Full Time: Man of the Match goes to Personal Learning Enviornments

It's Thursday night of week 14 and thus ends (this chapter of) my journey. I've been rather unfortunate this semester with the Sports Coaching Pedagogy unit. My involvement with the Qantas Joeys camps at the AIS have resulted in me being unable to attend four of our Friday sessions. I have found myself on a journey of guided self-learning. I try to avoid using the term self-directed learning as my explorations have been helpfully guided by Keith Lyons and the Sport Coaching Pedagogy 2012 unit content.

This guided self-learning has all be made possible by the Personal Learning Environment which we have all been a part of in this unit.

"A Personal Learning Environment is a potentially promising pedagogical approach for both integrating formal and informal learning using social media and supporting student self-regulated learning in higher education contexts."

• Nada Dabbagh and 
• Anastasia Kitsantas

Here's a great SlideShare presentation by Steve Wheeler on Digital Learning Futures - I believe it fits right in with everything Keith has been going through with us.

Digital Learning Futures

View more PowerPoint from Steve Wheeler

These personal learning environments have enabled us to progress from passive information consumers, to active co-producers (or produsers as Axel Bruns might say) of content. A simple Google search of "coaching pedagogue" and straight away in the top results I can see work by my class mates from this unit.

I've definitely found myself subscribing to this idea of 'produsage'.

"the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement."

Axel Bruns:  Produsage - A  Working Definition

Whilst at times we not be able to bring something new to the realm of coaching that is backed by empirical evidence, we can certainly share new ways of thinking. As we've covered throughout the unit, people learn in different ways and are more receptive to differing levels of stimulus. It's important that we do look to produse and share the information and resources around us, because we all evaluate and interpret things differently - perhaps our particular interpretation is just what someone else was looking for. For instance. I was racking my brain trying to think of a good way to sum up all these ideas of what a coaches role is. I realised that with a bit of searching in e-resources, that someone else had already basically said what I was after.

Coaching is a multi-faceted, ever-changing role. In today's society of instant gratification, instant messaging, and instant results, the scope of the tasks assigned to coaches is expanding. Coaches are expected to be leaders, mentors, disciplinarians, sources of support, and counselors-simultaneously.

Leif H. Smith - Why Most Coaches Fail

With a bit of tinkering and produsing, I can manage to say just what I wanted to, and perhaps in a way that someone else will also find useful. 

Thank you all for reading my blogs and contributing to my personal learning environment.

The role of a coach is multi-faceted and ever-changing. In today's society, the scope of the tasks assigned to coaches is expanding and a successful coach can not restrict him/herself to the training field and sidelines. Coaches are expected to be leaders, mentors, teachers, disciplinarians, educators, sources of support, delegators and counselors-simultaneously. 
Aidan Brown - Full Time: Man of the Match goes to Personal Learning Enviornments

SportsCode

I wanted to write quickly about my experience with a video analysis product I've recently been working with and learning about at the AIS. SportsCode is software that allows users to capture, code, edit, analyse and make movies - in most cases, using footage of training and competition. If you're unfamiliar with it, this video gives a great explanation and demonstration of what it is and how it can be used.

What I've found is that one of the greatest advantages of the product, can at times be a disadvantage if you're not careful. The software is incredibly flexible, the only constraints when choosing what information you want to retrieve and analyse from your footage is your imagination. However you can quickly find yourself trying to look at so many things at once, that you easily miss things or even forget about the sport as a whole and what you're actually trying to get out of it.

Between myself, the football program's technical director and a staff member from performance analysis, we are currently working to create what is called a 'coding window', which will be enable us to gather all the information we need, yet still be user friendly to our inexperienced selves. I think one of the first things you need to do is determine what you actually want to look at within the sport. For us, it begins with the 'four main moments in football' and from there deciding which particular instances will be helpful and actually mean something to the coaches and players which we present our finished product to.

This is just one of many video analysis software products going around and I just wanted to quickly write about my experience with it. Have you ever used SportsCode or a similar product?

To finish off, here's a video where Dublin Football talk about their experience with SportsCode - giving views from coaches, players, management staff and analysts.

Thanks!

Coaching High-Level Athletes

Leading on from my last post and still using the Nike commercial series, I wanted to highlight another genuine coaching issue which I feel emerged from the series. From the video below, you can see that as coach, Bryant was dealing with some highly-succesful 'athletes'. All these people are considered successful in their relevant industries, all possessing similar and differing qualities, or skills if you will. Not so different to dealing with any team sport, no?

This idea of coaching athletes who are so to speak, at the top of their respective sports really got me thinking. The talent and ability that some high-level athletes possess may often go above and beyond what a coach can actually 'teach' as such - so how does the coach's role change?

I read a review of this idea by James Marshall in his "Secrets of success with high-level athletes" article. Marshall gathered his thoughts from several presentations at a North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (NASPSPA) conference and also references some great articles. Marshall suggests successful coaching of high-level athletes involves a more supportive and cooperative approach. These athletes need to have a larger part in the goal setting and structure of their training, as opposed to the do-as-I-say approach with beginners.

Similar to the strategies used for skill development  throughout the cognitive, association and autonomous stages of learning, Marshall likens these to the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory on adaptive management styles used in business. The theory suggests that based on a combination of competency and willingness of people, the leader (or coach in our case) would be required to do one of the following:

Directing: Appropriate for people who have limited skills and need to be told specifically what to do. Constant feedback is required to allow such people to gauge their progress.

Coaching: Needed when a person has certain skills, is keen to train and can progress on certain tasks without supervision. Once they have reached a certain level, they need new challenges.

Support: For people who have some idea of what they want to do but may need help with the process. They are not as competent as they may think just yet, so they will need guidance.

Delegation: is for people who have reached a level of competence in their skills and have a clear idea of what they want to achieve. They want to retain contact for occasional feedback, but see themselves as partners rather than subordinates.

Situational leadership allows for the development of individuals along a path from high dependence, through interdependence to independence. The model is task-specific and therefore  high-level athletes may still require direction/coaching for instance when teaching new tactics or formations. While these players maybe be beyond competent in skill, they may not have experienced particular tasks/methods which a new coach may bring.

The ability of a coach to adapt their coaching role to athletes is increasingly important in team sports where individuals within the team will have different levels of competency across various tasks and therefore require   differing levels of coach involvement.

Marshall leaves us with four recommendations for coaches:

1.     Plan the entire competition cycle, including individual training sessions

2.     Communicate the plan clearly and regularly, and listen to what players have to say

3.     Involve the players. High-level athletes require more involvement in their own development than beginners and should be allowed time for self-regulated practice. Experienced players, such as the team captain, may be involved in team selection issues

4.     Adapt to the realities of the sporting situation. If things work well, do more of them, but if something isn't working, change it. Having a plan does not preclude the need for flexibility, and injuries, funding problems and venue changes, as well as the highs and lows of sport performance, all call for an adaptable, flexible approach.

That's all from me for this post, make sure you have a read of the articles I linked to and I encourage you to share your thoughts.

Coach-Athlete Communication

Recently my attention was drawn to a series of Nike commercials. The series features Kobe Bryant (Basketball star) as 'success coach' to many other industry experts.  There are 8 in total at about 50seconds each, so if you have time, head over here to watch them at YouTube. The reason for my blogging about these videos is that whilst the commercials are intended more as a joke and to generate market interest, I think that they raise/elude to a couple of genuine issues faced in coaching.

The 7th video in the series (Nike: #Kobe System: Level 6 Beastion) features Kanye West (a successful recording artist, infamous for his ego), Bryant is trying to inspire and get 'more' from West.

West: How much more do you want from me?
Bryant: More.
West: How much more successful do you want me to be?
Bryant: More successful....
West: But I'm the best.
Bryant: But are you a different animal and the same beast?
West: What [does that] mean Kobe Bryant? 
Bryant: You're welcome.
West: [What is he] talking about?

The scene then ends abruptly, with the whole audience going along with it and inspired by Bryant's 'wisdom', but West being left clearly confused.

The thing that jumped out at me from this is the necessity to ensure that your athlete/s actually understand the information that you are providing them. Whilst as a coach you may come up with some great words of wisdom and instruction, if the athletes aren't taking it in then it is wasted. Athletes seem to have this fear at times of asking questions when they don't understand the information provided by a coach. They'll nod along saying 'yes, mhmm, yes' but be left clearly confused about what's going on. I think it's essential that we encourage our athletes to ask as many questions as possible, especially in learning new tactics/skills. We also need to know our athletes and be able to tell when they are taking information in and when they are just saying/doing what they think we want to hear/see. The key issue here being communication.

"The success of any coach, at perhaps every level of competition, is determined
by his/her ability to effectively communicate with athletes in a mutually supporting
manner. Coaches may be knowledgeable and highly organized, but without open
communication skills, these attributes may never be reflected in the performance
of their athletes." 

Brent Steuerwald - Communicating With Athletes and Their Readiness to Change

The Australian Sports Commission (ASC) draws from this article and a similar article by Linda Petlichkoff (Speak Up or Sit Out: Encouraging Players to Ask for Help) and offers 10 tips for improving coach-athlete and team communication. I strongly suggest that coaches should read and have an understanding of the content within these articles.

Just for the record, my interpretation of Bryant's line "But are you a different animal and the same beast?" may be in relation to the need for athletes to possess many different attributes all at once, calling on which ever is needed in the situation. For instance, whilst a footballer (soccer player) may have superb skill and agility to run rings around opponents, does that same player possess the ability to be a pillar of strength when on the ball or in challenges.

How do you interpret the message and how would you try to communicate this same idea to your athletes?

Coaching Out of My Comfort Zone

Recently I worked with a group to develop a coaching video for four fundamental skills of AFL. The skills were kicking (the drop punt), marking (the arm/chest and hand mark), hand passing and bouncing. I was the coach for the marking section and you can view my clip below.

AFL Marking Coaching Video

Having little experience with AFL and no experience coaching marking, I was definitely out of my comfort zone. In preparation for my AFL coaching debut, I explored some resources. I watched some similar AFL skills videos such as those below. I also found the AFL Junior Coaching Manual: For coaches and players aged 5-12 years to be incredibly helpful. As I've said in previous posts, I think it's very important for coaches to utilise a range of resources to help them become a better coach/teacher, this time for me it was absolutely essential!

AFL Skills Video - Chest Mark


AFL Skills Video - Hand Mark

In my coaching approach, I attempted to follow the S.P.I.R Method as presented by the AFL.
S: Show - name the skill, demonstrate three times and provide three coaching points.
P: Practice - Have players practice the skill immediately.
I: Instruct - Give feedback on their performance based on what they have been taught.

R: Reward - Encourage and reward effort and achievement.

In the video I also included some main coaching points and some common problems which coaches may come across when trying to teach the skills. 

Our video used just the one participant who we were teaching the skills to and it was thus more instructional and the skills were more isolated. Obviously in a real coaching situation you will be dealing with a whole team rather than just the one participant. At the end of the video we presented some resources where coaches could find activities to use to work on these skills in a team training environment.

Overall I enjoyed pushing myself out of my comfort zone to teach a skill I wouldn't normally and it was a rewarding learning experience for me.

FFA National Curriculum: A brief presentation

Here is a small presentation I created for the purpose of unit assessment. The brief was to review the literature surrounding an area of interest in coaching or teaching. I chose the FFA national curriculum as it was of particular interest to me and I was fairly unfamiliar with it. I was suprised by how comprehensive and detailed it was and found it difficult to decide what areas to focus on in my presentation.

SCP 2012 Presentation - FFA National Curriculum

View another webinar from Aidan Brown

Team Hoyt

After watching this video about Dick and Rick Hoyt (AKA Team Hoyt) and mentioning it in my previous post, I wanted to quickly write about some things which I think coaches and athletes could take away from the story.

For starters lets look at Rick. Rick shows us that even the seemingly impossible can be possible. If Rick was given no external support, then sure it would have been impossible for him to compete in marathons and ironmans, but as the saying goes 'no man is an island'.

If you ask any of the worlds top athletes, I'm sure not one of them would say "I did it all by myself". All athletes require some form of external support to reach their goals, whether it be in the form of moral support, coaching, physiotherapy, fellow competitors, team mates, psychologists, nutritionists and the list could go on forever. I think it's important that athletes appreciate the support system around them and the lengths that many of these service providers and individuals will go to in order to ensure that they can perform at their best. Athletes should make the most of this external support network in order to have the best chance at reaching their goals, whatever they may be.

Dick and Rick Hoyt
http://www.teamhoyt.com/about/index.html

The same goes for coaches. No coach is going to have the expertise required across all aspects of athlete performance in order to act alone. It is important that as coaches we continually source external resources and ideas and where available, utilise the skills of specialised service providers. That is if we want to get the most from our athletes.

Now let's look at Dick. A photo of Dick Hoyt should be right there in the dictionary next to the word "Commitment". In what began as a decision to raise his child with a disability, to partaking in and completing in over 1000 races, Dick has showed unbelievable commitment to his cause.

It is this sort of commitment that athletes require, to get through the early morning training sessions, the physical hurt and everything else that goes with it in order to reach their goals. This is especially relevant to those in team sports - when your effort can affect the success of your whole team, it's important to commit 100%. I'm sure that many successful athletes could tell you about the high level of commitment that it took them to succeed. I hope that they could also tell you about the high level of commitment that many others may have had along the way to help them succeed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to take away from the individual efforts of athletes. I think however that one of the major things I think an athlete can take from the efforts of Dick is the idea of being a part of something bigger, and an appreciation of the commitments and efforts of those around them. For example the parents who would drive them to training and competitions, pay money to provide the things they need etc, or the coaches along the way who would put the time in to plan and run training sessions - once again the list could go on.

Again I think the same goes for coaches. I don't believe (and I'm sure most coaches would agree) that the role of a coach should be limited to the training field and the Saturday matches. I think that as part of a wider support network, the coach needs to be going that extra mile for the athletes wherever they can. Whether it be being available for their athletes to talk to, or sourcing new and improved methods, not simply sticking to what we know.

Once again, I just wanted to write this in order to support my previous post and add a few things to it. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Team Building Camp

Unfortunately I have been out of action lately. the good news is that as a result I have plenty to talk about, which I'll split up over the next few posts.

I was away from March 16-18 on a camp with the AIS team. The camp was held at Berry Sport and Recreation Centre and was run by Jamie Bobrowski of Team Tops. Jamie has worked with the SAS and Special Operations Group and as reported has run a similar camp with players from the Western Bulldogs AFL team.

The purpose of the camp was to develop team cohesion as well as mental toughness. Throughout the camp there was various activities designed to support and develop underlying themes such as:

• Fortitude
• Resilience
• Unity
• Leadership
• Respect
• Trust
• Honesty
• Goal setting

Some of the activities involved physical tasks;  Exercise sessions intended to break the athletes down and push them further then they thought they could go. Problem solving challenges to which the athletes needed to come up with solutions and use team work to work quickly and efficiently. Tasks involving blind folded high ropes courses and 'leaps of faith' where the athletes needed to believe in themselves, but also trust in their team mates to get them through safely. Throughout these activities, the athletes were encouraged to set 'realistic' and 'unrealistic' goals as a group.

In my opinion, the most valuable experiences came from some of the non-physical activities. Each night the group came together in a casual, supportive, non-invasive setting simply to discuss thoughts and feelings in regards to their journeys as athletes.

During one of these sessions, Jamie showed the group a video on Dick and Rick Hoyt (AKA Team Hoyt) similar to this one (some may want to have a box of tissues nearby). I believe that there are many things which both athletes and coaches can take from this video, as I've discussed here. The video reminded me of the slogan that is used in our football program, "being here is not a sacrifice, it is an investment in my future". At times, some athletes in the football program have viewed their commitments as an athlete at the AIS to be a 'sacrifice', and I believe that this would be an issue not limited to this situation. After watching the video the athletes were encouraged to talk with the group about who they were, how they had come to be at the AIS, and what the commitment means for them. These discussions enabled the athletes to open up in a way that most would not have normally, and also enabled them to see that they are all in a similar boat. It also gave the coaches an insight into who their athletes were and where they were at in this sense.

I felt that there were many valuable positives to take away from the camp. Throughout the various activities, it was instilled in the athletes that:

•  They all have similar goals and dreams
• To achieve goals, it takes a lot of hard work and commitment
• When times get tough, they have the ability to dig deeper and get through
• They have team mates, coaches and staff who are all here to support and help them through
• Whilst trying to achieve their own goals, they must remember that they are still part of a team

The athletes enjoyed the camp and in talks with them immediately post-camp noted that it had enabled them to understand and find more meaning in their journeys and felt mentally stronger. It was a lot to take in on one weekend however. I started to wonder whether there would be long lasting effects, or if everything would be forgotten in a few weeks. An issue which I will save for next time.. stay tuned.

Extra Time (and a lot of it!)

As the name suggests this post is an attempt to catch up on all the content that has been passed onto us thus far. Apologies for the length of it, but bear with me!

Here is a photo from my trip to Finland.  It is the national sport - Pesapallo (Finnish Baseball)
The coach uses a multi-coloured fan to call plays, and his team use their bats to make signals to
represent that play (as shown). One of the most confusing and fascinating sports I've ever witnessed!

Before I get started though, quick bit of house keeping - I've now got an account on Linked in. I'll be using it as a professional e-networking tool and a way of connecting.

The Final Countdown

Firstly I'll respond to a blog post by Sam Lyons - a wonderful post about his journey as a Slalom Canoe racer entitled "The Final Countdown". One of the first things that grabbed me was the coming to terms with some of the realities of life, in terms of goals that can't always be reached. I can remember being a young and naive football (soccer) player and thinking "Well, if I don't make it to Arsenal, I'll just play for some second division German team or something.." - not to say in any way that Sam was naive in his goal to be an Olympic champion. As I got older I realised how absurd that assumption was and the finite number of players that actually make it as professionals. I see the same thing now in my work with the AIS football team. These 15-16 year old boys have been identified as some of the most talented young players in the country, and the reality is not all of them will make it - it's a harsh reality given the commitment that they have to the sport. This raises the expectations of the coach to bring the best out of these players and give them the best chance of succeeding. The second thing that got me was the mention of the adversities he has faced in the form of injuries. Once again it is something I can relate to as when I was 16, moving up to the level of a more serious U/18 Premier league competition I suffered a torn hamstring. I was out for most of that U/16 season and the following year my leg was broken. It was hard to recover from these injuries psychologically as much as physically - getting back into it I found I couldn't play at the same level I could previously, and I found myself hating playing a sport I had lived and breathed for the majority of my life. It took me a while to change my thinking into "Well, football will always be there, it's not going anywhere, I can spend the next few years just focusing on my studies and try to further myself to the point where I can have a job in the sport". I think it's important for athletes to succeed on an educational/career path as much sport due to the number of things that could take professional sport away in the blink of an eye. The last thing that I found very interesting was that one of his biggest highlights was his sisters promotion into Division 3. My older brother is the main reason I got into football. One of my highlights was being able to play in the same team as him only a couple of years ago. We truly are a product of our environment - the more I think about it the more I realise how much he has had an effect on me, from the music I listen to, to my determination to succeed in what I do, as he has done.

I think that the "product of our environment" philosophy can be directly related to coaching - in both the way we coach, and the way that this translates to the resultant effect we have on our athletes.

The Coach as a Performer

In week 4 we turned our focus to the coach as a performer. This includes relating coach performance to being just as important and often accountable for athlete performance as well as styles of coaching/teaching.

Starting off lightly, here's a bit of a satirical take on different types of sports coaches, although to be honest, they aren't far off with some.

Here however is a slightly more academic approach by Theresa Echtermeyer from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America on Coaching Styles and How They Impact Player Development. Echtermeyer outlines 3 styles of coaching.
1. The Authoritarian (aka Commander/Dictator) - An outcome based approach where the athlete's role is to respond to the coach's commands. We saw a clear example of this in Nikolay Karpol the Russian volleyball coach.
2. The Casual Coach (aka Submissive/Babysitter) - An approach where the coach takes a back seat and lets the players make all the decisions. Often used by less experienced coach's or in instances where the outcome is of lesser importance.
3. The Cooperative coach (aka Democrat/Teacher) - An athlete centred approach where the coach facilitates and the athlete is encouraged to participate in the decision making.

Each approach has varying advantages and disadvantages, and at the end of the day, each approach can lead to successful athlete performance - both in process and in outcome. A classmate of mine - Trent Hopkinson further discusses this in Coaching Approaches blog.
Another of my classmates - Leigh Sherman also shared some interesting thoughts on the dynamic nature of coaches and the requirement to get the best out of each individual in a team in his Are Players the only Performers in Sport? blog.

If I relate this back to my own experiences with the AIS football team - I've observed that the coaches are often more vocal in terms of direction during matches than the opposition coaches. A common difference between the AIS team compared to opposition teams is that the majority of the AIS athletes are 15-16,  whereas opposition athletes are on average 19-20 and often older. I think that given the athletes age and their introduction to the National Youth League (a far different game to what they're often used to) that more direction and instruction is necessary. I believe that in usual club circumstances, the athletes should receive enough direction and coaching during training sessions that during a match the instruction to players should be limited to pre match prep and half time talks - with the odd instruction here and there. I feel this way because I think the athletes at that level should by then have a pretty good indication of their role and be able to self-adapt to changing circumstances - if they don't, I think the coach hasn't done their job.

Week 4 Tutorial

In our most recent tutorial, we all joined in on some basketball fun. Keith took us through a session which involved easy ways of forming groups, different ways to communicate, useful methods of modifying simple games into sports and monitoring participant performance/enjoyment. It reminded me a lot of the Active After-school Communities program initiative by the Australian Sports Commission which is intended to provide primary school aged children access to free sport and other structured physical activity. I think it is an essential course for anyone intending to work with children or even just coaching in general. They offer a whole range of tools and resources as well as support.

And the final whistle blows..

Debut!

Well this is my first ever blog post! Going to keep it quick for now. I'll be using this blog to share my thoughts, ideas and other things which interest me as I undertake the Sport Coaching Pedagogy 2012 unit. I will follow this up with a more in depth entry on the unit content so far - for now however, I am excited to see where Keith takes us with this one. Here is a link to his blog Clyde Street where some of the unit content is shared as well as his own ponderings. We also have a Sport Coaching Pedagogy Facebook page :)

Stay tuned!