The Teesra

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”!

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.

We don’t talk any more…if we ever did — on (the absence of) coaching discourse amongst cricket coaches, and a possible role for Communities of Practice in coach development

When did you last have a serious coaching conversation with a fellow coach?

Not about who gets to use the bowling machine first, or about an individual a player, or the opposition for next week’s game. But actually about the art and craft of coaching?

Just before Christmas, I stumbled into what could evolve into a local Community of Practice (CoP). It started (indeed, still largely functions) as a WhatsApp group for a group of coaches to arrange social events and to vent about employment issues.

One of the team posted a video of a young bowler with a question about his action, and got back a range of replies, all with a slightly different perspective, all with the same objective of helping that bowler to develop a more repeatable, more robust bowling action.A

A hopeful beginning.

But where are the open discussion boards, the CoPs, the communities of like-minded individuals striving to provide the best possible experience to their charges?