Coaches shape events. As a player, fashion your game via your habits and learning. Do not become a victim. Be present and engaged, leaving an impression, depth.
Education changes behavior. Chris Oliver hosts Cleveland State Coach Dennis Gates discussing education methods. Coach Gates has a Masters in Adult Education. I share excerpts below.
"You have to have a learning primer" to absorb information. It's the "ability of the young people to absorb" that matters. The Coursera course, "Learning How to Learn" shares worthwhile exercises.
"Learning is permanent change." - Chris Oliver
Coach Gates advocates for finding solutions...
No one way to learn. "Visual learning" through social media drowns out basketball teaching. Players may grasp a concept via a clip more than on a board. (Youtubetrimmer.com allows us to extract clips as short as five seconds from a YouTube video.)
Players make us better coaches by showing us what they do or don't understand. Either I lacked the ability to teach run and jump to middle school girls or they couldn't grasp "trap and go."
"Come to me with a solution." - Chris
Coach Gates says, "H.O.T." meaning higher order thinking, analogous to a quarterback's progressions. (Young people must learn how to learn, how to grow, how to resolve conflict, how to overcome disappointment. Not all adults have these skills.)
"Inquiry-based learning" expects players to learn by exploring. Knowledge builds instincts.
Gates says, "you are a participant in your own rescue." The danger is being on the bench.
"Discussions can motivate athletes to be prepared..." Coach Gates hopes that players will apply lessons learned on the court throughout their lives.
Not enough to understand but to understand why...
Reflective learning. Relate learning from your lives into the game. Reflective learning prevents recurrent errors...learn from other's mistakes. Coaches have reflective learning as we rewatch games finding what we can do better.
Film study. Translate what you see into future actions. (UNC soccer coach Anson Dorrance shows positive clips because he believes negative clips hurt his players.)
Player-led learning. Assign players to supervise the learning/self-teaching. Mistakes in practice are valuable, replacing mistakes in games.
Develop leadership. Program has a sports psychologist. They have a "Freshman Captain," and teach conflict resolution and other skills.
Freedom. Learn through experience. "We don't experiment in games."
Affirmations. Hard for young men to trust. Positivity helps confidence. He touches players (e.g. on the shoulder) while building trust. Chris mentions wording, "why are you late" can become, "I'm happy you're here."
Correction. Feedback is necessary. It can't always be positive. But we can frame an action as a better choice or action.
Fixing body language. Do you choose, "bad shot" or "how can we do it better?" There is a growth expectation to overcome bad body language. (Pat Summitt and other coaches filmed the bench to measure engagement and body language.)
Observation. Note how actions impact situations and help the team succeed. It might be learning from models.
Discipline. Coach Gates sees it as a branch of knowledge. Discipline is also behavior choice for the benefit of the individual and the team.
Lagniappe. From the Knicks to the 2019 Champion Raptors with Scout with Bryan
