Well, February is here and the new semester has begun, with all the usual hoopla and excitement. Teachers are analyzing and making adjustments to the successes and mistakes they made during the fall semester. As a football coach, I believe the timing, and its similarities, may be more opportune than you think: I believe that teachers can learn a lot from successful football coaches.
I am continually amazed at the skill and talent of my teaching colleagues, but in spite of our best intentions, some lessons don't go as planned, students are not engaged, or achievement results fall short of expectations. One consistent cause of the problems is that some teachers at all experience levels overlook or neglect some basic components of effectively planning and delivering lessons. As both a teacher and coach, here’s where I believe a few football coaching and teaching analogies can come in handy.
First off, of course, great football coaches know the game. But this knowledge is not based merely on hunches or intuition. They know the statistical data and how these should affect strategy. They confer with their coaching staff and other colleagues, and study lots of game tape. Ask any coach, and they will tell you that this level of preparation is required to win. Great teachers prepare in much the same way. They know what students need to learn and how to teach every student in their classes. They inform their intuition with relevant student data obtained from each lesson and are confident in answering key planning questions such as, "What is appropriate, necessary, rigorous, yet engaging for all of my students at this time?" Providing clear, consistent, and data-driven answers to these questions in our preparation is necessary if we want students to win.
Of course, before games are played, football teams have spent a good deal of time practicing. They do this so all the players know what they are supposed to do as plays are executed on both sides of the ball. If coaches have planned effective practices, teams will run efficiently, and the players will carry out duties independently. Great coaches take care of the logistics, routines, and procedures so that they can focus on coaching during the game. Practice is important in classrooms as well. Clearly communicated and practiced routines and procedures are hallmarks of skillful classroom management. Great teachers know that students need to practice classroom procedures and routines before they are expected to carry them out as part of the lesson. Further, great teachers plan procedures and routines so that students ultimately take responsibility for them.
Head football coaches are typically on the sidelines during the game. They are strategically positioned to rally players, but they do not have the best vantage point to make all of the game decisions. That is why they have assistant coaches reporting to them from stadium booths overhead. Leaving nothing to unreliable memory, the assistants consult replay video during the game as well. Sometimes, as a result of this instant feedback from the assistants, strategies are adjusted mid-game. Teachers, like head coaches, are similarly hindered by their up-close, in-the-mix viewpoint on classroom proceedings. But while they don't usually have assistants who can observe with a birds-eye view of the class, they can get much-needed perspective by planning for formative assessments. Such assessments can give them built-in, objective feedback about how each student is doing during the lesson. Sometimes this instant feedback suggests that lesson plans need adjustment, and skilled teachers can change course mid-lesson, if necessary.
Of course, great coaches don't forget about strategy when the game goes into overtime, either. Similarly, excellent teachers plan extra refining or extension activities in case momentum is high, and lesson objectives are met before class time is over.
Success in classroom instruction, like success on the football field, takes a willingness to plan thoroughly in advance, have ways to inform decisions during the action, and ways to reflect afterwards.
So, fellow teachers, are you ready for game day?
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