The Expert Pedagogue Revisited

On Keith's presentation on 27/04/2012 we discussed the 'Expert Pedagogue' once again. Keith spoke briefly about John Wooden an American college basketball coach. Wooden was the only coach to win 10 NCAA national championships. John Wooden had what he called a seven point creed.

• Be true to yourself.
• Make each day your masterpiece.
• Help others.
• Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible
• Make friendship a fine art.
• Build a shelter against a rainy day.
• Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

These seven core values or creeds are what Wooden based his coaching and life around and he remained true to these values until his death in 2010, just 4 months before his 100th birthday. Below is another of Wooden's renowned works the 'success pyramid'. This pyramid outlines what Wooden believes to be key to achieving your goals in conjunction his seven creeds. Above all, until the day that John Wooden died, he remained true to himself and his values. He was quoted as saying,

                “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

Prior to Kieth's lecture based around Wooden, I knew little of his achievements and coaching work. However, revisiting the idea of the perfect coach, the presentation has begged to me to question, is John Wooden the 'expert pedagogue'?

More information can be found about John Wooden here and http://www.coachwooden.com/  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wooden 

Planning a Program

The lecture from Keith presented on the 20/4/12 was on 'Planning a Program'. In typical fashion I am late posting my blog and as always I apologise to my blog readers. 

Planning a program is a huge responsibility for coaches and is one of the main roles of the coach. Keith discussed with us the fundamentals of planning a program and areas for the coach of the future.

My experience in planning a program is quite limited. For the benefit of new readers of my blog I am involved in coaching a masters athlete in track cycling. Kieth encouraged me to think about coaches that I have had in the past and how these programs were planned and implemented. In conjunction with my limited coaching experience, my time as an athlete has taught me a little about training. 

One thing that I've learnt is that programs MUST be individualised. I was prompted to think about this from Keith's discussion about fitness. Kieth outlined that fitness should be a relative measure to an individual's current level of fitness and how we may measure this. With my athlete (Daniel) it has become apparent that a high volume of training is not appropriate for him. Daniel benefits from a low amount volume with a large amount of recovery too. In this way Daniel's training program is periodised like no other. 

Keith also discussed accounting for sickness and injury within a training cycle and the temptation of an athlete and coach to attempt increased volume and/or intensity on return to training, in order to accelerate adaptations. This is something that I have not so far been tempted to do this in planning Daniel's program as a coach, however, this is most certainly something I have been tempted to indulge in as an athlete. In modern sport, illicit performance enhancing drugs is something that have been used by professional and amateur athletes alike in order to enhance recovery and adaptation; however with the World Anti-Doping Agency acquiring increasing amounts of funding every year the temptation for athletes to use drugs in rapidly decreasing. 

Coaches must constantly assess the needs of the athlete and elicit how much time is dedicated to each component of training such as strength, endurance, power, speed and lactate. The debate between competition and training will be ongoing and different coaching styles and programs may both be conducive to high performance of the same athlete. 

Mick Malthouse - The Expert Coach

I was reflecting on topics for my SCP assignment recently and played with the idea of feedback. I started searching for videos and transcripts of coaches speaking to their athletes after a game or competition. Given I haven’t officially started my assignment this is a part study, part procrastination tool for me.

Being a mad Collingwood supporter I was naturally struck by Mick Malthouse and feedback he has given as a coach to his players. I have subjectively always thought of Mick Malthouse as a pretty remarkable coach and man.

The speech that comes to mind is the 2011 post grand final speech that was telecast on ‘The Club – CTV’ on Foxtel. (The link to the speech) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmSogVno50E

The speech includes some ‘goosebump’ lines and astonishingly Malthouse does not hesitate in saying that some players were not putting in their all in the grand final. I guess this is not surprising in that Malthouse coached all the way up until the end.

“You never plan to lose. You never; it’s like I say to players, when you’re having a shot for goal, close your eyes and imagine you kicked a goal. You never imagine you kick a point. I never even thought remotely I’d be up here saying bad luck. Was it bad luck? Did people come out of the trench? I don't know. I know a few did. Maybe a couple didn't. Maybe a few didn't.”

Malthouse further emphasised a club moving forward at Collingwood but also reminded his players to remember how much it hurt to lose a grand final.

"Will there be regrets? Of course there will. I am not about to tell you about it, you know it yourself. Only you will know if there was something missing, a short-cut taken. Those who will go on in life have to learn from some of this stuff. It takes you forwards or it takes you backwards. Don't kid yourselves, this will be a nightmare. It will stay with you for a long, long time."

This speech is confirms for me the calibre of the coach and the man that is Mick Malthouse. My admiration for Mick goes beyond the bias of the team that I follow but is further into a respect that I hold for his ability to teach and how he holds himself during this.

Mentoring and the Pedagogue

Last week (week 6) in Sport Coaching Pedagogy (SCP) we discussed performing, reflecting and mentoring.

The main segment of this I would like to discuss today is mentoring. The oxford dictionary defines a mentor as ‘an experienced or trained advisor’. I have had many mentors in different parts of my life and have indeed found them all to be quite experienced. I think the training part of mentorship is more a reflection of the experiences that the mentor has had.

Keith presented the idea that mentor could possibly be ‘on call’ at all times. This really hit the mark for me. A previous cycling coach of mine is someone who I consider a great mentor of mine. It does to me seem as if he is always ‘on call’ so to speak and that I can call him about issues I am having in a decision making sense whether this is to do with cycling, uni or otherwise.  

The mentor that we spoke about in class was also non-judgmental. This non-judgemental mentor allows the mentoree to explore territory that may be taboo with their mentor and develop trust in an environment conducive to development.

When talking about the expert mentor, the mentor always left the final decision to the ‘mentoree’. Sometimes the mentor does not have to say much they may just have to listen. This listening may just allow the mentoree to verbalise the situation to someone and create an environment where the problem is not internalised, but out in the open. The learner or mentoree then has made their own decision and they do not become frequently dependant on the advice of the pedagogue or mentor. It was Anne Rolfe (Synergistic People Development) that said

“A mentor provides information, shares their experiences or expresses an opinion. However, it is always the mentee that decides acts and produces outcomes.”

Mentors essential in guiding someone to achieve their goals. I have seen firsthand the benefits of mentorship throughout my academic and my sporting pursuits.

“Behind every successful person, there is one elementary truth: somewhere, somehow, someone cared about their growth and development.”

-Beverley Kaye (Up is Not the Only Way, 1997)

Augmented Information and The Coach

Firstly I would like to begin by apologising on not keeping up with my blog posts. I have been quite busy lately with my own training and other very urgent study commitments, that I have missed updating my learning experiences for the past fortnight.

During week 5 of SCP Keith put forward this idea of augmented information. It was a term I wasn’t very familiar with but upon further research I have discovered that to augment means ‘to make something greater by adding to it; increase’. Keith defined augmented information in the context of coaching as ‘information outside the sensory cortex of the athlete’. This made sense to me as it provided in increase or ‘augment’ of information to the athlete than what they may have experienced themselves.

This is something as a coach I have not been experienced in. However, in retrospect my coach has augmented information in his observation and feedback to myself, without me even putting a title or name to this phenomenon.

The best example I can think of this is watching a video of one performing a skill. You may feel (in your sensory cortex) that the skill was performed in the correct manner, however, upon watching a replay you realise that the skill you performed looked different to how it felt maybe. This is a great example of augmented information being implemented into a program, as once this information has been replayed, the athlete may visualise the correction better and alter the technique and therefore the outcome.

This is now something that I will endeavour to introduce to athlete(s) that I coach. That is, this idea of increase the athlete’s information that is outside the sensory cortex. This may prove effective as a tool to predict and improve performance.

My Background and The Expert Pedagogue

This week in our Sport Coaching Pedagogy lecture and tutorial, Keith (our lecturer), asked us all about our backgrounds, as to gain a better understanding of and past and present. I will share with you a little of my background.

As mentioned in my previous blog, I am halfway through a Bachelor of Sport Coaching and Exercise Science. I have an interest in all things sport and my hometown is Wagga Wagga the ‘city of good sports’ as we are rightly named with home-grown athletes such as Paul Kelly (AFL), Brad Kahlefeldt (triathlon) and Michael Slater (cricket) and just to name a few.

My sporting background mostly includes cycling. However, as a junior I did attempt Australian rules, cricket and rugby league (all of which I was not very good at!). Cycling was always the standout for me and in most recent times track cycling.

This week Keith challenged the group to think about influential coaches and figures throughout our sporting lives. I have felt privileged with the coaches that I have been surrounded my and that have always got the best out of me. Bob Robertson taught me love for the sport, Tom Dawson was a great mentor (and still is) and taught me how to work hard, Brian Simpson coached me to win bike races I didn’t know I could win and Alex Bird has taught me strength and skills and in leading by example that anything is possible.

I have coached (and am coaching) a masters track cyclist named Daniel. In my coaching I am aspiring the take the best attributes of all of my coaches and become (as Keith has called it) the expert pedagogue. I am also discovering what a challenge coaching can be sometimes. Although it is not without its victories; last weekend Daniel picked up the silver medal in the Australian Masters Track Championships in the sprint. After a couple of years working with him, the hard work has paid off.

“The coaching process is the contract/agreement between the athlete and coach and the operationalisation consists of the purposeful, direct and indirect, formal and informal series of activities and interventions designed to improve competition performance. The most evident part of the process is normally a planned, co-ordinated and integrated programme of preparation and competition.” – John Lyle (2002)

This quote for me really sums up what it is to be a coach and I have found that this holistically defines the daily duties of the pedagogue. The purpose of the coach is to improve performance and this quote by Lyle characterises what type of interventions a coach makes to achieve improved performance. 

Sport Coaching Pedagogy 2012

This is my first attempt at a blog. This is a requirement of my Sport Coaching Pedagogy (SCP) class at the University of Canberra. I am a 3rd year undertaking a Bachelor of Sport Coaching and Exercise Science. This space will be used to blog and recount learning experiences throughout the semester.

I am interested in file sharing with anyone from the coaching or sport science industry. My twitter profile is pfellows12 (hastag #SCP12) and my linkedin profile is http://www.linkedin.com/pub/paul-fellows/38/627/42a

The unit is run by Keith Lyons and blogs at http://keithlyons.me/

Will be more updates shortly