Affective Learning in PE, Character & Leadership Development in Sports
The affective domain is centered around pupils' feelings, attitudes, and values, skills critical in PE and life. Understanding how to work with others as part of a team (and developing into leadership) and understanding the concept of winning & losing (and the building of resilience that comes with this) are key parts in the importance of the affective domain.
Learning in the affective areas and emerging 21st Century Competencies are both the outcomes and enablers of physical education. Physical Education, which comprises physical health and fitness, physical activities, and outdoor education, is a natural platform which provides rich and plentiful affective learning opportunities.
Affective learning in physical education refers to the acquisition of attitudes, values, and emotions related to physical activity and exercise. In other words, affective learning focuses on how students feel about physical education and its importance in their lives.
Research suggests that affective learning is crucial in physical education because it helps students develop a lifelong love for physical activity and exercise. Students with positive attitudes and emotions toward physical education, are more likely to engage in physical activity outside of school and maintain healthy habits throughout their lives.
In Boon Lay Secondary School (BLSS), the PE department promotes affective learning by incorporating enjoyable and fun activities, creating a positive and supportive environment, and encouraging students to set personal goals and celebrate their successes. Many opportunities are created for students to participate in a variety of physical activities that cater to their individual interests and abilities.
In the Physical Activities domain, we provide students with a range of modules which consists of invasion, striking and net-barrier games. These include netball, tchoukball, handball, football, basketball, touch rugby, badminton, softball and volleyball. Within each module, the students are assessed regularly (Using assessment tools such as Tally Count and Stages of Progression) to help them set their own goals and create awareness of their current level of readiness. Peer assessment also ensures that the students can give feedback to their group members. With the affordance of technology and the availability of personalized digital learning programmes (PDLP), students have greater sense of ownership of their learning as they set targets for their NAPFA, Games and track their progress with the periodical assessments within the module.
Our school’s mission is “A CCA-centric school that is family-oriented, values-centred and aspiration focused”. Adopting the House Structure, our lower secondary students are placed in PE classes according to their CCAs and Houses. We have PE classes that comprise of Basketball (boys) and Chinese Orchestra (mixed), Netball and Boys’ Brigade, National Civil Defence Cadet Corps and CyberAce, Badminton (mixed) and Musical Theatre (mixed). These compositions provide a relatively varied physical and sporting ability classes which do provide a greater opportunity for affective learning and application of 21CC. Within each of these classes, students are grouped intentionally to ensure social diversity and balance of competencies. This practice, coupled with the teachers’ facilitation, develop students to be sensitive and aware of other teammates’ socio-cultural practices and differing physical and sporting abilities, cultivate empathy and develop the skills of perspective-taking. There are other sessions in which students of similar abilities are grouped together to allow greater competitiveness, a higher level of play, and equal touch points/play intensity for all students.
Above: Student's responses documented in padlet.
Within the school’s PE scheme-of-work, the Secondary 5 students are tasked to produce creative games as one of their PE modules. This helps to promote cooperative work amongst them because they must brainstorm, produce a prototype, test, and refine their products as a team. As each team presents their final product, the other teams will give feedback. In the process, the students will learn to give critical but constructive feedback to help improve their ideas.
Other initiatives to promote affective learning include:
● Promoting inter-class games during PE lessons,
● Electing leaders for activities, and
● Showing respect to opponents by encouraging students to shake hands at the end of the games to promote sportsmanship.
Like any other IP lessons, prior to the start of the lesson, the PE teacher states the lesson objectives, the game concept(s), the skills, and the emerging 21st Century Competencies which would be covered in the day’s lesson. At the appropriate juncture of the lessons and activities, the PE teachers will engage the students in feedback gathering. This exercise gives the students a platform to say what they think of the lessons that were carried out. By doing this, the students will feel that they are part of the learning process and will have personal stakes in their development. This will help foster greater love for PE, where growth is related to the physical and students’ affect.
Overall, affective learning is an essential component of physical education which can help students develop a positive relationship with physical activity and exercise, leading to a healthier and more fulfilling life.
References:
1. Teraoka, E., Jancer Ferreira, H., Kirk, D., & Bardid, F. (2021). Affective Learning in Physical Education: A Systematic Review, Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 40(3), 460-473. Retrieved Apr 28, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1123/jtpe.2019-0164
Contributed by:
Mohammad Khusni has been in the service for 25 years, having served in 4 schools. In his field of work in PE, he seeks innovative ways to teach the subject, integrating sports science, 21CC, and the different PE teaching and learning strategies. Mr Khusni has a strong inclination to work with youths with high needs. He is currently involved in running the Volleyball Academy as part of the school’s Project Enable programme to engage students meaningfully after school. Beyond work, he enjoys cycling around the island.
Athena Soh Mui Liang has been teaching for 16 years. As the Exercise and Sports Science coordinator, she guides colleagues in this subject and explores ways to expand the students’ learning. Having shown interest in Character and Citizenship Education (CCE), she has been trained as a Specialised CCE Teacher and works to integrate in PE and her CCA, Badminton.
For more details, do contact them at
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