During Term 3, HPE classes across Year 7 and Year 8 completed an assessment task that required students to use feedback to improve the performance of a chosen skill. Students chose to focus on skills such as juggling, kicking a footy, performing the splits, and a reverse lay up in basketball. Students were encouraged to choose a skill that they could practice easily at home.
While working online, students took videos of themselves performing their chosen skill. They could share this video with a classmate who may be an expert in this sport, their HPE teacher, their coach in the community, or they could receive feedback from a family member. After committing to a block of practice of this skill, students then took another video of themselves to track their progress.
When completing a number of questions on this task, students were encouraged to reflect on how the feedback they received helped guide their practice. The focus of this task was not on the performance of the skill itself, but on how we can use feedback to open up new ways to learn. This is not only a vital aspect of improvement in PE, but in all aspects of our learning.
Here is a reflection from two of our students on what they gained from this task:
For Term 3 for our Health and P.E. lessons, we were assigned the skills feedback sheet where we would choose a skill that we would like to learn or practise, and receive feedback from other peers to improve it. The skill that I chose to focus on was push ups as I was very bad at them. To improve this skill, I received feedback from peers such as my brother and my P.E. teacher. Push ups are a skill that takes a lot of practice to master, and when I received peer feedback I felt that I was able to understand how to do my skill better and improve it faster.
Something I found beneficial about this task was learning about the importance of feedback. When you receive feedback on something that you want to get better at, you are able to learn from your mistakes and understand how to improve that skill, which I think is the most important thing I have learnt from this assignment. Overall, I really enjoyed this assignment and feel like I have learnt something valuable from it.
Stefania, 8MED
My skill that I had focused on was a back walkover. It is a trick often done in dance and gymnastics that requires strength in our back and core. I received feedback from my Mum as she is very fond of this move, she gave me feedback that helped me improve greatly. I have recently changed my practice as I am now more consistent with my training, I have also started to tick off an imaginary checklist in my mind thinking of all the corrections and constructive criticism I have gotten in the past weeks .
Something that I have found beneficial in this task was that I focused on one skill and one skill only. It let me put all of my attention into the practice and training of my back walkover.
This task was definitely one of my favourites as I thought it was super helpful for me to go back to my basics and early training.
Sierra, 7CCR