Coaching in the classroom

Coaching in the Classroom and Teaching on the Court

Matt HixenboughLynn Mittler

MICDS

Overview

• Explain concept• Discuss general approaches• Provide individual strategies and examples

GOALS?

David Shaw- Stanford Football

Growth Mindset

• While it seems like folks believe this in athletics, many don’t in academics: I am bad in math….

Growth Mindest

Growth Mindset

Growth Mindset

“You can see how the belief that cherished qualities can be developed creates a passion for learning…The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. “ (7).

Growth Mindset

“The idea that one evaluation can measure you forever is what creates the urgency for those with a fixed mindset” (29). “Why is effort so terrifying? Great geniuses are not supposed to need it. It robs you of all your excuses.”

Growth Mindset

“The low-effort syndrome is often seen as a way that adolescents assert their independence from adults, but it is also a way that students with fixed mindsets protect themselves” (58).

Growth Mindset

“The growth mindset does allow people to love what they’re doing—and to continue to live it in the face of difficulties…In a fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome. If you fail—or if you’re not the best—it’s all been wasted. The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome” (48).

Growth Mindset

“’For me the joy of athletics has never resided in winning,” Jackie Joyner-Kersee tells us, ‘…I derive just as much happiness from the process as from the results. I don’t mind losing as long as I see improvement or I feel I’ve don’t as well as I possibly could. If I love, I just go back to the track and work some more’”(98). “Those with the growth mindset found setbacks motivating. They’re informative. They’re a wake-up call” (99).

Growth Mindset

“When students were praised for effort, 90 percent of them wanted the challenging new task that they could learn from” (72).

Growth Mindset

“Growth-mindset environment in which people can thrive involves:• Presenting skills as learnable• Conveying that the organization values learning and

perseverance, not just ready-made genius and talent• Giving feedback in a way that promotes learning and

future success• Presenting managers (teachers) as resources for

learning” (141).

Growth Mindset

Questions students can ask themselves:• Are there ways I can be less defensive about

my mistakes?• Can I profit more from the feedback I get?• Are there ways I can create more learning

experiences for myself?

G.R.O.W. Model

“Real leadership development is neither intellectual nor academic, neither is it knowledge based nor technical, all of which are sourced from outside the person. The origins of the best coaching are all about eliminating our internal obstacles and drawing out the untapped bank of riches latent within each human being” (178).

G.R.O.W. Model

Goal setting for the session as well as for the long termWhat do you want?

Reality checking to explore the current situationWhat is happening?

Options and alternative strategies or course of actionWhat could you do?

What is to be done, When, by Whom, and the Will to do it.

What will you do?

G.R.O.W. ModelWhy is this important?• “The single universal internal block is unfailingly the same variously described

as fear of failure, lack of confidence, self-doubt, and lack of self-belief” (18). • “One of the best things we can do for them is to assist them in surpassing us”

(18). • “We build self-belief when we make decisions, take successful actions, and

recognize our full responsibility for both our successes and our failures” (18). • “For people to build their self-belief, in addition to accumulating successes they

need to know that their success is due to their own efforts. They must also know that other people believe in them” (19).

G.R.O.W. Model

How to help? By asking questions. • How to know when to ask questions and when to just tell

someone what the right answer is:• “If time is the predominant criterion in a situation (e.g., in an

immediate crisis), doing the job yourself or telling someone else what to do will probably be the fastest way.

• If the quality of the result matters most (e.g., an artist painting a masterpiece), coaching for high awareness and responsibility is likely to deliver the most.

• If maximizing the learning is predominant (e.g., a child doing homework), clearly coaching will optimize learning and retention” (25).

G.R.O.W. ModelAsking questions demands more of the athletes; they must become aware of the situation and take responsibility.• “Responsibility demands choice. Choice implies freedom” (31). • “The leading cause of burnout was ‘little personal control’” (31).

• “Offering someone choice and control wherever possible in the workplace acknowledges and validates their capability and their self-esteem” (32).

• “I am able to control only that of which I am aware. That of which I am unaware controls me. Awareness empowers me” (34).

• “When we truly accept, choose, or take responsibility for our thoughts and our actions, our commitment to them rises and so does our performance” (37).

• “Feeling truly responsible invariably involves choice” (37).

• “Every time input is provided the responsibility of the coachee is reduced” (42).

G.R.O.W. ModelThrough this process, our goal is to empower students/athletes to believe in their ability to make a good choice and execute it. • “Self-belief is not met by prestige and privilege, which are more symbolic than

substantial. It is built when someone is seen to be worthy of making choices. Promotion without genuine empowerment and the opportunity to express potential is counterproductive. While telling negates choice, disempowers, limits potential, and demotivates, coaching does the opposite…They want their work to be of value and have meaning and purpose” (111).

• “Our primary objective must be to understand what the performer/learner needs in

order to perform the task well, and to ask, say, or do whatever it takes to help him meet that need” (127).

• “Getting accurate feedback from the result of her action causes automatic self-

correction without effort or strife. Letting go of trying to force the correction (the focus is now on the accuracy of the observation) allows the correction to take place effortlessly and subconsciously. The player’s total ownership of the correction is maintained” (128).

G.R.O.W. Model

Reality Questions:• The demand for an answer is essential to compel the

coachee to think, to examine, to look, to feel, to be engaged.

• The questions need to demand high-resolution focus to obtain the detail of high-quality input.

• The reality answers sought should be descriptive not judgmental, to ensure honesty and accuracy.

• The answers must be of sufficient quality and frequency to provide the coach with a feedback loop.

G.R.O.W. Model

Overcoming Barriers:

• “The greatest barrier without a doubt is not the inability to coach but the inability to give up telling, to give up what you have done before in each circumstance, to give up your old habitual management or teaching behavior.”

• “Most people have a long history of being told by parents, by school

teacher, and by their first bosses, so naturally they expect to be told and may find it strange being asked for their opinion. Another way of looking at the resistance is to consider what they are really resisting; it is, of course, becoming more aware or more responsible and the consequences of both” (149).

G.R.O.W. Model: Coaching Colleagues

“California researchers in the early nineteen-eighties conducted a five-year study of teacher-skill development in eighty schools, and noticed something interesting. Workshops led teachers to use new skills in the classroom only ten per cent of the time. Even when a practice session with demonstrations and personal feedback was added, fewer than twenty per cent made the change. But when coaching was introduced—when a colleague watched them try the new skills in their own classroom and provided suggestions—adoption rates passed ninety per cent. A spate of small randomized trials confirmed the effect. Coached teachers were more effective, and their students did better on tests.”

Coaching Colleagues

Coaching Colleagues

The 7 Qualities of Effective Feedback• Intend to support• Understood as subjective perception• Delivered in the moment• Presumes innocence without judging• Describes observed behaviors and impacts• Authentic, candid, yet compassionate, to build trust and

respect• Stimulates mutual learning and accountability leading

to inspired action

Goal Setting

• The result to which effort is aimed

• Do you focus on the first part or the second part?

Goal Setting Keys according to Locke and Latham

• Clear Plans• Feedback• Commitment• Task complexity• Situational constraints

Goal Setting

• A Star is Born, New York Times May 6, 2006• Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt• “Deliberate practice entails setting specific

goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome”

• Studied soccer, surgery, piano, writing, stock picking

Classroom application

• Intro sentence• Thesis• Paragraph• Paragraph plus outline• Multiple Paragraphs• Full Essay

Feedback

• John Hattie- Visible Learning Laboratories, University of Auckland

• Enhancement on students (Top 10 of over 130 traits studied)

• Over 1000 academic studies to support the importance and benefit of feedback

Education of Discretion

• Thomas Jefferson• “If we think them not enlightened enough to

exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education”

Doctor v. Surgeon

Basketball Analytics

Classroom analytics

Be best at what you do most

• Can’t be equally good at everything• Can’t cover everything• Must be a reason for everything you do• Only thing we have in common is time

Be best at what you do most

• Hoops

• Dribble• Pass • Shoot

• History

• Reading• Analyze• Write

Stonecutter

What do Wayne Gretzky, Yo Yo Ma, and Charlie Wilson have in common?

• Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker, Aug 2 1999

• “A practical minded obsession with the possibility and the consequences of failure are more important than technical skills or intelligence in being successful. What this attitude drives you to do is practice over and over and over again, until even the smallest imperfections are ironed out”

On the court

In History Class

Video Analysis

Video Analysis

Video Analysis

“Most coaches stop practice when they see something negative, but I want to challenge you to stop play when someone does something positive…In essence, you are positively imprinting desirable actions, behaviors and performances” (83).

Video Analysis

“You have to be very careful about what and how you criticize because the last thing you want is for your players to fear failure. If they do, they won’t play to their potential, and they will focus only on avoiding failure” (100). “Body language and tone of voicealso count as criticism” (103).

Dealing with adversity

Adversity reveals character

What if the key to success is failure?

How do you define grit?

• “a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles are, however long it might take”

Classroom- Willie Crenshaw- Court

Character Traits

Character Skills• Performance

– Hard Working– Competitive– Positive– Focused– Accountable– Resilient– Confident– Energetic– Disciplined– Motivated

• Moral– Unselfish– Honest– Respectful– Appreciative– Humble– Loyal– Trustworthy– Encouraging– Socially Aware– Caring

How do we gauge success?

• Determine your own metrics• What is your timeline?• Anyway to measure or do you rely on

anecdotal evidence?