Below you’ll find a lesson plan for a grade 6 volleyball class that was instructed at Arbutus Global Middle School in Victoria, BC.
In the lesson plan you’ll find a list of equipment needed, the learning intents (Cognitive, Affective, Psychomotor, Social), an introductory warm-up activity, a skill development phase, a culminating activity, and finally some closing questions and evaluation checks.
Since the grade 6’s are still at a very emerging level of volleyball, we thought it best to use a more direct, teacher controlled approach, taking influence from the Command, and Practice styles of Mosston’s Teaching Spectrum (see figure 2). We used these two styles to take the decision making away from the students in order for them to learn the activities accurately and within the shortest amount of time. This also gives students the chance to receive immediate feedback on whether or not they are correctly following the teacher's commands.
The introductory phase is fairly self-explanatory - this is to get the students moving and warm them up for later activity.
The skill development phase is where we focus on two modified games: Castle Game and Fukahara. I like the idea of starting with the Castle Game, since it allows the teacher to identify their students’ current skill level of passing and movement around the ball. Here our main focus is to introduce students to a modified game where everyone can have success and feel like they are improving. Our goal in the skill development phase of the lesson is to eventually progress to playing “No Limit” volleyball, which is our culminating activity.
The culminating activity of “No Limit” volleyball takes the ideas and principles from Castle Game and Fukahara (which are: space awareness, movement behind the ball, and creating time for your teammates), and allows students to explore all kinds of tactics on a full-sized volleyball court without the need for perfect passing form/skill. This way, we give students a full-court experience (play the game first) so they can learn to appreciate the important tactical and technical concepts of volleyball. Once they’ve understood the tactical importance of the skills they need to use, they’ll be more motivated to continue playing and improve on those skills, which will ultimately provide all kinds of lifelong benefits, increased physical literacy being the most important.
Finally, the cool-down/closure phase provides the teacher with some feedback regarding student understanding. It's important to question the students to get them thinking tactically about the games. At this point, they should be developing their own ideas about how to best play the game, how they can score points, and how they can help their teammates.
Self-Reflection Explanation
This was a self-reflection completed after teaching three grade 6 lessons at Arbutus Middle School in Victoria, BC. Our grade 6 teacher also provided some feedback on our lessons and class management.
One of the biggest things we noticed was the time constraints involved with class management. Our first lesson was scheduled for 45 minutes, but we were only able to do about 20 or 30 minutes of actual teaching due to poor and inexperienced classroom management techniques. The actual teaching experience was very beneficial since it gave us a good idea of what it's like to teach a grade 6 PE class. I value good classroom management much more after this experience.
Reflection
Assessment: To what level do you feel you are performing the learning implied in this big idea?
I believe I am at an Emerging level when it comes to my learning and effective teaching practices.
Evidence: How does the evidence show your developing competencies in relation to this big idea?
The evidence shows that I understand the importance of using a variety of teaching styles, and which students will benefit more (or less) from taking on more decision making.
Personal growth: What do you think you can now do based on this evidence?
The evidence shows that I am capable of creating a lesson with concrete ideas that follow a logical approach with large influences from TGfU.
Goal: What is something you want to work on or improve in relation to this big idea?
I need to better understand how students learn, and need more experience in an actual PE class setting. Having taught English before, there is a lot less classroom management needed in terms of setting up equipment, explaining games, etc. The lesson plan may be biting off more than it can chew in terms of timing and goals to accomplish.