A teaching aid is anything that a teacher brings to a swimming session that assists students with the learning of a skill. Aids can be extremely useful and enable students to practice a desired skill with less fatigue. Teachers should be prepared to patiently lead students through a range of progressive activities supplemented with incidental use of a variety of equipment. Students will gradually recognize that the water will support them, with or without artificial support.
Flotation aids may help timid or poorly coordinated students to obtain sufficient control and balance to maintain a buoyant position. The use of different flotation aids is important, but dependence on them should be reduced systematically and eliminated as soon as possible.
Advantages of teaching equipment
The use of teaching equipment should either make learning more enjoyable or provide students with a temporary physical boost that helps them to concentrate on and achieve a particular skill level. For example, a toy can be used to encourage a hesitant child to immerse the face in an attempt to recover the toy, and may also help in developing an understanding of buoyancy. Teaching aids, when used correctly, enable the student to maintain correct body position and breathe comfortably while a specific kick is learnt.
Disadvantages of teaching equipment
Overuse of teaching equipment occurs when a student develops a dependency upon an aid, which either creates an impression that the skill cannot be performed without it or perhaps causes a fault in technique to develop. This sometimes occurs if a beginner always uses an aid to assist buoyancy and skills are never practiced without it; the student believes that the aid is solely repsonsible for buoyancy.
Teachers and students should be aware of the possible dangers of some teaching equipment. When using buoyancy aids such as flotation mats and large plastic toys it is possible for non-swimmers to be carried out of their depth by wind or water action, thereby creating an extremely hazardous situation.
Teaching equipment in poor conditions can be dangerous – for example plastic kickboards that leak or have sharp edges, or bubbles with faulty clasps. Aids are an assistance, ameans to an end; they are not ends in themselves. Used wisely, they enhance the learning process, but used unwisely their effect is negative. Having given a student an aid, the teacher must then devise strategies to withdraw it gradually, so that the student’s confidence is not lost in the process.
Types of equipment
Instructional/activity equipment
KICKBOARDS
- Balls
- Plastic hoops
- Ice-cream containers (with drilled shower holes)
- Small buckets
- Dive rings
- Water flotation mats
- Flotation toys
- Water puppets
- Water Toys
- Water logs/noodles
- Small colorful toys
- Broomstick handles
- Platforms (to alter the dept of the water)
For hygiene purposes, teachers should avoid toys that retain water!
Sea Squad Squirty Toys
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More important than equipment, students need teachers with imagination and enthusiasm.
Skill development equipment
FINS/FLIPPERS
- Pull-buoys
- Hand and finger paddles
- Leg bands
- Drag suits
Water safety/rescue equipment
- Boogie boards
- Balls
- Inner tubes
- Water logs/noodles
- Pull-buoys
- Rescue poles
- Buckets
- Cool plastic storage containers
- Throw rope
- Plastic weighted hoops
- Plastic dive discs
- Dive rings
- Rubber swimbricks
- Flexible dive sticks
Sea Squad Spinning Dive Toy
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Dry activities equipment
- Videos
- Posters
- Manikins
Aqua Belt
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