Teaching Physical Education

First Online Edition, 2008

Muska Mosston

Sara Ashworth

Teaching Physical Education can change your life as a teacher. It has mine. It is a book that I’ve held close through nearly forty years of teaching. Many ideas about effective teaching can be found within its covers but, most importantly, it will enable you to better translate your intent as a teacher into purposeful action. This book is about The Spectrum of Teaching Styles—a unified theory of teaching. Any theory attempts to explain a phenomenon based on a set of principles. In this case, the phenomenon is teaching, and the organizing principle is that teaching can be defined in terms of decision-making. Other theories about teaching exist, but none is as intuitive or as elegant as the Spectrum. You will learn about a continuum, a spectrum, of teaching styles, each of which is defined by who, teacher or learner, makes which decisions. Each style is unique in terms of the learning conditions it engenders; yet each is connected to an integrated whole—a spectrum. You will learn about the relationship of each style to the three essential elements of any teaching transaction: teacher, learner and content.