Curriculum Design for Teaching High School Badminton - Essay Example

Shandy Roque Maryrose Roque Order #161098 Academia Research 09 April 2007 Curriculum Design for Teaching High School Badminton Badminton is a sport that involves striking a shuttlecock over a net and into the court of the opposing player or team. A game with two players is called singles. And, the one with two teams composed of two players is called doubles. Unlike the rackets used in tennis, badminton rackets are much lighter and are usually made of carbon fiber. The British army officers who served in India took this game to England. It was first played under the rules that were used in India until the Badminton Association of England created a new set of rules that is similar to the one we use today. After the establishment of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) in 1934, it has developed into a global sport. The objective of the researcher is to create a curriculum design for teaching badminton to a diverse high school population. The curriculum must also address students who went through special education. It is a modified form of instruction that caters to students with singular needs or disabilities such as learning differences, mental health problems and other physical and developmental disabilities. Since the majority of the students with disabilities that have returned to general education consists of: 1.) students that have health impairments such as asthma and other chronic health conditions with proper medical clearance and, 2.) students with learning disabilities such as speech and language impairments1, the curriculum would deal with such students in order to narrow the broad scope of students taking special education. Learning disabilities are neural conditions which affect many areas of perception such as: 1.) visual or auditory discrimination, the perception of differences in either sights or sounds, 2.) visual or auditory closure, the completion of missing parts of sights or sounds, 3.) visual or auditory figure-ground discrimination, the ability of a person to focus on an object and disregard the background, 4.) both short term and long term visual or auditory memory which allows a person to remember sights and sounds, 5.) visual or auditory sequencing, the ability to put what is seen or heard in the right order, 6.) auditory association and comprehension which relates what is heard to the meanings of words and sentences, 7.) spatial perception which allows a person to perceive his laterality and his position in space, 8.) temporal perception, the processing of time intervals in the range of milliseconds and, 9.) non-verbal learning, the processing of nonverbal cues in social interactions. Because badminton is a racket sport that requires a great deal of hand-eye coordination and at a certain pace, may require its players to have aerobic stamina, strength and speed, drills and conditioning exercises that would augment the learning process of students with learning disabilities and physical constraints should be added in the curriculum. There are many specialized terms associated with curriculum design, these terms are not defined the same way by many professionals in this field. According to David Armstrong, these are the basic design concepts that must be considered when one is designing a curriculum: 1.) scope, 2.) sequence, 3.) articulation, 4.) continuity, and 5.) balance.2 Scope "refers to the extent and depth of content coverage."3 This is very significant in curriculum development because of its dependence on instructional time. Since the time given for a certain subject is fixed, expanding the coverage in one area would lead to the reduction of the coverage of another area. The scope can be molded by these considerations: 1.) legal constraints, 2.) content significance, 3.) content authenticity, 4.) motivational appeal, 5.) content complexity, and 6.) the instructor's background and support-material availability.4 Legal constraints refer to the decisions that cannot be changed by the curriculum developers. These are usually mandated by the state, specifying the subjects to be discussed and the amount of time given for each subject. Until 1975, most disabled children were denied access to general education and other learning opportunities. At that time, it was believed that these students would not be able to learn in a regular school so they were sent to special learning institutions instead. Because of the enactment of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act which was later amended to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1997, there has been a significant development in the creation and implementation of effective programs and services for early intervention, special education, and related services. It states that: "Each State must establish procedures to assure that, to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities... are educated with children who are not disabled, and that special education, separate schooling, or the other removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature of severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily. 20 U.S.C. 1412(5)(B)"5 Because of this act, many children with learning disabilities receive their education in regular schools instead of specialized learning institutions. For this reason, the teacher must consider the inclusion of special education students in their curriculum preparation. In this particular design, students with chronic health conditions and proper medical clearance or learning disabilities are considered as special education students. Content significance refers to the prioritization of basic skills which are prerequisites to further learning. In creating a program that would accommodate students with learning disabilities and health problems, the challenge of the instructor is in making sure that the other students' learning is not compromised. In this curriculum, time would be allotted for hand-eye coordination drills, racket skills and conditioning exercises. At the same time, the instructor must make sure that the students would be able to gain all the skills that they need to play a game of badminton such as: 1.) the forehand stroke, 2.) the backhand stroke, 3.) the singles serve, 4.) the clear, 5.) the drop, 6.) the low service, 7.) the footwork, 8.) the basic rules of the game and, 9.) strategies that they could use during the game. The nomenclature and history of the sport would not be given as much priority because the objective of this curriculum is to teach them how to play a game of badminton. Content authenticity refers to the accuracy of the specific information given in the general categories of the content selected. This is very easy to assure when it comes to general facts. Unfortunately, subjects that involve an instructor's judgment may cause some difficulties during the delivery of information. In a high school set up, students have varying interests and experiences. It is possible to encounter a student who may have a background in tennis and who may know more than or as much as the instructor. If the content is not authentic, the instructor's credibility as well as the program may be questioned. In this case, the instructor must research on concepts that would back up the content of his program. For example, in teaching them the footwork and strokes, he must have some background on biomechanics and racket science so that he could justify the effectiveness of the techniques he has incorporated in his program. Motivational appeal takes into account the appeal of the curriculum to the students. During the duration of the course, the instructor must always monitor the reactions of the students and must know how to change the way he presents a topic in order to spark the interest of his students. Since badminton is a sport that requires a lot of coordination, some students may do poorly during class. This can cause a decrease in their interest in the sport. In these cases, the instructor must present some drills that would improve their performance in the sport and show them that it is actually easier than it looks. Content complexity should be considered because the content of the curriculum must suit the level of the learners. In teaching badminton to a diverse group of high school students, some with learning disabilities and health conditions, the instructor must create a program that would encourage all types of students to learn the sport. The instructor's background and the support material availability are very important considerations that should be made when preparing a curriculum or proposing a subject. Badminton, for example, should be proposed only if a court is accessible. The students must also be given a wide, unobstructed area for their drills and practice. Also, the materials that would be provided by the school should be considered. This way, the students can be oriented as to the materials they should bring during the course. Most high schools require their students to bring their own rackets. The instructor's background, on the other hand, can dictate the contents of the curriculum because he would choose to emphasize topics that revolve around his areas of expertise. Sequence is the order in which the content is presented to the learners. It dictates which lessons or learning experiences must precede the others. In the curriculum presented in this paper, the program begins with a diagnostic interview that would allow the instructor to assess the limitations and needs of each students and an orientation that would outline the instructor's expectations as well as the materials required in the class. Hand-eye coordination drills and conditioning exercises would precede every new stroke and footwork that would be taught to the students. In the last part of the program, the students would be asked to pair up and play a singles game and a doubles game. Articulation "refers to a relationship between two or more elements of the curriculum that is simultaneous rather than sequential."6 It is a correlation of the learning experiences a learner has in one subject to another. Because of its emphasis on this aspect, sometimes the word, correlation, is used instead of articulation. Also, since this term revolves around concurrent learning experiences, horizontal articulation is sometimes used to describe this term. These terms "emphasize that articulation reaches out laterally to cross subject-area boundaries in an effort to maximize potential relationships among many kinds of content."7 In teaching a sport like badminton, relating the movements to everyday objects and activities can help in teaching the students the correct movements. For example, in order to make the students remember that the racket must continue through the arc after contact with the shuttle, the students may be asked to: "Visualize a clock parallel to the flight of the shuttle. The center of the clock is at the point of the shoulder. As the racket is swung, the head of the racket inscribes an arc identical to the rim of the clock (twelve o'clock is directly overhead; three o'clock in front of the shoulder; nine o'clock at the back). The arm must remain in extension throughout the shot." In this set up, the student would be told that his elbow should be at the nine o'clock position when preparing for a strike. His hand then moves to the twelve o'clock position when his racket makes contact with the shuttle. The racket head then moves on to the three o'clock position. Continuity "focuses on the relationship between a subsequent learning experience and its vertical predecessor."8 Because of this definition, this term is sometimes referred to as vertical articulation. According to this concept, the instruction must be organized in such a way that the last points of a given learning experience must be linked with the starting points of the next one. The objective here is to make sure that there are smooth transitions between lessons, avoiding any interference with the progress of the learner. The transitions could be found in the presentation of the strokes and footwork. The instructor must be able to breakdown these movements so that the students would be able to practice the strokes and footwork alone. They would just need to refer to the points given by instructor for every step of the process. In the curriculum being discussed in this paper, the instructor teaches the strokes first, moves on to the footwork and ends with the combination of the two. Balance suggests that all the important components in an instructional program would be equally addressed in the curriculum. It makes sure that giving more emphasis on one component does not lessen the importance of another. In the curriculum presented in this paper, balance is shown by having a proper allotment of time for drills, conditioning exercises and the lesson proper. Often, the development of the curriculum does not end with the organization of the content to major topics and subtopics. Because of the restricted time limits, establishing the relative values of the topics to be discussed is very important because the significance of each topic to a course may vary. And, the time that must be given for teaching each topic must be distributed based on its importance to the study. This led to the need for additional information in preparing curriculums that have an amount of time allocated for each topic. In order to do this, three major categories of learning must be considered: 1.) Cognitive learning, the "learning of traditional academic content associated withbasic school subjects", 2.) Psychomotor Learning which "refers to outcomes that require learners to use the body's muscular system", and 3.) Affective Learning which "focuses on issues relating to attitudes and values."9 Since tennis is a sport that deals with a lot of muscular movements, psychomotor learning is the category chosen for this paper. It is divided into four parts: 1.) awareness, 2.) individual components, 3.) integration, and 4.) free practice. In the awareness level, the student is expected to describe how the isolated components of psychomotor activities should be done properly. At this level, the student must be able to tell the instructor how his fingers are supposed to be positioned when he grips the racket. He should also be able to describe the ready position wherein he must stand with his feet spread shoulders' width apart, his knees slightly bent, his foot ahead of his racket-side foot, his upper body inclined forward from the waist, his racket held in front of him, approximately head high, and his wrist cocked in preparation for a forehand stroke. 10 Since complex psychomotor activities can have many components that are very difficult do at the same time, the student can be asked to demonstrate the individual components of an activity one at a time without making a mistake. In learning how to do the forehand drive, the student can first be coached to 1.) hold the racket with the correct grip, 2.) assume the correct ready position, 3.) pivot on the ball of his racket-side foot, 4.) bring the racket back to a position behind the head, pointing downwards, 5.) point his off-racket shoulder toward the net, aligning his racket-side elbow with his shoulders, 6.) cock his wrist and shift his weight on his rear foot, 7.) step forward with his off-racket food and transfer the weight from the rear foot to the front foot, rotating his hips towards the midline of his body as the momentum begins to build, 8.) slowly straighten his arm as his shoulders rotate inwards, 9.) cock his wrist after straightening his arm, making sure that the racket head is perpendicular to his arm and parallel to the floor, 10.) uncock his wrist, turning his thumb towards the body, making sure that the racket head is perpendicular to the flight of the shuttle on contact and, 11.) allow the racket to follow through naturally before he returns to the ready position. In the integration level, the student is expected to do all these movements in one motion smoothly and correctly. After the learner has absorbed the entire movement, he is then asked to practice without his instructor's supervision. At this level, he should have internalized all the steps and does not need to be given instructions. He could now refine his movements in order to suit his body type. This is called the free practice stage. The principles described above will be integrated in a curriculum wherein the students are assumed to have a class twice a week for ten weeks. The first lesson in this curriculum begins with a diagnostic interview wherein the instructor assesses his students' limitations. He then proceeds to a short description of the sport, including some nomenclature and facts that he may deem necessary to the course. He continues the lecture by teaching them how to do the forehand grip. He then brings out some powder and masking tape and shows them how they can mark the points where their hand and fingers should be on the handle. Before dismissing the class, he asks them to hold the racket tightly and slowly loosen their grip while they move the racket back and forth, making them see the difference in the degree of movement that their wrists can do as they loosen their grip. On the second day, he starts the class by leading them to do some mild, conditioning exercises wherein the students are asked to run at a controlled pace, do some push ups and some stretching. Because of the health restrictions of the students in his class, they are always reminded to stop if they feel any discomfort. He also makes sure that he checks the pulse rate of his students before and after a physical activity. He then asks them to do a hand-eye coordination drill wherein the objective is to hit ten consecutive shuttles without moving more than two or three steps. In this drill, the students are asked to hold the shuttle at the base with their thumb, drop it from that position and hit it with their rackets before it touches the ground. He allows the class to practice while he moves around to watch each students' movements, giving him some corrections or pointers. He begins the third day with another set of conditioning exercises and allots ten minutes for the hand eye coordination drill before he proceeds to teaching them how to do the forehand stroke. After they have gotten the hang of doing the stroke, he then gives them time to do some free practice. From Day 5 to Day 8, he uses the same sequence to teach them the backhand stroke and the singles serve. On the ninth day, after leading them to do some conditioning exercises, he asks them to do a hand-eye coordination drill wherein he the students must hit ten, consecutive shuttles using the forehand stroke and backhand stroke alternately. On the tenth day, after starting the class with the usual conditioning exercises and a review of the topics that have already been discussed, he then describes the clear as well as its function. He then leads them to the court and asks them to hit the shuttle, make it go over the net and fall as close as possible to the marks he has placed on the other side of the court before the lesson. On the eleventh and twelfth day, he teaches them how to do the drop and the low service using the same methods. He then teaches the footwork on the thirteenth day. On the fourteenth day, the students are given the opportunity to review and practice all the moves that they have learned during the last thirteen lessons. The instructor then proceeds to pairing them up in order to teach them how to play singles and doubles. During the last five lessons, the students are given the chance to use what they have learned by playing a game of singles and then a game of doubles. 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