We designed this website to help other physical education teachers integrate the playing of games to enhance students understanding of tactics within the Net/Wall category of games.  The games presented in this unit were sparked by ideas given to us in our PE 452 class with Dr. Tim Hopper.

The games in the unit were designed to promote tactics and logic that can transfer across games in the same category.  Learning the WHY before the HOW was the method used in this unit (Hopper,2002).  This unit was specifically designed to suit a grade six physical education class like the one we taught at Monterey Middle School in Victoria, BC.  We hope that our experience with this group of students helps other physical education teachers find success in a similar unit.

We have put together a badminton unit containing four hour-long sessions including introductory activities for a warm up, skill and concept development, a culminating activity and finally a closure. The activities focus on game tactics to gradually increase the student’s ability.  Space, court movement and shot selection are the three main tactical awareness components that were enforced.  Through skill development any player can successfully participate in the modified games and then progress towards a real badminton match.  Although this is a badminton unit, the majority of the lead up games could be used as warm-up activities in other Net/Wall units such as tennis, volleyball, racquetball, or squash.  Mitchell and Griffin’s Transfer Idea allows the learner to transfer fundamental skills, tactical understanding and interest and excitement to other games.  This unit will build student’s competence and confidence in a means that can be transferred to other activities.

The lesson plans were formulated around the TGfU (Teaching Games for Understanding) model of instruction.  In reference to Bunker & Thorpe’s Teaching Games for Understanding model, Step 1 introduces a game with specific rules and objectives; therefore engaging the students in game play emphasizing the ‘why’ before the ‘how’.  When starting our lesson the students participated in specific games that emphasized tactical problems such as the square game and the net movement game.  After a few minutes of game play we would call everyone in to teach them the skills needed to play successfully.  We would elaborate on the specific skills in order for proper execution.  Following the demonstrations and drills the students would then re-play the game with their enhanced knowledge and tactical abilities.  We worked with Bunker & Thorpe’s model from step 1 to step 6 to create game appreciation, tactical awareness, appropriate decision making, proper skill execution and overall enhanced performance.

Through our content analysis and the diverse assessment format the students will achieve the unit objectives.  The activities develop many skills in the social, cognitive and psychomotor domains. Skills that are enhanced include: team work, the basic fundamentals, an introduction to essential tactical components and a broad understanding for the game.  Through the breakdown of skills in our content analysis one can see the process by which the students will gain proficiency with on the “ball” and off the “ball” skills. We chose to use multiple evaluation tools to further broaden the student’s ability. The self evaluation using Game Performance Assessment Instrument (GPAI) which enables students to become competent and broaden their badminton knowledge.  Teacher evaluation was also done throughout each lesson on a scale from one to five (see assessment page) to evaluate student participation and effort.