Using questions to get more practice time in Physical Education
The importance of practice
“Deliberate practice makes perfect”
(Ericsson & Pool, 2016)
I genuinely believe in practice. To improve my writing, I write at least 500 words every day. To help my daughter do well in her netball, I practice with her in passing and shooting at least thirty minutes a day. To prove to my water polo students that they can be as good as anyone, I rally all parents to support daily practice, Monday to Friday. If you wonder why Stephen Curry is so good at basketball, his reply in an interview was, “Do the reps. Get in a flow state” (Jhaveri, 2023).
There is only one simple rule in planning my Physical Education (PE) lessons — Whether it is games, concepts or skills, there must be a lot of practice. Only when you become skilful can you then enjoy the sport. Only when you enjoy the sport would you want to play more during your free time.
If practice is so important, then why should we spend time asking the students questions?
Although I allocated most of the lesson time to practice, I was always frustrated by the amount of mistakes they made, which made practising inefficient. For example, if I gave students ten minutes to practice frisbee passes, I would see them pass so far that their partners could not catch it. They end up spending way more time picking up the discs than passing.
One day, I decided to ask them, “I give you one minute to discuss with your partner how to increase the success rate of passing.”. They came up with ideas like “Pass at shoulder level”, “Relax the wrist”, and “Do not use shoulders too much”. After that, I stopped hearing discs dropping onto the floor.
They were more successful because they are setting themselves up for success. Before that, they were passing because they were told to do so. The one-minute questioning and answering helped them save many more minutes of picking the dropped discs. If you have noticed what the students have discussed, their answers are the learning cues. By empowering them to co-construct learning cues, not only do they have more time to practise, but they are also thinking of ways to throw better.
Joy of learning
“The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running.”
(Simone Weil)
I started getting the students to practice and asking them, “What can you do to increase the success rate?” I could see students enjoy the practice more. I often see students become so focused, like they are in a flow state.
As described by positive psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the state of flow is when the students are entirely absorbed and engrossed in their practice that they achieve optimal experience. It usually happens when the task challenge matches their skills (Cherry, 2023).
In another article, Wang (n.d.) discussed various ways to achieve the “Joy of learning”. He suggests that instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, teachers should allow students to decide their difficulty level so that they are sufficiently challenged. The students are intrinsically motivated to learn when joyfully engaged in the activity.
Before we want to use an inquiry-based approach in our lessons, we should ask ourselves about our philosophy of education. “What is it that we want our students to learn?” and “What is it that we want our students to become?”. Then, we make use of questioning to support our beliefs.
For example, I believe students should become helpful people. So, during practice breaks, I would ask them to discuss with their partners, “What can you do to help each other achieve the learning outcome (LO)?”. I also believe students should not give up so easily. Hence, I would then ask them, “What advice would you give your partner so they would not give up?”. The one-minute discussion can work wonders because the students have an objective to focus on in practice, and the learning environment becomes safer.
Develop mindfulness and self-awareness
“Happiness can always be found, even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light.”
(Albus Dumbledore)
Too much practice can be boring. But it is not the task that is boring. It is how the task that is done is boring. If you ask a runner why he enjoys running, he might tell you he enjoys the challenge. He might tell you he enjoys exploring different routes. He might tell you he enjoys the reflection during the run. He might also tell you he enjoys the company when he runs with friends.
Suppose you ask a weightlifter why he enjoys lifting weights. He might tell you he enjoys overcoming the challenge of lifting heavier weights. He might tell you because he is good at it. He might tell you because he enjoys having the pump after the workout.
To many people, running and going to the gym are two of the most boring and painful activities. Questions can help the students turn a boring task into an exciting one.
At the start of one running lesson, I told the students that I understood that running can be challenging for many of them. So, I gave them two minutes to discuss a strategy to make running fun. “Write your suggestions on the whiteboard and be as creative as possible.”. At first, most students wrote common ideas such as “listening to music” or “running faster to make it exciting”.
After two minutes of running, I stopped the class and asked them again. They started giving more creative ideas such as “Run slower” and “Focus on the rhythm”. One boy even suggested, “Spin after every five steps”. As the lesson continued, the students became motivated to run.
Questions help the students reflect on their actions and feelings about it. Many students think that to enjoy running, they must run fast because running fast looks exciting. But when I ask them a couple more times, they realise they do not enjoy running fast. The boy, who suggested spinning, did have some fun. But until he started feeling giddy.
There are two benefits of asking them to reflect on their practice. Firstly, introspection helps them to know more about what makes them enjoy an activity. This leads to a higher level of self-awareness, which can promote mental health (Cherry, 2023b). The second is practising mindfulness as they constantly pay attention to their feelings during the run. And mindfulness in an activity leads to positive emotion (Kiken et al., 2017).
For me, running was all about passing the fitness test. Sometimes running was used as a consequence of not listening to the teacher. Many of us only started to enjoy “mundane activities” such as running, walking and lifting weights when we were older. We need to reflect on why we want to be a PE teacher in the first place. If we want to share the joy of exercising, shouldn’t we help them see the joy of exercising instead of using exercise as a form of negative reinforcement?
Develop problem-solving skills
“We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
(Aristotle)
I had an international student, K, who had poor motor skills. He could not even do a simple badminton serve after three lessons. I tried to coach him personally and gave him a lot of encouragement, but he still could not hit the shuttlecock. Then I asked the class for help, “What can you do to help him hit the shuttlecock successfully?”. The students took turns to help him. After some rounds of discussion and debates, they discovered that K could not understand English. When they used Tamil to explain the cues, he could follow. Two lessons later, with the help of students repeating my instruction to him in Tamil, he could follow the lesson with the class.
If I had not asked that question, K might never have been able to follow the badminton lesson. Evidence shows children are more creative than adults (Skillicorn, 2023), although I hope this is not true! When we see students as collaborators, they can help us solve the most challenging problems in the class.
I like asking students two questions: “We need more practice, so how can we have more practice time when the PE lesson is so short?” and “What rules modification can you think of to make the game playable for everyone?” Although I might need five minutes of the lesson to discuss and write their answers on the whiteboard, the ideas could help me save even more time.
For example, to solve the issue of everyone having different needs, students might suggest splitting into groups and practising the skills they are not strong in. To solve the problem of unbalanced abilities in the game, students might propose individualised rules for each student. Collaborating with the students not only saves us a lot of time to make good decisions, but it also increases their motivation and commitment to learning (Richter & Tjosvold, 1980).
Conclusion
“Motivation to succeed is not enough: motivated students need to know how to plan/organise their steps on their way to success”
(Lisá et al., 2023)
Inquiry-based learning has many benefits, such as developing critical thinking skills, but it can be daunting. When I tried asking questions the first time, students did not like the lesson.
“What is the acronym we use when shooting basketball?” No answer.
“I’ll give you a clue; start with ‘B’.” Still no answer.
“I’ll give you another clue; ‘B’; ‘E’ and something.” Still no answer.
I probed and probed till I got frustrated. To make things worse, one student asked if they could return to the game.
Just as we need to set students up for success, we should also set ourselves up for success. One way to set ourselves up for success is to set student-centric goals, such as “Students motivated at the end of the lesson!” As such, the aim of using an inquiry-based approach is to motivate students, not to test them. The aim of asking questions is to help them solve their problems, not to check if they remember what we say. We should also not ask them questions they have no prior knowledge about because it may feel interrogative.
If you are considering questioning in your PE lesson, asking the students to think of ways to increase the success rate is a good way to start.
References
Cherry, K. C. (2023, March 28). How to achieve a state of flow. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-flow-2794768
Cherry, K. C. (2023b, April 4). Introspection and how it is used in psychology research. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-introspection-2795252#:~:text=Benefits%20of%20Introspection&text=Introspection%20can%20be%20a%20great,health%20and%20increase%20our%20happiness.
Corwin, S. (2023, October 23). Thinking routines and visible thinking strategies for critical thinking. Europass Teacher Academy. https://www.teacheracademy.eu/blog/thinking-routines-and-visible-thinking-strategies
Ericsson, A., & Pool, R. (2016). Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. Random House.
Jhaveri, H. (2023, July 27). The real reason Steph Curry is so damn good. WIRED. https://www.wired.com/story/steph-curry-ryan-coogler-underrated/
Kiken, L. G., Lundberg, K. B., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2017). Being present and enjoying it: dispositional mindfulness and savoring the moment are distinct, interactive predictors of positive emotions and psychological health. Mindfulness, 8(5), 1280–1290. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0704-3
Lisá, E., Sokolová, L., Jablonická, P., & Kardelisová, L. (2023). Motivation to succeed is not enough: motivated students need to know how to plan/organize their steps on their way to success. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1119409
Richter, F. D., & Tjosvold, D. (1980). Effects of student participation in classroom decision making on attitudes, peer interaction, motivation, and learning. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65(1), 74–80. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.65.1.74
Skillicorn, N. (2023, June 9). Evidence that children are more creative than adults (and the opposite). Idea to Value. https://www.ideatovalue.com/crea/nickskillicorn/2023/06/evidence-that-children-are-more-creative-than-adults-and-the-opposite/
Wang, J. (n.d.). The Joy of Learning: What It Is and How to Achieve It. Nanyang Technological University. https://www.ntu.edu.sg/docs/nielibraries/merl/news-pdfs/joyoflearning.pdf?sfvrsn=dfe4e2f6_3#:~:text=A%20classroom%20where%20%27joy%20of,in%20place%20to%20help%20them.
