– 1  By: Emma Ross and Megan Elliott Article Critique

Inclusion Style of Teaching  Learners, with varying degrees of skill development, are able to participate in a task, which is designed on multiple degrees of difficulty.  Learners select a level of difficulty at which they can practice/perform. Entry level decisions and, if necessary, adjustment decisions and self- assessment decisions (guided by specific teacher prepared criteria) are shifted to learners.  No student is excluded from continued participation 2

Overview of Study Mrs. Brody(Inclusion Style) Vs. Mr. Weaver (Command Style) of teaching  Purpose: to determine which style was more beneficial when teaching throwing and batting a ball in baseball  Participants: 48 third grade students from two different elementary schools  Type of study: Observational, one taught with command style and the other with inclusion  Conclusion: Students taught through inclusion style were more likely to perceive success more readily, find the task more meaningful, interesting and challenging, and as a result learn to perform at a higher level 3

Style of Teaching Inclusion style vs. Command style of teaching  Inclusion style : Mrs. Brody’s Class  all of her students do the same exercise at the same time, however they choose the level of difficulty of each exercise  i.e. throwing a ball to a partner from a length of 10, 15 or 20 feet  Command Style : Mr. Weaver’s Class  all of his students do the same exercises, the same way, at the same time  i.e. throwing a ball to a partner from a length of 15 feet 4

– 5  48 third grade children from each elementary school  Mr. Weavers class (command)  Mrs. Brody’s class (inclusion) Number of people participating

– 6  Moderate to vigorous physical activity for 6 minutes is emphasized at the beginning of the lesson, however the study did not indicate exactly what the warm up included.  Mrs. Brody’s P.E Class Warm-Up  allowed her students to choose the level of difficulty of each exercise, whereas Mr.Brody had every student participate at the same level  E.g. Regular push ups or modified push ups dependent on participant comfort level  Mr. Weaver’s P.E Class Warm-Up  All participants had to complete a moderate to vigorous physical activity with all participants completing the task at the same difficulty level Activity – Warm Up

– 7  Mr. Weaver’s PE Class  Instructs his 24 students to throw a small foam ball to a partner who is standing 15 feet away, 20 times  Observes their performance and provides positive and corrective feedback specific to the skill elements of throwing and catching  Demonstrates new skill of striking the foam ball with a bat several times for students  Students are instructed to return to partners and complete the task within the designated area Observational Activity

– 8  Mrs. Brody’s P.E Class  Reviews major concepts and skills of the previous lesson of throwing and catching  Students have choice of overhand-throwing a small or medium sized ball to partner who is standing either 10, 15, or 20 feet away, 20 times  Asses their own skill performance with the help of a criteria sheet  Demonstrates new activity of hitting the foam ball (either small, medium, or large) with a bat under 3 different difficulty levels 1. From a batting tee 2. From a ball underhand tossed from the side by a partner 3. From a ball underhand tossed from the front by a partner  Mrs. Brody reviews the critical elements of throwing, catching, and batting by posing questions to her students Observational Activity

– 9 Design  The design of the study was an observational study where the researchers were observing the differences between the two physical education classes  Evident as the study does not include any procedure or materials section  There are also no results that were included in the study  The fundamentals that were specifically being observed in the study was not included in the research and is added to the study’s limitations

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– 11  The conclusions based on this study are all based on assumptions and had no real legitimate evidence or results  Assumptions include :  Mr. Weaver’s students level of difficulty met some but not all of the student’s ability levels  More of Mrs. Brody’s class practiced at a skill level that matched their ability  Mrs. Brody’s inclusion style of teaching provided all learners an opportunity to enter an activity at an appropriate level, either to step backward to a lower level and succeed or to step forward at a higher level and succeed  Students are likely to perceive success more readily, find the task to be more meaningful, interesting, and challenging, and as a result learn to perform a task at a higher level  Overall, students are more likely to enjoy and participate in P.E classes if you incorporate inclusion style of teaching into your lesson plan What They Found

– 12  The study did not include and abstract, a proper introduction, methods, participation, results and discussion section, decreasing its legitimacy  The researchers did not include a design template with the fundamentals that they were observing for each P.E class  There was no indication of students difficulty level with the task at hand before the students participated in the batting exercise  There was no indication if the researchers presence was known or not throughout the P.E class which can greatly effect the results  All the results that were mentioned to form a conclusion at the end of the study were based off of previous studies that were conducted by other researchers and were implied to this study based off of assumptions. Critique