The Education and Training Department: Game Sense - Essay Example

Game Sense Essay The education and training department- NSW released a quality teaching to be employed in NSW primary schools. This program was long-term and was designed for the implementation in all the key areas of learning from the kindergarten up to 12 years. The NSW model looked at three key dimensions resulting into quality and productive pedagogy. It was aimed at: fundamentally basing on promotion of high levels of intellectual quality, had basis on promoting learning environment which is quality, and at developing as well as making explicit to the pupils the importance of their work. Teacher education is an area that encompasses virtually all the developmental prerequisites of the teacher trainee; as a result, they come out of the training with good grounding of the subject areas specialization as well as physical development skills. In training primary teachers, is mandatory that the pedagogical skills encompass games for physical exercise training for themselves as well as for their students. It is perceived so because the pupils they will handle after their training will need much of such trainings in their live to help them in developing the three key areas: cognitive domain, affective domain, and the psychomotor. From games, the pupils will have the capacity to fully exploit their potential in discovering their talents. This research therefore seeks to establish the validity of game sense model as used in teaching sports and physical education in the NSW Primary schools, its weaknesses and strengths in totality (Light & Georgakis, 2006). The approach of game sense uses coaching and teaching with games as the tool of learning. It has objectives to increasing the players’ motivation and developing tactical as well as strategic thinking and skill development. The game sense is ‘game centred’ and not technique centred. This approach has focus on the teacher designing teaching and coaching practices with an aim of progressively challenging and motivating players so as to develop good understanding of the required skills, strategies, and rules for a games’ success. The challenges it has are meant to make the players to think and focus on what they are meant to do and why they do them. It calls on the player pupil to first establish a good and accurate understanding of what the game entails after which the pupil will seek to establish the appropriate technique to be used. According to Light and Georgakis (2006), the important aspect depicted in the game centred approach is the obligation the teacher is charged with in relation to the players. More often than not, training of games is teacher dominated, and entailing the players being told where to position one and how to defend a situation. The coach emphasizes to player to decide within the game how to play and whom to play with rather that emphasizing to players where to run during the play and where to play. The teacher/coach plays the role of a facilitator during the play process thereby creating the situations for the players to finding self solutions as they play and also to adjust their decisions and actions of the play. After facilitating, the teacher/coach is then considered to encourage the players to make wise decisions of all their actions during the play. This game centred approach has been embraced by many physical educators for several years within which they have realized great success. With its emphasis on independent thinking on the part of players during the game, it inculcates self-reliance and breeds desired outcomes of the playing efforts and the coaching moments. As they practice during coaching, the pupils are deemed to be developing their leadership, communication, and team work skills. Children love playing games, and often, their parents and teachers hear their cry pertaining to longing to play games (Light & Georgakis, 2006). The game sense approach therefore promotes maximum participation which is pertinent to pupils remaining actively involved in their learning endeavours. In addition, game sense employment in training pupils in primary schools helps in promoting most of the long-term learning objectives especially when the trained players during and after training discover things for themselves. They get enticed to transfer the same to classroom learning by discovering some of their learning aspects as acquired from the experiences and have longer retention capacity of the learned things. Moreover, the retention capacity of learners at this early stage calls for good nurturing on the part of teachers and from such ages, trained teachers build on the learners good potentials of their capacities. Games are varied and therefore accounts for nearly all learners’ abilities which are varied in magnitude. As a result, by encouraging learners to indulge in playing and through encouraging them to choose which areas interest them as per their talents, the learners get to identify and develop their talents better. Essentially, this implies the classroom learning will be complimented because when the pupils are taken back to class, the textbook execution will imply letting the learners being introduced to different formulas and methodologies from which they can freely choose to adopt in use in doing their class exercises as well as in their examinations. Researchers Light and Georgakis (2006), contend that, at primary level, the expansive understanding and concentration capacity of the learners is low and, this is what necessitates their complementing class work with games. Through the challenges posed to them in games, they get to learn how to overcome such challenges which as well builds into them ways of solving their challenging academic and non-academic problems. It is considered on the basis that, it is more appropriate to set challenges in games than to conduct techniques’ based sessions which may have their bases on certain unsound interventions as a result of lack of technical knowledge. Class work and teaching management is often easier when there is fun which is enjoyed by the players. Due to that, games form the basis for the learners’ grounding of their funs so as to relieve the stresses of learning. As a result, when they get back to mattes of academics they feel fresher to be imparted knowledge. The funs enjoyed by the learners also reduce chances of unrest that may be there amongst the pupils. To add to that, it may not be easy for the pupils to freely interact with the teacher in the classroom, but with games, the learners get the opportunity to freely and positively interact socially with their teachers (Light & Georgakis, 2006). As a result, the same interaction can be embraced at classroom level by the learners which eventually free them to share their problems with the teachers to warrant finding solutions to their problems. Since learning entails knowledge and skills acquisition for solving problems the learners will therefore consistently find out ways with their teachers to finding solutions to their problems of varied nature. Moreover, game sense approach to teaching physical education and sports make the pupils to appreciate individual differences and to promote the affiliations to their teams and groups. As a result, they learn to know how to solve problems of teams and groups other that only knowing how to solve individual problems. As if not enough, game sense helps in avoiding player who cannot cope up with changes in their environment and to advice them to adopt flexible techniques in their deeds (Light & Georgakis, 2006). The weaknesses associated with the game sense model are viewed in terms of the complex nature of sports. Sports present many cultures at school and that, any of its effects on the academic performance and achievements are perpetuated by type of sport, gender, race type and level of game and sport involvement by the learners. According to the available body of knowledge, it is presented that the status of a particular sport may affect its impacts on the academic performance of the involved learners. The same body of knowledge postulates that, the high-status sports positively influenced the learners’ English grades but no effect is shown on the Mathematics grades. It is further contended that, learners’ academic performance had greater effects from the cultural factors specifically on the so considered subjective subjects like English than Mathematics (Light & Georgakis, 2006). The game sense model presented a situation that indicated that, influence of participating in the school sports differed between the boys and girls, as well as between the various cultural and ethnic groups. It is therefore considered that, the NSW pedagogy teaching model provides essential framework in reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of the present teaching and assessment methods of the physical education. The syllabus provides opportunities for focusing the teaching energies in providing quality programmes and good learning experiences as well as good evaluation which are a reflection of the required market trends. The game sense meets the three requirements of the qualitative instructional implementation to be adopted for efficiency to be achieved in teaching. It is seen to be providing opportunity to teachers for highlighting the intellectual aspects regarding games as well as sports so long ignored by the traditional teaching directive and approaches. Consequently, it offers a welcome means that brings physical education right into the mainstream of the school curriculum. Since game sense focuses on the students’ knowledge and experiences of learning in the entire cultural and social contexts, it applies beyond the games and classroom into every day’s life. A student centred game sense approach does not only provide significant and relevant know-how per se, but also a learning way and that of negotiating the challenges facing the social lives of the learners who are moving in their adulthood lives. Moreover, game sense perpetuates the acceleration of the expectation as regards what is implied by physical education and how these young people could live in their respective societies. It is also noted that the NSW PE teachers who use the game sense will be able to accomplish both the requirements of the NSW prospects o quality teaching design and show their ability in providing high quality in their pupils learning experiences. However, this approach negatively impacted on the learners in a few areas. Sports present many cultures at school and that, any of its effects on the academic performance and achievements are perpetuated by type of sport, gender, race type and level of game and sport involvement by the learners. They contended that, learners’ academic performance had greater effects from the cultural factors specifically on the so considered subjective subjects like English than Mathematics. References Light, R., & Georgakis, S. (2006). Can ‘game sense’ make a difference? Australian pre-service primary school teachers’ responses to ‘game sense’ pedagogy in two teacher education programs. Proceedings for the 2005 Australian Association for Education in Research conference. Retrieved 6 October 6, 2010 from http://www.aare.edu.au/05pap/geo05240.pdf Read More