Our group have decided to do a case study of a general PE lesson aboout teaching rope skipping under some assumption. For example there are a few highly differentiated students, like ADHD, Autism and limb coordination problem. So let's discuss a lesson plan with differentiated instruction, like classroom setting and learning objective, in order to engage all students to involve in the lesson.
Rope skipping is a common sport that everyone should know it. We assume that it is a form 3 class and all of them are novices. In about three lessons, we will teach some skipping skills about single and long ropes.
I think the first thing the PE teachers need to do is to observe and find out which students are needed for special education or highly differentiated in the whole class. For instance, in the warming up part, students are allowed to do skipping with 100 times and teachers can find out a few students who can do continuous one and some are not good at skipping.
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Leung Kwan Wai
2/17/2014 01:40:15 pm
In addition, we assume the class size is 30 students. Also, for the warm up session, it is great to invite students to skip since it can develop the sense of rope skipping to them, however, I think the instruction can be modified for more encouragement instead of in form of a task to do. I.e Encourage students to skip as many as they can instead of request them to skip 100 times. To be specific, the observation that we make in the warm up session should list out the perimeter of the differences in their ability such as the height the jump in each skip, the rhythm of their skipping, the body position of them when skipping and the total number of they can perform.
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Tang Chui Ying
2/25/2014 12:42:02 am
How about we ask those students who perform well to lead the warm-up exercise?We can shift the duty.I think such encouragement may help increase the engagement of students in PE lessons.
Btw,for those hyperactive students, we may request/encourage them to skip more. I know that burning out their energy is one of the way to cool down(both physical and mental energy) those hyperactive students.
So Wai Hong
2/18/2014 11:27:36 am
In the discussion, we should tackle 2 themes (1.how to identify SEN's/differentiated students & 2. ways to cope with different special educational needs) based on rope skipping class.
For the identification, we should observe each student according to some criterias e.g: attentiveness, hperactivity and ability etc. After the observation and identification of SEN's students, we can find out different types of SEN's students (e.g: ADHD, Autistic spectrum disorder(ASD) ,etc) and different levels of abilities on the class. Firstly, in the following, we discuss about the ways to deal with the problem of different levels of abilities on the class.
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Sally
2/25/2014 10:00:04 am
Something interesting about PE in differentiated instruction to share:
https://www.everactive.org/uploads/files/Documents/Beyond%20One%20Size%20Participant%20Handout.pdf
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Sally
2/25/2014 10:01:51 am
Some more to share:
1. For primary school: http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/13804/1/physicaleducationpe.pdf
2. For secondary school: http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/13805/1/physicaleducationpe.pdf
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Leung Kwan Wai
2/26/2014 12:37:26 pm
I think for the 1st lesson, teacher should be the leader of the warm up session because most of the students do not know not to do, nevertheless, the other sessions should be in charged by the us. However, after the 1st lesson, we can observe who is better, therefore, inviting them to be the small group leader is possible.
I agree to ask those hyperactive students to skip more to burn their energy and become more happy.
Did we miss the discussion on the learning objective both lesson and unit?
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So Wai Hong
2/26/2014 12:52:23 pm
Yes! Thank you for reminding. We should talk about the learning objectives. I think the students should learn and obtain:
3. Cater for different learning diversity needs (Both differentiated students can get the sense of achievement)
4. Basic cognitive/ knowledge of rope skipping ( E.g Types of rope ( size,length etc , Skills of skipping)
5. Providing time for students' movement
6.Get enjoyment
Yip Kam Tin
2/17/2014 03:09:52 am
Then what's next after we have discerned those who have special educational needs? Let's envisage there is a normal distribution of skipping abilities in a class. Then, can any strategies be used? According to Tomlinson's Equalizer, there are many aspects we can do with a simple rope skipping teaching. Take Foundational-Transformation aspect as an example, we could assign those who perform well with relatively advanced skipping skill practices, or even let them improvise new skipping fancies.
This is my opinion and of course, there are many other possibilities else. let's continue the discussion.
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Chu Man Man
2/17/2014 11:41:51 am
Yes, i agree. For those who want to improvise new skipping skills, teachers can give them some support first as they will feel bored if they once finish the skill teached and assigned. Sometimes a few of them will disrupt teachers' lesson with reporting to teacher one by one once they have done it. It is so disturbing for teachers to keep assisting and observing class. As you said, according to Tomlinson's Equalizer, we can not only let students to create new fancies, but also give them some advanced missions like skipping the same new teached skills in the back side or doubled rope rather than the easier one (front side). Instead of giving them high autonomy to choose what they want to skip, it is a more appropriate way to control class progress.
Also, teachers cannot just put most focus on those gifted students and most of the class can just practice a general performance as lesson plan. Therefore, using an “anchor activity" is a good strategy for managing a differentiated class as said by Tomlinson. When the students have completed the given tasks, like performing well with 2 or 3 skipping skills, they can automatically do the interesting and creative anchor activity that combine those skills into a continuous way as a whole performance instead of just sitting at sides and doing nothing. It can depend on students' learning progress and autonomy. Weaker students can also see anchor activity as a goal to put more concentration and take part in the lesson.
At the end of the lesson, we can also give those gifted students to present or give the performance to the whole class. They will have a better confidence and satisfaction and are willing to learn new but relatively simple skills next time.
Let's talk about what other better DI can we use in the PE lesson?
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Tang Chui Ying
2/25/2014 12:53:53 am
Refer to Yip's coment.As you mentioned abt the Tomlinson's Equalizer,I have one more point to add. For those fast learner or those who r good at skipping, we can leave more space to them and at the same time we can take care those who learn slower.That means,the role of fast learners should change from less independence to greater independence. Teachers should not give too much advice to those who learn fast. I think those who learn fast can group to form a homogeneous group. They can work together to develop a group skipping fancy.Do you think it works?
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Chu Man Man
2/25/2014 11:22:45 am
Thanks Tang for your suggestion.
An above online reading from Sally (https://www.everactive.org/uploads/files/Documents/Beyond%20One%20Size%20Participant%20Handout.pdf) states clearly about grouping ways in PE. It includes ability, interest-level, peer-to-peer grouping and cooperative learning groups.
One way is to having students assist each other with specific needs that we give the talented students to teach weaker students.
Another one is just what Tang have mentioned. Besides peer-to-peer grouping, we can group them who learn faster as a group to ensure their high learning atmosphere. Moreover, form 3 adolescents care most about peer relationship and this can be an appropriate motivation. But remember to ensure the classroom discipline, which we should not put those naughty students as a gorup.
Wong Yui Ching
2/25/2014 11:29:51 am
Yes. Different grouping strategies can stimulate students in learning. Fast learners can group together to develop new fancies and invite them to demonstrate in front of others students. Its can develop the sense of achievement. So the low learners can work hard to upgrade to the fast learners group.
So Wai Hong
2/17/2014 02:08:57 pm
Undoubtedly, anchor activity is an appropriate strategy for stimulating those gifted students to finish some extra and challenging tasks. Meanwhile, It can be a target for those students who are not capable of rope skipping. For example, as Yip mentioned before, we can let them create some new and innovative skipping skills. Besides, teachers should organize discussion for anchor activity to engage whole students in class reflection after all activities at the lesson. As the result, the learning atmosphere would be well improved.
Of course, anchor activity can arouse students' interest in learning, but it is not an only way. Tiered tasks are the other way. According to Tomlinson, tiered tasks mean the varied levels of activities introduced for a mixed-ability class in an attempt to meet different needs of students. Take rope skipping as an example, for those lower ability students, teachers can assign some easier tasks to them such as doing normal front skipping 20 times continuously. For
those high capability students, teachers can design a more complex or challenging task. For example, cross skipping or skiing skipping 20 times. Teachers should design a series task which contain different level. When finishing a level of task, students can start with next level. Hence, tiered tasks can cater for the learning diversity of a class.
So, any opinion of tiered tasks or any other ideas?
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Wong Yui Ching
2/18/2014 11:41:01 am
As So and Chu mentioned before, the foucs may mainly concentrated for catering the need of the high ability students. For example the 'Achor activities' and the 'Tiered tasks'. They suggested good activities that can challenge the high-ability students. So that those students feel more interested about the lesson and more willing to engage the lesson.
However ,on the other hand, an effective differentiated instruction should not neglect these students with relatively low ability or some Autism and limb coordination problem. The students with Autism problem will find difficulty in learning, especially in a general PE lesson, the venue of the lesson must be a spacious place. They will feel embarrassed because they think every students' sight will focus on their shameful performance. Besides, they hate the feeling of troubling the teammates in a teamwork games. As a result, they unwilling to engage the lesson.
Rope skipping is a suitable PE skill can cater the need for those students. Rope skipping can perform by your own or cooperate with other students. We can assign some individual task to students first.Such as skipping with 100 times ,like Chu said. But the difference is that teacher should monitor those students in an away place . Also, everyone should do the individual task by their own and should not disturb other students. Those students then will not feel embarrassed since on one have free time to observe others.
If they perform well, we can appreciates them and encourage them to do more. After they succeed and willing to engage the lesson , then can try some cooperation skills later.
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Chu Man Man
2/19/2014 01:46:30 pm
You are absolutely right, Ching. Rope skipping can be an individual and team sport which requires both skills and cooperation with teammates, like long ropes. For those Autism students, they have difficulties on social interaction, usually display limited play skills and spend much time in repetitive activities according to a research of meeting students with special educational needs by Chung, K. K. H..
For the lesson plan, it is great for students with autism or even passive character to practice or perform new individual fancies by themselves with teacher's assistance. Skipping can also fit and satisfy the needs of them that they like engaging in repetitive motor movement.
The next step is to observe student's relationship in the lesson. When students can do the fancies well, we can pair up or group them to play long ropes. It really depends on the communication and relationship of them. Since individual fancies can build up their confidence to do harder one and it can be applied on long ropes. However, if the student with Autism still hesitate to join with others, we should not force them to group in. It is better to do the station way, which every student has their own tasks in the lesson, like individual rope, couple rope or long rope. They can transfer the station cycle one by one in order to fulfill different needs.
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Chu Man Man
2/19/2014 02:27:31 pm
I think we better discuss about the common features of different student types first and further talk about the practical strategies used in the lesson, don't we?
For the students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), they are poor to pay attention to the class and have excessive activity and physical restlessness. Here are some advices and let's discuss:
1. Arrange a suitable position that having lesson in the front corner area. Firstly, we can observe and guide them as soon as possible. Secondly, safety problem is also concerned since they might swing the rope irregularly and it can minimize opportunity of hurting others.
2. Make strict impression in the first lesson. Instead of just telling them softly to stop mischievous behaviors, we should keep a severe image. They would know what the teacher baseline is and so they won't challenge us.
3. Appreciate students individually. Teachers should encourage and them to try more, no matter how they perform. It can give them more motivation and interest to engage in the lesson. However, we cannot make others think strangely so it is good to tell them "Good job" individually.
4. Pay attention to those students all the time whenever you teach others.
Actually, the above strategies can be applied in other students and develop a better learning atmosphere.
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Leung Kwan Wai
2/21/2014 06:38:45 pm
I want to put forward the discussion of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) students in PE lesson. I agree with what Chu said before.
In addition for point 1, the space control of the PE lesson is important, no one should be neglected and not be seen by teacher, especially ADHD students, so putting them in the front corner is a good management, also, I think we can boost up their activity level by switching their position during lesson. For example, ADHD student A is first at the left front corner and later on we can arrange he/she to right front corner. It can stimulate their visual feeling by different angle of taking lesson and increase their activity level.
For point 2, strict attitude is a solution to control the discipline in the classroom however we should not be too strict over the whole lesson because there are some Autism students in our class as we assume there are normal disturbion of SEN in our class. Too strict will inhibit the Autism students. Therefore I think maintain a strict but friendly environment is a better approach of it.
Nevertheless, encouragement is always the must to motivate our students, so I agree the point 3.
In our later discussion, we should consider our student as a whole because there are ADHD, Autism, limb coodination problem students in our class. like what I have done in point 2.
Shall we move on to the DI in Autism?
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Wong yui ching
2/22/2014 01:09:46 pm
i totally agree with what Chu and Leung mentioned. In the PE lesson, teacher should maintain a strict and friendly environment to all students. Some principals must be respect but if they are, it welcomes students to play actively in the lesson. So all students will engage more to the lesson.
In addition, Leung and Chu have raised a key point in a PE lesson . Encouragement is a must in a PE lesson.When trying a new skill
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Wong Yui Ching
2/22/2014 01:52:39 pm
i totally agree with what Chu and Leung mentioned. In the PE lesson, teacher should maintain a strict and friendly environment to all students. Some principals must be respect but if they are, it welcomes students to play actively in the lesson. So all students will engage more to the lesson.
In addition, Leung and Chu have raised a key point in a PE lesson . Encouragement is a must in a PE lesson.When trying a new skill, almost every students cant control it well, what should the teacher do is to initiate the students to try more. If once they feel frustrated, they will give up easily and wont try the new skill anymore. Especially the inactive students. So encourgement is important.
I think Leung and Chu have provided some good suggestions for those ADHD students. As other SEN students may exist in the PE lesson, we should discuss it as a whole. So may be we can move on to the topic of Austim. If there are any better suggestions, we can discuss it later.
As i mentioned before, Austim students will feel embarrassed when perform some body movement in front of other students. So their participation level are relatively low. However, rope skipping is a good sports skill which can concern the need for Austim students. Rope skipping have individual tasks and also cooperation task. Teacher can assign all the students to perform the individual task first and later turn to try some cooperation task. Those Austim students can develop the sense of achievement when performing the individual task. After that they will start to move their body and engage more in the lesson.
Of course, dont forget to encourge them more. The most difficult part is the beginning. Apart from encourgement, teacher can demonstrate some fascinating and high level skills, or provide some world-class competition video to them. Students’ interest level can be increase through the demonstration.
I know that it is just a part of suggestion to conern the need for Austim students, welcome to provide better suggestions or discuss it more.
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Sally
2/25/2014 10:07:43 am
What would you do to encourage students? Any examples?
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Leung Kwan Wai
2/25/2014 10:19:37 am
There are two types of encouragement: verbal and non-verbal encouragement. For verbal, we may say:"Let's try it together!" when they have low interest or motivation to try the skill and show the sympathic action to them. " Keep going and you can make it! " whenever they are going to give up. And I will leave the non-verbal encouragement part to my classmate.
Wong Yui Ching
2/25/2014 10:37:03 am
For the non verbal one, clapping the hands is the useful and the direct way to encourage the students to do more. Also, teacher can nod and use positive facial expressions such as smiling to applaud their good work.
Tang Chui Ying
2/26/2014 09:16:57 pm
Building up good relationship with students seems very important.I like Leung's suggestion "Let's try it together". It's really encouraging! Besides,once we think they have improvement,we should praise them!
So Wai Hong
2/24/2014 09:49:33 pm
Yes, involving cooperation skills or tasks in PE lessons is an important factor that needs to be considered. As we all know, having difficulties with communication and social interaction are the major characteristics of students with autism. A majority group of autism students will be hard to perform well in verbal and non-verbal communication. Even they would deter themselves from social interaction or cooperation. Hence, for teachers, cooperation tasks and programs should be included in lesson plan in order to push autism students for more communication. In rope skipping lessons, long roping is one of the effective skill to build up team spirit and generate more cooperation. Thus, PE teachers should make use of it.
In addition to the difficulty of social interaction, autism students also find it hard to learn somethings. It is not surprising that autism students have low self-esteem and they are not confident to learn new things because of the low comprehensive ability. Therefore, teachers should use appropriate educational tactics and strategies to adjust their needs. Structured and consistent ways are suitable for them in learning. Teachers can break skills down into step-by-step procedures for making autism students more easier in learning.
In rope skipping lessons, teachers should simplify the skills. For example, front roping is the most fundamental skill of rope skipping. Teachers should ensure them that can be capable of doing front roping. After that, while teaching a new skills such as cross roping, students should learn it based on the most simple skill (front roping).
When autism students can learn a new skill successfully, their self-confidence would be increased. So, breaking down skills into step-by-step procedures is beneficial to autism students.
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Wong Yui Ching
2/25/2014 12:09:49 am
Breaking down the skills into step-by-step is a good idea and really useful for Autism students in learning. They can learn the basic and fundamental skills first. It is beneficial in building up their confidence in rope skipping and further learning in advanced skills. Later on, when they enjoy in playing rope skipping may help improving their social interaction skills.
However, this goal is so ideal and needs long time efforts. How to attract those students to start their first trial remains important. Autism students have low concentration ability. They easily distract by other things. Therefore, those students may cant catch up with the instruction and the demonstration by teacher or through video. Teacher can ask them some simple question to fascinate their attention. For example, ' How many times the participant skip his rope?' or ' How many skills involved in the performance that are not the same?' The students' attention can drawn by the performance. After they answer the question, may be '10 times', teacher can ask them to try '10 times' front roping which the performance shown. Teacher can also try together with the students. As a result, they feel respected because they think they are on an equal basis and may be interested in rope skipping.
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Chu Man Man
2/25/2014 10:09:13 am
When we talk about physical education, it is important to discuss teaching objectives in three domains:psychomoter, cognitive and affective domain. From the above discussion, i think we have gone through lots of psychomoter strategies in solving different SEN students. In fact, PE class puts most focus on psychomoter domain, but we should not neglect the cognitive one.
According to a journal of Debby Mitchell and Cynthia J Hutchinson, i suggest that using graphic organizers is a great way to build whole-person development in order to deal with individual difference in physical level and let those students have better satisfaction. Since some students perform well in psychomoter domain, while some in cognitive domain.
For instance, we have brainstorm before lesson to make students aware of different level of skipping fancies. At the same time, it is good if we give outline or concept map of the lesson. Last but not least, students are able to know the correct sequencing of skipping skills from demo video and snapshot.
We can develop students higher level of Bloom's texonomy, like analysis, from graphic organizors making them have better comprehensive knowledge and problem-solving skills in PE.
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Wong Yui Ching
2/25/2014 10:16:52 am
How can use graphic organizers to build whole person development?
Can u briefly describe it or give some examples??
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Chu Man Man
2/25/2014 10:31:34 am
As i mention above, what i mean in building whole person development is that we are not only focusing on psychomoter domain, but also cognitive domain through visual cues in graphic organizers.
Sometimes the practical skill is partly supported by the knowledge level and it is also good for high ability students to have skill enhancement. Graphic organizer is just an example of cognitive domain and thats why it can build all-rounded development.
Is it clear to answer your question?
So Wai Hong
2/25/2014 10:45:01 am
In cognitive domain, teachers should let students understand the knowledge behind the rope skipping. Video reflection is the useful ways for enhancing the cognitive part. For example, watching the intensive rope skipping skills video. students can undoubtedly understand more the techniques of rope skipping.
Besides, group discussion should be established after video watching. We can divide different types of students into different groups E.g: High ability and low ability students are in one group. High ability students can point out what did they learn on the video so that low ability students can understand more.
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Chu Man Man
2/25/2014 10:55:21 am
So, your point of video watching just inspires me to think of taking video of new fancies in lesson as an evaluation and assessment tool. I know some school can provide DV equippment or even iPad for taking video. If possible, it is good to take video of their own performance and send it to teachers to give comments.
This also fits the needs of cogntive domain that they analyse and evaluate skill performed by their own and teachers. Furthermore, it gives more individual support.
So Wai Hong
2/25/2014 11:13:43 am
Besides cognitive domain, I want to add more details about DI students. As mentioned before, tiered tasks and anchor activity are effective for dealing with DI problem. Organizing grouping is an other way to cope with this problem. teachers can organize two groups like advanced group and remedial group. High ability students can be divided into advanced group for learning the advanced skills. In contrast, low ability students can study in remedial group for basic skills. Also, While low ability students can perform better, they would be switched to advanced group. As the result, Different grouping can stimulate differentiated students in learning.
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Leung Kwan Wai
2/25/2014 11:27:26 am
For your reference. Here are the skills, we are going to teach in the class, in Hong Kong standard, there are totally 4 grades of skills in rope skipping, in our PE lesson, we are going to teach grade 1 and some grade 2 skills.
Grade 1 ( front rope): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH8HBsZ6_Xo&list=PLj9S8IsnITHJZG_CKbyG3kctS7kbOeQE2
Grade 1 ( back rope): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5V-MQ2lSJU&list=PLj9S8IsnITHJZG_CKbyG3kctS7kbOeQE2
Rope skipping is a common sport that everyone should know it. We assume that it is a form 3 class and all of them are novices. In about three lessons, we will teach some skipping skills about single and long ropes.
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Group 2
CHU Man Man LEUNG Kwan Wai SO Wai Hong WONG Yui Ching