Use of PE Assessment Journal in Badminton Sports Module

Introduction

With the introduction of e-pedagogy as a whole-school approach in school, it is important that the usage of technology does not eclipse the importance of students being engaged in physical activity in the physical education context. To gain greater competence in utilising the iPad for educational purposes, I signed up to be an Apple Educator. During the course, I learnt new skills using different apps such as Notes, Video-editing tips and had the opportunity to connect with others for inspiration. 

Experimentation Phase

As I learnt the skills during the course, I was trying out certain features within the Pages app and realised that it could be a good platform to share more details about the sports module that is being taught. That got me to add in other components such as the history of the sport, dimension of court, rules of the game. This will give students a better understanding of the sport and also acts as a repository to host learning materials for students who wish to find out more. 

Assessment for Learning

Self-assessment checklist is also provided after videos have been taken. Looking at their own videos, they will then assess to see if they have done all the necessary steps. Subsequently, one peer will look through the same video and offer a second opinion. In this way, students get to review their own performance to identify the areas of improvement. At the same time when they review their peers’ videos, they are also looking out for the same areas which serve as further reinforcements to their learning. Students are encouraged to take multiple videos of their performance, providing students with more opportunities to work towards improvement and refinement.

Implementation

Instructions given have to be very precise for students to understand the required task. With any new tool, it is expected that students will need some time to become familiar with the app. When it comes to video recording, students need to be taught to recognise the best angles to capture the movement. At the start, there was a significant dip in physical activity time due to the amount of instructions that had to be given. With time, it could be observed that good learning routines will help students learn better as they become more familiar with the technology in hand. Through this collaborative process, it could be seen that students begin to use common terminologies and language to provide specific feedback to each other. 

Evaluation

While most felt that the usage of iPads is helpful in capturing their movement performance and to facilitate constructive peer feedback, the time spent on administrative matters took away some actual physical activity time. This can be better managed by scheduling the technology-mediated lessons within specific parts of the unit.  In terms of the reflection process, students also have to be guided to pen down quality and meaningful reflections. On a different note, one of the students actually suggested that a Badminton rules test could also be considered as part of the assessment in the sports module as well.

Moving forward

There are countless best practices which have been experimented and shared at various platforms. It is important that we take time to experiment and adapt these practices to better suit our learners’ profile as this will certainly have an impact on our pedagogical practice. I believe that it is  important to start small and think big. At the department level, members could come together to think of ways so that everyone can attempt to teach and make use of technology with some guidance and support from each other so as to ultimately enhance the teaching and learning of Physical Education for our students.

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