The Teesra

Category: Ecological dynamics

  • 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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  • What is the role of the coach?

    I have just completed a fascinating online course from the Open University, hosted by Future Learn — Sports Performance: Different Approaches to Sports Coaching. Highly recommended for all coaches.

    As part of the course, we were asked: What is the role of the coach?

    • Do you think coaches should never give instructions or should they be encouraged to reflect on just how much instruction they provide?

    I have seen the former proposition formulated as “Every time you give an instruction, you steal a decision.”

    But sometimes there might only be one right answer, and instruction is the most efficient and effective route to that solution.

    So I much prefer “a brave coach intervenes when he has to” — I don’t see it as a brave option to withhold knowledge in pursuit of a non-interventionist ideology.

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  • NLP, ED, CLA — coach’s glossary

    I have written previously about my conversion to non-linear pedagogy (NLP) and a constraints-led approach (CLA) to skill development. I believe it works, and, for me, CLA simply feels more honest (and interesting) than the “coach as instructor/guru” approach — “do it this way because I say so” or “…because that’s they way we have always done it”.

    But there is a lot of jargon used to describe the NLP, CLA, and related concepts, which can obscure the simplicity of the approach.

    What follows is my attempt to translate some of the jargon into non-academic language. There will be oversimplification and error, I don’t doubt. But hopefully it will be of interest to a coach coming fresh to, CLA, NLP, ED etc.

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