Enhancing students’ skill and motivation using an alternative teaching approach

Dr Joe Scott, a Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education in the School of Education and Tertiary Access at the University of the Sunshine Coast speaks with Associate Professor Brendan Moy from the Queensland University of Technology. 

As a former HPE teacher and an experienced university teacher educator, Brendan shares his valuable insights on how HPE teachers can tweak the design and delivery of their current learning experiences to enhance the transfer of student’s skills from practice to the performance environment as well as enhance students’ motivation. His simple message to HPE teachers is to try to incorporate some of the learning design principles of the constraints-led approach (CLA) into their teaching practice.

The CLA is alternative teaching approach underpinned by contemporary motor learning theory. There is extensive research evidence to demonstrate that adopting the CLA in practice effectively meets the skill acquisition and psychological needs of the individual.

Transcript

00:00:08 Dr Joe Scott

Thanks for joining us and welcome to the ACA Health Promoting Schools Podcast.

00:00:13 Dr Joe Scott

My name is Doctor Joe Scott and I'm a senior lecturer in health and physical education at the University of Sunshine Coast, and I'm also a member of the Ashby Health Promoting Schools Committee. Today, joining me is Doctor Brendan Moy, who is an associate professor in health and physical education at Queensland University of Technology. Prior to working at University, Brendan taught HPE in Queensland schools for over 20 years.

00:00:34 Dr Joe Scott

And over the last 17 years, he's researched an alternative physical education teaching approach, which is the constraints LED approach, and he's applied that in his university teaching practise today. He's here to share his valuable insights with us on how we can enhance students, skill and motivation when using this alternative teaching approach. Thanks for joining us today.

00:00:54 Dr Joe Scott

Brendan, we're really excited to have you and have this chat with you.

00:00:59 Dr Brendan Moy

Yeah. Pleasure, Jay. Well, thanks for the introduction, mate, and thanks for the opportunity.

00:01:04 Dr Brendan Moy

You know, I suppose.

00:01:04 Dr Brendan Moy

I'd like to start by saying there's a bit of a problem that HP is that disliked by so many students, and one of the reasons that comes up a lot is is the way that it's taught. So the first issue is the traditional approach.

00:01:19 Dr Brendan Moy

Is is not really meeting the needs of students. So for example, so just so people understand what that drill based approach is, it's like, you know, you do your warm up.

00:01:28 Dr Brendan Moy

Sometimes it's lapse of the Pearl of the Oval. It could be something like that. Then you do repetitive practise of model of a modelled movement behaviour in a drill and the teacher gets corrective feedback and normally the lesson finishes with the application of those skills in the game. So like.

00:01:48 Dr Brendan Moy

It's it's a problem. It it's it's got filings with regards to students motivation.

00:01:54 Dr Brendan Moy

Because a lot of students can't replicate the ideal technique and and you and I have had a talk.

00:02:00 Dr Brendan Moy

Joe about who could replicate Sally Pearson's hurdling technique or or the technique of a butterfly?

00:02:06 Dr Brendan Moy

Or or a basketball player that's got.

00:02:08 Dr Brendan Moy

A fantastic one handed shot.

00:02:11 Dr Brendan Moy

So like failure is an issue. Boredom for students, they become disengaged, passively participate and like you know, the big issues there with their health because of that passive engagement, like for example, social health and their physical health, their mental health. So they're the issues and and unfortunately.

00:02:30 Dr Brendan Moy

It's the weight.

00:02:31 Dr Brendan Moy

Physical education that's being taught and it's a tradition. There's there's many reasons why it's taught that way. It's we're sort of victims of the the military to an extent. If you if you know the history of PE so.

00:02:42 Dr Brendan Moy

And the other big, really big thing is this skill acquisition failing because drills don't really facilitate transfer to the game.

00:02:50 Dr Brendan Moy

So I suppose the first thing to do is to find a drill. So I I think a drill the way I define it is the repeating a prescribed solution.

00:03:00 Dr Brendan Moy

Over and over again to the same problem. So it's like dribbling around markets. So the problem is drilling around markers and this is the solution. This is how you do it and it's just repetitive. So the issue with that is it's predictable, it's repetitive and guess what? Again, it's exactly first, it's unpredictable and it's variable.

00:03:19 Dr Brendan Moy

So there's the first issue and the other issue with a lot of drills is it separates the technique from decision making and perception. So in a game, before you execute a technique, what you normally do is you perceive or you scan the environment, you read your opponent, you read the the game, then you make a decision and then you act in a drill and it's based on the old.

00:03:40 Dr Brendan Moy

Your acquisition theory about making it easier for people by removing the decision and the perception, and that the teacher does that and the other issue is and it's just drive.

00:03:50 Dr Brendan Moy

Into.

00:03:51 Dr Brendan Moy

An appointment this morning I saw a tennis coach hitting balls from the neck to all these.

00:03:56 Dr Brendan Moy

Little kids which?

00:03:56 Dr Brendan Moy

Is lovely and all that, but at the end of the day, players have to learn how to read their opponent, and in a game I'm pretty sure no one stands at the net with the basketball of balls and hits it to you, so that's another failing the drill. And I know there's reasons why people.

00:04:11 Dr Brendan Moy

Do that, so just let me then introduce the constraints that approach like it's really viable alternative, but actually addresses all those failings I just mentioned. If you wanted simple information it would be it's similar to the backyard.

00:04:25 Dr Brendan Moy

So if you think back in the day where we didn't climb in the backyard and I don't think a lot of students do that anymore, you actually your skills actually are allowed to emerge through active exploration. And normally it's a fun, engaging setting and there's no one telling you what to do and how to do it.

00:04:40 Dr Brendan Moy

So.

00:04:41 Dr Brendan Moy

The top of approach we're.

00:04:42 Dr Brendan Moy

Talking about, for example, in swimming, I'll give you an example there, it's.

00:04:47 Dr Brendan Moy

One where you work with a partner and you might do an activity where you set a challenge and see how far your partner can swim in five strokes and the partner might then mark that distance and then you go back to the start and your partner says, well, can you get this far in?

00:05:04 Dr Brendan Moy

4 strokes.

00:05:06 Dr Brendan Moy

So all of a sudden you got this environment where there's autonomy, so you're not telling, you're not telling people how to swim, you're getting them a bit of an external outcome focus.

00:05:17 Dr Brendan Moy

And because you're giving them autonomy, you're giving them a chance to be competent because they'll come up with their own solution that works for them. It's so important and motivation to meet psychological needs of autonomy, competence and the last one is relatedness or connection. So when students work together, they connect and it's relatedness and the teacher as well isn't seen as the expert.

00:05:37 Dr Brendan Moy

That is correctively giving feedback. So that's one of the things about the backyard and the constraints. That approach does mirror that.

00:05:45 Dr Brendan Moy

The other thing is with when it comes to those other skill acquisition failings like perception, decision making and technique practise together and I'll give you an example later on about that and perceptions and actions are coordinated. So what you actually would see.

00:06:02 Dr Brendan Moy

Before you actually act, you probably need. You need to practise that at training and it's also variable and learning is implicit, which is really important.

00:06:11 Dr Brendan Moy

So just from the theoretical perspective, the the constraints that approach acknowledge is the role of the environment in learning. So if you think back to how you learn to walk, how you learn to hit a ball, head like to throw, I I bet you it was in the backyard environment and it's not just the physical environment, it's the social environment, so.

00:06:28 Dr Brendan Moy

That's that's sort of if I had to explain it. And and like it's a way to so in environments manipulate using constraints.

00:06:35 Dr Brendan Moy

We call them task constraints and it's like rules playing field dimensions, scoring procedure, opposition strategies, etc.

00:06:44 Dr Brendan Moy

I'll give you a beautiful little comment from a student when I got there and to think about their backyard and how they learned and this is how people learn and a beautiful comment that the student said was when practising basketball. My cousin broke a perspex backport. So my hope didn't have one.

00:07:03 Dr Brendan Moy

The emergent behaviour was that I learned to squish my free throws, so it's great story about how you learn things by just exploring in an environment.

00:07:14 Dr Brendan Moy

Where it's fun.

00:07:15 Dr Brendan Moy

And if it's fun, you keep doing it, and that's one of the main things. So that's sort of how it differs in a nuts in a nutshell, Joe from the traditional approach.

00:07:24 Dr Joe Scott

Yeah, it's a. It's a fascinating. It's a, it's a really interesting alternative to that potentially predominantly taught drill based physical education that potentially plenty of us learn at universe.

00:07:36 Dr Joe Scott

City. But I know that there's a lot of people that are learning more contemporary approaches and and some of the things that you highlighted, you know, things like creating autonomy, relatedness and competence might be terms that some of our listeners have heard, but they may or may not be familiar with the constraints letter.

00:07:56 Dr Joe Scott

Approach. So I guess if I was a a teacher health and his Ed teacher that that was listening today and thought I like the sound of the can change that approach, but I'm not sort of aware, sure.

00:08:06 Dr Joe Scott

Where to start or?

00:08:09 Dr Joe Scott

What way to implement that in my teaching? So what? What what would your advice be in relation to the best ways to start trialling the constraints that approach in their?

00:08:19 Dr Joe Scott

Teachings.

00:08:19 Dr Brendan Moy

All of it, right. First of all, would be wonderful that people wanted to to start changing the way they talked. I think the students would appreciate that and I think have a greater.

00:08:29 Dr Brendan Moy

Impact on them. So I I suppose if people are familiar with TGFU and game sense operationally, very similar, the difference with constraints approaches is it's based on a particular learning theory and it's grounded in that. So that's where it started plus also it's applicable across more than just games, it's it's applicable to swimming track and field.

00:08:50 Dr Brendan Moy

Diving a lot of different sports and it's actually a way to to teach techniques, not just games for understanding. It's also a technical.

00:08:59 Dr Brendan Moy

So the first thing is I I would suggest you can't because I've taught for 24 years. I I know how tough it is and I've taught hissing drills and I know how tough it is to change everything. So what I've come.

00:09:11 Dr Brendan Moy

Up with over.

00:09:12 Dr Brendan Moy

The years is my advice would be to tweak things, so look at what you're doing and tweak it. So what I would start with.

00:09:19 Dr Brendan Moy

And I've had a lot of opportunities at university to learn because you don't have that constant merry go round of class up the class. So things like, you know, first of all, watching a group play like watching a class play and working out, OK.

00:09:32 Dr Brendan Moy

It's one of the technical, technical and tactical areas to work on, and it might just be throwing and catching or maintaining possession in the game could be in ball, could be netball, could be strong rules, could be Frisbee. So the first thing is you work that out, but the main thing is you need to work out the rate limiter and the reason why why the students passing and catching, why.

00:09:52 Dr Brendan Moy

Buys it poor. So that's the key. A lot of times it's defensive pressure.

00:09:56 Dr Brendan Moy

So the key to that is you need to remove defensive pressure or make it easier give, I reckon give kids time and space could be congestion or could be lack of experience. So if it's lack of experience a lot of teachers and I'm guilty of this, we'll turn to a.

00:10:10 Dr Brendan Moy

Drill.

00:10:11 Dr Brendan Moy

So if you turn to a drill to address lack of experience, it's not going to have as much impact. So for example, rather than throwing a Frisbee or a ball back and forth.

00:10:19 Dr Brendan Moy

Back and forth, back and forth in a stationary position. Something as simple as.

00:10:25 Dr Brendan Moy

Getting a group of three together and saying I want you to pass the ball from this end of the field to the other or I want to get that, get that ball or Frisbee from this side of the field to the other and back again. So all of a sudden, instead of standing still and passing a ball and practising like that, we've actually got some representative learning design, which is a key principle of the constraints letter approach.

00:10:46 Dr Brendan Moy

So what that does is if if you see what I've done is I've told students what to do, but not how to do it. One of the keys to this approach is you don't prescribe the technique. Let them work it out for themselves. They'll watch. They'll look at demonstrations around them. They'll say other students doing different things, they'll explore, they'll make mistakes. But that's how you learn.

00:11:06 Dr Brendan Moy

So something like, yeah, let's get the Frisbee back and forth across the field and back. All of a sudden you got variability. You got different types of flight. You got different types of distances, different types of players throwing and passing it.

00:11:20 Dr Brendan Moy

So you're sort of covering a lot of.

00:11:21 Dr Brendan Moy

Those principles there.

00:11:23 Dr Brendan Moy

So that that would be my first thing to look at. And again you can evolve to A to an act, to a relay or or a competition between two teams. And when students get good at that, you might do 3 versus 1. So a lot of people think, Joe, that this constraints that approaches you gotta go out and.

00:11:40 Dr Brendan Moy

Play that the game blindly, but it's not about that. It's about shaping the environment. And my first thing to.

00:11:46 Dr Brendan Moy

Do would be to.

00:11:47 Dr Brendan Moy

Shape those those practise environments. Normally people use a drill. All you need to do is tweak it to get a.

00:11:54 Dr Brendan Moy

Bit of movement going that.

00:11:55 Dr Brendan Moy

Actually replicates the game. Get the passing direction like the game have an intention like the game.

00:12:01 Dr Brendan Moy

And then you start to get this transferability from practise to the performance environment and students do will do a lot better and I reckon they enjoy it. So you look at those.

00:12:11 Dr Brendan Moy

Those motivational theories, self determination theory, which are those 3 needs? Well, you're giving students autonomy, competence and also relatedness as a working in teams. So that would one my one of my most simple little things to look at. It's a complex world. Let's not knock everything down. Let's just.

00:12:29 Dr Brendan Moy

Tweak what we're doing.

00:12:31 Dr Joe Scott

Yeah. Yeah, I think that I think.

00:12:34 Dr Joe Scott

Particularly at the moment there's, you know, many teachers are probably listeners thinking this would be fantastic to include more of this in my teaching and and they're and they're busy.

00:12:42 Dr Joe Scott

And we know how busy teachers are at the moment, and it's, you know, small little things that they they could potentially trial. So I think that's that's really useful. I guess you know, just being conscious, we're sort of coming to the end of the the episode. I just wanted to see is there any sort of key messages that you'd like to share with health and Phys. Ed teachers from the years of research and teaching?

00:13:03 Dr Joe Scott

Experiences at at the university.

00:13:06 Dr Brendan Moy

You know, I'll suppose.

00:13:07 Dr Brendan Moy

The first thing would be to maybe pick an activity that you're pretty.

00:13:14 Dr Brendan Moy

You've got a lot of knowledge about something that you've that you've actually played yourselves or whatever.

00:13:20 Dr Brendan Moy

And look at how you're actually designing practise environments for students and look at not.

00:13:27 Dr Brendan Moy

Not cutting everything down and starting it again. Just look at what you're doing. As I suggested, just tweak it a little bit. So the first thing I would do would be to turn a drill into more representative activity, adding those movements. As I said, adding some variability. Even if you change your opponent, even if you change the direction, if you change the length of the.

00:13:46 Dr Brendan Moy

Throw or whatever.

00:13:47 Dr Brendan Moy

Another thing is maybe to have some intentions in there so games have got some intentions. Games have intentions like you need to score. You need to maintain possession which does impact emotions. So just having challenges is really good to have or having. Yeah. Can you get can you get the ball back and forth under 20 seconds all of a sudden there's an intention there which is like a gun.

00:14:08 Dr Brendan Moy

And and when you stand back and just watch a couple of things that you just tweaked, look at the at the students, they'll start to scan and they'll start to make decisions. So that's a really important thing. And they invest mental effort and that's becomes more intense challenge and fun, but they don't practise that. The game I think is too complex.

00:14:28 Dr Brendan Moy

It doesn't allow the time and space to practise any of this stuff, so a lot of teachers go from the simplest drill to the most complex environment, which is a regulation gain. We need to build a bridge in bed.

00:14:39 Dr Brendan Moy

Wayne.

00:14:40 Dr Brendan Moy

So that would be my main message and the other one is this say less. My mantra is tell students what to do, but not how to do it.

00:14:51 Dr Joe Scott

Hey, thanks. Thanks so much. But and there's there's some wise words to to finish on, I think I think teachers out there are gonna find this really useful. I know that I've utilised some of this stuff by teaching and and I know that many teachers are are trialling some of these more contemporary approaches and to have some insights from someone like yourself that's got so much.

00:15:11 Dr Joe Scott

Experience in it. I think people are gonna find this really useful. So really appreciate your time today and it's been.

00:15:18 Dr Joe Scott

Great.

00:15:19 Dr Brendan Moy

Thanks, Sal. You it's a.

00:15:21 Dr Brendan Moy

Real pleasure to share.

00:15:22 Dr Brendan Moy

All the years I've spent in rooms and at the university with people that are practitioners that I want to help. So mate. Thanks for the opportunity.