Developing and Evaluating a Lesson Sequence

Section 1: Overview of a Lesson Sequence The lesson sequence I plan to teach focuses on developing ball handling skills for 8-11 year olds in key stage 2 physical education. The pedagogical approach I will use will the learner-centered approach with the theory being Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) theory.

The learner-centered approach puts the needs of the learner at the front and center of the lesson (Halstead, 2007)—and with the ZPD theory, I can focus on helping students to apprehend the lesson by way of seeing my helping assistants handle the balls and by observing how the games are played. Scaffolding can be employed in this lesson sequence as well, as this technique is one in which new lessons build on the knowledge that students acquire through previous lessons (Hsieh, 2017).

I also want to see how well the ZPD theory applies in physical education. Gray and Feldman have noted that playing in the zone of proximal development can help students engage with one another in a positive and mutually beneficial manner: older students get to develop leadership skills while younger ones get to learn the skills related to the lesson that the older students have already acquired and now demonstrate.

The lesson sequence consists of the following points: · Context: students aged 8-11, key stage 2, physical education class · Aims and objectives: to develop ball handling skills in a variety of formats · Subject content: physical education—ball handling · Teaching approaches: learner-centered approach with scaffolding, using the theory of ZPD to facilitate the learning experience · Assessment strategies: Informal—direct observation; formal—individual demonstration at the end of the lesson sequence.

Section 2: Rationale for the Lesson Sequence The learner-centered approach is based on the idea that students should have an active role in their own education. At the heart of this approach is the idea that active learning is one of the best methods for students to obtain a deep-down type of education (Learning Portal, 2018; Lightbrown & Spada, 2013). At the same time, Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development theory explains how young learners rely upon guidance to acquire knowledge or skills that they cannot achieve on their own.

The guidance can come in virtually any form and can range from simple instructions, such as pointing to a place and indicating with a word what should be performed or asking a student what the best way to perform an exercise would be.

The idea is that it is the ZPD which allows the young learner to become an active learner; that makes it possible to engage in self-directed learning; that gives older students the chance to develop their own leadership skills and to take responsibility for passing on what they have received and serving as mentors and role models. The ZPD facilitates a holistic approach to education: it educates in all directions—not just in one.

It may be there to help young learners, but in helping young learners, older learners are helped as well. The great benefit of understanding how ZPD works is that it gives educators a good option to use when considering the best way to facilitate the educative experience. In physical education, the ZPD environment is a natural fit. Physical education by its very nature is focused on physical activity and exercises that require students to be up and running about.

In this type of environment it is natural for interaction to take place among students—and with interaction and sociality being part of the process of development, the opportunity is there to allow age groups to mix. So long as there is enough room and space for groups to focus on their own activities, the opportunity that such an approach to learning presents is more than favorable. Inter-student interactions and student learning in physical education can help physical education teachers achieve more (Barker, Quennerstedt & Annerstedt, 2015).

Zeichner, Payne and Brayko (2015) state that this type of approach to education is essentially the democratization of education: by reducing power hierarchies, more authority is given to others in the educational system—including to students, who thus become responsible for passing on what they have received. They take up the torch of teaching by acting as conduits of learning for younger learners.

Nowhere can this process be more easily seen than on the literal playing field, where learners of various age groups can partake in a single activity or sport, compete, develop skills through direct observation, simple instruction, or scaffolding. I would like to implement this practice of democratizing the educative experience for young learners by having volunteers from older grades come in during class periods for young learners. These volunteers would be tasked with playing with the young learners and serving as mentors and little assistants.

This would help to cut down on the strain that teachers can experience on the job as they try to look after so many different learners all at once. It would also be a good learning experience for the older students as it would give them the opportunity to test their leadership skills, apply themselves in mentorship and facilitate the learning for younger students.

Physical education is about focusing on exercises, activities, and sports that can build the body’s endurance and agility and strengthen the mind’s awareness of surroundings. One cannot play a sport well while being oblivious of what’s going on within one’s vicinity. This is, moreover, not exactly something that can be “coached” or “taught” but rather something that young learners pick up on through their experience of the activity in the zone of proximal development.

Vygotsky’s great contribution to education is based on the notion that he recognized this zone and its application in the learning process of children (Daniels, 2016). In the field of physical education it can be applied in a way that benefits the teacher, the young learner and the older student serving as the assistant in the class. To help with scaffolding, the older volunteer students will be on hand to lay the groundwork for new ball handling skills, which build on skills already learned by the students.

As University of Nottingham (2018) notes, scaffolding can involve breaking up a learning objective into parts so that the student can more easily attain the overall goal—and that is the aim of this lesson sequence. Section 3: Critical Evaluation of Lesson Sequence The aspects I felt were particularly strong in my planning were the way the lesson sequences used scaffolding to build upon one another. First, we started off with the lesson on learning spatial awareness.

The children already knew how to run and take commands, so this lesson built on that knowledge. First we broke down the concept by scaffolding it: instead of learning spatial awareness all at once, we looked at different ways to travel the floor and practiced getting used to the boundaries of the floor, where others were on the floor. The younger students observed the older volunteer students who already understood the concept of spatial awareness.

The older volunteer students gave some examples of what we would be doing later on with the ball. They traveled the length of the floor with the ball and bounced it and passed it. They changed directions with the ball and so on. This was a bit a foreshadowing for the students and allowed us to construct a ZPD for the younger students. The scaffolding commenced straightaway.

As Howe (2010) points out, peer relationships were important for this part because younger students or novice students were observing their peers, who would point the concepts that were being explained. Peer relationships are essential in ZPD learning, as Gray and Feldman (2004) also note.

ZPD is that area of experience where the learner gets to follow a teacher, mentor, a peer or tutor and use the guidance offered to learn the task—which in this case, at the beginning, was spatial awareness and how to learn run and stop on command. This lesson would facilitate the later lessons of running with the ball—so it was necessary for the students to master these early concepts but it was also helpful for them to see a foreshadowing of where it was all going.

, With ZPD, and thanks to the help of the older volunteer students who acted as my aids, the younger students were given access to those who have the ability to pass on knowledge to them so that they could take advantage of this access and learn in a way that was student-centered and somewhat self-directed, which is part of the essence of what real learning is all about.

As the lesson sequences proceeded, the students began to see how it was all building to the process of running and passing with the ball and taking commands. The sports we played after learning the skill helped to reinforce the concepts that we were learning. I would use ZPD to point to a spot on the floor where I wanted a student to run. I would point to a line and the student would understand to run the line.

I would point and hold to a spot on the floor and the student would know to run and stop at that same spot: and by observing these interactions, other students were able to mimic them and do the same. I thought the sports helped to reinforce the concepts and it seemed that the students became better and more confident about what they were doing. Simon Says helped them to hear or wait for the commands before acting on them.

Freeze Tag helped them to use their spatial awareness and know how to avoid the tag, where to go, or who needed to be unfrozen. I refereed these games and would whistle whenever a student was frozen and would blow a horn when one was unfrozen by another student. After these games, we would do the quick formal assessment, and so long as the students could do the tasks moderately well, I passed them. No one failed to at least demonstrate moderate understanding of what was expected of them.

I feel that my aims were achieved rather well. The older volunteer students were able to lead by example, and I observed that they took pride in being able to demonstrate their skills for the younger students. They enjoyed being the center of attention for these younger students, and they were also very helpful towards them, offering bits of advice and reminding them of the objective.

As Vygotsky implied in his theory and as Gray and Feldman (2004) note, the following of the proficient by the novice “was implicit in the educational writings of Lev Vygotsky, who claimed that children acquire knowledge and develop skills through interactions with others who are more competent than themselves” (p. 111). This was exactly what I had in mind and the lessons as they progressed demonstrated to me that Vygotsky’s theory was correct.

The student-centered approach also facilitated the process, I felt, as the students were actively engaging in the activities themselves instead of being conducted entirely by the teacher. The students were given free time to direct one another and this also helped them to improve their understanding of linking calls to movement, movement to bouncing, bouncing to spatial awareness, and awareness to passing and ball movement. As for the students, I felt that they picked up on the lessons quite well. First, they had my overall direction to support them.

Second, they had the exampled and guidance of the young experts (the older volunteer students) who were assisting me in guiding the class. Third, they had the games to help strengthen their sense of the activities and skills they were to learn. Fourth, the older volunteer students were able to foreshadow the end goal by bouncing the ball, moving with it up the field, passing it, stopping, turning, and having a regular game.

Aspects of my planning that I was somewhat dissatisfied with was the question of whether I was breaking the lesson down too much. I know that with scaffolding, there is the idea that objectives can be broken down, but I thought at times that I was breaking already simple lessons down too such an extent that the activities seemed superfluous.

I wondered how many of the students would be able to master the skills of running and bouncing the ball simultaneously without first introducing the basic concept of running and stopping on command and of learning spatial awareness. I did not have an opportunity to test this idea, which I would do by removing the initial lesson sequence and beginning straightaway with the second sequence. However, I also observed that the first initial sequence helped introduce the concept of fun to the exercise.

The students were able to do something simple and feel confident about what they were doing. There were no signs of discouragement. A few students gave the impression that the exercises were too easy and they appeared to want more of a challenge. They were the ones who emulated the older students most when they were given free time to mingle and mix. They would begin playing like the older students played.

I thought that even if I had made a mistake in my sequencing of lessons, the ZPD theory would help to correct my mistakes and cover for them because in the ZPD, students are always learning regardless of what aspects of the lessons the teacher gives or neglects to give.

That is part of the great thing about ZPD and self-directed learning, which ZPD theory makes possible: students are not hampered by the teacher—they are free to observe and learn from older students who already have the skills they are meant to acquire. Simply by being in the ZPD they are having the opportunity to learn—and the more driven they are to acquire the skills they desire to possess, the more impactful the ZPD becomes.

One other issue I noticed was that some students required more time mastering the ball and being able to handle it proficiently as they moved. I felt that the lesson sequence could have been repeated or extended to give the students more time to practice with the ball.

Since moving with the ball was an exercise that required a bit more skill and athleticism than simple running and stopping on command (because it required the student to do two things—or rather three things—at once: run, bounce the ball, and hear and understand commands). However, since I had the older student volunteers there, I myself could devote time to helping these students who were struggling with their ball handling development.

This confirmed for me that ZPD is an excellent method for a number of reasons—all of which are cited by Howe (2010).

These reasons include: The zone of proximal development thus has a two-way flow of benefits—or even a three-way flow: a) peer relationships, as I was using them in my lesson sequence, could benefit the young primary level learners who could see the different examples of how to do the ball bouncing exercises; b) the ZPD helped to create a positive environment in which the students could relate to one another: the older students were happy and proud to have the opportunity to act as leaders to younger students; they jumped to have the opportunity to demonstrate responsibility that they have to be good role models for others; and c) I had more free time to give to students who required some one-on-one instruction.

However, had I not had any volunteer helpers, I wondered whether I could have managed to devote more time to the students who needed and I wondered what I would do to address this issue. Changes I would make to my lesson sequence in order to address the issue would be to give an additional free time space to students who demonstrated early mastery of the skill and.