Minor Games And Instructional Approaches

Physical education allows for participants to be involved, no matter their age, race, religion or abilities. Minor games aims to promote participation, enjoyment, skill and tactical development, to all individuals involved. Minor games have certain characteristics, which make it unique to other types of games. These characteristics can be altered to best suit the needs of the participants and therefore better enhance physical and interpersonal skills that can be used now and throughout the individual’s lifetime.

Minor games provide positive physical education experiences to all participants involved. This is done by ensuring that all participants are not only having an enjoyable time, but also learning life long physical activity skills. The

Direct and indirect are the two main instructional approaches used, where direct approach relates to the instructor directing the learning and knowledge. The instructor has control and informs the participants what is being done and how to do it. On the other hand, indirect approach allows for the learners to make decisions and be more creative. It allows learners to explore and use critical thinking as the instructor questions the students more and enhances ‘thinking skills and behaviours’ (Elsworthy, 2016) associated within the game. This is similar to the student centred approach in teachable moments and questions such as ‘where should your eyes be when dribbling the ball?’ (Elsworthy, 2016) is an example of this. Also related to instructional approaches are the seven different instructional strategies used. The most common method is the traditional or direct method, where it’s sufficient for ‘organising practice, maximising practice time, keeping learners on task and facilitating early skill acquisition’ (Spittle, 2016). Team instruction is another strategy used where a number of instructors are providing information for the participants. Participants gain more specific feedback when this strategy is used in order to better there development. When the instructor wants to use a number of activity stations, task station is the best strategy. It requires more organisation but allows more feedback to be given to participants and allows for more confidence in students by providing continuous encouragement. Peer instruction is another strategy, where the learners are given the duty of teaching the skill, which is another way of learners developing new skills. Game sense strategy develops technical skills and strategies, however only when participants successfully understand the game or the key