preview

Different Teaching Styles in Physical Education Essay example

Good Essays

How would the quality of teaching for a physical education class be judged? In a math class, you might judge the quality by how fast the students can comprehend the material being taught. In a writing class you may judge the quality by the way the students construct their sentences. But in a physical education class the best way to judge the quality of teaching is translated into the amount of fun the class is having. Certain teaching styles will work best in this environment.
From the book The Spectrum of teaching styles, From Command to Discovery, written by Muska Mosston, he explains that there are a variety of teaching styles. These styles are all a part of the Spectrum of Learning. The spectrum of learning is defined as “the …show more content…

In a study conducted by Sean X. Cai, he had “examined student enjoyment of physical education class conducted by the command, reciprocal and inclusion teaching styles. “(Cai, 1998) The three styles are all different. According to Cai, a command style of teaching is when, “the teacher makes all impact decisions and the learners follow these decisions.” (Cai, 1998) The reciprocal style of teaching includes, “the social relationships between peers and the conditions for immediate feedback are emphasized in such a way that the students study in pairs and provide feedback to each other.” (Cai, 1998) The final style that was used was the inclusion style. Cai defines this style being, “when students have the opportunity to decide what task difficult level to work on according to the teacher's design of the task.”(Cai, 1998) Each style was assessed by the enjoyment that resulted from it. The results of the study show that Command Style yielded the most enjoyment from the students, followed by the Reciprocal style then the Inclusion Style. Stated by Cai in his study he observed that, “It seemed that the students had more enjoyment when they totally followed the instructions without making decisions when motor skills were the learning contents.”(Cai, 1998) The other important patterns that were noticed through the Command Style were that the teacher was very authoritative and in control, the students had more time for the activity,

Get Access