‘Video Game Design’ volley practice task

 ‘Video Game Design’ volley practice task

Photo by Jim Sung on Unsplash

This is a follow up post on my previous blog. If you’ve missed that check it out here-

Learning By Design: What Coaches can learn from Video Game Design

Using Video Game Design (VGD) principles can help you design more effective practice environments for your players. The role of the coach has shifted to being designers of the learning environment rather than transmitters of ‘knowledge’. The goal is to design practice tasks that encourage athlete-environment interactions. In environments that are designed to promote athlete-environment interactions athletes learn through exploration which deepens their relationship with their environment

In the series of videos below, I want to show how I incorporated some elements of VGD to design practice tasks to work on ‘volleying’

Game Set-Up

The game is set up as shown. The player gets points for getting hitting it to the areas outside the zone. I set up the zone based around 'principles of play'. 

"The principles of play are the 'overarching' strategies used by the players to win the point.  In tennis all our actions are based on "how can I manoeuvre my opponent(s) around the court to enable me to hit a winner or force an error?’. 

The principles of the game in tennis are all going to be based around this question. (For more detail on Principles of Play see Chapter 8 in the new Non-Linear Pedagogy Book).  I identified the following as principles for winning the point at the net: 

Zone 1: Push deep

Zone 2: Move wide

Zone 3:Pull forward. 

Level 1

• The player gets a point every time they hit a ball into one of the zones. 
• Starts facing backwards or hitting a shadow approach shot
• Feeder starts in different position each time and varies type of feed

 

(This is Level 1 for this player. The task could be simplified even further for less skilled players)

VGD Principles
Principle 1: Before designing the game I talked with the player and we identified this as an area that needed improvement. We agreed that she had no issue performing the volley but we needed to focus on how to win the point

P3: I encouraged her to identify as an ‘aggressive volleyer’. We could have also picked a player she liked that displayed these traits. This encouraged her to look for opportunities to be an ‘aggressive volleyer’

P5/6: I designed the task at a level appropriate for this player. If it was too easy we moved to the next Level or back a level if it was too difficult. The task was in the ‘Goldilocks’ Zone where it was not too hard but not too easy

P8: I let the player decided when they received feedback. They were also receiving feedback from the game based on the score.

P9: The key information from the performance task was replicated but the task was simplified. I was feeding as closely as possible to a defence shot and from different areas on the court each time.

P10: We took a ‘slice of the game and encouraged the player to explore different solutions. They only got points for hitting to certain areas of the court

P13: I used the analogy of ‘Getting the wasp on the ball’ to encourage her to volley without swinging the racket too much. The idea behind it was that if she took a swing the wasp would fly off the ball before hitting it and ‘sting’ her.

Level 2

The game is the same as Level 1 except the player now can't go to the same zone twice in a row. 

VGD Principles

P1, P3,P8, P9, P13: same as Level 1

P5: The player has achieved success at Level 1 and we have moved on to the next level. We have increased the difficulty by changing the rules slightly. She can’t volley to the same area twice in a row now.

P10: Player encouraged to explore different solutions.

Level 3

The game now becomes 'live' and the point is played out

P1, P3, 10, P13 remain from level 1&2

P5: Difficulty of the task has been increased.

P9: The representativeness of the task has now been increased

P12: The player now needs to take their opponents into account more. They are playing the point out and only get the point if they win.

These are just some examples of how it can be used. I would urge caution and not just replicate this game but design similar games aimed at your own players as each player is 'unique' 

Any questions or comments don't hesitate to send a message or leave a comment