Play Practice

Book excerpt: Play Practice: Engaging and Developing Skilled Players, Second Edition, provides an alternative to traditional sport instruction. This innovative and authentic approach to teaching sports combines contemporary theory with the experience of practical and reflective work in real sport environments. Coauthors Alan Launder and Wendy Piltz, both with wide-ranging experience as players, teachers, and coaches, expand and update the play practice approach they presented in the first edition and show how it can be used to help improve sport skills for players of all ages and abilities. This flexible model of sport pedagogy can be applied as a whole or one element at a time. It covers a wide range of team and individual sports, including archery, table tennis, flag football, snow skiing, cricket, and track and field. Plus, you’ll find a wealth of field-tested ideas for working with diverse learners in schools and communities. The second edition highlights the significance of key terms such as games sense, technique, resilience, and fair play. It also provides new information relating to the complexity of learning and addresses the difficulties beginners face in the learning process. The second edition of Play Practice integrates a thorough analysis of skilled performance with an understanding of the conditions under which people best learn. It also shows how the strategies of simplifying, shaping, focusing, and enhancing can help you create situations to maximize learning and positively influence the attitudes of learners. Over 130 illustrations and photos demonstrate specific approaches, ideas that can work for multiple sports, and ways to apply the approach with beginners through elite players. Summary sections in each chapter help you quickly identify and review key topics. And two bonus chapters about the origins, evolution, and theoretical bases for Play Practice are available free for download at www.HumanKinetics.com/PlayPractice. Play Practice is based on the idea that an individual’s commitment to achieving mastery is a powerful motivator for learning. Learn to harness these motivators and create enjoyable practice situations in which learners young and old, whether resistant beginners or highly motivated professionals, are encouraged to strive for excellence.