The challenge of teaching Artistic Gymnastics for the Generation Alpha

The world is constantly moving and changing. Technology advances at an accelerated pace and now it is an integral part of our lives. Nowadays children are born completely connected and immersed in the digital world. They are part of Generation Alpha. The Generation Alpha corresponds to the children born between 2010 and 2025. These are children who were born in a technological world, with easy access to the internet and surrounded by stimuli since they were babies (McCrindle & Fell, 2020). They interact with the world through screens and often feel more comfortable in the virtual universe than in the real one. They are also called “digital natives”. Children of this generation have clear access to information and knowledge and are constantly bombarded with visual and sound stimuli. Despite the excess of sensory stimulation, these children receive little emotional education (Zanbello et al., 2021). According to the authors, they are anxious, immediatist children, with difficulties in social interaction and difficulty in dealing with frustrations. They are digitally literate, creative, autonomous in their pursuit of knowledge, and have short attention spans (McCrindle and Fell, 2020). The immersion of these children in the digital world influences, among other things, the construction of each one's identity, the way they interact socially, the way learning takes place. Teachers who work with this generation need to understand the context in which these children are inserted and seek to deepen their knowledge about the “digital natives”. It is essential that they are up to date, that they recognize the characteristics of their students, their difficulties and their potential. In such manner, teachers have tools to conduct the teaching-learning process in the best possible way. The aim of this research, then, was to develop strategies for teaching Artistic Gymnastics for children of the Generation Alpha. In order to develop teaching methods considering the characteristics of the new generation, a Community of Practice (Wenger, 1999) was created among 25 specialist teachers in Artistic Gymnastics. Professionals from Centro de Treinamento Amigos do Esporte (CTAE) got together to discuss the difficulties they face in teaching the sport to the new generation. The main points raised were: 1) the children's inability to deal with frustration; 2) the difficulty in absorbing and retaining information; 3) their impatience. Then, the group of specialist teachers defined some strategies for teaching the modality, taking into account the characteristics of the new generation: - Make training more dynamic with the increase of tasks to reduce the time in the queue. - Give more objective instructions. - Use positive reinforcement tools to encourage persistence and resilience. - Film the movements so that the children can see themselves and better understand the mistakes. The developed strategies are being tested by the Community of Practice, but it is believed that they will be efficient for teaching Artistic Gymnastics nowadays. In 5 months, the teachers will meet again to discuss the tools and methods used, improve them and think of new solutions. Adapting the practice to the public in question is extremely necessary to obtain the desired results. This work sought to get to know the children better, understand the difficulties faced by teachers and propose accessible and efficient solutions.