This mock data was used to simulate the assessment results from the Football unit for my 4th grade Physical Education students.
Homogenous Groups — My class operates on the principle of having six teams for game play and team work. In this class there are 23 students, which equates to 5 groups of four students and 1 group of three. When looking into homogenous groups for this class, I decided to make my strongest students my smallest group because they would have the easiest time functioning as a team of three during gameplay. After setting up that team, I worked through the data to make groups mainly based on the end of unit assessment. There were a few students in between the groups that either progressed or regressed throughout the unit. In general, I decided to place those students in the lower level group so they could support or be supported within their group. The groups were then assigned colors in rainbow order based on skill level with Red being my strongest students and Purple being the weakest.
Heterogenous Groups — After making the homogenous groups, it became clear to me that in some circumstances at PE, it would be best to mix the groups based on skill level. I chose to use the app Team Shake to group the students in random mixed level groups. I input the students and assigned them a skill level based on the colors they were assigned in their homogenous groups. The red team was labelled strongest, orange was labelled strong, yellow was labelled normal, the green and blue teams were labelled weak, and purple was labelled weakest. The app then is able to randomly assign students to groups of mixed skill levels.
Inputting Students and Changing the Setting to randomize the skill levels:
Three different team configurations with students of randomized skill levels:
There are benefits and potential issues of using either grouping strategy — some of those ideas are illustrated below:
Differentiation is key at PE — I want students of any ability level to be able to participate and benefit is some way from our classes. There are many ways you can adapt a unit to include students with special needs. General adaptations can include reducing the size of the playing area or increase the number of players and changing the game surface to a hard flat surface. Some specific adaptions for students with different needs and abilities are listed below.
Cognitive and Sensory Disabilities
- Develop visual system for starting and stopping play(cue cards, waving a towel, hand signals).
- Always speak facing the student when the play is called or during instruction.
- Present instruction slowly and clearly when teaching.
- Repeat plays and instructions.
- Concentrate on teaching game concepts(offsides, line of scrimmage, offense, defense, first downs).
Affective Disabilities
- Place students in situations where they will experience success and the least amount of stress.
- Notice if student is having a good or bad day when interacting with other students.
- When doing individual practice put the student with a classmate he/she will be most comfortable with.
Psychomotor Disabilities
- For a student who uses a wheelchair, the game needs to be played on the gymnasium floor or a parking lot.
- Consider using foam or rubber footballs.
- Have the student play a position where there is limited running involved, such as on the line.
- Notice if the student needs a rest break from activity and make sure he/she is ready to go back into the game.
It is important to also have strategies to differentiate for gifted students because every students should have the opportunity to be challenged by material to facilitate growth. A gifted student that isn't being challenged can also manifest frustration at PE through behavioral outbursts, which affects the learning environment of the entire class. I want to make sure students are set up to be successful and enjoy PE. Some strategies to adapt lessons for gifted students are listed below.
- Provide choices within the same space or have students choose an activity within the same learning category (ex. Ultimate Frisbee for Flag Football or invasion games)
- Allowing homogenous groups to work with more freedom regarding game conditions, positioning, and rules
- Giving advanced students a chance to work independently at their own pace
- Schemes of work encourage the use of differentiated tasks and provide some lesson ideas. If teaching staff require some ideas for differentiation, activities can be chosen / altered from the next or most recent scheme of work to the student in question – ie – a high ability year 4 student, may work from the year 5 curriculum where applicable
- Open ended tasks allowing more advanced skills / tactics to be developed
- Greater pressure placed on the individual pupil in practice and games situations, eg – 3v1, skills to be performed at a quicker pace or in a more confined area
- Pupils encouraged to play a leadership / coaching role in decision making, team organization, planning tactics and strategies, evaluating strengths and weaknesses, conducting sport warm ups and cool downs
- Pupils encouraged to take on an officiating role either within the game or in the practices. This should be taken on in activities of the students choosing or in areas in which they feel comfortable.
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