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Learning through the whole person - Week 3

The third lesson focused on the whole individual and the involvement with the whole child.

S - Socially P - Physically I - Intellectually E - Emotionally S - Spiritually

Social aspects of PE include children playing together and socially interacting. They learn values such as discipline, organisation, teamwork, responsibility, patience and tolerance. These help to mould them into balanced individuals.

Physically PE maintains good health and fitness levels, strengthens the body, develops coordination,  sustains motivation to be active, promotes a healthy lifestyle and  evoke a competitive spirit within their peer groups.

Intellectually it helps to get a more restful night's sleep, it encourages you to think at a higher level and improve concentration.

Emotionally, PE helps to reduce anxiety and depression. Exercise is said to raise levels of serotonin and endorphins which are chemicals that have a calming and anti-depressive effect on the mind. Endorphins boost mood and concentration levels and overall improvement in self-esteem.

Spiritually, PE gives rise to attributes of honesty, respect of other person's skills, and another's personal space.

Teaching Physical Education helps children to develop motor skills, both fine and gross, whilst increasing knowledge of movement of bodies and develop overall fitness levels. It encourages a  desire to maintain physically activeness throughout a lifetime. Teaching PE also give rise to the awareness of movement in the body. Skills on moving the body can be transferred from Primary to Secondary Level. 

Body development occurs continuously and is governed by both the biological and environmental factors. 

Knowledge of Physical Development of Child:
When teaching PE the teacher must be mindful of mixing gender for e.g. races - male only or female only races. There are muscular differences between boys and girls which may give rise to either gender having complex. 

Knowledge of Cognition:
Teachers must be cognizant of the fact children develop cognitive stages differently at different ages. According to Jean Piaget Theory of Cognitive Development, with specific attention to the 2 stages namely the Pre-operational(2-7yrs) and Concrete Stages(7-11yrs) - these ages when children are in primary school. These stages clearly show the children moving from the Egocentric to being more logical in thinking. Due to this cognitive shift, teachers should include activities which include more 'group-work' to focus less on 'self'.

 Concepts of Motor Learning:
  • Attention limits - a task should be broken down and allocate a realistic time 
  • Transfer - basic elements of a skill should be taught and then children are able to transfer skill
  • Skill Demonstration - the use of a video, pictures, focus on the 'critical elements' of a skill
  • Task Progression - follow a sequence of tasks, from simple to complex (structure)
  • Feedback - both Intrinsic(feelings on how they performed) and Congruent (external).
Motor Learning involves forming a schema in the memory muscle of the brain, developing patterns to produce movements. 

There are three stages: Beginning (repetition) > Intermediate (associative)> Advanced (automatic)

Practical Lesson

Frisbee Exercise followed this progression:

Stance > Recoil > Unfold > Summation of Forces > Release > Follow Through

Above image: shows the  progression with a Javelin thrower - same principle applies.


The Stance allowed the participant to gain balance at the start, the recoil was a controlled backward movement in order to send the object forward, the unfold was the forward movement of the arm and the summation of forces (combination of forces in several parts of the body to maximize the force in the body), the release of the object involves the forward movement of the body and then finally the follow through which assists with balance and stability.

The physical act of doing the exercise repeatedly gave a much clearer understanding of the progression and the stages required in what initially appeared as a very simple movement of throwing a frisbee.


References:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/physical-social-and-emotional-benefits-of-participating-in-sports.html

https://www.livestrong.com/article/92264-benefits-deep-breathing/?ajax=1&is=1

https://www.verywellmind.com/piagets-stages-of-cognitive-development-2795457

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