Integrating Motor-Learning Concepts into Physical Education

JOPERD • Volume 80 No. 9 • November/December 2009 M rs. Jones, an elementary physical education teacher, was teaching dribbling. She said to her students, “I want you to use your fingertips when you dribble, not your palm. In your personal space, practice dribbling. ” Mrs. Jones watched Samantha dribble a ball a few times until the ball bounced off her shoe. Samantha chased the ball and then went back to Mrs. Jones and stated, “I am finished. ” Mrs. Jones thought to herself, “I told students to practice dribbling; why did Samantha stop practicing so soon? ” Perhaps Samantha was not paying attention to Mrs. Jones, but it was likely that Samantha did not know that to improve her motor skills she needed to perform multiple repetitions. Regardless, this is just one of many situations where students’ misconceptions or lack of understanding of the motor-learning process can become a barrier to receiving the full benefits of physical education. The question arises, what information does Mrs. Jones need to provide to the class so they understand “how to practice” and what instructional approach could she use to help students to understand the motor-learning concept? The National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE, 2004) suggests that part of becoming a physically educated person is being able to use cognitive information—such as movement concepts, principles, strategies, and tactics—to enhance the learning and performance of motor skills. In Samantha’s case, she could benefit from knowing how to practice. Learning motor-learning concepts is much like acquiring knowledge about the body’s response to exercise (e.g., “when I exercise, my heart beats faster”) so as to set up a personal training program or learning nutrition principles in order to plan a healthy diet (O’Dea, 2003). In elementary school physical education, students can use “learning how to learn” knowledge to apply their fundamental skills more effectively and then later, in middle school and high school, to apply more complex concepts to design effective practice and help them self-regulate their learning of context-specific motor skills. This better understanding of the learning process can help students increase their motivation and better select the learning strategies for particular learning situations (Rink, 2003, 2004). Physical educators have the responsibility to help students acquire motor-learning knowledge by encouraging them to be actively involved in physical education, both physically and mentally. Teaching students how to learn requires more than setting up quality practice situations or telling students that practice is important; it involves providing students with learning tasks that will teach them the details of the learning process (Ayers, 2004). However, research suggests that K-12 physical education teachers are not integrating this conceptual knowledge into their lessons, and if they are teaching motor-learning concepts, their students do not understand the concepts at a deep enough level to apply them to lifelong learning situations (Ayers). One possible reason for the lack of student understanding of the learning process may be that teachers do not know how to sequence motor-learning content Students must first learn how to learn. Integrating Motor-Learning Concepts into Physical Education Using Guided Discovery to Address NASPE Standard 2