Teaching Methods
Through our experiences in teaching and learning to teach, we have discovered what methods of teaching to use in order to get the most out of our class, in this section we will take an in depth look at what we have learned...
How we speak
We have learned through our experiences that there are certain ways we can use our language and turn a phrase that will engage the class.
With educational gymnastics there are a number of teaching styles we can use including:
Guided Discovery
This approach allows students to come to their own conclusions with your help,. You the teacher are asking questions that make the student think and ultimately come to the conclusion you hope for where they are thinking for themselves and working together to find answers.
This style is particularly useful in gymnastics as it is a useful approach to take for movement challenges.
How we speak
We have learned through our experiences that there are certain ways we can use our language and turn a phrase that will engage the class.
- Begin each and every class with a brief introduction. Everything must have a purpose. Let the students know what they will be doing in the class today-what skill they will be developing and how they will progress it. Check for previous knowledge of the skill you are teaching for example "Has anyone done a front roll before?". Or you could relate back to another class or experience "Last time we did a front roll and today we will practice the backward roll, who can tell me the points we took from the front roll? How did we protect our heads?"
- Always encourage problem solving when giving your task to the student by using words like "explore" and "challenge yourself" for example "Explore all of the ways you can get from one end of the mat to the other"...
- Offer a lot of positive feedback to the students, let them know at all times what they are doing right, and if they are doing something wrong make sure that you tell them in a positive way for example "The way you are rolling is good but what if you try ______ do you find that easier?"
- Let them give you feedback as to what they see when performing the skill, what muscles they feel to be working the most. What they find easy and what they find to be more difficult.
- Ask open ended questions to engage their attention e.g, "how does it feel when you roll forward slowly?" or "How could you keep your roll straighter and more balanced"
- Use positive phrasing when instructing students. Avoid the word "Don't"
- Use a technique known as the "Compliment Sandwich". State a positive, followed by a correction, followed by another positive. For example "Your head position is perfect on the front roll, try keeping your legs tucked in a little bit more and you will travel smoother, and your landing position is excellent" PositiveCorrectionPositive.
- Make the students think about how the skills they are developing differ from skills they have developed already and always refer to similarities they mite have.
With educational gymnastics there are a number of teaching styles we can use including:
- guided discovery,
- reciprocal,
- practice,
- self teaching’
Guided Discovery
This approach allows students to come to their own conclusions with your help,. You the teacher are asking questions that make the student think and ultimately come to the conclusion you hope for where they are thinking for themselves and working together to find answers.
This style is particularly useful in gymnastics as it is a useful approach to take for movement challenges.
Reciprocal
This style allows more decision making responsibilities being given to the students. Here the students are the observers and learn from each other. A task sheet is given and students work together to satisfy the criteria, The observer provides positive feedback while the other performs the task. After the performer has done the skill they switch roles and the learning process continues. This style of teaching is relevant and useful in educational gymnastics as it puts the focus on the student and they get to see where the other is doing well and making mistakes. Most mistakes in gymnastics such as wrong hand or head position are common and recurring, so for a student to see another student making this mistake would make them correct it themselves
Practice
This style allows the students to work on their own, to correct their own mistakes. This style is useful for educational gymnastics as it gives us as teachers an opportunity to get one on one time and offer one on one feedback to the student. This style would be especially useful if you have a student with physical limitations such as weight problems, so that you could help them without them feeling like they are being picked out of the group.
Self Teaching
In this style of teaching the student themselves is discovering what they can do and how to correct their mistakes. This style would be useful in that it passes some of the responsibility to the student, with your supervision they will develop their skills knowing that they are in control of what they are learning. This is a very valid and helpful style to use when teaching educational gymnastics.
This style allows more decision making responsibilities being given to the students. Here the students are the observers and learn from each other. A task sheet is given and students work together to satisfy the criteria, The observer provides positive feedback while the other performs the task. After the performer has done the skill they switch roles and the learning process continues. This style of teaching is relevant and useful in educational gymnastics as it puts the focus on the student and they get to see where the other is doing well and making mistakes. Most mistakes in gymnastics such as wrong hand or head position are common and recurring, so for a student to see another student making this mistake would make them correct it themselves
Practice
This style allows the students to work on their own, to correct their own mistakes. This style is useful for educational gymnastics as it gives us as teachers an opportunity to get one on one time and offer one on one feedback to the student. This style would be especially useful if you have a student with physical limitations such as weight problems, so that you could help them without them feeling like they are being picked out of the group.
Self Teaching
In this style of teaching the student themselves is discovering what they can do and how to correct their mistakes. This style would be useful in that it passes some of the responsibility to the student, with your supervision they will develop their skills knowing that they are in control of what they are learning. This is a very valid and helpful style to use when teaching educational gymnastics.