Hi there! It is now week 14 and so the semester of SCP is unfortunately coming to a close. This is my final post on blogger for this SCP unit. I found this unit very enjoyable. Yet again, Keith Lyons taught this unit differently to many of my other units. In setting up Blogs, students have been able to share their own thoughts, knowledge and ideas and I have found this a great learning tool for my own studies. The semester of SCP has covered topics like: The coaches as a performer, observation and augmented information, Reflecting Assessing and Mentoring, The Social Media, Planning programs and produsing resources for coaching resources. Each of these topics can be found within this blog amoung other posts that were of interest to me during the semester.
For this Blog I decided to give all those coaches something to think about for the next upcoming session or team meeting. The following passage is tweet that Kevin Eastman posted on his twitter account @kevineastman. "Coaching is a never ending exercise in evaluation; of your team and of yourself. Sometimes we are the ones that must change and/or improve!"
Although, Kevin Eastman was an NBA Assistant Coach of the 2008 World Champion Boston Celtics (8th season), His thoughts and ideas apply for all coaches and all sports. If you have a twitter account, I recommend following him, as he gives valuable insights everyday! You can learn more from Kevin and other high profile coaches on his website: http://kevineastmanbasketball.com/.
Kevin Eastman states that he lives by the adage, “Seek wisdom from those who came before you.”
I will leave you with this final thought. I felt that this is something a true pedagogue masters as they go about improving their knowledge and gaining wisdom. By establishing blogs for the SCP unit, Keith Lyons along with each and everyone one of the students in the unit SCP has taken the first steps in this process.
Thanks for reading this post!
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Week 11: Planning a program
There is a dangerous concept floating around that coaches see their athlete as machines. It is important that the coaching pedagogue still recognises that their athletes have emotions and feelings, just as any human being. The coaching pedagogue will pride themselves on their ability to both engage with their athletes physical state but also monitor and develop the cognitive and mental state of their athletes.
Here are a few pictures taken from Mitch's Ipad to explain the above. Here are two photos displaying the techniques errors as noted above. These photoes are in sync with the videos. As you may notice the photo on the left shows a counter rotation of the shoulders with the right arm swinging backwards. This is the result of poor ball drop where the ball has landed on the out edge of the foot and my trunk counter rotates to try and 'steer' the ball toward the desired direction. On the right hand side, a far better kick is shown. Here the ball has landed perpendicular on the foot with the goals and everything is in alignment (note. hips and shoulders) as a this technique resulted in a direct kick and goal!
Moving onto another topic it was established in lecture that every strength and conditioning coach will understand that a program must consist of planning cycles like: mesocycle, macrocycle and microcycle, along with the phases, preparation, competition and transition. This is all well and good but in planning a program the coach must first work out is what is the athlete doing wrong. What technical skills or physiological segments are out of order during the sequencing of a movment? Is the timing right or wrong or is the athlete stabilising the required segments?
In this weeks blog I will like to focus on the role of the performance analysis. The reason being is that the other night I decided to go down to my local oval with a good mate of mine Mitch Mooney (who works as performance analysis at the AIS) Mitch brought along his Ipad and we analysed one anothers technique upon ball contact. What we discovered was that if the ball hits the foot perpendicular it is likely to go in a straight, desired direction. Now this is a rather complex skill and requires the stabilisation of the trunk and hip upon ball strike, keeping in mind that only one foot will be on the ground upon ball strike.With experimenting on ourown technique in kicking an AFL ball. By use of the Ipad and slow motion, lines and angles were drawn, Mitch discovered that my ball drop was not ideal and as a result I tended to counter rotate my shoulders inorder to direct the ball towards the goal.
Here are a few pictures taken from Mitch's Ipad to explain the above. Here are two photos displaying the techniques errors as noted above. These photoes are in sync with the videos. As you may notice the photo on the left shows a counter rotation of the shoulders with the right arm swinging backwards. This is the result of poor ball drop where the ball has landed on the out edge of the foot and my trunk counter rotates to try and 'steer' the ball toward the desired direction. On the right hand side, a far better kick is shown. Here the ball has landed perpendicular on the foot with the goals and everything is in alignment (note. hips and shoulders) as a this technique resulted in a direct kick and goal!Thursday, 12 April 2012
Produsing resources for coaching resources
In returning to my list of previous blogs there is this underlying theme of sharing knowledge and experiences to impart information from one person to another. As also mentioned in my previous blogs, the globalisation of the modern world will allow this free flow of information as a major tool for learning. There is potential that people can not only gather information but can gain online qualifications to enter the employment world. In my opinion his is both a scary thought but one that is filled with optimism and excitement. Knowledge will no longer be limited by monetary means but rather time and energy to access such resources. This is what I believe the future of online sharing and 'produsing' will result. For example, If I were a cricket coach analysing the biomechanics of fast bowling in cricket. My knowledge can be shared with other coaches from any nation in the world of cricket. I could share and display my findings to coaches in the West Indies, India, Pakistan, The UK, South Africa etc. On the flip side, by developing an online resource like a wiki page, these coaches could in turn display there research and innovative ideas. This sharing and imparting of knowledge allows coaches to further improve their understandings in their desired field.
Building on this idea, and as Keith mentioned in todays lecture, we all live in a 'cloud space'. At first I had no idea what he was going on about! But what this means is that the expert pedagogue will live in two worlds. One that is an online identity for e.g I have identities by sharing my profiles on facebook, twitter, archive, slideshare or blogger etc. the other world is the material and physical world where we eat and breath.
One subject that surprised me was Keith's support for wikipedia. Let's face it, most students have looked over this as a source to gain knowledge in a particular topic! But throughout my own education wikipedia was frowned upon by all my lecturers, tutors and teachers, to the point that if you were to source wikipedia in an assessment piece an automatic fail would be coming your way! Yet, as Keith discussed, wikipedia is viewed and edited by millions of people everyday. Some would regard this editing as 'unreliable and inaccurate' but in fact, wouldn't all this editing ensure its accuracy? This constant updating of information could in fact improve its validity as people accross the globe share their knowledge by editing its text.
Based on sharing of information I have shared a list of other ways inwhich to share images. Images quite often speak louder than words. so here are a few ways you too can share you experiences rather than write it in a blog:
Pininterest, Instagram, Flickr
Images quite often link to further viewing and so this is a great way in order to experiment with sharing information accross a greater range of audience!
So where does all these ideas fit into place? The overall point is that each and everyone one of us have experienced life differently and that our thoughts, knowledge and ideas have grown from these experiences. In sharing these experiences we will develop a sustainable resource of information for both ourselves and anyone else who spends the time and energy (rather than money! :)) to simply learn. Because in the end, gaining knowlede should be free!
Building on this idea, and as Keith mentioned in todays lecture, we all live in a 'cloud space'. At first I had no idea what he was going on about! But what this means is that the expert pedagogue will live in two worlds. One that is an online identity for e.g I have identities by sharing my profiles on facebook, twitter, archive, slideshare or blogger etc. the other world is the material and physical world where we eat and breath.
One subject that surprised me was Keith's support for wikipedia. Let's face it, most students have looked over this as a source to gain knowledge in a particular topic! But throughout my own education wikipedia was frowned upon by all my lecturers, tutors and teachers, to the point that if you were to source wikipedia in an assessment piece an automatic fail would be coming your way! Yet, as Keith discussed, wikipedia is viewed and edited by millions of people everyday. Some would regard this editing as 'unreliable and inaccurate' but in fact, wouldn't all this editing ensure its accuracy? This constant updating of information could in fact improve its validity as people accross the globe share their knowledge by editing its text.
Based on sharing of information I have shared a list of other ways inwhich to share images. Images quite often speak louder than words. so here are a few ways you too can share you experiences rather than write it in a blog:
Pininterest, Instagram, Flickr
Images quite often link to further viewing and so this is a great way in order to experiment with sharing information accross a greater range of audience!
So where does all these ideas fit into place? The overall point is that each and everyone one of us have experienced life differently and that our thoughts, knowledge and ideas have grown from these experiences. In sharing these experiences we will develop a sustainable resource of information for both ourselves and anyone else who spends the time and energy (rather than money! :)) to simply learn. Because in the end, gaining knowlede should be free!
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Happenings
I was flicking through youtube the other day and stumbled across a video that Mark Upton, from sport relations gave really good insight into performance analysis information for coaches. Check it out if your interested! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wATBZfZR2OE
Thursday, 22 March 2012
Week 7 - The Use Of Social Media
This weeks lecture covered a variety of ideas fom assessment protocols to social media outlets. However, this blog will focus on social media and will mention just a few of many social media outlets people use today in order to connect with people accross the globe, share ideas and develop there own thoughts.
This high speed communication is changing the world as we know it. So fast are these social outlets that quite often the public will know of an event before the authorities even know of it.
With the advance of information technology, the world has become a globalised arena with information shared via social outlets in there hundreds and thousands. For an employer, this is very important to understand as some techniques that employees adopt in order to suss out a persons profile is to use web analysis of various online social websites. A few of these include: facebook; youtube; slideshare; twitter; I phone Apps prezi, creative commons and blogger of course.
Such social outlets are an efficient and effective way in which to share information and gather thoughts and ideas. But surely there is a limit to the amount of information that one shares with the public. Take for example twitter. Each day over 340 million tweets are recorded. Of course, the human brain is unlimited in its capacity to gather, share and acknowledge thoughts and ideas, but at what point is there a limit to the amount of information a person, or even a pedagogue will feel free to share with the general public?
Any thoughts are much appreciated.
This high speed communication is changing the world as we know it. So fast are these social outlets that quite often the public will know of an event before the authorities even know of it.
With the advance of information technology, the world has become a globalised arena with information shared via social outlets in there hundreds and thousands. For an employer, this is very important to understand as some techniques that employees adopt in order to suss out a persons profile is to use web analysis of various online social websites. A few of these include: facebook; youtube; slideshare; twitter; I phone Apps prezi, creative commons and blogger of course.
Such social outlets are an efficient and effective way in which to share information and gather thoughts and ideas. But surely there is a limit to the amount of information that one shares with the public. Take for example twitter. Each day over 340 million tweets are recorded. Of course, the human brain is unlimited in its capacity to gather, share and acknowledge thoughts and ideas, but at what point is there a limit to the amount of information a person, or even a pedagogue will feel free to share with the general public?
Any thoughts are much appreciated.
Friday, 16 March 2012
Week 6 - Reflecting, Assessing and Mentoring
In this weeks lecture, it was clearly demonstrated that reflecting, assessing and mentoring are all key characteristics of the expert pedagogue. Donald Schon's work suggests that there are in fact two types of reflection. There is reflection in action and secondly, there is reflection on action. However, to extend on these reflection elements, the expert pedagogue can combine these two and think ahead on what needs to be addressed during the next training session. In this way, the coach can reflect in a forward sense.
On the topic of assessment many coaches now use written templates or a list of competencies to update or outline assessment procedures and criteria. Yet, observation is still a key component of the assessment process and notes can be taken in a notebook and can reassess the thoughts during the 'reflection in action phase' of the performance. With the advent of technology many athletes and coaches can now tap into self assessment as the key technique of assessment. This is often utilised through video analysis. Take for example the AIS gymnast. Although, the athlete has superb kinematic and kinesthetic sense, the gymnast can self assess themselves on the plasma screen televisions via a video that has been recorded by dozens of cameras fitted into the walls of their training hall. In this way the gymnast can improve their performance for the eyes of the observer.
The second half of the lecturer examined mentoring and questioned the nature and role of a mentor. It was understood that a mentor is one that imparts their knowledge and experience to assist the athlete in fulfilling their own needs and objectives. However, is a mentor always someone more experienced in the field? If so does this mean that they need to be older? Furthermore, does the mentor need to have similarities with their athlete in order to relate to them? Each of these questions neither have a right or wrong answer. From my persepective a mentor is one in which the athlete looks up to, idolises and gains knowledge. In this way the mentor should be regarded as having had greater expereince. Yet, many would also suggest, that each and everyone of us, possess different experience and knowledge and therefore the mentor can also learn much from their athlete. In this way, the ties between the athlete and mentor are mutually beneficial and at the same levels.
On the topic of similarities, it is widly accknowedged that the mentor must have similarities to their athlete. Surely, you cannot have a mentor who assists a marathon runner, yet smokes ciggerettes and drinks beer. This idea questions the ethics of both the athlete and mentor in their relationship. I would love to know your thoughts on these ideas!
Thank for reading this blog!
On the topic of assessment many coaches now use written templates or a list of competencies to update or outline assessment procedures and criteria. Yet, observation is still a key component of the assessment process and notes can be taken in a notebook and can reassess the thoughts during the 'reflection in action phase' of the performance. With the advent of technology many athletes and coaches can now tap into self assessment as the key technique of assessment. This is often utilised through video analysis. Take for example the AIS gymnast. Although, the athlete has superb kinematic and kinesthetic sense, the gymnast can self assess themselves on the plasma screen televisions via a video that has been recorded by dozens of cameras fitted into the walls of their training hall. In this way the gymnast can improve their performance for the eyes of the observer.
The second half of the lecturer examined mentoring and questioned the nature and role of a mentor. It was understood that a mentor is one that imparts their knowledge and experience to assist the athlete in fulfilling their own needs and objectives. However, is a mentor always someone more experienced in the field? If so does this mean that they need to be older? Furthermore, does the mentor need to have similarities with their athlete in order to relate to them? Each of these questions neither have a right or wrong answer. From my persepective a mentor is one in which the athlete looks up to, idolises and gains knowledge. In this way the mentor should be regarded as having had greater expereince. Yet, many would also suggest, that each and everyone of us, possess different experience and knowledge and therefore the mentor can also learn much from their athlete. In this way, the ties between the athlete and mentor are mutually beneficial and at the same levels.
On the topic of similarities, it is widly accknowedged that the mentor must have similarities to their athlete. Surely, you cannot have a mentor who assists a marathon runner, yet smokes ciggerettes and drinks beer. This idea questions the ethics of both the athlete and mentor in their relationship. I would love to know your thoughts on these ideas!
Thank for reading this blog!
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Week 5 - Observation and Augmented Information
Week 5 Lecture
This blog is an analysis of coaching techniques, highlighting the importance of observation and specific augmentation in order to get the best out of your athletes. As a coach, I found this Weeks discussions of particular interest.This blog will be utilised to analyse my own coaching philosophies and techniques but I also intend to share with you some of the key learning points that a coach must adhere to in order to benefit the athlete coach relationship.
This weeks lecture furthered on the need for observation and dwelled into ideas of augmenting information in which to provide athletes in order to better their understanding and cognitive learning process. Although, augmenting information is vital and quite often beneficial, it must be understood that frequent augmentation will infact degrade the learning process. To support the need to limit augmentation, it was interesting to note that even the skilled observer (in this case the coach) 80% of what we see is lost within 2 hours.Therefore, as a tip I suggest to coaches to always carry a hand-held notebook in order to jot down information in diaries or online like I have done is vital.
However, I took a minute to reflect on this idea, realizing that as a (young and inexperienced) coach, I had quite often over-analysed and over-organised my training sessions. I would try to feed too much information to explain a particular point and do this in a rather short space of time. In over augmenting a scenario, the athlete will struggle to understand the concepts, lose interest and ultimately lose enjoyment in the sport.
A second topic discussed in this lecture was the relationship between the coach and the athlete. A contemporary notion that has arised, is that the power of the relationship is in the hands of the athlete, not the coach. It is important for coaches to understand that it is the athlete that now dictates the path of action.
As a final point, the coaches ability to observe rather than perform has found to work for many athletes, particularly at the individual level. As Keith discussed in lecture, it is necessary for the coach to "take a step away", to observe what is being practised rather than organising more content. In taking the time to observe, the coach can learn the finer details and provide for positive reinforcement. A great example of this can be explained in Ian Frank & Harry Miller's (1991) work entitled: Training coaches to observe and remember.Observation is also beneficial for the athlete or performer. A great example of this is in reference to Peter Dowrick's work. Here, the power of 'feed forward' is identifiable and the ability of individuals to learn through 'guided discovery' becomes evident. Here, a child learns to ride a bike with a camera attached to the helmet. The child then watches the video recorded by the camera and within hours can ride the bike! The ability to learn through observing, guiding and self teaching is successful. In playing the video back to the child, they see a guided pathway and their own experiences, through the eyes of the learner.
To conclude, it is evident that the power of observation is unique and if utilised can be very effective. Furthermore, in keeping information short and sharp, providing specific augmentation can benefit the relationship between coach and athlete, while also keeping in mind that the athlete controls the power of a one on one encounter. When it comes to using the 'feed forward' technique, whether through the use of technology via video analysis (as Dowrick observed) or in scribbling a note into your textbook it is a major assistance in the learning process. Finally, thoughts and ideas should be shared and acknowledged. In this way, the world of opportunity for the coach is endless. Therefore, I would love to know your thoughts, ideas or tips when coaching
I'll leave you with two last thoughts. The first was explained by Keith Lyons during the lecture:
"Support in order to move forward"
The second is a thought I found on Twitter by Kevin Eastman@kevineastman
Thankyou for reading this blog!
This blog is an analysis of coaching techniques, highlighting the importance of observation and specific augmentation in order to get the best out of your athletes. As a coach, I found this Weeks discussions of particular interest.This blog will be utilised to analyse my own coaching philosophies and techniques but I also intend to share with you some of the key learning points that a coach must adhere to in order to benefit the athlete coach relationship.
This weeks lecture furthered on the need for observation and dwelled into ideas of augmenting information in which to provide athletes in order to better their understanding and cognitive learning process. Although, augmenting information is vital and quite often beneficial, it must be understood that frequent augmentation will infact degrade the learning process. To support the need to limit augmentation, it was interesting to note that even the skilled observer (in this case the coach) 80% of what we see is lost within 2 hours.Therefore, as a tip I suggest to coaches to always carry a hand-held notebook in order to jot down information in diaries or online like I have done is vital.
However, I took a minute to reflect on this idea, realizing that as a (young and inexperienced) coach, I had quite often over-analysed and over-organised my training sessions. I would try to feed too much information to explain a particular point and do this in a rather short space of time. In over augmenting a scenario, the athlete will struggle to understand the concepts, lose interest and ultimately lose enjoyment in the sport.
A second topic discussed in this lecture was the relationship between the coach and the athlete. A contemporary notion that has arised, is that the power of the relationship is in the hands of the athlete, not the coach. It is important for coaches to understand that it is the athlete that now dictates the path of action.
As a final point, the coaches ability to observe rather than perform has found to work for many athletes, particularly at the individual level. As Keith discussed in lecture, it is necessary for the coach to "take a step away", to observe what is being practised rather than organising more content. In taking the time to observe, the coach can learn the finer details and provide for positive reinforcement. A great example of this can be explained in Ian Frank & Harry Miller's (1991) work entitled: Training coaches to observe and remember.Observation is also beneficial for the athlete or performer. A great example of this is in reference to Peter Dowrick's work. Here, the power of 'feed forward' is identifiable and the ability of individuals to learn through 'guided discovery' becomes evident. Here, a child learns to ride a bike with a camera attached to the helmet. The child then watches the video recorded by the camera and within hours can ride the bike! The ability to learn through observing, guiding and self teaching is successful. In playing the video back to the child, they see a guided pathway and their own experiences, through the eyes of the learner.
To conclude, it is evident that the power of observation is unique and if utilised can be very effective. Furthermore, in keeping information short and sharp, providing specific augmentation can benefit the relationship between coach and athlete, while also keeping in mind that the athlete controls the power of a one on one encounter. When it comes to using the 'feed forward' technique, whether through the use of technology via video analysis (as Dowrick observed) or in scribbling a note into your textbook it is a major assistance in the learning process. Finally, thoughts and ideas should be shared and acknowledged. In this way, the world of opportunity for the coach is endless. Therefore, I would love to know your thoughts, ideas or tips when coaching
I'll leave you with two last thoughts. The first was explained by Keith Lyons during the lecture:
"Support in order to move forward"
The second is a thought I found on Twitter by Kevin Eastman
"Observing & absorbing: so important to be a keen observer. But equally important to absorb what you learn. Need both steps to succeed!"
Thankyou for reading this blog!
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