Urban Teachersí Use of Productive and Reproductive Teaching Styles Within the Confines of the National Curriculum for Physical Education

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to describe the teaching styles employed by a sample of 18 teachers working in an urban setting under the conditions of the first revision of the National Curriculum for Physical Education. A second purpose was to compare the teaching styles used by this urban sample of teachers with those employed by a rural sample we had studied previously. Two lessons taught by each teacher to pupils in Years 7, 8, or 9 during one summer term were videotaped and coded with the Instrument for Identifying Teaching Styles, a systematic observation instrument designed to record the percentages of time in which teachers employ each of eight teaching styles. Descriptive statistics were computed across all 36 lessons and for lessons on striking/fielding games, track and field events, and tennis. Independent t-tests were used to compare the teaching styles used by the urban sample of teachers in the present study and those used by the rural sample previously studied. Results indicated that the teachers in the present study spent most of their time using direct styles of teaching. Their pattern of teaching style use was very similar to that of the rural teachers observed in the earlier study. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed.

The Emotional Dimensions of Urban Teacher Change

“…Analyses of change have run the gamut from top-down, national perspectives (Curtner-Smith, 1999;Curtner-Smith, Todorovich, McCaughtry, & Lacon, 2001), to state and school district-wide multilevel change (Rink & Mitchell, 2003), to the infl uences of teachersʼ beliefs and biographies (Curtner-Smith; Ennis, 1994;Fullan, 1991;Rovegno & Bandhauer, 1997b), social environment (Ennis;Rovegno & Bandhauer, 1997a), and political context (Lipman, 1997). The result is an understanding that change is a complex process that couples teachers, students, administrators, parents, instruction, curriculum, and political agendas.…”

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“…It firstly presents my understanding of AR as a research methodology and details the reasons why I felt that it was a suitable form of inquiry to adequately answer my thematic concerns (Lincoln and Guba 1985). Secondly it looks at Cooperative Learning, and its ability to deliver the more indirect and pupil-centred practice that I sought (Curtner-Smith et al 2001, Metzler 2005.…”

“…Putman (1993) suggested that although pupils and education are changing, educators' instructional approaches have been slow to evolve. Curtner-Smith, Todorovich and Lacon (2001) hypothesized that in order to meet current pedagogical demands teachers would "need to shift from the exclusive use of direct, teacher-centred, or reproductive styles of teaching to employing more indirect, pupil-centred, or productive styles" (178).…”

Uma visão integrada do modelo teaching games for understanding: adequando os estilos de ensino e questionamento à realidade da educação física

“…O espectro dos estilos de ensino sugere que existem dois estilos "puros" de ensino, sendo que num deles são os alunos que tomam as decisões e noutro é o professor que as toma (CURTNER-SMITH et al, 2001). No fundo, este tipo de centralização da tomada de decisão relaciona-se com o nível de liberdade e centralização do ensino no aluno, convergindo em dois grupos diferenciados de estilos de ensino (MORGAN; SPROULE; KINGSTON, 2005): a) estilos de ensino de reprodução, onde o professor toma as decisões e os alunos executam o solicitado pelo professor, com reduzido nível de autonomia por parte dos alunos; e b) estilos de ensino de produção, onde os alunos gradativamente se tornam responsáveis pela sua própria aprendizagem e onde o professor se afigura como um guia ou orientador.…”