Use Gibbs model and write a reflection report of an interaction between two students or between two teachers in a school environment?

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Over the last three months we have been taking part in a number of different activities, which wouldn’t normally be included in Physical Education in schools. These included Tai Chi, Martial Arts, Rowing, Skipping and Parkour just to name a few. Whitehead (2010) suggested that by acquiring a range of movement skills and patterns I would find it easier to access a variety of structured physical activity settings. By taking part in these activities I was able to develop my own knowledge and skills and also see how I could take these activities and develop my skills in that area to then bring them into schools when I become a physical educator. These different activities gave me a chance to develop other parts of physical literacy such as confidence, motivation and self-expression (Whitehead 2010).

Most of the sessions that I had taken part in I had never done before and therefore wasn’t physically literate in those areas, some of the sessions also put us into new learning environments, especially rowing. It is important that we experience different activity settings as physical competence will be enhanced, only by experiencing a range of settings will movement patterns and skills be challenged (Whitehead 2010).

For the first few sessions I was injured and was unable to take part in the activities therefore I was able to observe the group and watch their development through each activity and also see if I noticed any reoccurring incidents. One thing I did notice was the divide between the males and females of the group and the different levels of confidence they had. Lirgg (1993) found that males preferred mixed sex classes in schools as they felt more confident, however the females preferred same sex classes as there was more student involvement because there was only females in the class.

Another thing that was noticed was the different levels of motivation the students had for each different activity. Whitehead (2010) defined motivation to be a drive and eagerness to take part, we need to be motivated to thrive in movement skills, maintain ability we already have and make progress.

The majority of sports we took part in caused some of us to feel apprehensive and nervous about taking part as we had never tried them before. However, there were a few sports activities that didn’t really cause any of us to feel apprehensive, which were handball and volleyball. This was because these sports activities had been carried out before in schools or clubs, I also think as we were in teams and it became really competitive as a group we fell back into our comfort zones. Whereas street dance and Tai Chi definitely made us feel out of our comfort zones, this was because a lot of us hadn’t experienced activities where we had to express ourselves with body movements and non-verbal communication.

Some individuals found this quite hard as they seemed to feel embarrassed, we were asked to get into groups and make up a routine to show at the end of the session, out of eight groups only two volunteered to perform as the majority of us were all too embarrassed and didn’t feel comfortable doing it. Comfort zones can be defined as an image that is formed of us, DePaul (2011) suggested that by letting go of the fear of making mistakes will help individuals learn to accept mistakes will be made and try to compete anyway. When comparing this reaction to that of Handball there was a huge difference in confidence levels and motivation levels just because that competitive team environment is what we are used to.

Feelings

When I found out what activities we were going to be doing in this module I felt very excited and motivated to take part in all of them. Whitehead (2010) proposed that young individuals need to be aware of different activities and the movement demands they possess, they also need to gain a rich variety of experiences, therefore it was going to be really beneficial to us to try these new activities.

A few of the sessions, for example martial arts and rowing, I was feeling very apprehensive about before, martial arts being something I had never done before and new it would include some sort of wrestling which I didn’t feel comfortable about and rowing something that I had always wanted to try but had never been brave enough.

By trying these new sports which I wasn’t used to taking part in I was able to see how I cope when out of my comfort zone or in a different environment. Whitehead (2010) suggested that a physically literate individual is able to read the environment taking shape, size, weight, surface and speed into account All of these can be linked to rowing, and all of which I found really difficult to read and cope with, however as the rowing session went on I feel that I progressed and was able to adapt to the environment and become more literate.

Evaluation

Taking part in all of the different activities was really beneficial for my own personal development through Physical Education. I was able to experience and attempt skills that I had never tried before and learn and progress at the same time. A few of the skills really tested our motivation and confidence levels and put us out of our comfort zones, for example Martial Arts.

We had to practice movements on a partner which were sometimes a bit uncomfortable and close, however this is what we had to do to learn the skill, and the amount of confidence we had and motivation was what kept us attempting the skills. Whitehead (2010) realises that complex environments can include those where we move as individuals without any equipment or we experience unpredictable situations and we have to interact and move with another individual. Physically literate individuals should hold enough physical competence to succeed in these challenges (Whitehead 2010).

Teacher interactions was one really good experience that I took from the different physical activities, in Handball, the coach really interacted with us and was asking questions on what our team was doing well and what we needed to do to improve and try and win. Whitehead (2010) suggested that the interaction between the coach and the participant is critical for the development of physical literacy. However in Parkour, the coach seemed to become frustrated when students decided they couldn’t carry out the tasks and they wanted to sit out, a good coach in order to develop physical literacy needs to be alert to individuals responses adapt and redirect the tasks so that participants do want to take part (Whitehead 2010). Observing these different types of teacher interactions helped me learn which the best way to help students progress in their lessons.

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