Interesting Article # 4: Learning games through understanding: New jobs for students!

Learning games through understanding: New jobs for students!

J.-F. Gréhaigne, P. Godbout & D. Caty (Besançon, France)

1 Introduction
2 Constructivist Approach Implies New Instructional Setting
2.1 A constructivist process
2.2 A new instructional setting
3 Debate-of-idea Process
3.1 A student-centered approach
3.2 Formative assessment / observation
3.3 Formative assessment and the teaching / learning process
3.3.1 Communication of expectancies
3.3.2 Collection of information
3.3.3 Regulation of learning
4 Teaching / Learning Process
5 Conclusion

1 Introduction

Over the past four decades, educational reform movements in many European countries have been pointing towards more authentic learning experiences for students across the curriculum, including physical education. Sport-related game teaching in physical education provides the primary content that teachers use in order to attain specific learning outcomes. In this article we shall discuss some concepts in the teaching of team sports from a dialectic perspective. Usually, in the teaching and learning of team sports, based on constructivist and cognitive approaches, we propose to students the construction of suitable personal tactical skills, i.e. skills that in relation with their assessment apply in situations encountered during a game. French teachers call this type of approach the 'Tactical-Decision Learning Model' (T-DLM) (Bouthier, 1988; Gréhaigne & Godbout, 1998; Gréhaigne, Billard & Laroche, 1999; Gréhaigne, Richard & Griffin, 2005).). This theoretical approach to teaching and learning research could be regarded as a radical constructivist approach (Cobb, 1986) which contends that the knowledge constructed by the students is the result of the interaction between their cognitive processes and the environment.
In team sports, we shall consider that students have truly learned if, faced with a problem which is new but compatible with the resources at their disposal (inner resources), they have transformed their initial behaviour and have identified and verbalized the action rules which made their success possible.
For an indirect teaching approach, 'Learning games through understanding' should be developed. Students strive to make sense of new input by relating it to their prior knowledge and by collaborating with others to construct shared understandings. Students collaborate by acting as a learning community that constructs shared understanding through sustained dialogue.
Finally, we wish to stress the fact that problem-solving learning and the construction of personal knowledge require reflection on the part of the students. Without it, learners can only sturable blindly from one trial to another hoping for random success, or waiting for an outside observer to tell them what to do next. There is no understanding in either case; whereas verbalization may facilitate reflection and observation will provide the basic data on which to reflect.

2 Constructivist Approach Implies New Instructional Setting

In the field of general education, Good and Brophy (1994) profiled some characteristics of a social construction view of teaching and learning. Among several characteristics, one finds:
• "Knowledge [is seen] as developing interpretations constructed through discussion, ...";
• Teacher acts as discussion leader who poses questions, seeks clarifications, promotes dialogue, helps group recognize areas of consensus and of continuing disagreement;
• Students strive to make sense of new input by relating it to their prior knowledge and by talking with others to construct shared understanding;
• Students collaborate by acting as a learning community that constructs shared understanding through sustained dialogue" (Good, 1996, p. 639).
We might say that what is sought is both reflection in action and reflection on action.

2.1. A constructivist process

Faced with whatever situation, learners know and know how to do certain things and their development rests upon former learning. This development occurs through a new coordination of blocks of knowledge under the influence of internal or external constraints forcing an adjustment of the learner's activity. In this sense, there is no novice at level 0.
Constructivism therefore admits the existence of a reality which puts in our way obstacles running counter to internal unfolding of mental activity. There is also assertion that reality allows the expression of regularities. So: "consciousness is first centred on the results of activities before reaching their mechanisms; consciousness therefore starts from the periphery, not from central mechanisms," (Piaget, 1971). This resort to consciousness appears at the time of misadaptations; otherwise when mechanisms operate normally by themselves, they do not provide such occasion for adaptation.

2.2 A new instructional setting

If we analyze the instructional setting presented by Gréhaigne & Godbout (1995), one must see a complex setting with many new jobs for the students.

Fig. 1. The instructional setting

One of the basic assumptions of qualitative research states that people develop various constructions of reality (Andreewsky, 1991; Bouthier, 1989; Gréhaigne, 1997; Gréhaigne & Godbout, 1995). While involved in the action and/or after its completion, each student is asked to collect or recollect information based on Personal observations. Eventually, additional information may be provided by the teacher and/or by other student observers. We stress the word additional because the prime observer should be the player involved in the action. This is all the more critical as each observer reads action according to a personal frame of reference. Thus it is doubtful that an outside observer can duplicate the performer's perception of action. One might argue that in many instances an outside observer stands a better chance to perceive a picture closer to reality. Whether this is true or not is, to a certain point, irrelevant. As stated earlier, the learning process from a constructivist perspective implies interaction between the subject and the environment. Augmented feedback is rather presented as additional information that can be processed differently by the learner depending upon their perception of the completed action and upon the learning stage exploited by the teacher (exploration, construction, consolidation). At first, the learner draws up a temporary mental representation which is an interpretation of reality (functional representation or operative image). This operative mode makes it possible to store information. When this model is no longer sufficient to solve problems, the subject experiences a conflict between a former explanatory system and the need to construct a new representation holding more explanatory power. Learning then operates from a restructuring of representations which works on a continuity / rupture mode
The quality of the pedagogical content knowledge relies heavily, although not entirely, on the quality of the subject matter knowledge itself. It seems that as teacher educators and researchers in physical education, we strive to develop a body of knowledge that will enable us to better understand the practice of physical activity and better educate future practitioners.

3 Debate-of-idea Process

Considering Tishman and Perkins' (1995) operational definition of critical thinking, we might add that it involves particularly causal and evaluative reasoning as well as planning and strategie thinking. These authors have stated that: "effective physical performance involves reasoning, reflecting, strategizing, and planning, all parts of the critical thinking process," (p. 24). It goes without saying that critical thinking is central to a constructivist view of learning (Good, 1996). But how is it to be used in the learning / teaching of team sports?
Let us consider four broad strategies that may be used by teachers at various stages of learning:
1. Letting students explore. At an early stage, students are put in play contexts, chosen in such a way that they will be faced with problems or difficultes. After some exposure to the play context, students may fail to perceive any problem and the teacher may then let them pursue further exploration with or without modification of the play context.
2. Asking open-ended questions. Once students have perceived and possibly identified a problem, the teacher may bring them to debate among themselves or with him or her by asking open-ended questions which do not direct them towards specifie and predetermined answers.
3. Taking part in the students' debate and asking specifie questions.
4. Having students reutilize suitable solutions. Once students have corne up with solutions that satisfy selected performance criteria, the teacher may then have them practice these solutions in order to stabilize their use.
While this last strategy is more routine-oriented, the first three strategies all imply critical thinking in one way or another.
Strategies two and three bear a significant importance in view of constructivism and teaching for understanding and even more so when applied to tactical learning in team sports. General discussions, debates within groups of students and debriefings (Plummer & Rougeau, 1997) may complement one another in enhancing critical thinking and learning.

Fig. 2. Debate-of-ideas setting (Gréhaigne, Godbout, & Bouthier, 2001)

Evidently, discussions and debates among students or between students and the teacher involve overt and shared verbalization. Caverni (1988) discussed verbalization as an observable source of information about cognitive processes.
Considering the degree of its occurrence with regard to task performance, he distinguishes three types of verbalization: prior verbalization (considering what will be or ought to be done), concurrent verbalization (considering what is being done), and consecutive verbalization (considering what has been done). But why involve verbalization? It appears that verbalization settings should provide information about obstacles encountered by students in their effort to solve the problem at hand; such information can be used by the teacher or can be shared among students while debating proper ways to perform a task at hand. As stated by Schunk (1986): "Studies demonstrate that verbalization can improve children's learning of information, modelled actions, and strategies, as well as their self-efficacy for performing tasks. Collectively, these findings support the notion that verbalization is a key process that can help develop self-regulated learning among children," (p. 362).
There may be a close relationship between verbalization settings and observation settings, the latter offering a unique frame of reference for a debate of ideas in the classroom. Globally, we propose the concurrent use of three types of settings to bring about the integration of verbalization to the teaching / learning process in physical education:
1. Action set-up: situations in which students are engaged in some form of physical activities;
2. Observation set-up: they allow the students who are not engaged in the action setting to collect information (usually with reference to performance criteria defined by the teacher);
3. Debate-of-ideas set-up: situations in which students express themselves (overt verbalization) and exchange facts and ideas, based on observation or on personal activity experienced. The debate may concern the results obtained during the action setting, the process involved, and so on.
Using verbalization in the teaching of team sports may help meet various needs: to put together a common frame of reference; to acknowledge, conceptually, action rules (Gréhaigne, 1996) and management rules for the organization of the game; to develop critical thinking skills that can be reinvested during the action in game settings.

3.1 A student-centred approach

The players construct knowledge from a strong subject / environment interaction. This game-centred perspective leads to a learner rather than content-based teaching style. Roughly summarized, one may identify two main teaching strategies while applying a student-centred approach:
• To propose to students the discovery of the tactical skill that applies in a specifie situation. Such an option would be associated with an indirect teaching approach, combining both a subject matter-centred and a student-centred perspective. It could be referred to as an empiricist constructivist approach to teaching (Cobb, 1986) which contends that knowledge is an external reality and exists independently of the student's cognitive activity.
• To propose to students the construction of suitable personal tactical skills that apply in a specifie situation (there may be more than one from the student's point of view). Such an option, also referred to as indirect teaching, would be associated with a radical constructivist approach (Cobb, 1986) which contends that the knowledge constructed by the student is the resuit of the interaction between his / her cognitive activity and reality (Gréhaigne & Godbout, 1995; Piaget, 1971, 1974a, 1974b).
This student-centred approach presumes that:
• The students be presented with problems to solve or that they be put into situations favouring the recognition of such problems;
• Following the students' trials, they be presented with the resuit of their actions;
• Given these results, the students be invited to appreciate them and decide whether they are satisfactory or not;
• Following unsatisfactory results, the students be given the opportunity to experiment further and search for a better answer.
For this type of learning / teaching System, assessment tools are essential. So, in the third part of this presentation, I intend to discuss innovative aspects of formative assessment in physical education, in light of qualitative data on player's activity.

3.2 Formative assessment

Formative and authentic assessment is very important to a player's construction of team sports knowledge and skills. In education as a whole, there is also this growing interest for authentic formative assessment. This does not mean that we are now dealing with a new kind of formative assessment; the connotation of authenticity is more intended to put the focus on the central nature and purpose of formative assessment (Allai, Cardinet, & Perrenoud, 1979). In 1992, Veal presented the main characteristics of authentic assessment in connection with physical education and sport:
• "... it is regular and ongoing ...
• ... [there is] a connection between daily instructional tasks and assessment ...
•... the teacher can 'see the skill' that is being evaluated, and there is a connection between skills and real-life situations as learning indicators ...
• ... it accounts for student effort, improvement, and participation," (p. 90).

3.3 Formative assessment and the teaching / learning process

In addition, formative assessment must be seen as a complement to teaching / coaching; it is and must be understood as an essential part of the teaching / learning process. Thus, if it is to be implemented, teachers must include the following steps in their teaching procedures.

3.3.1 Communication of expectancies

Before getting into practice, students should know what it is they are trying to achieve. At what point, expressed in concrete terms, can they consider that they have mastered the learning objective? This goes beyond stating the general objective and describing the learning task; for unless they are given some type of success criteria, students will never know by themselves whether they have succeeded or not.

3.3.2 Collection of information

At some point during practice, students should know whether they have succeeded or not. Thus, information regarding their performance must be collected either formally or informally. This can be done through observation by the teacher or by peers, through self-assessment with or without observational grids or through questionnaires, etc. The idea is to obtain information that can be interpreted in light of the expectancies or success criteria put forward by the teacher, or even initially selected by the students themselves.

3.3.3 Regulation of learning

Only gifted students succeed at their first trial and one wonders if they need teaching at all. Thus, the true challenge of teaching is the management of success and failure.
What is the use of telling students they have not succeeded if one then does not do anything about it? A regulation scenario often used by teachers consists of providing students with feedback and then having them resume practice. The teacher may also encourage the students to put forward hypotheses for solving some tactical or motor problem, either through teacher-guided discussions (Rauschenbach, 1996), free discussions within teams, individual questioning, etc. Other types of regulation scenarios may include an adaptation of the learning tasks, going over an earlier learning task not sufficiently mastered, etc...
The regulation of learning which is a process that teachers rightly associate with teaching, requires that some information be obtained to start with; but merely obtaining information is not sufficient. Indeed, any collected information which does not help the teacher and/or students to make decisions remains worthless as far as learning is concerned. This is why formative assessment cannot really be considered separately from teaching. It follows then that a discussion about formative assessment cannot ignore the underlying teaching / learning process.

4 Teaching / learning process

Kirk and MacPhail (2002) note that the notion of situated performance in teaching games for understanding (Bunker & Thorpe, 1986) provides one way of understanding the relationship between the game form and the player's prior and alternative conception of the game (see also Gréhaigne & Godbout, 1998). We agree with Houdé (1992) that it is important for students to grasp the meaning of a game. The term meaning refers to the implicit or explicit formalization, by the learner, of observations, instructions and the task before processing them. With regards to the teaching / learning of games in school, Table 1 illustrates the parts devoted to the teacher and to the students in a student-centred teaching / learning System focused on understanding. Whereas teaching games for understanding alone does not ensure a student-centred approach, Connecting it with learning games through understanding will create a more authentic and promising learning environment (Caty, & Gréhaigne, 2006).
Tab. 1. An integrated view of teaching/ learning games for / through understanding in a student-centred approach

Teaching / learning in process in a student centred-approach
Teaching games for understanding	Learning games through understanding
Small sided-game with a hidden problem	Action/observation
Situated PCK. (identification of prototypic configurations of play)	Awareness/recognition during actual game-play/verbalization
Debate-of-idea set-ups	Understanding/hypothesis/verification
Observational set-ups	Transformation

The left side of the table represents the role devoted to the teacher, whereas the right side represents the task devoted to the students.
In the teaching / learning process described here, we make a marked distinction between reproducing ready-made solutions and constructing new answers. For the player, reproducing solutions involves the learning of a programme of actions, which is composed of a series of play Systems. These Systems consist of pre-established sequences of action with specifie technical skills, linked in a specifie order, and set in motion when certain specifie game-play events occur. On the contrary, constructing new responses implies, for the student, a capacity for using both determinism and random occurrences. The knowledge and motor skills constructed during action alter the players' perception of information and their choices of responses according to the lessons they draw from the events of the game. Progressively, the player builds up the capacity of deciding, and deciding fast, and this capacity itself rests upon the ability to conceive movement / play responses.

5 Conclusion

In conclusion, as stated by Paul Godbout in his Cagigal Lecture at 2002 AIESEP international conference in Madeira (Godbout, 2002): "I believe that in the coming years one of our challenges as sports pedagogy researchers and teacher educators is to expand the umbrella of scholarship. This includes our understanding of pedagogical content knowledge and its primary source, subject matter knowledge." However, we must not forget that two main questions seem to sum up quite adequately the problem of physical education content:
• What is effectively taught in team sports and games?
• What do students really learn, and how do they learn?

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Author: Title: Learning games through understanding: New jobs for students!  Gréhaigne, J.-F.; Godbout, P.; Caty, D. Source: Int J Phys Educ 46 no4 2009 p. 30-8