What’s your coaching philosophy?

Here are two legends of Australian Basketball Lindsay and Andrew Gaze. Their names are the first most people recall if you mention the Melbourne Tigers.

As I have written about before my son Mitchell plays in the Melbourne Tigers Under 18’s and is trained  by Lindsay. One of the things I like to do is watch good coaches – coach. I’ve certainly learned more about the game of basketball from watching Lindsay in action. I’ve been fortunate to also watch other coaches like Nick Abdicevic or Nigel Purchase in action as well as they take skills sessions each Friday morning or coach high level representative teams.

All of these coaches have a philosophy that guides their actions in helping athletes “prepare, develop and improve their sporting performance” Special Olympics Coaching Guide

Probably my first tip for all coaches is to watch other coaches in action and ask what can I learn and use from this?

David Watson the director of the boys Melbourne Tigers club has asked me to support some of the coaches of the junior teams in strengthening their general coaching skills:  that is coaching skills not specifically related to basketball.

I thought I’d write a series of posts on some of these general coaching skills using some general principles. This post was to set the context for these future articles.

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New Leadership

In Victoria, principal class positions are openly advertised and a selection panel which comprises a teacher and parents from the school and a regional network leader appoint the successful candidate.

Sarah my Assistant Principal was recently successful in being appointed as the new Principal of Moorabbin Primary School. In saying goodbye I recalled a line from “The Last Samurai” movie – “I will miss our conversations”. For over 7 years we have conversed about, written about and researched about improving instruction, curriculum development and student well being.

When David Loader wrote in the Inner Principal that he would miss the closeness of relationships as he moved on to another school I guess its the same for me. Its been a long close association. I wish her well.

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Followership

Thanks to others including Nina Davis I found this clip on leadership which suggests that the courage shown by the first follower is what determines the success or otherwise of the ‘movement’.

In applying this view of leadership to schools where leadership is often aligned with organizational hierarchy its a challenge. We have year level leaders who manage teams of teachers in developing a responsive and engaging curriculum. Is this leadership? It could be!

I read recently that hierarchical positions are about levels of accountability not necessarily leadership – the higher up in the organisation the greater the levels of accountability.

I wonder if the year level leaders acknowledged the courage of the first follower? Is followership linked to specific things that the teams do e.g. using a new planning proforma that has greater detail around the explicit teaching focus or the dance in the clip or is followership to the team itself?

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@betchaboy agree at this point…

@betchaboy agree at this point as I’m using it to follow teacher conversations and links about teaching and leadership

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@ninadavis thought the message…

@ninadavis thought the message relevant

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Ultranet – what is it and why is is important?

Our statewide improvement agenda for public education in Victoria includes using an online learning environment called the Ultranet which amongst other objectives gives students their own online workspaces with all the relevant web 2.0 tools. These online workspaces eventually will have personally tailored education programs and direct feedback from teachers.

Scotland already has an online learning environments for students called Glow . I have looked at the Glow site for primary students and in particular how to use groups section.

From my perspective a key driver of this innovation is the teacher. Convincing teachers of the value in spending time setting up and using these tools each day with students may take some time. Watching the video above may help in that process.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-29

  • I find it an interesting conundrum that governments use Facebook on their education sites yet we block it in schools? #
  • Looks like Facebook is being allowed in the new Vic schools ISP setup – great news for me as I have some links to videos I want to use. #

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Looks like Facebook is being a…

Looks like Facebook is being allowed for teachers in the new Vic schools ISP setup – great news for me as I have some links to videos I want to use.

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I find it an interesting conun…

I find it an interesting conundrum that governments use Facebook on their education sites yet we block it in schools?

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We are all working on the same thing! Instructional Improvement presentation for the ACT Principals.

I’ve just returned from Wollongong where I was invited by the Australian Capital Territory [ACT] principals to share my journey of school improvement.

For those like me who are unfamiliar with the ACT public education system it has approximately 81 schools with different configurations: years P-6, 7-10, 11-12  type schools I expected but they had others as well e.g. 6-10.

My presentation which is located on the conference page focused on improving instruction in classrooms. The principals had just been given the Instructional Rounds book by City and Elmore and expressed an interest in learning more about the process.

I have attached a summary of the book for those who missed out at the conference and invite them to join my wiki to continue sharing resources and discussion about this strategy to improve instruction in classrooms.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-22

  • Ever felt the pressure as a principal to take time away from instructional leadership? Sure do! Its a mistake to assume others understand. #
  • I asked teachers to list 3 improvement strategies they think are important- instructional improvement is high – what does this look like? #
  • Doug Lemov, a former USA principal has some video clips on instructional improvement http://uncommonschools.org/usi/aboutUs/taxonomy.php #

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Reading comprehension scaffolded for older students.

At our regular team leaders meeting where we gain an overview of curriculum planning across the school we discussed what readers workshops look like for older primary aged students.

Our problem of practice started out about identifying what students are doing to process reading texts whilst we may be teaching in a small group or individually. The problem shifted to what scaffolding were we as teachers putting in place for older students to make connections to texts and process information in worthwhile ways?

Our discussions ranged from the need to still run regular guided reading sessions for our lower performing students or literature circles for other students to learn say inferential comprehension skills but returned to scaffolds for all students.

I think this clip is useful for teachers to view and continue these discussions on scaffolding strategies for all students to make connections to texts.

Question still to be posed is this happening in all our classrooms?

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-15

  • I'm disappointed to read our PM Mr Rudd quoted as saying the National Curriculum is back to basics – what about back to the future. #
  • A report on the best performing schools has as a precondition for improvement the building of teacher efficacy-a precondition not an add on #

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Is this the face of technology in tomorrow’s schools?

Have a look at this clip and lets talk about real time connectivity.

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A report on the best performin…

A report on the best performing schools has as a precondition for improvement the building of teacher efficacy-a precondition not an add on

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