Petty's EDUCARE? Mnemonic is described and examples of how I have incorporated the different stages in my own teaching practice are given.
Reflection From Experience and Observation comes next. What I feel made for the best practicals and why, from my own teaching practice and from observations are discussed here. I also reflect on the bad experiences, and try to conclude why they went wrong and how they could be amended. .
The penultimate section is criticisms', which examines the common problems that arise from using practical work as a teaching approach.
Finally, the conclusion. I discuss the role that practical lessons should take on the future. I ask the question of what is more important, covering the curriculum, or improving the quality of student learning?.
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RATIONALE.
I wanted to find out why students work harder and more studiously when involved with supervised student practice than with any other teaching method.
My main motivation for focusing on the topic of the role of practical work within the subject of Sports Science was based on an enlightening experience. This experience occurred whilst performing an experiment during my A-Level Psychology course. It involved a conservation test in a primary school with learners at the age of five. The aim of the experiment was to prove that children at the age of five have no perception of conservation. This states that, up until the age of five years, children cannot understand, for example, that if you move a volume of liquid from one container to another or remove it from the child's field of vision all together it is still there. Another example would be placing a card in front of a toy that the child is already looking at and showing interest in. Once the card is blocking the child's view of the toy, the child will not understand that the toy is still present.
During the actual experiment, all of the water from a plastic jug was poured into a tall, thin plastic beaker.