Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

07.11.17 A Q&A with Stuart Singer on Mindfulness and Performance

    I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Stuart Singer, who works with athletes to help them master the mental aspects of performance.  As we talked I realized there was a lot of overlap between our areas of interest- from a coaching perspective and more broadly from a teaching and learning perspective.  He agreed…


06.23.17 For Coaches: Making Downtime More Productive During Practice

Recently I watched Mike Ellicott training his U13 girls at Empire United‘s development academy in Rochester.  I wanted to share an idea that came out of it. When his girls broke into three groups for small sided games–one group ‘off’ while the other two played; the third group rotating in after five mins–something caught my eye….


06.09.17 For Coaches: Notes on ‘Means of Participation’

      A topic I’ve been thinking about as I’ve watched coaches over the past couple of months is something I call ‘means of participation.’ It’s relevant during questioning. I’ve written about if for classroom teachers here.  But it’s relevant for coaches too- questioning is important in building decision-making and reinforcing knowledge through recall practice…


06.09.17 For Coaches: On Correcting Instead of Critiquing

I’ve spent a lot of time watching coaches this year.  One of the common ideas I find myself noticing is the difference between critique and correction.  I took the section on this idea from Practice Perfect and adapted and simplified it slightly. Here it is. Critique involves telling a participant how to do it better. Correction…