Games For Understanding

It is widely recognised that sports coaches operate in complex social and often ambiguous environments that place varied and multiple demands on them (Bowes & Jones, 2006). To try and lessen the different demands which are put onto a coach’s shoulders Bunker and Thorpe (1982) proposed the teaching games for understanding as cited by Mitchell, Oslin and Griffen (2013). The teaching games for understanding is a problem based approach to games teaching, where all the sessions are game related scenarios to help improve different skills as suggested by Light (2012) game based scenarios help to understand as well as promote active involvement to problem solve through game play and game progression, to help participants achieve this the use of questions

To keep in line with the model of the teaching games for understanding, for the participants to meet the aims and objectives of the session, I used constant freeze frames followed by questions as stated by Stolz and Pill (2013, P.57) asking questions help to “clarify the nature of game ‘understanding’ and ‘appreciation’, central to the distinctiveness of TGfU and its nuanced variations.’. by using this within the game based session allowed the session to be player centred by asking the correct questions to constantly check player learning. Within my main game based session I made sure that I asked particular questions on which led to the participants to change the rules to make it harder to easier, as well as to check make sure understanding was followed, Mehrabian (1968) suggested that “we gain 7 percent of information from words used, 38 percent from the way it was said and 55 percent from the way the speaker behaves”, of which the way I ask the questions gave the participants a much better understanding of the aim and objectives from the overall of the

After the session, I feel there are lots of ways that myself, as a coach there are aspects of which are needed to be improved upon as suggested by Lyle (2002, P.101) suggests that “an improvement of sport performance, is the central purpose of the coaching process”. The most important part of the whole session is the reflection and evaluation to make sure if the session was or not in fact successful, according not only to Martens (1996) but to also Thomas and Nelson 2001 and Kidman (2010) effective evaluation is an important and necessary process to help on goals to become a better coach this is because it allows access to self-monitoring as well as whether your using the right sessions for the correct game based