The Teesra

Month: January 2021

  • Conversational frameworks and coaching

    I wrote previously about my introduction to learning types [1.] and how these educational activities can be mapped onto coaching activities.

    Learning types are defined in Professor Diana Laurillard’s model of how students learn, the Conversational Framework (see, for example, Laurillard, D (2012), Teaching as a Design Science, Routledge), describing learning interactions between learner and teacher and between learner and peers.

    The Conversational Framework — Laurillard

    Whilst working through another online course (Blended & Online Learning Design, UCL, hosted by FutureLearn), I was struck by how closely the framework itself could be applied to learning in sports coaching & player development.

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  • Introducing swing; what is “coaching”?

    Interesting re-post from @ImSporticus, just before Christmas.

    It got me thinking about how I would coach someone to swing a cricket ball.

    And the programme I came up with included a bit of direct instruction, a lot self-guided discovery, maybe some feedback, a demo & a drill to scaffold learning.

    Rather more to it than “hold the ball like this, follow-through like this”.

    This post started as a (lengthy) reply to the tweet from @ImSporticus. If you follow @theteesra, you might have seen all this already.

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  • That is “over”

    And “good riddance” to 2020.

    Last year was almost a write-off for coaching, for me. A busy 10 weeks pre-lockdown, including a very hopeful day learning to tutor new All Stars and Dynamos Cricket Activators, but nothing else for me since early March.

    I’ve not been shielding, but with my parents both in their 80s to look out for, it makes sense to avoid the risk of infection by giving a wide berth to crowds — schools, and public transport, have been off the schedule.

    One regular coaching venue did manage to re-open for (some of) the autumn term, but (sensibly) their draft Risk Assessment explicitly stated “… staff…requiring difficult journeys on public transport will be kept away…”. No work, there.

    But, to be honest, I really haven’t missed coaching during first lockdown, nor since. The hours spent travelling, carting a kitbag on trains, for just a couple of hours coaching, had become a chore.

    But what to do in 2021?

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