With my partner, we collaborated to produce an overview of a Scheme of Work (SOW) which was intended for Year Seven pupils and spanned 6 lessons. Working in a pair to create this overview gave me an insight into the amount of time and effort which has to be allotted to producing such a document. Producing SOWs will be part of my responsibilities in working as part of a productive P.E department (Capel and Leask, 2009, p. 15). Progressing pupils and tailoring activities to meet their abilities is essential to keep students engaged in their learning (Grout et al., 2009). This provided the rationale for making the activities relatively simple in complexity so that the tasks within them could easily be adapted to suit the different needs of each student.
Studying eminent literature when creating the scheme of work has alerted me to the banks of resources and ideas that will enable me to create stimulating and well-structured lesson plans (McNeil et al., 1992; McNeil, 1994). The research I conducted was particularly beneficial as the books I examined gave practical examples of practices that can be used within these lessons. As the PE curriculum perennially changes, this could necessitate me purchasing books of this kind for the orienteering lessons that I will teach.
As our work was reviewed by our peers, this gave us another perspective of critical analysis. Gupta (2013) articulates this process as being especially useful in identifying areas of improvement which may not have been considered before. Participating fully in this process and giving feedback to my peers has educated me in how peer reviewing works. This could have immeasurable benefits for my career, as I will be able to give and receive effective feedback.
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At University, although I have a professional relationship with my cohort, as we have spent so much time together there could inevitably be biased opinions based on the social relationships we have created (Bennett, Parker and Smigiel, 2012). For example, if someone has reviewed my work that I do not think deserves the credibility of doing so, then I may not take the advice that they have given (Moore-Johnson and Fiarman, 2013). However, my opinion is that there is an equilibrium within our group, and the multitude of different views we have enrich our learning experiences. In the workplace, it would be desirable to get practitioners from other departments to assess my practice so that there is no bias and only professional, constructive feedback is given.
The main criticism that our work received was that the overview had quite a rigid structure and did not allow the teachers any flexibility or spontaneity, which arguably are the characteristics of some good PE lessons. The overview enabled us to write the specific content which would be taught. Alternatively, it may have been more preferable to record the learning outcomes of each lesson because SOWs are designed to give an overview of what elements are to be covered, and it is then at the teacher’s discretion to plan the delivery of this information (Wright et al., 2007, p49). Subsequently, it may also be beneficial if the learning objectives of each lesson were also recorded so that the teacher can then decide how best to deliver this information.
References
Bennett, P., Parker, S. and Smigiel, H. (2012) ‘Paired peer review of university classroom teaching in a school of nursing and midwifery’. Nurse Education Today, 32, pp. 665-668.
Capel, S. (2009) ‘Developing your Subject Knowledge’ In Capel, S. A., Leask, M., and Younie, S. Supporting teaching and learning in schools: A handbook for higher level teaching assistants. New York: Routledge. pp. 14-26.
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