Multi-activity Model

1. Multi-activity Model

2. Reminder Before Beginning: How do we encourage lifetime activity? Three general strategies. What are they? • Introduction to a variety of activities • I remember that, it was cool • Allow student choice in high school • Develop skill proficiency • Ya, I’m pretty good at that • Naturally people gravitate to activities they are good at. • Enjoyment • That was fun

3. Definition of the Multi-Activity Model • Teaching one activity unit and then another • Unit length varies greatly • Ranges from 4-10 lessons • Often the weakest curriculum model used in schools today • Why? • Typically used in middle and high school • Can be used in combination with other models: elective, fitness, adventure, etc. However, it is most commonly associated with sports and activities (lacrosse, soccer…)

4. Optimizing (getting the most out of) the Multi-Activity Model • Important consideration is the first unit taught in a school year after the day 1 orientation. Schools of though: • Start with a cooperative or adventure unit to build class cohesion and promote group growth • Start with fitness testing to gauge improvement over the year • Disadvantage: Not the most captivating way to start, students are inside during limited warmer weather days • Start with a regular unit

5. Optimizing the Multi-Activity Model Organizing units of instruction - 3 methods • Organize the sequence in categories of related activities. Typical categories include: • Invasion: soccer, basketball… • Net/wall: pickleball, volleyball… • Cooperative/adventure: climbing, nitro crossing… • Dance/group exercise: line, aerobics… • Individual activities/target: golf, archery, fitness, swimming… • Striking/fielding: softball… • This promotes connections between related sports and helps the organization of units seem less fragmented • Season – activity units may parallel school interscholastic sports to promote connections, excitement, and attendance • Disadvantage: many of the activities you want to teach may not offered via athletics, promotes concept of PE as just sports • No organization – haphazard presentation of units based solely on teacher preferences and facility/equipment considerations

6. Optimizing the Multi-Activity Model • Organization • Have a justification or system for offering the units when you do. Don’t just keep offering random units, sequence them in a way which helps ascribe meaning/connections and promote learning. • Other methods – see the textbook if interested: • Skill themes - like elementary school • Concept oriented • Affective

7. Optimizing the Multi-Activity Model • Teach regular units with a minimum of 6 lessons. Why do some teachers use fewer? • Teachers perceive students get bored and become more off-task • The REAL reasons for the boredom and misbehavior are: • Skills are the same year after year • Activities are the same year after year • Lack of assessments which hold students accountable for learning and engagement • Not enough student choice of activity • Too much competition within the activities • Teachers lack the content knowledge to teach basic skills or slightly beyond that. Remember, as professionals, you must be able to teach more than just the basics. If you cannot, THEN LEARN to do so.

8. Optimizing the Multi-Activity Model • Repetition • Revisit concepts at least two times throughout the school year. Learning is a use-it or lose-it proposition. Too often, physical educators teach skills such as the basketball lay-up in 6th grade and don’t review the concept again until the basketball unit in 7th grade one year later. This is a major reason why student skill levels are not improving! • Could you imagine trying to remember this lecture one year later without any review. No, yet we often require our students to do just that. • Instead – periodically throughout the school year, teach the same activity (review and new instruction) or have recreational/elective days where students can practice and refresh their skills.

9. Optimizing the Multi-Activity Model • General error among teachers is too much breadth and not enough depth • Don’t try and cover too much (mile wide and inch deep) • Align middle and high school units to reduce repetition of the same skills and activities • The middle and high schools should collaborate so where one leaves off, the other can begin. • Assess student skill level (either improvement, technique, or performance) • Measures learning, improves accountability, improves behavior, improves status of profession, many others

10. Optimizing the Multi-Activity Model • Levels of Game Play • Brain Primer • You are teaching a 6 lesson volleyball unit in the 7th grade, what would your instructional focus be on each day? • Day 1 – • Day 2 – • Day 3 – • Day 4 – • Day 5 – • Day 6 –

11. Levels of Game Play • The levels of game play are designed to give students the requisite skills to successfully participate in a regulation content of a traditional sport. Too often, physical educators teach level 1 skills followed by the level 5 activity where students do not have the intermediate competencies to succeed. Instead, USE ALL LEVELS when teaching a traditional sport. • Level 1 - Discrete skills such as the bump, set, serve, and spike. • Level two - Combinations of skills such as forearm pass and set, set and spike, serve and bump, three or more hits • Level three - Strategy concepts such as hitting to open spaces, serve receive patters, returning to home base, and communication • Level four – Small sided games such as 3 on 3 bumping only, 2 on 2 regulation allowing the ball to bounce, etc • Appropriate level of challenge for each game or group • Level five - Playing the regulation game (6 on 6 VB) • Often not necessary b/c reduce opportunities to respond, activity time, and ultimately learning (prime example, 11 on 11 soccer)

12. Levels of Game Play • Designing units around the 5 levels promotes better acquisition of the range of skills encompasses in activities and is an absolutely essential part of proper instruction. • How many times have you seen a volleyball game where one student serves ten times in a row? Why is this the case • You should prevent this anyway by having a limit of 3 in a row • Answer: Students do not have the intermediate skills, in this case a combination of serve and receive (bump/forearm pass) • To get an advanced score on your BEST portfolio (submitted to state in 2nd year of teaching), you must use various levels

13. Your Turn • Pick an activity • Pick a grade • Create a block plan for grades 6-8

14. DO NOT spend five days with boring discrete drills followed by the whole game. PE should be FUN from the first lesson to the last. Teach discrete skills, combinations of skills, and strategy with a mixture of drills and small-sided games. Then, if appropriate, play the full game. Endeavor to make EVERY lesson engaging and fun.