The Teesra

Category: better cricket

  • 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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  • The Constraints-Led Approach…what is it, really?

    I have just finished reading “The Constraints-Led Approach: Principles for Sports Coaching & Practice Design”, by Renshaw, Davids, Newcombe & Roberts.

    A really interesting read, as it attempts to make sense of CLA for practicing coaches. Taking the concepts beyond the realm of sports science ‘pracademics’ and showing how they can be applied on the practice ground by coaches without a Sports Science degree.

    And this title is only the first in a promised series looking at the application of CLA to coaching in a range of sports.

    Although, if I was to be critical of anything, perhaps describing the title as “…a vital pedagogical resource for students and practising sports coaches, physical education teachers and sport scientists alike” maybe misses the point.

    This is certainly not “An Idiot’s Guide to CLA”, but “The Constraints-Led Approach…” is the “how to…” manual that coaches (should) have been clamouring for!

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  • Is patience over-rated?

    I do quite a bit* of coaching with younger children, 7 and younger, right down to weekly groups with 3-4 year olds. Sessions can be messy, they can be loud, sometimes they must look pretty chaotic.

    In truth, I really do quite enjoy the chaos (sometimes). I’ll let activities run on, if the players are engaging in some sort of “constructive” play.

    Probably the most frequent feedback I receive, from parents and fellow coaches, regards “patience” — how I must have incredible depths of patience to work with the young groups, how much the children enjoy the freedom they get to play and learn.

    And I also get the counter-statement — “it’s OK to be firmer with the kids, if they misbehave” (i.e. “you really are too patient, sometimes”).

    But I am slowly coming to the conclusion that patience by itself might not be the virtue that it is held up as.

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