Developing Thinking Players
Contemporary game teaching/coaching approaches, sometimes referred to as game-based or game-centred approaches, have been consistently explained using constructivist learning theory. This is to contrast the more contemporary game based approaches as 'player-centred' compared to more common and 'traditional' approaches as 'behavourist' where players are positioned as replicating the demonstrations and expectations of the coach/teacher. That is, traditional highly directive teaching/coaching approaches are explained as transmission from teacher/coach to player, and player demonstration of receipt by replication (cf Richard and Wallian (2005) and Rink (2010) for example). Constructivist learning theory posits that people gain knowledge by making meaning through experience. Central to this meaning making, is the acts of reflection and inquiry undertaken by the person. These acts of reflection and inquiry have both a social and personal cognitive perspective. That is, learning is frequently situated in social contexts (such as a game); learning is an active process; learning is a process of building upon previous ways of knowing and understanding; learning is individual and non linear (Kirk & MacDonald, 1988).
Traditional-behavourist: Concept introduction, explanation and demonstration - practice-application-exploration
In sport teaching/coaching: Coach/teacher demonstrate and explain-players then practice (drill)- coach/teacher then explains - players might then play (game form)
Contemporary-Constructivist: Concept introduction-exploration-discovery
In sport teaching/coaching: Coach/teacher introduction - players then play (game form) - players then reflect and explain - players then play (game form) or might practice before returning to play
In a game-based approach, exploration may be guided by the teacher/coach shaping and focusing player attention and thinking using cues such as well considered questions, or by setting the parameters of the game/manipulating game constraints to deliberately create game based problems to be explored.
In a previous post, I explained how shaping and focusing games based on principles of play to be explored, whether you call it conditioned games, modified games, or constraints focused games, has been a pedagogy used by PE teachers and sport coaches at least since the 1960's. The use of constrained/conditioned/modified games can be enacted through highly directive and controlled coaching as well as through guided and facilitated coaching. Arguably, it is therefore the coach/teacher-player conversation that is different in a game-based approach, as well as the 'flow' of the session beginning with a game or game form to begin practice sessions rather than a series of drills.
The coach/teacher conversation in a game-based approach viewed through a constructivist lens is guided exploration or discovery. Questioning is the central pedagogical tool of the coach and players. This nature of the conversation places the player at the centre of their own learning, rather than learning what the coach knows.
There is a role for in-the-moment questioning to prompt player thinking, especially for recall of understanding. The advanced coach/teacher practitioner, however, will know how to design the game/game form to bring about a 'known moment', and then pause the game at this point, for here is the 'lesson' the coach/teacher wishes for the player/s. The coach/teacher anticipating this moment will arise, has pre-planned their questions to engage the 'learning conversation' with the players.
The story of David Parkin giving his players more control on their thinking about and for the game and hence more accountability for their performance, was quite impact-full on my views of sport teaching/coaching. The stories about that 1995 season came out only a few years after I had been introduced to the concept of game-based coaching through the ideas of Rick Charlesworth and Designer Games and the Australian Sport Commissions launch of Game Sense approach in the mid-1990s. A challenge for coaches is to progressively shift the reliance of players on the coach asking the questions to enable players to attend to their performance, to the players being able to reflect and determine solutions and to use the coach as a 'checking mechanism' for their thinking. In this shift, the coach questions generate player questions and not guided discovery of solutions to the question/s posed by the coach. When players are able to generate their own questions with an advanced understanding of the game and themselves as a performer in the game, they have reached the stage of being capable of being self-directed learners.
Traditional-behavourist: Concept introduction, explanation and demonstration - practice-application-exploration
In sport teaching/coaching: Coach/teacher demonstrate and explain-players then practice (drill)- coach/teacher then explains - players might then play (game form)
Contemporary-Constructivist: Concept introduction-exploration-discovery
In sport teaching/coaching: Coach/teacher introduction - players then play (game form) - players then reflect and explain - players then play (game form) or might practice before returning to play
In a game-based approach, exploration may be guided by the teacher/coach shaping and focusing player attention and thinking using cues such as well considered questions, or by setting the parameters of the game/manipulating game constraints to deliberately create game based problems to be explored.
In a previous post, I explained how shaping and focusing games based on principles of play to be explored, whether you call it conditioned games, modified games, or constraints focused games, has been a pedagogy used by PE teachers and sport coaches at least since the 1960's. The use of constrained/conditioned/modified games can be enacted through highly directive and controlled coaching as well as through guided and facilitated coaching. Arguably, it is therefore the coach/teacher-player conversation that is different in a game-based approach, as well as the 'flow' of the session beginning with a game or game form to begin practice sessions rather than a series of drills.
The coach/teacher conversation in a game-based approach viewed through a constructivist lens is guided exploration or discovery. Questioning is the central pedagogical tool of the coach and players. This nature of the conversation places the player at the centre of their own learning, rather than learning what the coach knows.
There is a role for in-the-moment questioning to prompt player thinking, especially for recall of understanding. The advanced coach/teacher practitioner, however, will know how to design the game/game form to bring about a 'known moment', and then pause the game at this point, for here is the 'lesson' the coach/teacher wishes for the player/s. The coach/teacher anticipating this moment will arise, has pre-planned their questions to engage the 'learning conversation' with the players.
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