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

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.