The Teesra

Category: constraint-led approach

coaching by manipulation of the training environment

  • Hit the reset button! Introducing learning opportunities (for batters) in games-based practice.

    I have been catching up with the winter programme of iCoachCricket Live, the webinar series for ECB Coaches Association members. Not all of the presentations resonate with me, but there are some nuggets amongst the chat.

    In the course of a discussion about the ECB CA’s new “Unleashing Potential” framework, there was some mention of how coaches might make better use of “games-based” practice by modifying the playing conditions to challenge the batters’ tactical (and technical) development.

    Of most interest (to me) was the concept of the “reset button” — if a pre-specified shot or tactic fails and the batter is dismissed, she can “press the reset” and have another go.

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  • Simple net game, revisited

    I have been delivering an after-school club this term. As happened last year, we have been evicted from the newly built sports hall to accommodate exams. Unlike last time, we have been able to carry on with the weekly club, but in the much smaller and very crowded old sports hall.

    So small and crowded, in fact, that the only safe option has been to roll out the nets to keep the players away from table tennis tables, rowing machines, badminton nets, benches and other clutter.

    Rather than a basic net session, I wanted to utilise the simple net game format, with a points system designed to reward specific behaviours beyond just “having a hit”!

    But, as I can’t resist tinkering with games, the points scoring system was modified, in an attempt to make the practice a little more realistic.

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  • Is there a third way? Coach as “learning consultant”?

    Is there a third way? Coach as “learning consultant”?

    There is an ongoing, sometimes rancorous, debate in the coaching world as to the relative merits of “instruction” and “discovery” learning.

    From, on one side, those who want to line players up behind cones, and have them take turns to replicate skills demonstrated by their coach.

    Or those who set up games and leave the players to work it out for themselves.

    OK — two grossly inaccurate, “straw-man” descriptions of coaching practice. But not uncommon in the darker spaces on Twitter.

    Perhaps more accurately:

    • Direct Instruction, which, however it is conceptualised, seeks to inculcate the Instruction.
    • Ecological Dynamics and non-linear pedagogy, exemplified by the constraints-led approach, sees the coach creating a learning environment from which movement solutions “emerge”.

    But what if the role of the coach was thought of differently. Neither “instructor” nor “environmental designer”.

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