By Lori Gano-Overway
(January 26, 2022)

As John Wooden noted years ago, the daily practice of coaching is based on many fundamental teaching principles and that if athletes have not learned there is more teaching to be done (Nater & Gallimore, 2010). This brief article highlights a few of these principles based on Vealey and Chase’s (2016) Five-Step Teaching Cycle that can boost athlete learning, and by extension, performance.

“The coach is first of all a teacher”

Coach John Wooden

The 5 Step Teaching Cycle (see Figure) can be used when introducing new skills and reinforcing skills not recently practiced to speed up athlete learning and execution of technical and tactical skills.  The Cycle begins with a coach demonstration, followed by athlete practice, then coach feedback, athletes practicing again, and finally coaches motivating athletes to continue.

Motivation & Demonstration

An effective demonstration can speed up learning.  The key to an effective demonstration is that it helps to focus attention, enhance motivation, and improve memory.  Here is a 5-step process to giving a demonstration:

• WHAT & WHY: Get their attention and then motivate them by telling them what they will do (maybe even include a goal) and why it is important to learn the skill.
• SAY: Say each step. Focus on 3-4 keywords – cues associated with each step to help memory.  To reduce attentional overload this step should be no more than to 1-2 minutes.
• DO: Do each step to reinforce memory and do not talk while executing each step.
• SAY & DO: Now say each step, while doing each step to further reinforce memory.
• CHECK: Check for understanding to make sure athletes remembered correctly. For example, have athletes repeat the step or have athletes execute each step as you call it out.

Practice & Feedback

Once the skill is demonstrated, athletes should immediately practice to further reinforce memory.  During this initial practice, coaches can provide feedback to reinforce and encourage athletes who are executing the skill correctly and to instruct athletes who need further assistance in learning and executing the skill.  There are many great resources that can help with improving coaches’ ability to provide feedback (e.g., The Coaches’ Guide to Teaching or Ambitious Coaching Handbook).  However, here is a quick tool, the IDEA method, to help coaches make sure their feedback is clear, concise, and focused on learning. 

• Inform the athlete of 1 or 2 elements to correct,
• Demonstrate what you are looking for,
• Engage the athlete in practicing the skill so they can correct, and
• Admire their performance by praising them when you see the correction is made and, more importantly, do not move on to other corrections until this correction has been noticed and corrected.

Practice & Motivation

As athletes practice, additional learning can take place by adding complexity to the skill (e.g., adding obstacles, increasing speed), adding additional factors to the practice that makes it more game-like, fine-tuning the skill once they have mastered the basics, or structuring practice to enhance learning (e.g., introduce spacing, interweaving, and teaching or introduce random practice).  During this process, coaches are continuing to provide encouragement and reinforcement statements to motivate athletes.

The Five-Step Teaching Cycle provides coaches with a systematic way to implement teaching principles into practice that will help athletes learn and execute skills.  Hopefully, this quick refresher on how to implement effective teaching principles into coaching practice and can be blended into your typical training session.  

Editor’s Note: This article will also appear in the Spring Edition of the VHSL Coaches Corner (Vol. 9, Issue 3)

References

Nater, S., Gallimore, R. (2010). You haven’t taught until they have learned. FIT Publishing.

Vealey, R., & Chase, M. (2016). Best practice for youth sport. Human Kinetics.