Games and Sports Instruction Across the Lifespan

Catalog description

How to understand, perform and deliver individual and team games and sports across the lifespan. This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to research, experience, and reflect upon the content knowledge necessary to successfully instruct and coach a variety of individual and team games and sports across the lifespan. Students will gain experience in at least one activity from each of the four games classification groups (net and wall, invasion, striking and fielding, and target games). Students will develop the knowledge and skills necessary to instruct and coach various lifetime individual and team games and sports. The games and sports chosen for this course (basketball, soccer, golf, softball, and tennis) have been specifically selected for three reasons related to lifespan development and participation. First, they are consistently included in preschool through 12th grade school physical education curriculums. Second, they are popular extra-curricular activities, which are heavily attended by young people and adolescents. Finally, they represent popular adult recreational (pick-up games) and competitive activities (adult leagues) that are often continued over the lifespan. Emphasis is placed on the student's competency in being able to effectively instruct and perform across multiple individual and team games and sports. Students will be expected to practically demonstrate a range of psychomotor techniques and skills for each given game and sport to a high level. Students will also need to display competence in a range of cognitive, affective and behavioral domain skills. This includes the ability to make appropriate game play decisions, communicate with teammates, understand and adhere to governing body rules/regulations and creating strategies to promote lifelong participation. Students will be assessed on their ability to instruct and coach the associated psychomotor skills, principles of play, and the official rules and regulations operated by each game or sport's governing body in a peer-to-peer instructional setting. Practical activity learning experiences are designed to provide students with a sound knowledge of the concepts associated with skill acquisition including the class/team/client structure and organization, teaching and coaching techniques, and developmentally appropriate activities. Peer to peer instructing and coaching sessions will be used as an instructional strategy.