TEACH LIKE A COACH, COACH LIKE A TEACHER PART 1

Dr. Wendy Ghiora – Posting #30 – November 28, 2009

Have you ever noticed how the kids look forward to their P.E. class? Many kids also look forward to team practices after school and on weekends. Maybe there are some valuable lessons we, as classroom teachers can learn from coaches, and maybe coaches can learn a few of our tricks as well.

The Focus


Experienced coaches, like experienced classroom teachers, give students a clear goal for the day at the beginning of class. When a team practice begins, what a good coach does, in effect, is focus their athletes on the task for the day. Inexperienced coaches tend to be sloppy about the way they begin practice. The same can be said for classroom teachers. Experienced teachers, like good coaches, have a goal in mind, and make that the focal point from the moment the class begins.

Students Learn Best at the Beginning and End of Class


Reasearch shows, students are able to absorb more information at the beginning and end of class. This is the reason experienced coaches introduce new material during the first hour of a practice session. Likewise, the best teachers introduce what they expect the students to know and be able to do at the beginning of the lesson.

If that is the way they begin sessions, how do they end them? Both experienced classroom teachers and sport coaches end with applications. For the teacher, review of the day’s lesson can be most effective. For the coach, integrating what was learned into the offensive or defensive system helps drill in information.

One of the easiest and best ways of ending a lesson or a practice is by reviewing (verbally, physically, or visually) what students learned that day and why it will help them. It is even better when students are asked to verbally, physically, or visually tell a fellow student or teammate what they learned that day. This gets the entire class or team engaged and imprints the new knowledge in their memory. They now inherently know they really did learn something new!

Peer Coaching

It has been said, “If you want to learn something, teach it.” Studies indicate that one of the most powerful teaching tools extant is having the students teach one another. Smart coaches often put the upper classmen in charge of teaching the novices, even during the practice. While watching the athletes teach one another, the coach can be carefully listening in on what is being taught as it is being taught. Great classroom teachers use the peer method for teaching everything from learning basic sight words to learning how to take lab notes for a classroom science experiment.

Goal Setting

This can be done far more effectively by involving the athletes or students in the process. For the coach, one of the best ways of motivating the athletes is by including them in the decision-making process in such areas as team organization, practice, uniforms, game strategy, leadership development, and even team rules. With the classroom teacher as facilitator, students can be included in deciding classroom rules, the parameters and requirements of a specific upcoming project in history, or virtually any subject.

Put It In Writing

As we know, there are several learning styles and one student’s best learning strategy, may be different than another’s. In athletics, some players learn best on the court or field, in action, while others will benefit from being able to see diagrams and read text, or watch video with the same information. However, having something written to refer to is your insurance policy. For that reason, coaches should put in writing whatever they are trying to teach. Good teachers also know this, and use a myriad of written resources including: note cards, posters, books and handouts with specific information for the current topic. In testing students who have been taught by video, audiotape, and reading, coaches will find that reading produces the best results. Coaches can derive great use out of a simple booklet describing the most important things they want their athletes to know. The booklet is easy to write and puts all the basic knowledge at the athletes' fingertips.

Stay tuned next week for more ideas on teaching like a coach and coaching like a teacher.