In my spare time this year I’ve been working on developing a set of teaching videos of soccer coaches, part of it as a result of my work with the US Soccer Federation, where the coaches I’ve worked with–Dave Chesler and Tony Lepore especially–have blown me away with their attentiveness to and insight about the craft of…
For the past year or two we’ve been working closely with a major teacher training organization to help them develop successful new teachers faster and more effectively. They work in more than a dozen cities and are the most data-driven organization we know of. One of the things we recently learned is particularly fascinating for everyone…
Got to spend the evening watching Iain Munro, Academy Director at the Philadelphia Union’s academy program, coaching and I was struck by what he did first and why. Iain’s kids played a modified 5 v 5 scrimmage for 15 minutes when they arrived. He likes the idea of kids getting to play right away so they don’t…
GREAT piece in the April 8 New Yorker by pianist Jeremy Denk… a retrospective on the role of practice in his development. Deeply reflective and insightful. Definitely worth the read though this video gives you a really good sense for a couple of the key sections, especially his first serious teacher’s use of feedback in his practice…
My colleague Joaquin Hernandez has been reading back through some studies on John Wooden’s coaching. Here are four interesting points from Joaquin’s notes. The last one is my favorite: When Correcting, Sandwich the Model (M+, M-, M+): When you spot an error, stop the player and model how to perform the move correctly (M+), show them how…