A–B. Active Living and Movement Competence · Active Living and Movement: Train with Purpose, Play with Strategy

Skill, Confidence and the Will to Play

B2.3 1.1 1.2About 70 minutes

Learning goals

I can explain, through taking part and discovering, how developing my movement skills, concepts and strategies affects my competence, confidence and desire to participate.
I can describe four sources of confidence and use them to build my own.
I can explain how blocked and random practice affect learning, and design practice that builds real competence.
I can explain how skills and tactics transfer from one activity to others in the same category.

Words to know

competence
Actual ability to perform skills and use strategies successfully.

self-efficacy
Your belief that you can succeed at a specific task. It is a specific kind of confidence.

mastery experience
Succeeding at a task yourself, which is the strongest source of confidence.

blocked practice
Repeating one skill many times in a row before moving on.

random practice
Mixing several skills or variations in an unpredictable order.

transfer
Using what you learned in one activity to help in another, such as a ready stance from badminton in tennis.

Remember from Grade 9

In PPL1O you saw the cycle: better competence → more confidence → more motivation → more participation and practice → more competence. You connected this to physical literacy.

Grade 10 explores how confidence is built, what kind of practice builds real competence, and how skills transfer to new activities, so you can keep the cycle going on purpose.

Hook: "I'm just not a sporty person"

Tamar said this for years. In Grade 10 she joined a beginner climbing program at a community centre. The first week she reached the third hold. Week three, halfway. Week six, the top. She started saying, "I'm a person who climbs." Nothing about her genes changed; her competence grew, then her confidence, then her desire to keep going.

You don't need to feel confident before you start. Confidence usually follows competence.

What B2.3 asks of you

Demonstrate an understanding, through participation and discovery, of how developing your ability to apply movement skills, concepts and strategies in a variety of physical activities affects your competence, confidence and desire to participate in these and other physical activities.

Two key phrases:

"Through participation and discovery": you find this out by doing and reflecting, not just by reading.
"These and other physical activities": skills you build can make new activities feel possible (transfer).

Four sources of confidence

Psychologist Albert Bandura described four main sources of self-efficacy (confidence for a specific task):

Mastery experiences: succeeding yourself. The strongest source. Break skills into small steps you can succeed at.
Seeing others succeed (vicarious experience): watching someone similar to you succeed ("if she can, I can"). A classmate is often more convincing than a pro.
Encouragement (verbal persuasion): specific, believable feedback from coaches, teammates or yourself ("Your follow-through was much better that time").
Reading your body (physiological and emotional states): a fast heartbeat before a game can mean "I'm ready", not "I'm scared". How you interpret it matters.

Four sources of confidence (self-efficacy). Mastery experiences are the strongest, which is why practising in small, successful steps builds confidence fastest.

Practice that builds real competence

Not all practice is equal. Motor-learning research has found a surprising pattern:

Blocked practice (20 forehands, then 20 backhands, then 20 serves) feels smooth and looks good during practice.
Random practice (forehand, serve, backhand, forehand... mixed) feels harder and messier, but often leads to better learning when tested later and in games, because you have to choose and adjust each time, just like real play.

A good plan: use blocked practice when a skill is brand new, then switch to random or game-like practice as soon as you can do the basic movement. Add variety (different distances, targets, speeds) too.

A typical pattern from research: blocked practice scores rise fast during practice but drop on a later test; random practice rises more slowly but holds up better later, which is what you want in a real game.

Transfer: one skill, many activities

When you improve a skill, concept or strategy, you often improve in other activities too, especially in the same category:

Net/wall: a ready stance and split step from badminton help in tennis, pickleball and volleyball.
Territory: "get open", "give-and-go" and "get goal-side" work in soccer, basketball, ultimate, ringette and lacrosse.
Target: reading weight and line from bocce help in curling and disc golf.
Striking/fielding: reading the ball off the bat helps in softball, cricket and kickball.
Movement principles (stability, force, impulse) help in everything.

That's why a wide range of activities builds physical literacy: the competence and confidence to try almost anything.

Living skills: self-awareness (1.1) and adaptive skills (1.2)

Notice your self-talk. "I'm terrible at this" closes doors; "I'm not good at this yet" opens them. When a skill is hard, use a coping plan (1.2): break it into smaller steps, ask for one tip, celebrate one small success, and come back tomorrow.

Worked example

Let's trace Tamar's confidence

Identify which source of confidence each moment of Tamar's climbing story shows: (a) She reaches the third hold, then the fifth the next week. (b) She watches a classmate who also started that month reach the top. (c) Her instructor says, "Your feet placement is really precise now." (d) Before her first top-rope climb her heart pounds; she tells herself, "That's my body getting ready."

(a) Succeeding herself in small steps: mastery experience.
(b) Seeing someone similar succeed: vicarious experience.
(c) Specific, believable feedback: encouragement (verbal persuasion).
(d) Reinterpreting a racing heart as readiness: reading your body.

(a) mastery, (b) seeing others succeed, (c) encouragement, (d) reading your body. All four raised her confidence, and her rising competence (reaching higher) was the strongest.

Worked example

Let's redesign a practice

Omar is learning three ultimate throws: backhand, forehand and hammer. His plan: 30 backhands, then 30 forehands, then 30 hammers, the same distance every time. He can already do each throw at a basic level. Redesign it to build game competence.

Problem: this is blocked practice at one distance. It feels good, but doesn't make him choose and adjust like a game.
Random order: a partner calls the throw just before each one ("Forehand!"), or Omar rolls a die (1-2 backhand, 3-4 forehand, 5-6 hammer).
Variety: change distance (5, 10, 15 m) and targets (partner standing, partner running).
Game-like: add a marker (defender) who blocks one side, so he must choose the open throw.
Track: count completions out of 30 each session, then retest a few days later.

Mix the throws randomly, vary distance and target, and add decisions with a marker. Scores may dip at first but should transfer better to real games.

Hands-on activity

Discovery experiment: practice, confidence and transfer

You need: 3 soft balls or rolled pairs of socks, 3 targets (a laundry basket, a bucket, a box), tape or markers for throwing lines at 2 m, 3 m and 4 m, a notebook, and a yard or clear room.

Warm-up (5 min): arm circles, shoulder rolls, gentle throws.

Before: rate your confidence for hitting the targets (1 to 10).
Day 1, blocked (15 min): 10 underhand throws to the basket from 2 m, then 10 to the bucket from 3 m, then 10 to the box from 4 m. Record hits.
Day 2, random (15 min): 30 throws, but a partner (or a die roll) chooses the target and distance each time. Record hits.
Day 3, test (5 min): 15 throws in random order. Compare: which practice day's score looked better? Which felt more like a game? Rate your confidence again.
Transfer test (10 min): try a new target game (for example, a backyard bocce or beanbag toss). Did the aiming skills transfer? Rate your confidence for the new game.
Reflect (journal): How did your competence change? Your confidence? Do you want to play more? Which source of confidence helped most?

Safety: use soft objects, keep breakables and people out of the throwing zone, and take turns retrieving.

Just for fun

Confidence fact: nobody has ever been born knowing how to ride a bike. Every person who rides one had to wobble first. The wobble is part of the program.

Your turn

What three things does B2.3 say are affected by developing movement skills, concepts and strategies?

Name the four sources of confidence.

Which source of confidence is strongest?

Define blocked and random practice.

Which kind of practice usually leads to better learning later and in games?

Give an example of transfer between two net/wall activities.

Rewrite as helpful self-talk: "I can't do a cartwheel."

More practice: warm-up

What is competence?

What is self-efficacy?

Which comes first more often: confidence or competence?

Name a territory concept that transfers between sports.

What does "through participation and discovery" mean?

More practice: on your own

A student's blocked-practice free-throw score is 9/10, but in games she makes 3/10. Explain and suggest a change.

A friend is nervous before his first ringette game. Use "reading your body" to help him.

Why might a classmate succeeding be more convincing than a pro athlete succeeding?

Explain how learning to throw a flying disc could increase your desire to try disc golf.

Write specific encouragement for a teammate who finally made a clean pass.

Challenge

Design a 4-week plan to help a classmate who says "I'm bad at volleyball" build competence and confidence, using all four sources.

In the discovery experiment, a student scored 26/30 on blocked day, 19/30 on random day, and 12/15 on the random test. Calculate the percentages and explain what they suggest.

Explain the phrase "in these and other physical activities" in B2.3, using an example from two different categories.

Check your understanding

Quiz

The strongest source of confidence is usually:

Mixing different skills in an unpredictable order is:

Compared with blocked practice, random practice usually:

B2.3 says developing skills affects competence, confidence and:

Thinking "my racing heart means I'm ready" uses which source of confidence?

A ready stance learned in badminton helping in tennis is an example of:

For parents and teachers

Big idea: Expectation B2.3 asks students to show, through participation and discovery, how developing movement skills, concepts and strategies affects their competence, confidence and desire to participate in these and other activities. This lesson adds four sources of confidence, blocked versus random practice, and transfer between activities.

How to help at home:

Help with the discovery experiment (be the partner who calls targets).
Give specific, believable encouragement ("your aim improved") rather than general praise.
Notice and gently reframe "I'm not sporty" talk to "not yet".

Common difficulties:

Waiting to feel confident before trying. Confidence usually follows small successes.
Preferring blocked practice because it feels better. Explain why mixing it up helps.

Connection: these ideas link to motivation in the lesson "Why I Move" and to lifelong physical literacy.