Sport Foundations for Elementary Physical Education - Softcover

This book provides a comprehensive, applied and successfully field-tested plan for using a tactical games approach to teaching games and sports in primary schools. Teachers and coaches working with students should find this approach increases students' motivation, greatly enhances their tactical awareness and leads to improved skill development. Specifically, this book teaches the tactical games approach by game category: invasion games, striking/field games, net/wall games and target games. It is through this practical approach to teaching tactics, skills and off-the-ball movements using modified or conditioned games that allows greater flexibility for the teacher and increased transfer of tactics and skills across games for the student. For each game category, the authors provide three progressive levels, containing up to 30 detailed lesson plans. Each of the 91 lessons provides a tactical problem lesson focus, objective, games, practice tasks and sets of problem-solving questions and answers for ongoing assessment. Students can therefore experience the excitement of play before practicing specific skills.

Stephen Mitchell, PhD, is an associate professor of sport pedagogy at Kent State University. He received his undergraduate and master's degrees from Loughborough University, England, where the tactical approach was first developed; and he earned a PhD in teaching and curriculum at Syracuse University. An avid soccer player and licensed coach, he has employed a tactical approach in teaching and coaching at the elementary, middle school, high school, and college levels since 1982. Dr. Mitchell is a member of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD), the Ohio Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (OAHPERD), and the National Association for Physical Education in Higher Education (NAPEHE). Judith Oslin, PhD, is a professor of sport pedagogy at Kent State University. She received her undergraduate and master's degrees from Kent State and earned a PhD in sport pedagogy at Ohio State University. She has 28 years of experience as a physical educator and teacher educator. She has used the tactical approach with elementary, middle school, high school, and university students. Dr. Oslin has also presented numerous papers and workshops focusing on implementation of the tactical approach and the Game Performance Assessment Instrument at the international, national, regional, state, and local levels. She is a member of numerous professional organizations, including AAHPERD, NAPEHE, the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport (NAGWS). Linda Griffin, PhD, received her doctorate in physical education and teacher education from Ohio State University. As a physical educator and coach since 1976, Dr. Griffin has conducted extensive research, published nearly 30 articles and book chapters, and given numerous presentations on the tactical approach. She served on the planning committee for the first Teaching Games for Understanding Conference in New Hampshire in 2001. A former college volleyball player and coach, she is an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a member of AAHPERD and AERA.