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Health and Physical Education is a vital and relevant subject in the Australian Curriculum
creating a foundation for a student’s knowledge and understanding of health enhancing
decisions, whilst fostering resilience, sense of self and teamwork (ACARA, 2016). In this
Health and Physical Education lesson year 5 students will learn about movement and
rhythm. The lesson consists of three main activities, Picking the Beat, The Name Game
and Get-Up Dance routine. In these activities students will reproduce and create new
dance moves in which their movement, creativity and rhythm will be assessed. The lesson
covers the strands moving our body, understanding movement and learning through
movement covering multiple content descriptors (ACARA, 2016). The most prominent
being to ‘practise specialised movement skills and apply them in a variety of movement
sequences and situations’ (ACPMP061, ACARA, 2016) with the elaboration ‘experimenting
with different music genres when performing creative dances’ (ACARA, 2016).
The education system has changed considerably over the years, with a major move in
teaching practices (Green & Gredler, 2002). Pre-service teachers are taught to avoid the
outdated use of worksheets and rote learning instead focusing on becoming
constructivist educators (Green & Gredler, 2002). The constructivist method of teaching
encourages group based cooperative work, visual learning, problem solving and critical
thinking. It is important that pre-service teachers have an extensive understanding of
how children develop, think and learn (AITSL, 2016). The Australian professional
standards for teachers (2006) highlights the need for teachers to maintain a high quality
of professional knowledge, professional practice and professional engagement. Likewise
the teaching for effective learning framework (2010) stresses the importance of ‘Creating
safe conditions for rigorous learners’, ‘Developing expert learners’ and ‘Personalise and
connect learning’. These guidelines have been created to ensure maximum and
consistent teaching standards across the state and country. To assist in achieving these
standards, pre-service teachers have a strong basis of knowledge concerning the
Development, Learning and Cognition Lauren Young, 110227306
PIAGET
Stages of Development
Jean Piaget divided a child’s development into four major stages; Sensorimotor (0-2
years), preoperational (2-7 years), concrete operational (7-11 years) and formal
operational (11-adult). The children taking part in this lesson will be around the age of 10
or 11 and would therefore fall into the concrete and formal operational stages. Susan W.
Stinton (1985) stresses that the characteristics of each stage should not be used as a rigid
framework in determination of what and how to teach students. Instead it should be
used as a brief insight of the ideal methods of teaching which must be tailored to suit the
class and individual students.
Piaget suggests that during the concrete operational stage of development, a child can
mentally manipulate objects and events and has the ability to describe why the changes
occur (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2016). Once this in this stage the student will have flexible,
Development, Learning and Cognition Lauren Young, 110227306
Student’s in the concrete operational stage allow set rules to govern their behaviour,
leading to more efficient co-operation (Stinson S, 1985). This lesson plan provides clear
instructions to the student’s which facilitates successful collaborative work and helps to
keep them on task. The teacher explains each of the activities and provides structured
tasks, including a choreographed dance, for the students to follow. During the concrete
operational stage students have the ability evaluate their progress in relation to concrete
goals. Providing the students with concise aims and class outcomes in the beginning of
the lesson will foster this progress evaluation (Stinson S, 1985). The students may be
instructed that by the end of the lesson they are expected to know and understand three
traits of hip hop dancing. Children in the concrete stage can successfully decentre and
have a stronger spatial perspective with the use of external reference points (Stinson S,
1985) This knowledge will be appropriately used when the students are instructed to
recreate dance moves, showing a better understanding of how to mirror the exact
movement.
Students who have reached the formal operations stage will find aspects of the lesson
easier than those who are still at the concrete operational stage (Woolfolk & Margetts,
2016, p. 84). They will solve problems through thinking of possibilities, rather than just
observing and acting (Stinson S, 1985). Therefore their movements are likely to be more
planned, although these may be visually robotic in their movement. To prevent this the
teacher stresses the importance of listening and maintaining movement to the beat. At
Development, Learning and Cognition Lauren Young, 110227306
this stage the complexity of their work will increase and they can hypothesise about
possible changes (Stinson S, 1985). These students have the chance to use these skills
during the ‘Picking the Beat’ and ‘Name Game’ activities, where they may create
complex, creative dance moves. Students in the formal operations stage can also focus
on multiple dimensions of a task at once (Stinson S, 1985). These students will find
replicating the teachers moves easier and will be more successful at coordinating all
aspects of each movement. They will be more critical of others and their own work and
are more likely to become frustrated if they do not achieve adequate success (Stinson S,
1985). The lesson plan Includes constant encouragement, support and positive
reinforcement which will help to alleviate any self-doubt.
Construction of knowledge
Piaget theorised that when constructing knowledge two basic tendencies occur,
organisation and adaption.
(Zhiqing, 2015). Some students may have a thorough knowledge set about the specific
hip hop dance, others may have schemes about general dance and others may have no
or very minimal understanding of dance. The lesson plan caters for the students of a
broad ability set. It begins with a simple introduction into dance, focusing on beat and
rhythm incorporating simple movements, clapping and marching. It then gradually
progresses into more challenge activities, where the students may develop their skill set
through forming and following difficult dance moves. With this gradual introduction into
hip hop dance the students will have the opportunity to adapt their schemes.
Piaget noted that these cognitive changes occurring are complex and need balance, this
is found through the process of equilibration (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2016, p.83). This
occurs when the adequacy of thinking processes are tested through applying schemes to
certain situations and testing its success (Zhiqing, 2015). In the context of the lesson plan,
students will find equilibration through the positive reinforcement provided as they are
reassured that they are correctly dancing hip hop.
VYGOTSKY
students gradually, ensuring everybody is understanding the elements as the class moves
forwards, it concludes with group work which fosters independence from the teacher
and minimal individual scaffolding.
The teacher develops the student’s skills individually throughout the lesson, guiding and
assisting their dancing. A teacher aim supplied is to provide better individual feedback, it
also strives the importance to observe and be aware of the struggling and highly able
students thus providing support or challenges where appropriate. The teacher provides
students with individual feedback, helping them to gauge their progress and know where
they can make improvements.
In any classroom there is a large spectrum of students with varying levels of abilities (Guk
& Kellogg, 2007). The students at the upper end of the spectrum may have the
knowledge and ability to help other less knowledgeable students, this is referred to as
student-student mediated scaffolding (Guk & Kellogg, 2007). This lesson plan considers
that there are students who would be more knowledgeable than others, the teacher asks
if any students have experience hip hop dancing. An appropriate strategy to maximise
scaffolding inclusion would be to divide these more knowledgeable students amongst the
groups of less capable students who have not had dance experience before. The teacher
can organise the social environment of learning (Guk & Kellogg, 2007) promoting this
student-student interaction which has high potential for successful teaching as peers are
more in tune with each-others ZPD (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2016, p. 99).
Language
Vygotsky stresses the utmost importance that language holds in a child’s cognitive
development. A child will use multiple forms of language throughout their learning, social
language when engaging with others, private speech when they talk aloud to themselves
and silent inner speech consisting of internalized thoughts (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2016,
p. 97).
Development, Learning and Cognition Lauren Young, 110227306
Social speech is encouraged throughout the health and physical education lesson,
students are instructed to demonstrate positive communication and interaction. They
will use their social speech when providing opinions, asking questions and giving
instructions. Social speech is endorsed through the collaborative group work included in
the picking the beat activity. Student speech is regularly prompted in the lesson by the
teacher, through the inclusion of questions ‘Who has done hip hop dancing before?’, ‘Did
you find it fun?’ and ‘What was your favourite move?’. To promote more developed and
interactive social speech the teacher could provide open ended questions which instigate
class discussion and debate (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2016, p. 453). Questions such as
‘What do you know about hip hop dancing?’ and ‘How did the hip hop dancing make you
feel?’ would be appropriate.
Private speech is also a form of self-scaffolding. A student will use their private speech as
prompts, therefore entering their ZPD (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2016, p. 98). Private speech
helps the student to regulate their thinking, understanding their thought processes more
clearly through verbalisation. Tuija Aro et al (2014) established the effectiveness of
private speech use in relation to improved cognitive abilities and results. If the students
facilitate private speech it is possible that they are more likely to succeed and attain
greater results than if they avoid private speech use.
With detailed analysis, elements of Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories are apparent within
the Health and Physical Education lesson plan, proving for a successful social
constructivist method of teaching. The lesson plan was found to appropriately teach
students in both the concrete and formal operations stages focusing on teaching to their
strengths in learning. It considered a student’s ability to organise and adapt information
ensuring the students were well informed about the new skill. The students zone of
proximal development was targeted for maximal learning and social speech was highly
encouraged. Most importantly students are likely to find this lesson fun and engaging
whilst learning and achieving the assessment criteria.
This analysis highlights the importance of a well-planned lesson and the multiple
elements needed to achieve students maximal learning. Pre-service teachers can develop
an extended understanding of these successful teaching strategies through
understanding psychological perspectives explaining the development, learning and
cognition of children. In turn they will continue to develop Australia’s educational system
and teaching practices for the better.
Reference List
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AISTL) 2014. Australian
Professional Standards for Teachers. http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-
standards-for-teachers [27 April 2017]
Government of South Australia, Teaching for Effective Learning (TFEL), 2010. South
Australian Teaching for Effective Learning Framework Guide,
https://www.decd.sa.gov.au/sites/g/files/net691/f/tfel_framework_guide_complete.pdf
[27 April 2017]
Green, S & Gredler, M 2002, 'A review and analysis of constructivism for school-based
practice', School Psychology Review, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 53. [27 April 2017]
Guk, I & Kellogg, D 2007, 'The ZPD and whole class teaching: Teacher-led and student-led
interactional mediation of tasks', Language Teaching Research, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 281-
299. [3 May 2017]
Johnston, D 2006, 'Private speech in ballet', Research in Dance Education, vol. 7, no. 1,
pp. 3-14. [3 May 2017]
Smit, J, Van, EH & Bakker, A 2013, 'A conceptualisation of whole-class scaffolding', British
Educational Research Journal, vol. 39, no. 5, pp. 817-834. [3 May 2017]
Stinson, SW 1985, 'Piaget for Dance Educators: A Theoretical Study', Dance Research
Journal, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 9-16. [5 May 2017]
Development, Learning and Cognition Lauren Young, 110227306