5. Learning
On day two of the first weekend, we started to talk about learning — how it happens, how we can check that it’s actually happened, different ways people learn.
Our aim is to help people acquire new skills or knowledge, more often than not adults, who will be different than youth we might have coached in the past.
We were given three types of learning we were concerned with, as Coach Developers: Formal Learning, Non-Formal Learning, and Informal Learning. I’ll get back to these in a bit and explain (to myself) what they are, but the meat of the day was spent working through different learning theories and domains.
Learning Styles
We were split pretty quickly into working groups1 and my working group had the option of picking from a few different learning theories to diagram and explain how we might make use of the steps in the process or different aspects of the style. We were looking at Honey & Mumford’s Learning Styles (the cycle of Experiencing, Reviewing, Concluding, Planning that reminds me a lot of the App Design Workbook that outlines how teams work at Apple - https://www.thecodehub.ie/news/app-design/) and Kolb’s experiential learning style theory2. Our end result was something like the diagram below. So we focused on four different ways of learning something and agreed that we’d likely use a combination of all four at some stage in coach development, and some of them could even be interlinked, which led to our very Celtic Knotty-looking diagram (thankfully not drawn by me, as it’d be even more bizarrely intertwined, I’m sure).
One of the bold statements I have already stolen for the end user prep sessions I run for Apple are Intended Learning Outcomes book-ending the session.3
At the start of each module Jim would post the things we’re about to learn… usually about 2-4 with very specific, measurable statements that we will be able to verify at the end of the session.
And the task we were assigned for homework was just this, to take 5 Intended Learning Outcomes and write up two different ways of achieving the same ILO.
Mine were:
… create contingency plans for your own session delivery
… provide opportunities for your coaches to reflect on their learning
… evaluate your own Coach Developer competencies
… lead a group discussion on the current anti-doping rules
… assess the effectiveness of well written Intended Learning Outcomes
One of the things I got caught out on, particularly with the first one, was breaking out of thinking like a coach. It’s difficult, because I *love* thinking about coaching volleyball athletes and love getting into technique and tactics discussions, but the number one thing this course is helping me do is think about putting on that Coach Developer hat more and thinking about how am I supporting this coach to learn, themselves?
I answered the first one referencing the Dunn and Dunn Learning Style method4, which basically just lists elements and stimuli that would make up different learning environments, many of which would make for excellent contingencies for delivery and tasks, in the event that attendees favor one style over another, and the second method I used was the Gibbs reflective cycle5, where you go through a reflective process, either forecasting how a session might go, or using a previous delivery, to prepare for a range of scenarios. Most of my answer imagined the scenario where I, as a coach developer, was delivering a session to coaches and getting them to think of their own contingency plans, where the ILO was more aimed at a Coach Developer analyzing and creating their own contingencies for their own sessions. Similar, just a point where I need to make sure I have the right hat on when I’m reading instructions.
I won’t bore myself (or you) with all my answers, but for assessing the effectiveness of well written ILOs, which I do think are brilliant things to have stated or unstated prior to a lesson/workshop/session, I had these two options (paraphrased from the homework):
CD will use a SMART tool to ensure the outcomes can be properly measured (https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/2f9b3b_6703a18c8e7f4b4ba340205da1ab7287.pdf) and identify what success looks like.
CD uses questioning methods like the ones in Coaching Athletes to Be Their Best (cited above) to assess how well ILOs were met after a session, to improve them for future sessions.
(Again, that one was originally written with more of the picture of a CD delivering a ‘How to Write ILOs’ workshop to coaches.)
I have been exposed to learning styles before, of course, most notably in Seymour Papert’s Mindstorms (https://mindstorms.media.mit.edu), which is heavily influenced by Piaget and Constructionism6, where experimentation is encouraged as a way for the learner to solve problems. I used to teach kids coding using Papert’s LOGO and the Turtle, which offers a few simple commands they can use to build all manner of things. You can see how the leap from solving problems in Constructionism can lead to things like ecological dynamics7 and the constraints-lead approach to motor skill acquisition. In fact, today, as I’m editing this journal to submit it, Jim Stone, an incredibly accomplished USA Volleyball coach, published a post on learning styles and instruction on his blog8, which references all sorts of fun things to think about like desirable difficulty, cognitive load theory, all of which we can incorporate into volleyball training sessions AND volleyball coach training sessions. I love the volume of information and research put into the topic of learning and trying to figure out how we can apply it to our own work as coaches.
Formal, Non-Formal, Informal
Okay, so back to the Formal, Non-Formal, Informal learning. The (rough) definition is that formal is a structured session that is part of a course that leads to qualification for a given National Governing Body (NGB). Non-Formal learning still happens in a formal-like setting (classroom, gym), but doesn’t lead to a qualification. Informal is something that just happens… I don’t know why, but I picture someone being struck by lightning and suddenly understanding how to pass international level serves perfectly, every time.9
I struggled (and still struggle) to care *too* much about the difference between the formal and non-formal, as they both occur somewhat formally… it’s just that the formal workshop or clinic results in credit towards some certificate or badge, but the informal doesn’t.
I suppose it’ll be different in my NGB placement (to finish the course you need to go out and work a few sessions for the NGB, so, in this case, Volleyball Ireland for me), where it might make more of a difference, but when I wrote my two session plans, one for a formal workshop, and the second for an informal one, I delivered them in my test sessions very much the same.
I see the distinction between the Formal/Non-Formal vs. Informal, where the latter is more driven by interest in the moment, maybe leading someone to The Art of Coaching videos or YouTube, books, but I think time will let me in on the big reason for splitting the formal and non-formal.
Just like with Real Learning, it takes time. It’s about creating new habits, and requires effort and a desire to change. :)
I love the way I’m in this class with people from a wide range of sports and so many boxing folks; it’s been fascinating to spend so much time with people from such different backgrounds and get an insight into the challenges and problems they face, and just a peek into the environment in which they work. Each and every group session I found myself having great conversations or listening to brilliant stories of how it is in other sports and the sheer passion of everybody for helping athletes get engaged in their sport is inspiring.
You (I) can dig in more on learning styles here: https://www.mindtools.com/addwv9h/learning-styles
This is me from the future coming back and editing this… I was writing them after this weekend, because the homework pushed me to think about how I would go about evaluating ILOs, but after we did the Planning module and worked through the writing of them in depth as a class it was even more powerful. So hello from the future!
This is as opposed to Instructionism, in which learners are given instructions to follow in order to gain knowledge.
See some of Rob Gray’s work, probably most accessible in the podcasts he hosts and has appeared on (yes, CYBO -
), but also in book form: https://perceptionaction.com/book/
Rumor has it this is how Shoji learned to pass. So tempted to start a Motor Learning by Lightning Strike podcast…