The Teesra

Category: session planning

  • Session plan — all round fielding plus

    This session starts with a modified fielding activity from icoachcricket — “all round fielding” (I have also seen this called “fielder’s wheel”, “modified T-drill”, or Williams’ wheel (a reference to a colleague who particularly favours this activity), but then adds a competitive element — fielders vs. runners — to try out the skills under simulated game intensity.

    With the group I am working with this term (u11, transition to hardball), I had wanted to use a hard ball (or possibly a lightweight bowling machine ball) to get them accustomed to stopping and throwing a hard(er) ball, with the coaches taking any direct throws, catching with a mitt if required, switching to an “incrediball” when a runner is introduced.

    In the event, we stuck with the incredi throughout, for safety.

    But I think this works as a more active variant of the ground fielding drills we sometimes run with.

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  • My new AI coaching guru. A “conversation” with ChatGPT about coaching pedagogies.

    There has recently been some discussion about a new artificial intelligence (AI) system called ChatGPT, and a lot of that talk very negative.

    How it might enable students to cheat by writing their essays for them, how it might destabilise white collar work, even how it might become a “morally corrupting influence”.

    For all that, I thought it might be interesting to quiz ChatGPT about a current topic in coaching, traditional instruction, Direct Instruction, and non-linear pedagogies applying some of the concepts of ecological dynamics.

    And I have to say that I might have found myself an “AI coaching guru”!

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  • Session plans — batting (hitting straight) and bowling sessions with u11s (hard ball).

    I am setting myself a task for this year, to write up more session plans.

    My preference is to ad lib around a session “theme”. I know what I’m going to do next, but no-one else does, so the plans will be for the coaches I work with and also for a couple of the boys who might appreciate a little less chaos and a bit more structure from my Saturday sessions!

    It will work for me, as well, as much to capture the thinking behind the “plans” as actually to use them again.

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