Planning for Learning
Importance of Effective Task Presentation
Judith Rink and Effective Task Presentations
Our time spent in class was mainly focused on
developing a proper lesson that engages students and
promotes student learning within a physically active
environment. As educators, we do this best by presenting
tasks in effective ways. Judith Rink summarizes this
perfectly in chapter 4: “Sometimes learners do not know what
to do because they are not listening, but most of the time
students do not know what to do because the teacher is not
selective or clear enough in presenting the tasks” (64).
Knowing your content is important, but you also need to
know how to teach your content for student learning. This
can be distinguished between three educator traits.
Content Knowledge: Knowing what needs to be taught.
Pedagogical Knowledge: Knowing how to effectively
teach without any content knowledge.
Pedagogical-Content Knowledge: Knowing what needs to
be taught and knowing how to effectively teaching it for
student learning.
Task Presentations: What are they?
Task presentations are structured events where teachers
facilitate learning through a sequenced, chronological
fashion. This is often done through a combination of
different parts, such as set induction,
introduction/extension tasks, and application tasks.
A rule of thumb for approaching task presentation
execution is straying away from making assumptions
about your student’s knowledge. Being as clear as
P possible is crucial for student learning- this is often aided
by the use of age appropriate language (Rink, 64).
Task Presentation: teacher making environmental adjustments
due to children's level of excitement, controlling for distractions
(Rink, 67).
Bryan Bystol and Wes Matatal
bbystol@butler.edu and wmatatal@butler.edu
PE 330: Introductory Methods for Health and Physical Education
Factors of an Effective Task Presentation
When beginning to develop your lesson plan, the most
important thing to consider is how you will effectively
communicate your task with your students and facilitate
learning. Getting a student’s attention is one of the most
difficult aspects of task presentation.
Within Chapter 4, Rink provides a myriad of factors that
aid educators in effectively presenting tasks to get the
attention of the students and effectively communicate
desired learning. From our PE 330 class, here are the 12
factors we focused on most:
1. Set Induction
2. Start & Stop Signals
3. Controlling for distractions
4. Can everyone see and hear?
5. Time Management Bryan controlling for distractions by making
the students avoid looking at the busy HRC
6. Learning cues background.
7. Keeping content separate from organization
8. Full and accurate demonstrations
9. Check for Understanding
10.Examples & Non-examples
11.Presenting the content dynamically
12.How will you communicate the task?
Set induction: Get the Students’ Attention
Similar to the abstract of any research paper, a set
induction serves the purpose of letting the students know
what they will be doing and why they will be participating in
the lesson. Also, set inductions can be used to provide
expectations to student learning. Set inductions allow
students to feel more comfortable participating in the lesson
and gives them the opportunity to make any connections to
any previous learning before .
Here is an example of Bryan’s set induction for his lesson
on the backhand frisbee throw!
Hey, class how are we doing today? Thumbs up, middle, or down?
Today is our second day learning how to throw a frisbee! Who can
show me the difference between the top and the bottom of the
frisbee? (student raises hand, I toss them the frisbee and they
show me) Who can show me the how to properly hold the frisbee?
(student raises hand, I toss them the frisbee and they show me)
Awesome!
Content Development: How to approach it Teacher Movement:Why is it important?
Content development revolves around the process of Teacher movement is an important part of an
developing a fluid plan, that typically is developmentally for effective task presentation even though it isn’t
the students in regard to difficulty. The deliberate usually planned by educators prior to class.
sequencing that is done allows the students to experience Movement is used by an educator to effectively
tasks going from simple to complex. Teachers are able to manage their classroom and observe student
do so through the use of various different extension tasks. learning after a task has been presented. This
Various different content development strategies are: provides teachers with an opportunity to provide
feedback and clarification following their task
Informing: Introduce the task activity in what skill is presentation.
going to be developed in today’s lesson
Upward Extension: Extension task that make the Here are examples of our movement during our
activity more complex or difficult individual task presentations using the teacher
Downward Extension: Extension task that make the movement observation tool.
activity more simple or easy
Refinement: Task that focuses on how a student Bryan’s Movement Tracked
performs a task (form, power, etc.)
Application: Activity that gives students opportunity to
apply newly learned skills
Wes’s Movement Tracked
Content Development Polygraph: In-class tool used to Set Induction & Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 & Closure
observe Alicia Zhare’s content development while at IPS
60.
“Sequencing movement tasks in a manner that has the
potential to facilitate learning is the nature of content
development” (84 rink)
How to End: Checking for Understanding
Checking for understanding is crucial when determining
whether or not your students understood your task Resources
presentation. Allowing students to have time to ask Rink, Judith E. “Task Presentation in Pedagogy.” Quest (00336297), vol.
additional questions or demonstrate their knowledge 46, no. 3, Aug. 1994, pp. 270–80.
from their teachers instructions is an easy and effective Hall, Tina J., Brent Heidorn, and Mindy Welch. "A description of
way to check for student understanding. Demonstrations preservice teachers’ task presentation skills." Physical Educator 68.4
(2011): 188-198.
should be accurate and accompanied by cues that aid in
task instruction (Rink, 69).
Citations
Rink, Judith. Teaching Physical Education for Learning. McGraw-Hill
Post assessments and debriefing is an easy way to Education, 2019
reinforce what was previously taught within the task
presentation. This can be done through a similar fashion
of a question & answer session, or even a written,
physical, or verbal assessment.