Teach Secondary -Issue 15.1

AdeAdepitan recalls how his experiences of early educational software left a lasting impression, and breaks down the learning skills that have served himwell as an athlete... What I learnt at school What can you remember of your experiences at school? Primary school was cool. Secondary school was more serious – you’ve got GCSEs to worry about, growing pains, teenage angst and all that stuff. Primary school was just fun . At primary school, it felt like the learning was done in a way that really tried to engage young people. I’m from the generation of schoolkids who saw PCs just starting to come in for the first time. There had been this ancient computer at my school, ‘the BBC’, which I remember had this game all about the the Mary Rose. Everyone was talking about it – it was all over TV, how there was this boat that was being raised after being underwater for hundreds of years. And we had this computer game where you had to locate the Mary Rose , excavate it, bring it up safely intact, all of that. It was really basic, but I can still remember learning about the Mary Rose , even though it’s got to be at least 40 years ago now… You recently narrated a KS2 geography-themed game for BBC Bitesize, ‘Race Across the Continents’ –what can you tell us about it? It’s another example of that ‘fun learning’. It’s a combination of a quiz and a competition in which you can watch yourself progress over time. It’s one of those games where students will have fun, and at the end it won’t feel like they’ve been in some long, arduous lesson. It’s a great way of learning, because every time the players learn something new, or get a question right, they can see a tangible progression. It can help them feel like they’re applying what they’ve learnt in a practical way. Does that side of it appeal to you, as an athlete – that impetus to always see yourself as progressing? I do love that feeling where every day, and in everything you do, there’s aways some sense of progression, and a feeling of being rewarded for hard work or creative thinking. Even when you get a question wrong and see what the correct answer actually was, then you’re still learning. That’s part of what you do as an athlete. You learn just as much from your mistakes as you do from those times when you get things right. One aim of the game is to create winning streaks, which is similar to when I’m playing basketball. You try to get into a rhythmwhen you’re shooting, and if you make two or three shots in a row, you’re on a streak and it feels good. If you then come down, take the right shot but somehowmiss it, that’s still the right shot – it’s what we’d call a ‘good miss’. And it’s much better to have a ‘good miss’ than to not try at all because you’re worried about making a mistake or failing. It’s just like taking a good guess. If there’s a question you don’t quite know the answer to, try to figure it out logically and you’ll at least be in the right ballpark. Having that determination to try and figure stuff out is, I think, almost as important as getting it right. When I’m practising my shooting on the basketball court, for example, if I miss a shot, I’ll look at whether I missed right or missed left. Was I short?Was I long? I’ll then correct it, and if I miss again, I’ll look closer. Did my arm go slightly off? Did I catch the ball right? I’m constantly figuring out how to correct my mistakes, make tiny little tweaks and come up with different strategies. And even then, a strategy might work well against one team, but not work at all against another. I love all that – it’s the game within the game. That sounds like a good analogy for life as well... When you play games like this enough, strategising and learning from your mistakes can soon become second nature. It’s not something you have to ‘fight’ to do, but just something that’s within you. It’s a lot harder to teach that to older people, but at a younger age, our brains are muchmore malleable, and more open to that kind of knowledge. Ade Adepitan is a broadcaster, Paralympic medallist in wheelchair basketball and author; BBC Bitesize’s ‘Race Across the Continents’ game can be accessed via tinyurl.com/ts151-AA1; BBC Bitesize’s GCSE Geography resources can be found via tinyurl.com/ts151-AA2 19 teachwire.net/secondary C L A S S O F T H E PA S T