Expert Pedagogy

Today during the lecture we look at the contribution of three people to the consideration of expert pedagogy

-       David Berliner

-       John Wooden

-       Carol Dweck

We starting the lecture  off by exploring David Berliner and looked at some of his quotes. The first of these explained that as we develop as a teacher or coach we learn to pick up cues better. With experience comes knowing where to look and knowing what to filter out and what is important.

David also further explain his ideas surrounding expert pedagogy suggesting that expert teachers were found to be brief, taking one third less time compared to a novice. I found this idea interesting and once I thought about it, it makes sense as you gain experience as a coach you find the key phases or words that connect with athletes, as opposed to explaining everything in full.  

 John Wooden won 10 basketball championships with NCAA and developed the pyramid of success which was briefly investigated during the lecture.

While I could write pages and pages on John Wooden’s pyramid of success, I decided to just focus on the important aspects that were discussed during class.

At the very bottom of the pyramid is ‘industriousness’ it is also a corner, suggesting that it is a cornerstone of the program. The basis of John’s ideas are focused on ‘work’, work ethic and what you put in. Another interesting aspect of this pyramid is that skill doesn’t come into it until the 3^rd level. These principles become stronger over the years and with reinforcement.

If you would like to explore John Wooden’s website  here it is

http://www.coachwooden.com/last-visit.html

Keith displayed an excellent quote during the lecture one that I really like and would like to share.

“You haven’t taught until they have learned”

For a brief minute I would like to side track off the three experts and just explore a headline, one that was discussed in class and which I found relevant was regarding Kevin Sheedy and the GWS Giants. Kevin picked a player to make his AFL debut who is facing assault charges. Kevin responded by saying that he is not a judge or jury and choose the athlete based on other merits. This is quite a controversial decision and with all Kevin Sheedy’s experience I think he has made the right decision, however, I would be interested to hear others opinions on this topic.

Finally the last person in our expert pedagogy lecture was Carol Dweck. Carols ideas were based on process as opposed to outcome. If we keep focusing on the outcome, you become focused on the outcome and ignore the process.

I hope you enjoyed all the ideas discussed surrounding expert pedagogy and if you would like to share any thoughts I would like to hear them.

To Plan Or Not To Plan A Program

It is now week 11 in our sports coaching pedagogy course and Friday’s topic was planning a program.

To start off our lecture we focused on the idea of a coach and athlete in control, working like a control room.

I just thought I would show you some pictures that illustrate that this doesn’t happen all the time, as coaches we lose control weather it is right or wrong it happens.

An interesting idea that was raised about Moroccan runners and there idea of adaptive training, training volume, intensity was based on how they were feeling on that day as a collective group.

In exploring specificity, overload and reversibility, we tend to freeze dry each of these sessions rather than linking them together to monitor training. It is important that a program is viewed as a whole rather than individually as a program has an accumulative effect on athletes.  As mentioned throughout the lecture power out is a great sensor to detecting infection and fatigue.

The most important thing to remember during a training program is that it can be adapted to the athlete. There is no point going though with a training program if the athlete is physically or psychological unwell.

Why stick to a plan if it is not working?  

Produsing, say what?

Fridays lecture topic was focused on ‘Produsing’ resources for coaching and teaching

Yes I mean ‘produsing’ not producing.   

When you search ‘produsing’ on the internet for a definition, it doesn’t exist, the internet seems to be incapable of understanding ‘produsing’ instead if offers other suggestions like producing or using, so just from a quick search it is evident that this is a new innovated concept, that I too know nothing about.

Keith providing a definition during the lecture and it explained the definition of ‘produsing’. In collaborative communities the creation of shared content takes place in a networked, participatory environment which breaks down the boundaries between producers and consumers and instead enables all participants to be users as well as producers of information and knowledge.

Once you create a resource it can be changed in a variety of ways. We explored this on you tube.  I found a video which I really enjoyed and it highlights the idea of ‘produsing’ very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV3SS9i6PJ4

If you haven’t seen it, this is the ad they are ‘produsing’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgnM9gNlMgk

Social media has become a big part of ‘produsing’ and looking at Twitter buying the blog site Posterous which shows social media and the blog platform has become an attractive in a business models

However, caution must be taken to ‘produse’ responsibility, as ‘produsers’ we must be explicit as to where it came from and where we find our resources.

Thank you for reading this blog and stay posted

The Glass Is Still Half Full

As there is no lecture this week and I currently have endless time on my hands, due to spraining ligaments in my ankle during the first game of the season, I thought would write a blog. 

 Despite being told this week that I could potentially be out for 6 – 8 weeks, I still like to look at the glass as half full. This injury at the moment is making me more determined to recovery and continue playing the game I love.

As I have just explained I have had a relaxing week with my ankle either in the air or in ice water. This has given me plenty of time to look for quotes. In searching I think I have finally found one that I like and that express my coaching philosophies.  

Coaching is unlocking a person's potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them."  Timothy Gallwey

I know my blog has only been short this week, but let me know what you think

  Cheers  

Tuesday 27th March 2012

The 7^th week of Sport Coaching Pedagogy...

 Last week’s lecture looked at Sharing and Presenting information, this blog itself is an excellent example of sharing and presenting information. We first looked at Keith’s work with the AIS athletes and looking at dartfish, a software program design to allow viewing and analyse recorded performances. By looking at an athlete’s perspective through a camera on the athletes head allows sharing of the athlete perspective and can allow a coach to see and feel what the athlete does. Once a coach can have a greater understanding of what an athlete is seeing and feeling during performance training can be more specific for the athlete.

Video recording is an excellent way of sharing and presenting information especially sporting performances. We watched two videos during the lecture, the first of Kerrin Perkins in lane 8 winning a gold medal for 1500m freestyle l in the 1996 Olympics. This video raises the point that if you training in lane 8, then when you get to competition you can’t get any worse conditions. So sharing information allows coaches to learn from others previous experiences.  
The second we viewed was of wheelchair basketball players, the purpose of this video was to identify levels of ability and create criteria for analysing performance, so by presenting this information coaches are able to view skill levels of players and create criteria of skilled performers.

To finish the lecture this week, we explored collaborative tools to share and present information. Wiki which is one of the tools used during the course of this unit, Sport coaching pedagogy, allows sharing of anything really, or as Keith described it a ‘portal of knowledge’, this tool provides the class with 1000 years of experience as a collective group, as opposed to our own individual experiences of 20 or 18 years.

The crash on Kings Highway a few weeks again, the news was on social media website and road closures before police reports were out. This is an example of the new age of technology and the evolution of sharing information.  Another example is twitter and the use of it during lectures and presentation. There are concurrent,  back channel presentation, where there are tweets on the lecture and even interaction with the lecturer answer questions or explaining concerns students have, this allows for sharing of ideas and is appearing to replace putting your hand up in class to ask the teacher a question.   
With all this sharing and presenting of ideas why would you choose to be private? The new competition is collaboration and sharing. The whole idea sharing is to connect people to ideas, and allow them to think of them themselves.

 I would like to leave you with this thought Capture information once, use it many times.  

Friday 16th March 2012

 

This week’s topic was centre around Performing, Reflecting and Mentoring.

To start this week’s lecture we looked at a bubble which represented reflections. This image inspired me to find my own image, which represented reflection. I just couldn’t go past the bubble idea, the more I thought about it, I realised that a bubble can represent opportunities and bubbles provides us with the opportunity to reflect.

As the lecture continued it became more apparent that reflection was an important aspect to expert pedagogy. While exploring Donald Schon an influential thinker, who developed theory and practise of reflection, reflective practise on of his contributions, was brought up.   Reflective practice is "the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning", this concept however is then sub catorgies into reflecting in action, a reflection while doing the action, and reflecting on action a reflect after the event has occurred.

It also became obvious that in order to reflect, evaluating and assessing had to be made during the activity and depending on experience recorded for later recall. When evaluating and assessing templates or criteria are often used, but not essential. Exploring different assessor resources such as the one found on Australian Sport Commission http://www.ausport.gov.au/participating/coachofficial/presenter/Assessor assessment could be based on just competency a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, the criteria is also aligned with qualifications. It is important to remember that assessments should be objective as to avoid prejudices.   

During the second half of the lecture the focus changed toward the ideas of Mentoring and I would like to include this quote because I think it encapsulates the meaning of the word mentoring.

“Behind every successful person, there is one elementary truth: somewhere, somehow, someone cared about their growth and development’’

This quote suggests that  mentoring is actually caring about someone. Is a mentor though, someone you look up to? Or is it a equal relationship, despite one member having more experiences. A mentor is someone you look to for help, so a mentor could be seen as a helpline, what is interesting though is as a mentor, are you always available? When does mentoring stop and start?. Much the same as with assessing, there needs to be an abandonment of your own personal values in order to be supportive and non judgemental.

To conclude my blog this week I would like to leave you with this thought. That maybe we are all mentor’s and mentee’s, in that we all have something to offer, we have all experienced different things, so we can all learn from one another.  

Friday 9th March 2012

Observation, do we as coaches see everything?  

During week 5’s lectures and tutorials the focus of our discussions was observation and augmented information.

Keith explained that argumented information is given by a coach to athletes to assist with sensory experience, this is a distant perspective. This augmented information is not feedback but feedforward, a new concept that I was fascinated by. Feedback is what they didn’t do or what could have been done better, but why look backwards when you could focus of the future, feedforward supports the decision not the action, which works on where the athlete is going not where they have been. We looked at an example of having a camera on a helmet of a disabled child trying to learn how to ride a bike, this video analysis is a form of feedforward, as opposed to a coach viewing the activity from a distant standpoint. The feedforward allows the coach to see what the child sees, and create a pathway of how he could be, which in this example lead to positive results.   
With the innovative idea of feedforward, it raises the question as to why coaches sit up in coaching boxes so far away from the game, wouldn’t this impairs their observation?

It may be one of the most important skills as a coach and that is Observation. As coaches we need to decide when to just observe and when to share our expertises. Looking at coaching styles, one that stood out is “self teaching” it is surrounded around the idea that an athlete has sufficient space allowing an athlete to teaching themselves. So an expert pedagogy could be seen as invisible, observing and recording.
Another approach that was briefly explored was Bandwidth which is acceptable boundaries that are set by the coach, where a coach will not provide any feedback. This approach can allow a coach to step back, and observe.  

Thinking outside the box art appreciation, is a tool used that can put someone outside their comfort zone, changing perspectives and allowing a different perception on things.

To conclude my blog I would like to leave you with the idea of errorless learning a concept I was just introduced too today. Errorless learning is a decision to change a learning pattern before it is embedded in the muscle memory to failure.  Keeping this principle in mind, if an athlete fails twice at a new skill, should you change the stimulus? How many trials does it to take to embed failure?