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Level 300 Pedagogy

2013 Alpine National Coaches Academy

Pedagogy

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“People normally think of training and practice as something that is important, something you're obligated to do and sort of like a chore in some ways, but they don't think of it as being magical. They don't think of it as having the ability to deeply change someone. But when you look at the science, when you look at the changes that good practice makes in the human brain, you see that practice has the ability to profoundly change levels of talents and skill. High quality practice is the most accessible and most direct path to higher performance.“ - Dan Coyle, US Soccer presentation 4/21/11

How Do You Achieve High Quality Practice?

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3 Goals for Practice Session

•  Facilitate performance of skills at appropriate level of cognitive and motor difficulty

•  Augment motor performance with feedback •  Encourage performer to get better at error

detection and correction

Effective Use of Practice Time •  High-level performers do more with the time they

have – Warm-up – Ski to/from course – Timing – Video – Trail usage – Talking vs. doing

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Deliberate Practice

•  Skier attentively trains the specific aspects of performance where they are weak

•  Continual modification of task difficulty to require skier to continually reach

•  Elite athletes did not start deliberate practice earlier or do more deliberate practice than their peers until post-puberty

Deliberate Play

•  Differs from deliberate practice in that activity is inherently enjoyable

•  While unstructured, athlete is focused •  Futsal in soccer, freeskiing at Mammoth

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Training for Task Goals Successful athletes had coaches who more frequently emphasized instructions that were more athlete-centered and focused on mastery rather than competition outcomes

TARGET – strategy for ages 8-13

•  Task design – variety and limited peer comparison •  Autonomy – involve athletes in process •  Recognition – reward good practice habits •  Grouping – limit categorizing that impacts perceived competence •  Evaluation – teach athletes to assess own performances •  Timing – give each athlete time necessary to learn new tasks

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Feedback “Feedback is, in effect, the rocket fuel that propels the acquisition of knowledge, and without it no amount of practice is going to get you there.”

Sources of feedback •  Timer/scoreboard/result •  Parents •  Own feelings (intrinsic) •  Teammates •  Other parents, friends, coaches •  Coach

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Positive vs. negative John Wooden in practices

–  6.9% feedback was complimentary –  6.6% feedback was expression of displeasure –  75% was pure information (simple, concise)

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Bill Egan on Feedback

•  “If you belabor (what the rider is deficient at) too much you’re just going to neutralize the kid’s ability…you’re farting against thunder.”

•  “One of the things you must do as a coach is you must get them to believe the things that they have that are really good are going to help them WIN.”

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Timing of Communication

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Considerations for timing •  Emotional needs of athletes

–  In emotional moments, athletes are poor listeners and can’t engage in thoughtful or rational discussion

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Considerations for timing •  Your emotional state

–  Wait until your emotions are under control •  Immediately after disappointing performance, focus on

positives (self-belief) –  In training cover negative aspects for skill

improvement –  Return to building self-belief for next performance

Using Feedback as Training Variable •  Set a “feedback schedule”

– Summary feedback – Bandwidth feedback – Faded feedback – Performer-regulated – Performer-estimation

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Cognitive Process •  Feedback and training planning should factor the

cognitive processes, not just motor learning •  Certain strategies may delay

initial performance but will enhance future performance

Planning

•  Do you optimize training time?

•  Do you consider and use all of your training variables?

•  Are you developing self-reliant athletes?

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Parting Thoughts

•  Coaching is both art and science, but it is not mystical, can become skillful in same way as athlete

•  Make evidence-based decisions vs. decision-based evidence

•  Coaching knowledge is not gained linearly, but rather in connecting concepts

Resources and Reads •  Children and Sports Training, Jozef Drabik, 1996 •  Developing Sport Expertise, Farrow, Baker & MacMahon, 2008 •  How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School, National

Academy of Sciences, 2000 •  Mindset, Carol Dweck, 2008 •  Children and Youth In Sport, Smoll & Smith, 2002 •  Bounce, Matthew Syed, 2010 •  Communicating with Athletes: Timing is Everything, Robin Vealey,

Olympic Coach magazine, March 2005