Applied Positive Pedagogy in Sport Coaching

International Cases

Richard Light, Stephen Harvey, Richard Light, Stephen Harvey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000081886
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Physical Education
• Index: Biological Sciences

Positive Pedagogy is an athlete-centred, inquiry-based approach that transforms the way we understand learning and coaching in sport and can be successfully employed across a range of different sports and levels of performance. Applied Positive Pedagogy in Sports Coaching: International Cases reflects the uptake of Positive Pedagogy by coaches across different countries and sport settings through its complete focus on their experiences of using it and adapting it to their needs and contexts.

Comprising 17 detailed chapters that examine both Team Sports (Part 1) and Individual Sports (Part 2), this book seeks to provide insight into the opportunities and challenges involved in the application of Positive Pedagogy for sport coaching (PPed). Critically, it also identifies any problems the coaches encountered, how they addressed them and what they learned from these experiences.

Acting as a complementary text to the successful Positive Pedagogy for Sport Coaching, 2nd edition, Applied Positive Pedagogy in Sports Coaching: International Cases is an exciting, applied text that will be vital reading for all practising sports coaches or physical education teachers looking to improve or even transform their professional practice, as well as sports coaching students and researchers.

PART I

Team Sports

1

Providing a Positive Experience of Learning

An Australian Football (AFL) Experience

Shane Pill

My profile of experience is typical of the ‘sporty’ profile of those entering PETE courses (Dewar and Lawson, 1984; Sikes, 1988; Valtonen, Kuusela and Ruismaki, 2011) and of a custodial orientation that favours the teaching styles and programs experienced and which they were successful with (Morgan and Hansen, 2008). Lortie (1975) called this experience the ‘apprenticeship of observation’, which has a distinct and traceable influence on a practitioner’s perspective as it informs the value orientation of the individual. On reflection, my experience of PETE in the mid-1980s confirmed my apprenticeship of observation of sport coaching and the primacy of what Kirk (2010) has called sport as sport techniques. That is, sport taught in physical education and sport teams coached through a sequence of drills leading to a game or ‘scratch match’ at the end, with the coach commanding and controlling practice, frequently demanding replication and conformity to a technique which they had demonstrated.

After completing my degree, in 1988 I moved from Adelaide to Perth to begin my teaching and sport coaching career. It was here that I was exposed to game-based ideas about sport teaching and coaching in a meaningful way. I worked with a head of department who had been trained in England. After a warm-up, I observed how his physical education classes went straight into game play. He would walk around taking to individual students during the lesson, occasionally stopping the whole group for a conversation, which most often took the form of a question and answer with the students and not direct instruction. This contradicted my apprenticeship of observation of good physical education teaching and sport coaching, which led me to engage my head of department in many conversations to understand why he taught this way. I began to question the concept of the ideal lesson as a ‘notion of progression as an additive process’ (Kirk, 2010, p. 85) as I observed the enthusiasm the head of department’s students had for his lessons. Progressively, I shed a technique oriented ‘skill and drill’ approach in both my physical education teaching and sport coaching.

In 1994, I commenced a Level 2 Australian football (AFL) coaching course during which, the concept of coaching game sense was introduced to me in a meaningful way through the work of Rick Charlesworth, and his concept of ‘designer games’ (Charlesworth, 1974). This was a ‘light bulb’ moment for my teaching and coaching.¹ I began to play with the idea of designer games initially in my sport coaching, and then in my teaching. Not long after this, the Game Sense coaching approach was introduced in Australia as the preferred pedagogy (Australian Sports Commission, 1996). The Game Sense coaching approach matched with the beliefs that I had developed about sport coaching and teaching sport in physical education (Pill, 2015a). Upon reflection, I had developed from a transmission-focussed coach to one attempting to be the sport coach as educator (Jones, 2006), with an athlete-centred focus (Pill, 2018a) on positive pedagogy (Light and Harvey, 2017). In particular, the move to asking questions to generate dialogue and learning in a Game Sense approach (Light, 2017) to effect the development of thinking players (den Duyn, 1997) became a focus of my continuing coach education.

Light and Harvey (2019) explained how positive pedagogy enhances the inherently positive experience of learning that game-based approaches promote and that the notion of positive pedagogy for sport coaching draws on the Game Sense framework. The session I recall in this chapter came after 20 years of ‘playing with’ the idea of Game Sense coaching and coming to understand the Game Sense approach as a positive pedagogy for sport coaching.

The Session

The session I reflect on here occurred during a semi-professional State League season. I was an assistant coach but, for this training session, I had responsibility for session design and implementation. It was the main session of the week and lasted for nearly 120 minutes. It occurred late in the pre-season during which trial games were being played and the playing system (Grehaigne, Richard and Griffin, 2005; Pill, 2015b) was being consolidated. The purpose of the session was to further develop players’ understanding of the midfield-forward connection and was part of a training block focussed on the midfield-forward connection. Pre-season had begun with players initially training to develop understanding of strategies for defending opposition forward entries, and then progressed to developing strategies associated with the defense-midfield connection. In this way, the teaching of the teams’ system of play and players’ tactical decision making had been ‘periodised’ (Pill, 2015b). Table 1.1 outlines the structure of the session.

Table 1.1 Game Sense training plan for Australian football

Players meeting	Session Focus- Midfield-forward connectionFocus questionsWhat are we trying to do? (isolate a forward who can mark the ball or free a space for a running shot at goal)How do we achieve this? (fast ball movement, forwards shifting the defense with their running patterns, forwards working for each other with blocks and screens)How does it connect to our game plan? (creating marking opportunities inside 50)	10 minutes
Warm-Up	(with strength and conditioning staff) Dynamic mobility and running Off the line ball handling drills*groups of threebegin with handball/finish with kicking 7 v 4 Keeping off – kicking (possessionoverload with the +3 out-number)	30 minutes
Midfield-Forward game	AimOffensive team (12 players) wins by scoring a goalDefensive team (8 players) wins by either: gaining possession at the stoppage; gaining the ball in defense and clearing the ball to the assistant coach positioned in the midfield.Conditions *12 v 8 game(6 forwards v 4 defenders)(6 offensive mids v 4 defensive mids) *Forwards play 1–3–2 structure atstoppage *Game starts at midfield stoppage.Assistant coach decides if stoppage is aball-up, throw-in, or fee kick situation *If a point is scored defensive team bringsthe ball back into play attempting to getthe ball to the midfield coach. Theoffensive team attempts to keep the ballin the forward area and win backpossession to score a goal. *When a goal is scored, players return tostarting points and assistant coach startsthe game with a midfield stoppage. Inquiry strategy: Assistant coach in charge will use ‘freeze moments’ if appropriate, and allow ‘tactical time-outs’ after goals to permit the player leaders of each team to discuss with their playing group – ‘What’s working?’ ‘What’s not?’ ‘What do we change?’	60 minutes
Warm-Down	Practice stations (players work with assistant coaches on the players identified focus) Group 1 ‘One step’ kicking Group 2 Ground ball pick ups Group 3 Tackling Group 4 Strong hands in a marking contest	20 minutes

I started the session in the briefing room with an overview of the session conducted as a question and answer with the players. Traditional coaching approaches are often referred to as ‘directive’ as the coach largely commands and directs training. The coach appears to do most of the talking and most of the thinking, and players comply with the coach directions. Game Sense coaching as a positive pedagogy places a greater emphasis on players responsibility for thinking and understanding. This occurs by the coach use of pre-planned and in the moment well considered questions. I focussed the session outline (see Table 1.1) through use of the pre-planned questions. The questions I planned were purposefully convergent, targeted at engaging knowledge that should be known by the players, therefore engaging recall and not the development of new understanding. They are not the only questions I used, as this means potentially only three players voices are heard. Rather, I engaged in a ‘debate of ideas’ (Grehaigne et al., 2005). In a debate of ideas, player knowledge is elaborated, not left at the first answer provided, in response to a question posed by the coach. A debate of ideas requires in the moment questioning by the coach to fully draw-out the knowledge expected of the playing group. Individual past experiences should be encouraged to enrich the meaning of the information (Zerai and Mekni, 2017). Traditional approaches to player coaching have been found to feature direct instruction and feedback. Positive pedagogy requires inquiry-based athlete-centred pedagogy (Light and Harvey, 2019; Pill, 2018a), such as the debate of ideas.

The warm-up phase moved from closed ‘unopposed’ to an open drill progressively increasing physical and cognitive demands on players to prepare for the game development phase. The warm-up phase is an opportunity to focus on technical movement models – kicking, marking, handball, and athletics (such as running mechanics); and running patterns as the players are able to focus more on the internal coordinative dynamics of their movements, as the activities do not have the time, space, and decision-making complexities of the game (Farrow, Pyne and Gabbett, 2008).

When using a Game Sense coaching approach, the game or a game form becomes the focus of training following the warm-up (Australian Sports Commission, 1996). In traditional coaching scenarios, game play and/or match simulation often comes at the end of training or with juniors, as a form of reward for trying hard and getting things ‘right’ during the practice drills. However, adopting a positive pedagogy positions the game-centred practice component as where skill development occurs because tactical and technical aspects of movement are complimentary pairs in creating skilled behaviour (Pill, 2014). Skill is a concept only having meaning in context to the ‘real’ performance, which is the game (den Duyn, 1997). Game Sense coaching is not a ‘kick out the ball and play’ approach. It is also not game-only and rather game-centred (Light and Harvey, 2017a; Pill, 2018b). In the session in focus, the game-centred practice is an example of phase practice. Phase practice is that which reinforces a phase of play through repetition by repeated restarts (Worthington, 1974).

The session did not finish with players running a few laps and then doing some stretches, common in a traditional coaching session structure. The warm-down consisted of what is colloquially referred to in Australian football caching as ‘craft work’. It is where the playing group divides into groups to work on specific areas of performance that need improvement. This deliberate practice is undertaking by players with awareness of what technique they are trying to improve. The term for this type of practice is ‘related practice’, as what is practiced is related to the game, however, the practice is not ‘game like’ (Worthington, 1974). Players were allocated to a related practice with very specific perception-action coupling and unambiguous success criteria based on a narrow set of affordances for action by the specific development need of the player (Renshaw, Davids, Newcombe and Roberts, 2019).

Reflection and Evaluation

I can identify the four pedagogical principles of a positive pedagogy for sport coaching developed from Light’s work on Game Sense in this coaching session, which are:

1. deliberate design of the game as a learning environment;
2. an emphasis on questioning to promote inquiry and interaction;
3. promoting inquiry through problem solving; and,
4. providing a supportive environment.

(Light, 2013)

The session I detailed in this chapter demonstrates each of the four pedagogical principles. I initiated game play as the focus of the practice session with a clear learning intention communicated to players before training commenced, during the players meeting in the rooms before players went out for the warm-up. I conditioned the game play with specific focus. For example, I deliberately, numerically overloaded the team trying to score by reducing the number of players in defensive roles to give more chance of successful execution of the team offensive strategy and to provide offensive players tactical in-the-moment decision making to be more successful (Pill, 2014). Light and Harvey (2019) describe this as beginning with a high rate of success but increasing the level of challenge and pressure on the players as the session progresses. It is also an example of game modification consistent with Game Sense coaching pedagogy (Australian Sports Commission, 1996).

I placed an emphasis on questioning in preference to coach instructing. Initially, I focussed the session learning intention by using questions that facilitated a debate of ideas. Before the player meeting, I met with the coaches assisting training to ask that during training they facilitate an ongoing ‘conversation’ with players by initiating their interaction with players with the question ‘what happened there?’, to open up a dialogue with players that assists player development as ‘thinking players’. This dialogical direction creates a moment of reflection on action while the memory of the event is likely clearer to the player than in would be later in a break in play. Approaching coach-player interactions this way in a Game Sense approach is part of the process of developing ‘thinking players’, which is the focus of Game Sense coaching (den Duyn, 1997). In a Game Sense coaching approach, questioning is used create dialogue to stimulate thinking and reflection from which learning in and about games emerges (Light, 2013).

Problem solving through inquiry processes was also evident in the session. For example, I asked the coaching group to use ‘freeze moments’ (Worthington, 1974) whereby play was stopped (frozen) and player behaviour at the moment analysed with the question ‘what happened there?’ Players had also been instructed during the player session briefing that player-led ‘tactical time-outs’ were available after a goal had been scored and the ball was transitioning back to the midfield restart. Tactical timeouts are an opportunity for the players to discuss what is working and what needs to change. In a game of Australian football, players have time to meet in their player groups (forwards, midfielders, and defenders) for reflection and strategising. Typically, the ‘captain’ of the group will facilitate the conversation. Incorporating this opportunity into the practice design enables the players to practice this behaviour. I also argue that it is also an example of athlete centred coaching (Light and Harvey, 2017; Pill, 2018a) as initiative and responsibility for player learning is shared with the players at training, and players are assisted to develop as independent decision-makers during the game. Athlete-centred coaching requires an emphasis like this example of placing the playing group at the centre of their own learning and reflection as it is directed at providing a supportive environment.

When reviewing the training plan (Table 1.1) and the description of how the session was implemented, it is pertinent for me to highlight the difference between recall and guided discovery of new knowledge and capability for action. I have often found that coaches using questioning with players struggle to differentiate between questioning for recall and questioning for discovery and knowledge formation. A structured series of questions leading to revelation of understanding may be a reminder of expected understanding. A structured series of questions may also lead to the development of new understanding. One of the areas of positive pedagogy for sport coaching that took me a long time to fully understand and appreciate is the need for good knowledge of players to be able to distinguish which cognitive process (recall or new understanding) is displayed in answer to a question. It also took many years of reading and reflection on my coaching to know when to use questioning for recall and consolidation of knowledge and understanding, and when to stimulate ‘new thinking’. For example, a player answers a question in front of the playing group that leads to new understanding for th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Positive Pedagogy for Coaching Team and Individual Sports: An overview
• PART I: Team Sports
• PART II: Individual Sports
• Index