A Tactical Approach to Teaching & Coaching Games
Klara Gubacs-Collins, Ed.D.
"a tactical thinker"
Assistant Professor
Exercise Science and Physical Education
Montclair State University
Montclair, NJ 07043
(973) 655-5497
E-mail: gubacsk@mail.montclair.edu
Panzer school's Physical education and Health majors with the student leadership of Konstantinos Asimoglou (Dino) and under the faculty leadership of Dr. Klara Gubacs-Collins and Dr. Robert Horn have again run a very successful charity event to support Breast Cancer Research. |
The content of physical education has gone through several significant changes during the last century. For example, a major change occurred when the curriculum of physical education shifted from a gymnastics and exercise approach to sports and games (Swanson & Spears, 1995). As a result of this change games became an increasingly large part of physical education programs in the United States. These activities typically have been taught by first providing explanation or demonstration, followed by skill practice and culminating in game play. This model became the prototype for many physical education programs and remains the dominant model for instruction to this day.
Recently physical education theorists began to question the effectiveness of the traditional approach to teaching games. Influenced by the original observations of Bunker and Thorpe (1986), an increasing number of physical education theorists began to believe that traditional teaching methods that concentrated on specific motor responses (techniques) have failed to take into account the contextual nature of games. Games knowledge not only refers to the ability to execute complex motor skills (do) but also to decisions concerning the appropriate action in the context of the game situation (if-then), (McPherson & French, 1991).
For example, if a soccer player demonstrates "ideal form" in dribbling the ball but cannot react successfully to teammates and opposition during a game, the player might be less successful in terms of the goal of the game. In order to become skilled in playing a game the performer must develop the ability to monitor and evaluate the game situation, identify response options, and select the most appropriate response for a particular situation. |
Considering the complexities of skilled performance involved in game situations, I believe it is crucial to introduce the tactical and technical elements of an activity in the actual game context. Unfortunately, within traditional methods, skills such as the tennis forehand or basketball dribble, are presented to the learner in isolation, with no reference to the relationship between that skill and the overall goal of the game. The teacher's emphasis on isolated skill development may negatively affect students' behavior in at least two additional ways. First, many students, specifically lower skilled children, will have very little success in achieving any skill development, resulting in frustration and possible alienation from the game. Second, after practicing for several weeks or even years, students will still know very little about the game. As Bunker and Thorpe (1986) suggest, traditional teaching methods will result in "the production of supposedly skillful players who in fact possess inflexible techniques and poor decision making capacity" (p.7).
Although many teachers teach both skills and tactics of games often they have a difficult time linking these components. One possible explanation may be that preservice teachers who may be proficient at some games from a technical and tactical perspective are primarily trained to teach the technical aspects of a game thereby perpetuating problems inherent in traditional physical education. Thus it is not surprising, considering their lack of tactical education, that these preservice teachers continue to rely solely on teaching the technical aspects of games. I agree with Almond (1986) who suggested over a decade ago that, "there is a need to reappraise the form in which prospective teachers are trained, or more appropriately, the way they are initiated into a games education" (p.38).
I believe that in order to attempt to change preservice teachers' thinking about games, a rational beginning would be for teacher educators to begin to explore their own teaching and its effects on their students, our future teachers. To begin this effort I investigated my own teaching experience, as a novice teacher educator, implementing a tactical approach to teaching tennis with preservice teachers. Such self-reflective inquiry undertaken by practitioners is considered action research, a systematic study of attempts to improve educational practice by groups of participants by means of their own practical actions and by means of their own reflection upon the effects of those actions (Ebbut, 1983). A significant body of literature has accumulated about teachers' experiences as action researchers as they describe their own teaching and their students learning. (Cousins & Earls, 1995; Goswami & Stillman, 1987; Hustler, Cassidy, & Cuff, 1986; Ross & Bondy, 1996). Until recently, action research has been a tool used almost exclusively by inservice teachers at the K-12 level. Although teacher educators write about the importance of action research and working collaboratively with teachers as they study their practice (Hustler, Cassidy, & Cuff, 1986), few descriptions exist of action research projects by teacher educators (Ross & Bondy, 1996). Furthermore, while the emphasis on action research is increasing in such areas as writing, reading, and science, the field of physical education is slowly beginning to use this type of inquiry. As a result, little systematic attention has been paid to the insights physical education teachers and teacher educators could gain through studying their own practice.
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