Principles | Example strategies |
---|---|
Supportive | • Provide individual skill specific feedback |
• Support feelings of autonomy, competence, and social connection | |
• Provide praise on student effort and improvement | |
• Acknowledge and reward good sportspersonship | |
• Demonstrate empathy toward students who appear frustrated or challenged | |
Active | • Optimize session structure and activity selection (e.g., small-sided games, multiple games/grids and minimal lines) |
• Avoid elimination activities | |
• Include an active warm-up | |
• Integrate high-intensity ‘bursts’ of activity within typical games and lesson activities | |
• Employ circuits and rotations | |
• Complete student registration while students are active | |
• Reduce transition time by setting up activities while students are active | |
• Minimize teacher talk and instructions | |
• Maximize equipment available (e.g., every student with a ball) | |
Autonomous | • Provide students with opportunities for choice |
• Include free play at the start of sessions | |
• Involve students in creation and modification of activities and rules | |
• Provide a meaningful rationale for the different activities | |
• Minimize controlling language | |
Fair | • Ensure that students are evenly matched in activities |
• Modify activities to maximize students’ opportunities for success | |
• Encourage self-comparison rather than peer-comparison | |
• De-emphasize competition (e.g. implement point system that rewards team values and not winning) | |
• Regularly change teams/partners (if necessary) to ensure everyone experiences success | |
Enjoyable | • Design activities with which students can exhibit choice, feel competent, and also interact with others (e.g., group activities) |
• Start and conclude sessions with an enjoyable activity | |
• Ensure that sessions involve a variety of tasks/activities | |
• Do not use exercise as punishment | |
• Use self-selected and motivational music while exercising |