Assessment in Invasion Games: Part Four – Technology

This is the fourth part of the Assessment in Invasion Games blog post series. If you have not yet read part one, part two and part three, start there before continuing to read here.

In part one of the Assessment in Invasion Games series we looked at how the assessment of student learning in invasion games is often inauthentic and can be largely based upon assumptions. Part Two of the series explored the planning of activities and which assessment tools will be used to ensure you have authentic assessment of student performance and understanding. Part Three introduced the GPAI and TSAP as well as the Passing & Catching Peer Assessment that I developed for my students.

This week I want to share with you how I used technology to support the students understanding of decision making in invasion games through the use of quick assessments which the students completed on iPads in between games.
In the earlier posts of this series I talked about how I wanted to assess not only student performance but also their decision making knowledge. Through the use of the assessments I will share below I was able to gain additional data which proved useful in gaining a fuller picture of my students understanding of what they should do when playing an invasion game.

About a year ago while looking for ideas for my invasion games unit, I stumbled across the video below. It had been posted by Dr James Mandigo, a professor at Brock University in Canada. The video recreates a variety of scenarios in invasion games and was created by Dr Mandigo, based upon the work of Griffin, L. L., Dodds, P., Placek, J. H., & Tremino, F. (2001). Chapter 4: Middle school students’ conceptions of soccer: Their solutions to tactical problems. Journal of Teaching Physical Education, 20, 324 – 340.  In the paper they described how previous research by French & Thomas (1987) had shown that mistakes frequently observed in young children in various sports may stem from a lack of knowledge about what to do in the context of a given sport situation. They suggested that if mistakes observed come from a lack of knowledge, then it is important to explore students’ prior knowledge and the role that knowledge might play in learning games.

We Have The Technology

Creating Time for Assessment

As they were completing this form I was able to see as the teacher on my iPad their responses. This enabled me to quickly see which students understood the tactical concept and which students needed more support before they returned to the game.

On average, students filled in one of these forms each lesson of this unit. It enabled me as a teacher to quickly assess student knowledge of different tactical aspects for ALL the students in my class, without taking my focus away from the active component of the game play that was taking place. By collecting this data it helped me to support the students that needed extra help in developing their understanding of decision making, and hopefully by doing so remedied the errors being made by the students once they returned to game play.

In the next part of the Assessment in Invasion Games series I will share with you the data I collected from both the Passing and Catching peer assessments and the GIF assessments and how this helped me to gain a better picture whether my students had progressed in their understanding of both what they should do with and without the ball and if they could execute the skills necessary to be successful.

Click here to read part five of the Assessment in Invasion Games blog series.

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Nathan Horne is a Physical Educator based in Singapore and founder of iPhys-Ed.com. Be sure to never miss out on any of iPhys-Ed.com’s future posts by connecting with us via Twitter, Facebook or subscribing to our RSS Feed. 
Nathan can be contacted on Twitter @PENathan or via email at nathan@iphys-ed.com