Teaching Games for Understanding and Situated Learning

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Kirk, D., MacPhail, A. (2002) Teaching Games for Understanding andSituated Learning: Rethinking the Bunker-Thorpe Model. Journal ofTeaching in Physical Education, 21 (2) J anuary, pp.177-192.

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TGfU AND SITUATED LEARNING 177

177

JOURNAL OF TEACHING IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION, 2002, 21, 177-192

2002 HUMAN KINETICS PUBLISHERS, INC.

Teaching Games for Understanding and Situated Learn-

ing: Rethinking the Bunker-Thorpe Model

David Kirk and Ann MacPhail

Loughborough University

Bunker and Thorpe rst proposed Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU)

in 1982 as an alternative to traditional, technique-led approaches to gamesteaching and learning. Despite interest from teachers and researchers, there

has been no attempt to review the TGfU model. This is an oversight, given the

important advances in educational learning theory and ecological approaches

to motor control since the early 1980s. The purpose of this paper is to present

a new version of the TGfU model that draws on a situated learning perspective.

The paper describes the TGfU approach, overviews recent research on TGfU,

and outlines a situated learning perspective. This perspective is then applied to

rethinking the TGfU model. The intended outcome of the paper is the provision

a more robust and sophisticated version of the TGfU model that can inform

future directions in the practice of and research on TGfU.

Key Words: tactical approaches, instructional model

Bunker and Thorpe (1982) rst proposed Teaching Games for Understanding(TGfU) in 1982 as an alternative to traditional, technique-led approaches to gamesteaching and learning. Since then, TGfU has attracted widespread attention fromteachers, coaches, and researchers (Rink, French, & Tjeerdsma, 1996). While therehave been developments of the Bunker-Thorpe approach in the work of researcherssuch as Grifn, Oslin, and Mitchell (1997), and Grhaigne and Godbout (1995),

there have been no attempts to revise the Bunker-Thorpe model itself.We believe there have been important advances in educational learning theory

since the model rst appeared that could be benecial to the development of TGfU.There has also been a recent resurgence of interest in learning among physical edu-cation researchers. Metzler (2000) and Rink (1999) have argued that instructionalstrategies should be based on learning theory, since without a clear understandingof how learning takes place, teachers cannot expect to achieve intended learningoutcomes. As Metzler notes, TGfU is an instructional model focused on develop-ing learners abilities to play games. As such, a perspective on learning underpinsthe model. Yet this perspective has not been developed and made explicit, even

though there was some early published work on the psychological and philosophi-cal dimensions of TGfU (Kirk, 1983; Piggot, 1982).

The authors are with the Dept. of Physical Education, Sport Science and Recreation

Management, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE 11 3TU, UK.


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KIRK AND MacPHAIL178

We wish to stress at the outset that we do not intend in this paper to providea model of learning in games, valuable though this may be. We wish to retain,examine, and modify the original TGfU model, with its emphasis on instruction,

for a number of reasons. First, the model is well known to researchers and teach-ers and has been widely used as a developmental tool for teachers and coaches(Australian Sports Commission, 1997a; Butler, 1997; Chandler & Mitchell, 1991;Doolittle, 1995; Grifn et al., 1997). Second, Metzler (2000) provides a soundargument for TGfU to be considered one of a number of instructional models inphysical education. Among other things, instructional models provide guidelinesto teachers on how to put into practice particular approaches to physical education.Third, as we will argue in this paper, we need to know more from research abouthow teachers and coaches use the model, as compared to the TGfU approach ingeneral, to structure experiences for learners in games.

Physical education researchers have suggested that approaches to learning toplay games such as the TGfU approach may be broadly consistent with cognitive,constructivist, and situated theories of learning (Dodds, Grifn, & Placek, 2001;Grifn, Dodds, Placek, et al., 1999; Kirk & Macdonald, 1998; Rovegno, Nevett,& Babiarz, 2001). These theoretical perspectives emphasize the social, cultural,and physical learning that physical education activities such as games can promote.They also show that learning to play games involves the development of skills suchas strategic thinking and problem solvingtwo important but often understatedhigher-order cognitive skills that game play can foster (Aspin, 1976). Given tra-ditional resistance in education systems to the idea that physical education can

make such a contribution to cognitive development (Kirk & Tinning, 1990), TGfUprovides a valuable example of what is possible.

The paper begins with a description of the TGfU approach and overviewsrecent research on TGfU. A situated learning perspective is then introduced andapplied in examining the Bunker-Thorpe TGfU model. The intended outcome ofthis paper is to produce a revised form of the TGfU model that can inform futuredirections in the practice of and research on TGfU.

A Description of Teaching Games for Understanding

The Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) approach developed fromthe work of Rod Thorpe and David Bunker at Loughborough University during the1970s and early 1980s (Bunker & Thorpe, 1982; Thorpe & Bunker, 1989). Otherterms that describe developments of this approach include the Tactical GamesModel (Grifn et al., 1997) and Game Sense (Australian Sports Commission,1997a). Thorpe and Bunker observed that much games teaching and coaching wasdominated by the development of techniques within highly structured lessons. Theyalso observed that in school physical education, the development of techniquestook up the majority of lesson time with little time left to actually play the game.Even when game play was included in lessons, teachers and coaches rarely madeconnections between the technique practices and how and when these techniquesshould be applied in game play.

A common complaint voiced by teachers and coaches was that the tech-niques learned laboriously in lessons and training sessions broke down in gameplay. Bunker and Thorpes response to this problem was to develop an alternative


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approach to games teaching and coaching that helped players to learn the tacticsand strategies of game play in tandem with technique development. The Bunker-Thorpe TGfU model can be seen in Figure 1.

At the heart of their approach was the use of modied games to suit thedevelopmental level of the learners (Thorpe, 1990). All TGfU teaching and coach-ing takes place within the framework of game play and the modied game form.Modications are made to rules, playing area, and equipment. Techniques are de-veloped using drills and other training practices common to the traditional approach.A technique is only introduced when the players reach a level of game play thatrequires them to learn the technique. As the players expertise develops, the game

form is changed to continue to challenge the players in terms of game appreciation,tactical awareness, decision-making, and execution of technique.In conjunction with the development of the TGfU model, Bunker and Thorpe

(1982) argued that some groups of games share key characteristics determined bytheir rules and tactics. For example, they suggested games such as the following:

1. Soccer, rugby union, and rugby league, as well as basketball, netball, andhockey, can be categorized as invasion games since they share:

the common tactical features of invading territory to make space in attack; the containment of space in defense;

the use of a goal or similar target for scoring.2. Net/wall games such as tennis, table tennis, and volleyball share:

the concept of playing the shot so opponents cannot return it; all players must serve and receive the ball; the target for scoring is on the playing surface.

Figure 1 The Teaching Games for Understanding model (from Bunker & Thorpe,1982).

How to

do it?

(3) Tacticalawareness

What to

do?

(5) Skill exe-cution

(4) Making appropriatedecisions

(2) Game ap-preciation

Learner

(1) Game

(6)Performance


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3. Striking/elding games such as cricket, baseball, and rounders share:

the concept of scoring by striking a ball into open spaces; elders being placed strategically to prevent runs from being scored.

Bunker and Thorpe suggested that simplied, modied, and generic versionsof games could be used to teach the main tactics required by each game in the abovecategories. An example would be a court-based game with a small number of simplerules for traveling, contact, re-starts, and scoring that serves as a generic lead-upto games such as basketball, korfball, and netball. This is a particularly importantconsideration for physical education teachers working within severe time constraintsin a school setting. This suggestion does raise questions, however, about the extentto which generic game forms can allow players to learn tactics and techniques intandem, since the techniques of most games are highly specialized.

The terminology of TGfU has had an impact on policy in several countries.In England and Wales, the terminology of invasion, net/wall, and striking/eldinggames is enshrined within the statutory National Curriculum for Physical Education(Qualications Curriculum Authority, 1999). In Australia the same terminology isused to structure the Aussie Sport Program of modied games produced by theAustralian Sports Commission (1997b).

While some studies have examined the possibility of transferring tacticalunderstanding among game forms within the same category (Jones & Farrow, 1999;Oslin & Mitchell, 1999), it is the potential of a TGfU approach to facilitate tacticalunderstanding in games that has attracted the most attention from researchers.

Research on TGfU

TGfU began to be scrutinized empirically by researchers around the late1980s. Much of this research has taken the form of experimental studies that havecompared TGfU with the forms of games teaching it is assumed to replace, tradi-tional technique-led approaches (Grifn, Oslin, & Mitchell, 1995; Lawton, 1989;Oslin, Mitchell, & Grifn, 1998; Turner & Martinek, 1992). Rink et al. (1996) notedthat research on TGfU has reported positive learning outcomes for students. Themost powerful nding across the studies reviewed by Rink et al. was that students

who were taught from a TGfU perspective tend to perform better on tests of tacticalknowledge than those taught from a technique-led perspective. Some studies (e.g.,Grifn et al., 1995; Lawton, 1989) have suggested that a TGfU approach may beperceived by students as more enjoyable than the technique-led approach, thus theymay be more highly motivated to participate.

Rink et al. (1996) also noted that, despite some positive ndings, the stud-ies reviewed could not provide conclusive support for TGfU over technique-ledapproaches. They argued that this was due to different research designs, makingcomparison difcult because studies varied according to the game chosen, the ageof participants, the length and nature of the intervention, the variable chosen forinvestigation, and the ways in which these variables were measured.

Adding to Rink et al.s point, we propose that the equivocal nature of thesendings may also be due to their treatment of TGfU and technique-based approachesas alternative forms of practice. The difculty here is not that the researchersthemselves accept as valid the notion that cognition and physical performance


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are independent processes, or even that these can be studied as if they were in-dependent. Indeed, most appear to accept Bunker and Thorpes (1982) insistentclaim that teaching for understanding must also include technique development.

The difculty instead may be located in the traditional dualistic divide in physicaleducation between cognition and physical performance, and in the constructs usedto theorize this relationship.

Rink et al (1996) point out that researchers use a range of constructs todescribe knowledge and learning in TGfU. The most common constructs are thenotions of declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, strategic knowledge,and technique or movement execution. Before we advance with our examinationof the Bunker-Thorpe model, it is important that we clarify our understanding anduse of these key constructs.

Constructs for Conceptualizing Learning in Games

In their discussion of expertise in sport, Thomas and Thomas (1994) explainthat declarative knowledge is concerned with facts such as game rules, aims, ter-minology, and etiquette. They dene procedural knowledge as knowledge usedto generate action (p. 299), such as knowing how to get past an opponent in aone-on-one situation in soccer. Thomas and Thomas claim that some measure ofdeclarative knowledge is a precursor to the development of procedural knowledgeand that both are present in activities in which it is possible to develop expertise,such as playing chess, programming a computer, or writing an essay.

According to Alexander and Judy (1988), strategic knowledge is a subset ofprocedural knowledge. Strategies are employed intentionally before, during, andafter a performance and are goal-directed. In sport, strategic knowledge is typicallydependent on what Alexander and Judy call domain-specic knowledge, whichincludes declarative and procedural knowledge. The various strategies that may beemployed for getting past an opponent in soccer would require some knowledgeof the rules and techniques of this game. Dodds et al. (2001) note that althoughexpert/novice studies have investigated aspects of the interaction between domain-specic and strategic knowledge, this is an underdeveloped area of research. They

also note that, of the existing studies, few have included children.The execution of specic movement techniques adds a further dimensionto game play that is, according to Thomas and Thomas, a source of error uniqueto sport. The relationship between each of these elements of knowledgeable per-formance in games can be summarized as if-then-do: declarative knowledgebecomes represented as a series of conditions (if statements) linked to action se-lection (then statements) and then to actions (do statements) (Thomas & Thomas,1994, p. 305).

Thomas and Thomas note that the if-then-do relationship is not nearly asstraightforward as it sounds. They provide an example of the impact on procedural

knowledge of a learners level of physical and skill development:The 5 year old tee-ball player who knows his throwing is not the best andthe rst basemans catching is even poorer, often opts to run the ball to rst,rather than throwing the runner out. The decision, based on previous expe-rience, is to make the safest attempt at the goal. These players apparently


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know that throwing is what they should do, but based on skill they decidenot to throw. (1994, p. 305)

What this example demonstrates is that the knowledge dimensions of game

play are interdependent. In contrast to this point, some of the experimental stud-ies of TGfU seem to have built into their design the notion that TGfU is primarilyconcerned with developing declarative, procedural, and strategic knowledge, whilethe traditional, technique-based approaches are primarily concerned with the ef-fectiveness of movement execution.

It appears that such dualistic thinking about cognition and physical perfor-mance remains pervasive. A case in point is McMorris (1998) critique of TGfUfrom the perspective of motor behavior. McMorris starts with the view that TGfUis a cognition-to-technique approach. Motor behaviorists in contrast recommend atechnique-to-cognition approach. On the basis of this view, McMorris claims thatcriticisms made by proponents of TGfU about traditional technique-based methodsof teaching games are criticisms of poor practice rather than of the technique-to-cognition approach itself. He concludes that TGfU research has provided very littlenew knowledge for motor behaviorists.

Such a conclusion may indeed be warranted on the basis of the evidenceproduced by experimental studies of TGfU, since their ndings demonstrate thatcognition and physical performance are both of key importance in learning to playgames. However, as we have noted, the design of research studies that have soughtto contrast TGfU with technique-led approaches may have inadvertently supported

some of McMorris criticisms.An ecological version of information processing illustrates the importance ofviewing knowledge and technique dimensions of game play as interdependent. Ac-cording to Abernethy (1996), the information processing approach emphasizes theimportance of perception and decision-making as two of the three sequential phasesof information processing, with the third being movement execution or acting.

Abernethy argues that during the perceiving phase, an individual is tryingto determine what is happening and to identify what information is relevant in aparticular set of circumstances. An example is a basketball player who has justreceived the ball and must identify the position of teammates and opponents, her

or his own position on the eld or court, distance from the goal, stage of the gameand the score, and so on. Abernethy notes that the ability to sift the importantinformation from all the other information available in the environment, and to dothis quickly and accurately, is a key characteristic of expert players.

The decision-making phase involves the player deciding the best course ofactionin basketball whether to pass, dribble, or shoot, and which is the mostappropriate kind of pass or shot. Typically, expert players are much more efcientand faster decision-makers than novices are because they have learned throughexperience to link their actions to circumstances in the game.

During the movement execution or acting phase, a series of neural impulses

recruit muscles to execute the selected movements with appropriate timing, coor-dination, and force. Movement execution is a vital part of game play. But it is notnecessarily the most important part, as the emphasis in traditional technique-ledapproaches would suggest.

A Situated Learning Perspective


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The importance placed by information processing theorists such as Aber-nethy, Thomas, and Thomas (1993) on the active engagement of the learner withthe environment through perception and decision-making is a key assumption that

underpins most situated cognition research (Kirshner & Whitson, 1997). A situatedperspective assumes that learning involves the active engagement of individualswith their environment (Rovengo, 1999; Rovegno & Kirk, 1995). Rather thanmerely receiving information transmitted from another source and internalizing thatinformation, as some versions of a cognitive perspective would suggest, individualsactively appropriate information (Kirshner & Whitson, 1998). In so doing, theyadapt new knowledge in order to t it to what they already know (Prawat, 1999).

Dodds et al. (2001) summarize research in science education showing thatthis prior knowledge varies among individuals and results in learners approach-ing new learning episodes with alternative conceptions of a topic. For example,

Brooker, Kirk, Braiuka, and Bransgrove (2000) reported that for children whoseprior knowledge of basketball was formed through their viewing of professionaladult sport on television, any modication in school physical education lessons tothe real media sport was considered as disappointing and unsatisfying. For them,playing basketball was playing the medias version of the game.

Greeno (1997) argues that learning is situated in the sense that it is sociallyorganized. This is particularly the case when learning is constructed and constitutedby the institutional requirements of the school. For example, Bereiter (1990) coinedthe term schoolwork module to account for the ways in which individuals respondto the institutional requirements of the school in much the way Jackson (1968) rst

reported under the rubric of the hidden curriculum. The rules and procedures of theschool, and the forms of social interaction they produce, permeate what and howchildren learn. For example, in the course of learning to play soccer, a child mayalso be learning about getting along with other children, pleasing the teacher, andher or his own personal abilities and qualities.

Even when a child is working alone, perhaps completing a homework task,learning remains situated because it is socially organized (Greeno, 1997). Thestudents use of textbooks and computer, access to the Internet, and the study of atask set by the teacher in accordance with school and state curriculum requirementsillustrates the layers of social organization of learning, even when it takes place

in isolation from others.Lave and Wengers (1991) theory of situated learning suggests is necessary

to investigate relationships among the various physical, social, and cultural dimen-sions of the context for learning. This is because the substance of what is learnedcannot be disconnected from the communities of practice that generate and sustainknowledge. A key task for schools is to provide young people with opportunitiesto become what Lave and Wenger describe as legitimate peripheral participants inthese communities of practice, whereby they have authentic learning experiencesthat are valued by themselves and other members of the community of practice.Kirk and Macdonald (1998) suggest that sport education may have the potentialto make this connection for young people since it reorganizes most features ofcompetitive sport into an educational form.

A number of key points emerge from this discussion of a situated learningperspective. Learning is an active process of engagement with socially organizedforms of subject matter, through perceptual and decision-making processes and the


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execution of appropriate movement responses. Individuals bring prior knowledge tolearning episodes that contain a (sometimes wide) range of alternative conceptionsof a topic. The learners active engagement with subject matter is embedded within

and constituted by layers of physical, sociocultural, and institutional contexts. Thesecontexts include the immediate physical environment of the classroom, gym, orplaying eld, social interaction between class members, the institutional form ofthe school, and aspects of culture such as media sport.

Rethinking the Bunker-Thorpe Model From

a Situated Learning Perspective

Next we will examine each of component of the Bunker-Thorpe model in lightof this situated learning perspective. The revised model is presented in Figure 2.

The Game Form/Learner Relationship

The rst category in the Bunker-Thorpe model is the game and its relationshipto the learners developmental level. In most situations, consideration of the learnerrequires the game to be modied, and for this reason Bunker and Thorpe refer tothe game form. For example, modications to tennis for beginners might involvea throw-catch game without racquets, or the use of padder bats and foam balls,lowering the net, and with a corresponding simplication of the rules.

The model requires the teacher or coach to consider the learner and to be

knowledgeable about the game form best suited to learners capabilities. The mostobvious consideration is the physical developmental levels of the learners. Consid-eration of this factor has led to NASPEs advice on developmentally appropriatephysical education in the United States (National Association for Sport and Physi-cal Education, 2000), and programs such as Aussie Sport in Australia (AustralianSports Commission, 1997b) and TOPS in Britain (Youth Sport Trust, 2000). Theseinitiatives share the features of modied equipment, resizing of playing surfaces,and simplied game rules. From a situated learning perspective, a number of ad-ditional factors need to be considered.

Given the role of prior knowledge and alternative conceptions of domain-

specic knowledge in learning, the teacher needs to have some sense of what thelearner already understands about the game (Dodds et al., 2001; Rovegno, 1999).This includes, for the learner, direct experience as a participant as well as expe-rience of the game as a spectator. Since the game form is a context in itself, it isalso important from a situated learning perspective that the teacher know somethingabout the learners conceptions of learning in physical education classes (Kirk,Brooker, & Braiuka, 2000).

The tasks set by the teacher that constitute the game form need to make senseto the learner in terms of his or her emerging understanding of the game (Rovegno,1999). Such connections, between the game form and the learners understanding of

the game, need to be made explicitly in order to overcome the school work module(Bereiter, 1990). The school work form of a task tends to be remote and abstractfrom the learners everyday experience outside the school. A good example of thisis where children complete a prolonged period of learning isolated parts of a skillbefore being offered an opportunity to experience how the skills relate to playing


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the game (Thorpe & Bunker, 1989). In the case of TGfU, this means that the tasksset by the teacher need to be seen as authentic and connected to the game from thelearners point of view.

These requirements of a situated perspective seem demanding enough when

considering the relationship between one learner and the game form. The challengeof modifying the game and setting appropriate tasks becomes even more demand-ing when a group of learners is considered. Taking into account the sense that eachmember of the group makes of the game form, the relationship of the game formto the game, and learning within the game form context is extremely complex.Practical issues will undoubtedly direct a teachers actions. However, some form ofgraded tasks for groups of students, such as manipulating the width of the play areato challenge different ability levels, or loading the attack or defense, may facilitateunderstanding and game play. Also, explicit contextualization of the game form inrelation to what the teacher knows about the learners perspectives may be necessary,

such as using, say, the Olympics to frame a unit of work in track and eld.

Game Appreciation, Tactical Awareness,

and Emerging Understanding

In the Bunker-Thorpe model of TGfU, the categories of game appreciation,

Figure 2 The revised TGfU Model.

Learners2. Gameconcept

3. Thinkingstrategically

Emergingunderstanding

1. Gameform

Cueperception

4. Decision making

6. Situated per-formance

Skilldevelopment

5. Movementexecution

Techniqueselection

Whatto do?

Howto do?

Legitimateperipheral par-

ticipation


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tactical awareness, and making appropriate decisions align with domain-specicand strategic knowledge. Game appreciation aligns with declarative knowledge,such as knowing rules, player positions, and scoring systems of a game. Making

appropriate decisions aligns with procedural knowledge in terms of knowing whatto do in response to a game situation, such as how to defend in a one-on-one situ-ation in soccer. Tactical awareness seems to rest somewhere between these twodimensions of knowledge.

Given Bunker and Thorpes emphasis on players understanding how to play,it seems likely that game appreciation and tactical awareness are intended to gobeyond the mere acquisition of rules and other information about a game. Theemphasis on understanding suggests that seeing the relationships among pieces ofinformation may be more important to game performance than merely acquiringinformation (Aspin, 1976).

From a situated learning perspective, game appreciation might be moreaccurately represented as a players concept of a game and the ways in which itmight be played. Memorizing the rules, positions, and purposes is not the samething as developing a concept of a game, although these aspects of declarativeknowledge are the substance of concept development. The players concept of thegame plays an organizing role in relation to all aspects of game play.

A good way to test an individuals concept of a game is to imagine taking partin an unfamiliar game, say, Australian Rules football. If an individual is a knowl-edgeable invasion-game player and already knows that Australian Rules footballis an invasion game, concept development might be more rapid for this individual

than for someone without this prior knowledge. As learning progresses, the con-cept of Australian Rules football is likely to become increasingly sophisticated.Without some concept of the game, its central purpose, and the relationship ofpurpose to game form and the players role, progress in learning to play the gameis likely to be slow.

The ways in which the concept of a game may be conveyed to beginnersin particular becomes an issue of key importance to teachers and coaches. Theinsertion in the revised model (in Figure 2) of the notion of emerging understand-ing between the categories of game form-learner and game concept is intended toprovide teachers with a point of focus for helping learners make the connections

between the purpose of the game and the game form.Tactical awareness both feeds and is fed by a players emerging concept of

the game, based on domain-specic declarative and procedural knowledge. Givenits central importance in TGfU, the term tactical awareness may be somewhatimprecise in identifying the assumptions about learning embedded in the model.Players dont need to be simply aware of tactics. They need to be able to deploythem appropriately (Alexander & Judy, 1988; Aspin, 1976).

The notion of thinking strategically may offer a more explicit and focusedterm for what Bunker and Thorpe intended here. Strategies can of course vary inthe level of their generality and specicity. There can be strategies that apply tothe whole team or group, and others that are more specic to individual players,strategies for a season, or strategies for specic games. As Alexander and Judy(1988) note, strategies draw on declarative and procedural knowledge. The notionof thinking strategically replaces tactical awareness in the revised model becausethe notion of strategy conveys a focused, intentional, relational, goal- and action-oriented sense of what the learner does in the process of using declarative and


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procedural knowledge.

Cue Perception and Decision-Making

The category of making appropriate decisions is common to both information-processing and situated perspectives on learning. Perception can be located hereperhaps, between thinking strategically and Bunker and Thorpes more substantiveand instantiated subcategory of decision-making. With perception highlighted inthe model, teachers then have license to facilitate cue recognition. Kirk et al. (2000)argue that even in a TGfU approach, teachers do not teach for cue recognitionautomatically. An improvement in a players ability to discern what informationis appropriate in any given set of circumstances, as a wealth of research shows, isa function of experience (Abernethy, 1996). Kirk et al. argue that players must begiven opportunities to develop the experience of recognizing appropriate cues in avariety of contexts, such as learning that a teammates outstretched hand is a cueto pass the basketball into his or her path, or when an attacking player is feintingrather than dodging.

Cue perception may be a key factor linking game concept, thinking strate-gically, and decision-making. Research on TGfU has well established that learnersare able to display declarative knowledge of rules and purposes prior to displayingprocedural and strategic knowledge (Rink et al., 1996). Kirk et al. (2000) speculatethat a failure to display declarative knowledge in game play when it was previouslyevident in a question-answer session may be explained by a players inability to

recognize the cues that activate particular strategies, especially those relating topositioning and the timing of actions. Teachers need to make links explicitly be-tween the cues embedded in particular sets of circumstances in a game (such asa defensive formation) and the application of specic strategies to overcome thatformation (such as creating an overlap in offense).

Decision-Making, Movement Execution,

and Technique Selection

If making appropriate decisions involves perceptual activity interfacing with

a stock of declarative knowledge, expressed in the revised model as game conceptand thinking strategically, then decisions about how to act interface with the actualexecution of movement. Bunker and Thorpes model locates skill execution withina separate category from decision making. Thomas and Thomas (1994) claim thatdecision-making in games is strongly inuenced by knowledge of ones own andothers movement execution capabilities. If this is the case, it may be appropriateto insert a mediating process between decision-making in terms of how to act andthe more specic process of movement execution. In other words, some elementsof procedural knowledge and movement execution are understood to interface.

A key mediating category to insert here may be technique selection. Technique

selection can be understood to refer to a process of reection on the appropriatetechniques that are actually available to the player and the players own knowledgeof which technique(s) she or he can execute with condence. By making this processvisible within the model, teachers can address explicitly how to do? as a processof self-reection and selection from a range of options.


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Skill Development and Situated Performance

The interfaces between skill execution and performance in the originalBunker-Thorpe model, and between performance and the game form/learner

relationship, must be reconsidered given the developments to the revised modelso far. The nal category in Bunker and Thorpes original model is performance.This category refers to normative criteria, often consisting of an advanced formof a game. This normative category effectively provides a means of judging therelationship between a learners progress through cycles of modied game formsand conventional adult or advanced versions of a game.

Bunker and Thorpe consistently used the term skill to refer to an amalgamof strategic and technique capabilities in game players. The notion of skill devel-opment in the revised model offers itself as a useful mediating process betweenmovement execution to performance.

Skill in this context comes close to what Bereiter (1990) describes as alearning module. A learning module is a cluster of related, rather than discreteor separate, capabilities. Skills as modules represent clusters of cue perceptioncapabilities, strategies, and techniques that are activated together in specic gamesituations. As players performances improve, their ability to activate skills asclusters of perception capabilities, strategies, and techniques becomes smootherand more seamless.

The practice of set drills would seem to provide a good example of an in-tentional attempt to cluster or modularize components of game play. For example,soccer players often practice drills for passing and moving into space in attack.The drill might involve two or three attackers, opposed or unopposed, with theaim of developing in combination passing technique, perception of where spaceis, anticipation of the movement of teammates, and strategies such as the wall-passto get around defenders and progress the ball toward the goal.

The second interface to be reconsidered is between performance and thegame form/learner relationship. This interface can be understood in terms of alearners legitimate peripheral participation in a community of practice (Lave &Wenger, 1991). When Bunker and Thorpe were developing their model of TGfUin the late 1970s, the phenomenon of media sport was just beginning to emerge

(McKay, 1991). Now more than 20 years later, media sport forms an importantcommunity of practice for young peoples learning (Kirk, 1999). Young peopleseveryday experiences are saturated with professional, commercial, high-tech, eliteadult versions of sports and games. This cultural phenomenon plays a signicantpart in shaping young peoples concept of particular games and their expectationsof what it will be like to participate in that game (Brooker et al., 2000). Rovegno(1999) has suggested that more attention needs to be paid to students culturalconceptions of learning to play games. She claims,

We must take students personal and cultural experiences seriously. Studentsnever come to school sport lessons without personal and cultural knowledge,knowledge of how sport and physical activities are portrayed in the massmedia, and, with the exception of very young children, without knowledgeof how sports are typically taught in schools. (p. 11)

The notion of situated performance in the revised model might betterdescribe this normative category, reaching out as it does to consider the cultural


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location of sport and its role in young peoples lives as legitimate peripheral par-ticipants in this community of practice (Kirk & Macdonald, 1998; Lave & Wenger,1991). When sport is understood as a complex, multifaceted, and heterogeneous

community of practice, it is possible to track players learning trajectories over timeas they begin to understand the broader social, cultural, and institutional practicesthat constitute games.

This notion of situated performance in TGfU provides one way of under-standing the relationship between the game form and the players prior and alter-native conceptions of a game. Without analysis of the popular cultural forms ofsport, leisure, exercise, and other related phenomena such as fashion, we may belimiting our understanding of the learners perspective. We agree with Rovegno(1999) that it is important for young people to grasp the meaning of a game.

Conclusion

By modifying and making additions to the Bunker-Thorpe model, we havebeen concerned with explicating those dimensions of TGfU that seem to be omit-ted or underdeveloped. We believe that the interfaces between the elements of themodel are worth elaborating upon since they may make crucial links for teachersand coaches. In particular, we suggest that explicit attention to the learners per-spective, game concept, thinking strategically, cue recognition, technique selection,and skill development as the clustering of strategies and techniques, and situatedperformance as legitimate peripheral participation in games, elaborate upon the

already existing but implied learning principles of the Bunker-Thorpe model.The model has the appearance of a linear process. As Rovegno (1999) notes

from her reading of the educational learning theory and motor control literature,learning in a complex medium such as games is not linear. We concur with this pointand reiterate that the TGfU instructional model contains embedded assumptionsabout learning, but it does not seek to represent the learning process. Since this isan instructional model for facilitating understanding, we suggest that the structureneeds to be presented in a form that will assist teachers. Here we encounter a keyissue. We know relatively little about how teachers use the Bunker-Thorpe modeland whether it is in fact useful to them as a model of instruction.

A research program centered on the revised TGfU model or some otherform of the model immediately suggests itself. What we believe is required is asystematic examination of the revised model in practice and its further modica-tion and development on the basis of this research program. If the model is to beuseful as a means of guiding teaching for understanding in games, it must be ableto identify for teachers the key moments in learning to play games that require theirattention in terms of designing learning experiences.

When learning to play games is understood as a form of situated learning,we suggest that it becomes possible for teachers to explicitly address aspects oflearning that have hitherto at best been understood only intuitively. So, for example,through a situated learning perspective, teachers may be able to address explicitlythe authenticity and meaningfulness to children of the experience of learning to playgames in school settings by developing better understandings of childrens priorknowledge and alternative conceptions (Dodds et al., 2001). Whether the modelcan assist teachers in this process of reective teaching is a matter for investigationthrough research.


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Acknowledgement

We wish to thank the teachers at Springeld First School, Worthing, England, for

working with us on the model between January and June 2000. We would also like to thank

the two anonymous reviewers for their considerable assistance with this paper. Finally, thanks

to Rod Thorpe and Len Almond for their valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.

Documents

Teaching Games for Understanding and Situated Learning