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.