys more feedback • Students live up to or down to your expectations

Check your behaviors • Audiotape one of your lessons • Videotape one of your lessons • Have a colleague observe one of your lessons • Examine your interaction patterns – gender; athletes; same students over and over

Chapter 10 – Improving your teaching effectiveness