Rationale:
In our lesson plans, we focused on teaching students tactical awareness, decision making, and skill execution. We included lots of drills that focus on movement, both off-the-ball and on the ball. The approach we used to teach skills in the context of playing the game is through a “whole-part-whole” method. The game is first played, then broken down into individual skill components, then played again. This helps students understand what skills and movements are necessary to accomplish the task, then gives them the opportunity to work on these skills before being put back in a game setting. After working on skills, students can also play a modified game form to exaggerate or represent certain skill components to further their understanding of how that skill is used in a game setting.
Our lesson plans covered several different skills, including passing, dribbling, shooting, and lay-ups. For passing, we focused on students passing with proper technique, both stationary and when in motion. We emphasized moving to get open, and moving into space after passing. We showed the class different types of dribbling, and used different drills to emphasize control and protecting the ball. When teaching shooting, we focused primarily on proper technique, and had students shoot from many different areas on the court while maintaining proper technique. For lay-ups, we emphasized taking off on the proper foot, raising the shooting knee, and keeping the ball high above the head when approaching the hoop. Within our lessons, we provided lots of opportunities for students to progress at their own pace according to their own abilities. For example, when doing a dribbling course, students got to choose whether they wanted to do a simple crossover dribble, or something more challenging such as between the legs or behind the back. For each lesson, we started with a game or representation of a game. We then asked the class what skills were most used in the games, and focused on them for the majority of the lesson, before putting them back in a game setting. This allows students to understand how skills are used in a game situation, instead of having them learn skills that they don’t fully understand the importance of.
When we created our lesson plans, we focused on the psychomotor, cognitive, and affective/social learning domains. This helped us structure our lessons and make sure optimal learning was taking place for the students.
The psychomotor domain includes the physical aspects of what is being taught, both on-the-ball skills and off-the-ball movements (Griffin, Mitchell, & Oslin, 1997). This a part of all our lesson plans, as we emphasized proper technique and skill execution in all our lessons as well as moving into open space.
The cognitive domain includes the knowledge and understanding students have of the game, and how they use this knowledge to improve their performance (Griffin, Mitchell, & Oslin, 1997). We included this in our lesson plan by giving the students the chance to make decisions in both drills and games. We also asked them questions to reflect their understanding, such as when you would use a jump shot as opposed to a stationary shot. We asked open ended questions, so the students had to think about their answers before responding.
The social/affective domain includes the personal behavior and emotions students demonstrate during the game (Griffin, Mitchell, & Oslin, 1997). We helped create a positive learning environment by taking the time to learn student’s names so we could use their names to praise them. We made everyone feel included by establishing rules such as every team mate having to touch the ball before a basket was scored, and we encouraged students to pick new partners for every drill. Working in groups and in partners helps students learn important cooperation skills, and gives them personal responsibility.
Click below for a link to Griffin, Mitchell, & Olsin’s ‘Teaching Sport Concepts and Skills: A Tactical Games Approach” article.
Mitchell_Griffin_and_Olsen_-_Teaching_Sport_Concepts_and_Skills_Ch2.pdf
