Article: Teacher Responses to Teaching Games for Understanding

Author: Joy I. Butler

Summary: Adrienne Bennest

Issue/Focus: The main focus of this article is to present a study on how teachers felt about the tactical approach of Teaching Games for Understanding (TGFU) in comparison to the traditional skill-based approach.  Its intention is to help teachers decide whether or not they should include TGFU into their classroom based on their teaching style. In the article Butler examines the reactions of teachers and then creates a summary of what is necessary in order to implement TGFU successfully.

Reasoning: By observing the teachers (who taught one session with a tactical teaching style and one session with a technical teaching style) it was apparent that the technical teaching style was "teachers giving directions to students" while the tactical style brought about student understanding.  After conducting one hour interviews with the ten teachers, a profile was created of teachers most likely to adopt the TGFU approach.  Teachers were then able to be placed into three groups 1)those holding traditional views inherent in the technical approach 2)those holding innovative views and 3) those holding both but no correlations could be made as to previous teaching style and the success in adapting TGFU. 

Assumptions: Butler's only assumption in this article is that the ten teachers of this study represent the norm.  However, this article is meant to be a resource for teachers who are curious about whether TGFU works in the classroom.

Conclusion:  The teachers of the study came up with many concerns that were catergorized into student centered concerns and teacher centered concerns.  For example, a student centered concern was that TGFU emphasizes the cognitive at the expense of the physical.  A teacher centered concern was that students only want to play the game.  The teachers also made suggestions for how to implement TGFU into the classroom as well as implications for adding TGFU in the curriculum design.

Personal Comments:  I found this article to be very informative because it used real teachers to anaylze and pick apart the tactical approach.  It provided many concerns with the tactical approach but never really provided any suggestions on how we could overcome those concerns.  Otherwise I think it is definately something we as young teachers should read before completely buying into to TGFU and the tactical approach because it shows how some teachers are not completely sold on the approach after putting it into practice.