A simple way to look at various teaching models and approaches
The challenge that many of us face
“What approach should I use?” “Which model?” “Which pedagogy?” Games-based approach (GBA) or Non-linear pedagogy (NLP)? Before the teacher finally decided to try GBA in his lesson, the principal told the teachers that the school would begin trying differentiated instruction (D.I.). And if that is not overwhelming enough, the Physical Education (PE) department decided to try using EdTech to enhance the D.I. in the PE lessons. Does this sound familiar to you?
One of the challenges that most teachers face is that there are so many teaching approaches that they are confused about when and what to use. As a teacher leader, I need to find a simple explanation linking the various teaching approaches to make it easier to understand and know when to use what.
I am not an expert in all the teaching models. I enjoy reading books and engaging in discussions with colleagues on pedagogies. I believe it is possible to look at them using a simpler way because the aim of every model and approach is to help students learn.
If you do not have time to continue reading, I will summarise the rest of the article in this sentence — Whatever we do, maximise lesson time for deliberate practice.
Mastery through deliberate practice
“Success has to do with deliberate practice. Practice must be focused, determined, and in an environment where there’s feedback.”
(Malcolm Gladwell)
Type “hard work quotes” in Google, and you will get about one hundred sixty million results. Because hard work really pays off. Stephen King, one of the greatest authors of all time, spends four to six hours daily writing at least 2000 words (Ang, 2022). Michael Phelps swam 13 kilometres a day, six or seven days a week (including Sundays and birthdays), before becoming one of the best swimmers in the world. Hence, in each lesson, we must show students what hard work looks like — Lots of practice!
However, many of us would agree that practice may not makes perfect if done incorrectly. When we practice, we need to be deliberate.
In neuroscience, there are two types of learning systems in our brain — declarative and procedural learning systems (Whitworth, 2023). The students need deliberate practice in both systems to be good at a skill. An example of declarative knowledge is “To increase the accuracy of basketball shooting, make sure the shooting eye, the shooting hand and elbow, and the rim are all on the same line (Mac, 2022)”.
There are two possible problems when we teach students the learning cues. Firstly, even though we have taught them the cues, it does not mean they have learned. The information is only stored in their working memory and would be forgotten after a while (Vogel & Drew, 2013). Students need to regularly talk about them in different contexts so that the knowledge can be stored in long-term memory, a concept called retrieval practice (Roediger & Butler, 2011). The more we talk or write about it, the better. It would even be better if we talked about it in different contexts (shoot from far, near or in a game).
The next problem is that even if the students remember the learning cues, they must practice applying the skill. After the students know how to aim better, they need to practice. A lot of practice. Till it is in the muscle memory. Muscle memory is a form of procedural memory where you do not think about the movement because it is automatic (Budson & Kensinger, 2023).
Both learning systems are needed for deeper understanding and faster progress (Oakley et al., 2021). Practising the skills without remembering what cues to look out for could make the practice inefficient and demoralising for the students if they do not see improvement. We only have about one hour of PE lesson time. The more students practice using these two learning systems, the faster they master the skills. The feeling of learning and becoming better at a skill motivates them to learn more (Brower, 2021).
In the case of a PE teacher, S
“Differentiation is simply a teacher attending to the learning needs of a particular student or small groups of students, rather than teaching a class as though all individuals in it were basically alike.”
(Carol Ann Tomlinson)
S is a teacher who understands the importance of deliberate practice using declarative and procedural learning systems. He teaches the basketball module for his secondary 2 class of 35 students.
S set a routine for the students to practice basketball shooting every time they entered the class. In his routine, he used peer coaching (Steinberg, 2021) to help students improve their shooting skills. He shared with the students the importance of practice and taught them the B.E.E.F visual cues while shooting.
Students must shoot into the hoop three times before passing the ball to their partners during the shooting practice. Their partners’ job is to observe and give feedback. However, he constantly reminded the students not to give so much feedback that it distracts their partners. He also reminds them to set themselves up for success by standing nearer to the hoop if their shots do not go in.
S knows that students want to be engaged during the lesson. They hate sitting down and waiting for the latecomers. Moreover, the more they practise shooting, the better they become. Seeing progress increases their intrinsic motivation to learn during the lesson (Healthdirect Australia, n.d.). Using peer coaching, S is helping the students remember the B.E.E.F cues using the declarative system as they repeatedly remind their partners. By having the same warm-up routine in every lesson, S fosters a “no time wasting, start practising” habit.
Lesson focus — Mixture of inquiry-based approach and direct instruction
“Teaching can be seen in the same light. It is a combination of many ingredients, and the teacher makes wise decisions about how to blend those ingredients to achieve a particular outcome.”
(Human Kinetics, n.d.)
S uses a games-based approach (GBA) for every lesson because he believes that “you have to practice the game a lot” to be good in the game. He reminded the student of the previous lesson, “running into a space to receive a pass”. Then he told the students the goal for the day was to learn how to “Create space so they can receive the pass”. He suggested using “dodging” to create space but encouraged creativity to try different ways.
Direct instruction was needed in that context because the students might need prior knowledge of creating space.
He completed his instructions within three minutes, and the students played a 2v2 possession game. After five minutes of the game, he asked every pair to discuss, “What can you do to be more successful in creating space?” He gave them one minute to discuss and continued the game.
The rationale for using an inquiry approach is that S believes everyone has different challenges. Telling them another cue would not be efficient. He wants everyone to learn at their zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Mcleod, 2024). For example, some students may not have the right passing technique, so asking them to practice L-cut or V-cut will not help. Some other students might already be doing L-cut and V-cut, so telling them to practice L-cut or V-cut is not stretching their abilities.
S noticed three pairs having difficulties maintaining possession because their opponents were faster than them. He told the three groups to play 3v1 instead so the students would have a better success rate. He also told them that they must be responsible for further modifying the rules if they are still not seeing success.
Using a D.I. approach, S established a clear learning goal (creating space) but ensured every student achieved it based on their learning needs (Tomlinson, 2017). Again, this is an approach to increase the amount of practice for each student.
As the students played the games, S constantly gave positive affirmations to their efforts and reminded them of the learning outcome. Ten minutes later, he stopped the class and asked them to discuss with their group, “What was one strategy that helped them to create space?”.
He told them to upload their strategies into the class Padlet. While some may repeat his cues of “dodging, “ others suggested “no-looks pass, “ “backward pass”, or “run forward and then backwards”. After they had uploaded their ideas, S told the class to continue the game for another ten minutes.
When students co-construct knowledge, they see what others are doing and can learn from one another. This form of D.I. allows the students to construct new knowledge onto their prior knowledge because everyone has different learning needs. To save time for more practice, he uses the affordances of EdTech to make the process more efficient.
Skills practice
“I want to practice to the point where it’s almost uncomfortable how fast you shoot, so that in the game things kind of slow down.”
(Stephen Curry)
S asked every pair to look at the padlet and decide one strategy they would like to practice. However, he told them to practise the skills without defenders. He explained that such isolated practice reduces the stress of defenders pressuring; hence, they could focus on improving their fundamental movement. He said, “When you do the action repeatedly, you will gain muscle memory, and the movement will be so automatic that you would more likely be able to do it even if there is a defender (Smith, n.d.).
Conclusion — The importance of constant assessment
“When teachers do formative assessment effectively, students learn at roughly double the rate than they do without it.”
(Dylan Wiliam)
What S did throughout the lesson was constantly assess the needs of the students and decide the appropriate approach. For example, he would share some learning cues if students have no prior knowledge. However, because he observed that not everyone can use the cues effectively, he used an inquiry approach to help them think of better ways to see success. If, after asking questions, some students still have no clue about what to do, then he will use direct instruction or visual demonstrations as scaffolding to help them.
With such limited time in each PE lesson, we must maximise the deliberate practice time for students so that they gain both procedural and declarative knowledge. A mixture of peer, self and teacher assessment could help students understand where they are and what they can do to progress as efficiently as possible. Some need simplification of the activity, and some require a higher challenge. When the challenge of the practice is designed to their abilities, then the practice would be deliberate (Hagen, 2023).
I need to state that it would not be fair to the people who develop the teaching model if I use such a simplistic way of linking them up. It is just a way I help teachers and myself start using these approaches as a first step instead of memorising the whole models, which can be overwhelming.
If you have any topic you would like me to discuss in more depth, please email me at tang_yee_fun_francis@moe.edu.sg. I look forward to hearing from you!
References
Ang, A. (2022, September 3). 10 Legendary writers & their Daily Word Counts — The Writing Cooperative. Medium. https://writingcooperative.com/10-legendary-writers-their-daily-word-counts-692c56cb97a5
Brower, T., PhD. (2021, October 17). Learning is a sure path to happiness: science proves it. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tracybrower/2021/10/17/learning-is-a-sure-path-to-happiness-science-proves-it/?sh=59bd0f2c768e
Budson, A. E., & Kensinger, E. A. (2023). Procedural memory. In Oxford University Press eBooks (pp. 13–26). https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197607732.003.0002
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Hagen, J. (2023, June 25). Master Any Skill with Deliberate Practice: The Key to Effective Learning — BABY BLOCKS. BABY BLOCKS. https://www.baby-blocks.com/adding-ra-to-your-practice/deliberate-practice
Healthdirect Australia. (n.d.). Motivation: How to get started and staying motivated. Healthdirect. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/motivation-how-to-get-started-and-staying-motivated
Human Kinetics. (n.d.). Combine teaching styles and strategies for effective instruction. https://us.humankinetics.com/blogs/excerpt/combine-teaching-styles-and-strategies-for-effective-instruction
Mac, C. (2022, October 20). The BEEF Shooting Method in Basketball (For Youth Players). Basketball For Coaches. https://www.basketballforcoaches.com/beef-basketball/
Mascarenhas, D., & Smith, N. C. (2011). Developing the performance brain. In Elsevier eBooks (pp. 245–267). https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-443-06734-1.00017-1
Mcleod, S., PhD. (2024). Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding Theory. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/zone-of-proximal-development.html
Oakley, B., PhD, Rogowsky, B., EdD, & Sejnowski, T. J. (2021). Uncommon sense teaching: Practical Insights in Brain Science to Help Students Learn. Penguin.
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Smith, R. (n.d.). Isolated Practice: How important is it? — The Football Centre. https://www.thefootballcentre.com.au/isolated-practice-how-important-is-it/
Steinberg, B. (2021, December 20). The surprising power of peer coaching. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/04/the-surprising-power-of-peer-coaching
Tomlinson, C. A. (2017). How to differentiate instruction in academically diverse classrooms. ASCD.
Vogel, E. K., & Drew, T. (2013, August 17). Why do we forget things? Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-we-forget-things/
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