Article Review Assignment will summarize and provide application for a pre-selected peer-reviewed journal article that is related to the topics prese

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Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance

ISSN: 0730-3084 (Print) 2168-3816 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujrd20

Developing Questioning in Game-centered Approaches

Stephen Harvey, Edward Cope & Ruan Jones

To cite this article: Stephen Harvey, Edward Cope & Ruan Jones (2016) Developing Questioning in Game-centered Approaches, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 87:3, 28-35, DOI: 10.1080/07303084.2015.1131212

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07303084.2015.1131212

Published online: 18 Feb 2016.

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Stephen harvey

edward Cope

ruan JoneS

Developing

Stephen Harvey ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the Col- lege of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV. Edward Cope is a lecturer in the Department of Sport, Health and Exercise Science at the University of Hull in Hull, UK. Ruan Jones is a senior lecturer in the School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University in Leeds, UK.

Game-centered approaches (GCAs) to teaching and coaching are, arguably, not widely practiced (Roberts & Fairclough, 2011). The GCA movement gathered momen- tum through teaching games for understanding (TGFU) in the early 1980s when former practitioners turned researchers

Rod Thorpe, David Bunker and Len Almond (1986), became tired of watch- ing teachers emphasize skill techniques, only to see those skills break down during game play. They believed that students could perform proficiently in games without much technical expertise. Their “alternative” way of games teaching offered a more holistic notion of games, where the learning process was reconceptualized based on the needs of the learner. By playing what was usually a representative form of the game first (e.g., 3 versus 3 soccer), it was envisioned that the learners would develop game appreciation followed by tactical awareness, creating the need for them to think about ways to make decisions to solve the problems that arose while the game was being played. If the game became too difficult, modifications could be made using the peda- gogical principle of exaggeration (such as “no-go zones” or using multiple goals). Alternatively, if the game kept breaking down because of a lack of technical competence, a skill drill (Oslin & Mitchell, 2006) could be set up in order to improve the learners’ technical competence. After this, the learners could always return to the game to develop game performance.

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A major challenge in transitioning to a GCA is having the peda- gogical content knowledge (PCK) required to create an effective learning environment (Gurvitch, Blankenship, Metzler, & Lund, 2008). This includes being able to “get the game right” while, at the same time, being able to step back and facilitate learning through observing game play and developing learners’ knowledge through skillful and progressive instruction (Hopper, 2002).

One major component of such skillful and progressive instruc- tion is questioning (Butler, 1997). To play games and to play them well, learners need to be able to work independently to solve the

problems that the game presents (Light, 2013). This creates a nec- essary congruency between practitioners’ beliefs and their actual actions and behaviors (Light, 2013). Consequently, the importance of teachers’ or coaches’ ability to facilitate learning through ques- tioning cannot be understated (Butler, 1997).

While there are a number of articles on the teaching of and as- sessment within GCAs (Harvey, 2007; Harvey & van der Mars, 2010; Hopper, 2002; Werner, Thorpe, & Bunker, 1996), there are few practitioner articles that have focused specifically on question- ing and the employment of effective questioning methods within

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games lessons or through the teaching of a GCA (Butler, 1997). But- ler’s article used Bloom’s taxonomy to demonstrate how teachers could begin to transition to a questioning approach underpinned by a constructivist teaching and learning philosophy. However, one could say that in order to develop questions using this framework, in-depth content knowledge might be required to be able to plan specific questions that meet the different levels of the taxonomy. Moreover, as will be highlighted later in this article, these questions may not enable the needed level of discussion, debate, dialogue and reflection among the students themselves because the questions are always being initiated by the teacher or coach.

It is therefore the purpose of this article to share three ques- tioning methods that can be employed during the teacher’s or coach’s employment of a GCA at the upper elementary, middle or high school level. The three methods proposed (i.e., the debate of ideas, the GROW model and the reflective toss) offer a more open approach to questioning that empowers the learn- ers to take responsibility for their own learning with the guidance and facilitation of the teacher or coach.

Three Questioning Methods Questioning is one of the central learning-

intervention tools that should be used in GCA. However, not only do teachers and coaches have difficulty with using questions in the first place, but when they do, they tend to be low-level com- prehension or recall questions. For example, working with groups of elementary and second- ary school preservice teachers who had learned to teach using a GCA during their teacher education program in Singapore, McNeill, Fry, Wright, Tan and Rossi (2008) found that the majority of ques- tions (76 percent) were substantially low-order, involving knowledge or recall. This is in compari- son to open-ended or divergent questions, which made up only 6.7 percent of teacher questioning, and therefore prevented learners from develop- ing their tactical awareness and critical thinking. Generally, what the teachers in McNeill et al.’s (2008) study had done was use questions that largely necessitated a yes/no answer. Here is an example of this type of question in the context of asking players about the use of space during a small-sided soccer game:

Q: Do you think that “Player X” ran into a good space?

A: Yes/No

Q: Was the decision to dribble a good one?

A: Yes/No

In this example, although the teacher is using questions, they are low-order recall questions from Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956). One way of moving beyond the lower- order types of questions would be to utilize some form of structured reflection opportunities.

Bonus Badminton II

Advanced Game Variations: • Play mini-games to 5 points instead of 3

• Play full court

Game Description/Rules:

• Players play to try and win “zones.” “Zones” can be won by: (a) hitting an outright winner into a “zone” or (b) being the first player to get to 3 points—if this occurs the player gets to choose a zone

PLUS:

• The winning player is the one who gets all 7 zones first

• Zones can only be won once and zones cannot be traded

5 6

3

3

5

2

6

2

4

4

1

1

7 – body of player

7 – body of player

Name: Name:

Officials, remember: • Rally scoring • Balls on outside line are in

Scorekeeper: • Keep score—winner is the

player to get all 7 zones first

Tactical Awareness Questions: • What zones are easier to get via an outright winner? Why? • How do you decide which strokes to play at any given time? • In which order might you try and win zones? Why?

Figure 1. Bonus badminton game

The three methods highlighted in this article enable the teacher or coach to do just that, without the need to possess excellent con- tent knowledge or perfect observation and analysis skills. This is due to the repositioning of the teacher or coach to help the learn- ers with reflection on action, rather than providing them with the answer (Schön, 1983). And because the questions are structured in a particular way, they encourage discussion to critique game-play performance in order to debate ways in which to solve the tactical problems presented by the game.

Having said that, by using these three methods over time, prac- titioners would develop the skills necessary to scaffold learners’ experiences further. In the process, learners can progress toward more complex forms of thinking at the higher end of Bloom’s taxonomy (see Butler, 1997) or revised taxonomy (Anderson et al., 2001) such as the analysis, synthesis, evaluation and creation of knowledge-in-action (Schön, 1983). Accordingly, the three

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Game to develop off‐the‐ball movement and support

Organization 15 × 15 meter area

Task

The game starts in the central square with an attacking  player in possession.

Attacking players try to pass the ball among themselves  without letting defending players intercept the ball.

Players must combine to pass the ball among themselves five times to score one point.

The defending players guard/mark the attacking  players.

On scoring a point, the attacking team give possession  back to the opposing team as shown on the diagram.

Teaching Points Change direction quickly Shout when you want the ball Point where you want the ball

= attacker

= defender

Figure 2. 3 versus 3 modified invasion game

methods suggested here are presented in order of complexity. Over time, the teacher or coach can navigate more freely either within each of the methods, or by moving toward using the third method, which would necessitate higher levels of PCK than the first and second.

In order to showcase the questioning methods and their particu- lar application to “real” teaching and/or coaching situations, two game-play examples will be used. The first is a net/wall game where the students are engaged in a badminton “team” singles activity. The game is called Bonus Badminton II (see Figure 1) and focuses on the tactical problem of placement (Hastie, 2010). Players play in two separate teams of two or three players each, but only one player plays on the court at one time, with the court divided into seven zones. Players play a series of mini games to three points to win each of the seven zones. Zones can be won in two ways: by winning a mini game to three points (at which point they choose a zone) or by hitting an outright winner into any of the zones (e.g., if the shuttle lands on the floor in zone 2, the player would win that zone outright, and the mini game would start over). When one mini game is completed (by either a player winning a mini game or hitting an outright winner into one of the zones), players rotate, with the player who lost the last mini game going off, and the win- ner of that last mini game staying on the court. If the same player wins the next game, they rotate off as players can stay on court for a maximum of two mini games.

The second game scenario is a modified non-directional 3 versus 3 invasion game. It focuses on the tactical problem of maintaining possession of the ball (Mitchell, Oslin, & Griffin, 2006). The game can be played with the hands, feet or using a stick and ball. The game begins with a free pass from the center square from which the players combine to get five passes in order to score a point. The game can be modified in different ways by changing the number of passes needed to score a point, the size and shape of the playing

area, the nature of scoring (e.g., players have to get a player back into the center square to score), etc. (see Figure 2).

The net/wall game described (Figure 1) will be used as the con- text for the first two questioning methods presented, and the in- vasion game (Figure 2) will be used as the context for the third questioning method presented.

1. Debate of Ideas. Gréhaigne, Richard and Griffin (2005) provided a four-step framework that encompasses a pre-prepared list of generic questions for small teams of students to lead their own “tactical timeouts” through what they termed the “debate of ideas.” While its initial application was for team sports such as soc- cer, basketball and so on, the notion can also be applied to striking and fielding as well as net/wall sports. This framework can be seen in Table 1 alongside possible answers that teachers and coaches may look for.

The idea of having this four-step framework, especially in a physical education lesson or youth sport coaching session, is that the teacher or coach is likely to be facilitating and managing mul- tiple groups. Using this framework means that space is being cre- ated for discussion, debate, dialogue and reflection in order for the learners themselves to continually generate new action plans without the necessity of micro-management from the teacher or coach. Having said that, the teacher or coach could choose to stop game play at specific points for different groups and support the students through the use of probing questions such as “Please tell me more about that” or “What happened then?” (see Peterson & Taylor, 2012, p. 297).

2. GROW Model. An alternative four-step framework that the teacher or coach could employ is that suggested by Whitmore (2009). He presented the concept of the GROW (i.e., goal, reality, options/obstacles, will/way forward) model. While this was ini- tially developed for use in corporate institutions and business, it has gained traction in sports through the work of Gallwey (1974)

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and his Inner Game series, one of them being for a net/wall activity (i.e., tennis). This framework can be seen in Table 2.

The teacher or coach can present the framework to the learners and they can work their way through this during a tactical timeout or break in play adjudicated by themselves at specific points in the game or adjudicated by the teacher or coach. While the framework is quite easy to navigate, the learners will need to be taught its structure, and the teacher or coach would need to make time to work with each of the groups and facilitate whenever possible, providing prompts and probes such as those highlighted in the debate of ideas section (Peterson & Taylor, 2012). As with the debate of ideas framework, it is contended that, over time, the teacher or coach will feel more com- fortable with this as he or she uses it more and more and gains a greater understanding of the content be- ing delivered. As the teacher or coach progresses through either of the first two questioning meth- ods provided, they could then move slightly away from the prescriptive structure of these frameworks and work in some more flexibility to create the reflective toss questioning method highlighted next.

3. Reflective Toss. What is expected to occur through the debate of ideas is that the level of in- tergroup interaction within questioning episodes will increase. van Zee and Minstrell (1997) called this the “reflective toss.” The reflective toss begins with a statement from a student on their perspective on the game-play interaction during the game that was just played. Such a statement could be based on question 1 in Gréhaigne et al.’s (2005) debate of ideas (i.e., “Identify the particular strengths of the opposition players”), or it could consist of an alternative starter question planned by the teacher or coach. This stimulates an initial level of dialogue that creates additional prompts for further debate. The teacher’s or coach’s aim in using such a question is to “toss” responsibility back to the learners. Learners can then continue to help each other elaborate their thinking.

Table 1. Debate of Ideas during Tactical Timeouts

In your team or with your peer coach, discuss the following items during your tactical timeout or scheduled break in play:

1. Identify the particular strengths of the opposition players. e.g., particular individual players on the opposing team, patterns of play of the opposing players, physical strength, good attacking or solid defensive play and flair

2. What did you do well to cope with these strengths in the previous series of points or game? e.g., forced them away from the net, played them deep into the back court

3. What do you need to do to counteract the strengths of the opposing players? e.g., play the shuttle closer to the net, push the opposing players deeper into the back of their court before playing to the net

4. How will you do what you have mentioned in question 3 in order to be effective in the next part of the game? e.g., use more attacking shots such as drop shots and smashes, attempt to maintain longer rallies by not going for winning shots too early in the point or when off balance

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Table 2. Example of the Steps and Sequence of the GROW Model

Step 1: Establish the goal of the activity: this may, for example be to win zones, or specific zones in particular order. However, this may also be process orientated, such as using a particular pattern of play more often (e.g., play shots deep to the back of the court to open up space at the net and set up an attacking play).

Step 2: Examine the reality: here the learners describe their current reality. They may also consider interrogatives such as “what,” “when,” “where,” “who,” and “how much” (see Ramakrishnan, 2013). So the learners could consider what is occurring now and what the effects of this may be in relation to the above goal. This allows them to think about the next part of the model.

Step 3: Explore the options/obstacles: in this step the learners can discuss what else they could do to reach their goal and what changes need to occur. They can further write down any things they need to stop from occurring and any obstacles that are standing in the way of achieving their goal, such as a particular strength of an attacking player on the opposition or a tactic being used by an individual player on the opposition that they have not dealt with effectively.

Step 4: Establish the will/way forward: in this final part of the framework, the discussion is converted into a decision/action plan for the next bout of game play. The students come to an agreement among themselves (or with the teacher/coach/peer) about what they will do now to meet their goal, which they will review in future GROW sessions during the unit of work.

© iStockphoto/w

w ing

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The method suggested by van Zee and Minstrell (1997) is par- ticularly pertinent for use in physical education and youth sport contexts due to the interactions that are required by players on the same team — for example, where it is also important for those players to appreciate and understand one another’s perspectives (Forrest, 2014). This lies in contrast to the yes/no format of ques- tioning that prevents interaction between the teacher or coach and the learners, and among the learners themselves. An example of a reflective toss episode for the modified invasion game activity pre- sented in Figure 2 can be seen in Table 3.

In this example, the teacher or coach is able to prompt and probe different students’ perspectives of the same small-sided game. This discussion draws on these learners’ prior experiences in order to shape the continued learning progression of the group, by enabling reflection on the experience. This reflection promotes the development of an agreed-upon action plan for the next sec- tion of game play, in which the learners experiment with their chosen strategy, which can then be reflected on during another reflective toss episode. Much like the debate of ideas, a key com- ponent within this reflective toss episode is how the teacher or coach acts as a facilitator, offering various prompts and probes to the learners in order to stimulate further debate and discussion, thus creating an environment for higher-order thinking. While this more fluid approach may be more challenging for teach- ers and coaches, beginning with the debate of ideas and GROW methods first will equip them with the skills to use the reflective toss method more confidently.

Discussion Skillful questioning empowers learners to take responsibility

for their own learning and to learn how to learn (Light, 2013). It can also generate curiosity and the desire to find answers to the problems that arise during activities set by the teacher or coach.

Consequently, learners are encouraged to collectively develop ideas and experiment in practice, something that requires them to think about, reflect on and evaluate their own learning and progress. All three of the questioning methods presented in this article focus on creating opportunities for discussion, debate, dialogue and reflec- tion among students that are facilitated by the teacher or coach. However, all the suggested methods offer ways of opening up rather than restricting learner thinking and expression. According to Oslin and Mitchell (2006), an effective questioning approach should enable learners to reflect on their performance in order for them to solve problems and make correct decisions. Moreover, questions should not limit the possible responses but, instead, ex- pand them (Wright & Forrest, 2007). These suggested methods provide the opportunity to do just that.

These structured reflection questions would, much like the ac- tivities highlighted by Gabbei (2004) in his article on generating effective facilitation questions in adventure-based learning, stim- ulate higher-order thinking. The reason for this is that students have to reflect on a past experience and decide how that expe- rience is going to affect their future engagement in the activity. This takes the learners beyond the simple memorization and recall of facts to more complex forms of thinking associated with ap- plication, analysis, synthesis, evaluation and creation (Anderson et al., 2001) at the higher end of Bloom’s taxonomy (see Butler, 1997). For example, devising the ways in which the players are going to counteract their opponent’s strengths, the final question in the debate of ideas, requires synthesis (see Table 1). Moreover, Gabbei (2004) noted how these facilitation methods allow for the exploration of the affective (i.e., social and emotional) elements associated with learning that cannot be encapsulated by Bloom’s taxonomy, which focuses on the cognitive domain. This is an im- portant addition because playing games is a social endeavor and requires effective communication and teamwork, with learners ap- preciating one another’s perspectives (Forrest, 2014; Light, 2013).

Table 3. Reflective-toss Episode

The teacher/coach asks players to take a break from the 3 vs. 3 modified invasion game focused on maintaining possession of the ball and questions a small group of learners:

Q: How can players without the ball help the player with the ball? A1: Be in a position to receive a pass.

Q: Where might that be? A2: Away from a defender.

Q: How, specifically? A3: Well, the player would need to get into an open passing lane.

Q: Can you describe the need for the open passing lane? A3: If I am in an open passing lane, it means that the pass is less risky and we do not have to play an overhead pass,

and thus we are more likely to maintain possession of the ball.

Q: Can you give me an example of when this may occur in a game in a specific area of the field?

Students get together and provide the teacher or coach with a demonstration of when and how this would occur and then the teacher or coach resumes game play.

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Moreover, it is argued that by using these methods of question- ing, teachers will promote, for example, the attainment of key SHAPE America National Standards (such as Standards 2 and 5; SHAPE America – Society of Health and Physical Educators, 2014) in physical education through the achievement of individu- als becoming “physically literate.” For coaches, the use of effective questioning is linked to the national standards for coaching, such as Standards 5 (the development of teaching and communication skills) and 6 (the development of sport skills and tactics; National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2005). Teachers and coaches who use a questioning approach exemplify these stan- dards in greater detail because the utilization of questioning puts them in a position of facilitator and co-participant (Davis & Su- mara, 2003) in learning. This hands-off approach allows players to engage in the conversation of games (Light & Fawns, 2003) and display knowledge in action (Schön, 1983).

Conclusion The use of questioning by teachers and coaches acknowledges

the importance of empowering students to take responsibility for their own learning. This is achieved by the teacher or coach step- ping back and becomi

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