TEACH LIKE A COACH, COACH LIKE A TEACHER PART II

Dr. Wendy Ghiora – Posting #31 – December 6, 2009

Learning a New Skill

Experience indicates that until a new skill becomes routine, the coach should not introduce another new skill. This could create significant learning problems. If you accept this premise, you may want to rethink the entire process with which you teach new skills to your athletes. This is one practice experienced teachers should do, but unfortunately, many do not. For example, if you try teaching long division to a child who still can’t multiply, the child will fail miserably. The same will happen in sports. If you teach an advanced skill based on an easier, more fundamental skill, if the athlete never fully grasped the fundamental skill, he will fail at the more advanced skill.

Teachers, learn from the coaches. When a child is learning new vocabulary words for example, give them plenty of opportunities to practice using the new words learned over and over again. It is common knowledge that a new word must be used at least six times before the person knows it cold. This is why we see athletes practicing a new skill or a new play for an upcoming game over and over again until the players know it cold.

Reflection Time

We know that students learn best when they are given the time to reflect upon what they have just learned, how it is connected to what they have previously learned, and how they will use it in the future. They require time for the learning to take root or to absorb to the point that the “aha moment” happens. It is difficult for a classroom teacher to find the time to make this work, but it is crucial to the long-term teaching process.

Coaches should do the same. They have to build the athletes' skills patiently and solidly piece by piece, in practice. A small investment in reflection time in the daily schedule will usually produce tremendous results.

In practice, those times of reflection are numerous. Each time the team does something right, the coach can say, “Now think about what just happened. Why did that play work?” At the end of practice, as well as at the end of a classroom lesson the team or the class can reflect on the goal for the day and whether they achieved it and if so, how.

Lowering Performance Anxiety

There isn't a coach who hasn't had an athlete perform poorly because of his high level of anxiety. Whenever a player begins getting excited every time the action heats up, the coach simply can't tell him to calm down. It won't work. Coaches have to teach players to focus on their role in the team pattern, and to flow with the action--not hurry or overdo things, the byproducts of anxiety. Yes, they have to teach them, but how? It is taught during practice with constant reminders and by example. If the coach gets excited about an error, the players will also. If the coach approaches it as a teaching moment and learning moment, players will eventually think of error as success in work clothes. Teachers must do the same. In the classroom setting, students become anxious on test days. This is their performance time, similar to “game day” for an athlete. Teachers should remind students to focus on what they have learned and how well they have performed in this subject during class time. They can gently remind students to take their time and rely on the knowledge they have previously demonstrated.

Getting Your Athletes and Students to Listen

Research shows that most children from a very early age receive at least six negative comments for every positive one. How about if we try giving each student at least one or two positive comments each day? We have all heard the saying, “You catch more flies with honey.” Give specific positive comments and compliments on a task done well by a student or an athlete. Instead of saying, “Good job Eddie,” make it real and meaningful. Say, “Eddie, I noticed how well you were focusing when you caught that fly ball!” This encouragement will go far to build that child’s self-esteem, and make him much more interested in listening.

The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate "apparently ordinary" people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying winners: it is in making winners out of ordinary people.
K. Patricia Cross