Pros Of A Constructivist Coach

There are three main styles are coaching. These are: autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire. According to Lyle (2002) the autocratic style can be characterised by the primacy of the decisions taken by the coach, a dominating and direct approach to IP-behaviour, the transmission of knowledge is one way, the coach determines the rules and rewards and there is a rigidity and a lack of personal empathy. Essentially what this all means is a coach is there to do their job of facilitating athlete learning, they have the power and set the rules and there is no interest in interacting on a personal level.

The autocratic style can be likened to the behaviourist style. Behaviourism is defined as “a view of the learner as being isolated from the world

“Constructivism adopts a holistic conception of learning that extends beyond the individual mind as a separate entity to include the body and all its senses…” (Light, 2013) A coach who embraces the constructivist approach actively encourages the athlete to think for themselves. Whilst the coach still instructs the athlete and gives them their knowledge, the athlete may use this along with their own knowledge, to solve a problem or find a way of doing something that is easier for them. A constructivist coach will stop sessions or activities at various times to ask the athletes which way they think is best to overcome a particular scenario. Constructivism better prepares an athlete for a game situation. For example, in a game of basketball you may come up against a defender and you will have to decide how best to beat them. Do you try and dribble past them? Do you spin around them? Or do you pass the ball? Which type of pass should you use? These are all decisions that have to be made in a split second. “Many coaches believe that they must tell and show their athletes exactly how to perform a correct movement. In contrast, athletes learn skills, techniques, and tactics through guided discovery” (Metzler, 2005). A coach does this through giving the athlete a basis to work from and sign-posts to guide them rather than taking them by the hand and showing them the way. This is an effective way of learning as it

Being honest, at the time I produced it I thought it was ok. Nothing special but it was good enough to submit. On reflection this was not the correct attitude but once I had hit submit it was too late. Shortly after submission I realised I had tried to put too much into a 30-minute session which meant I was choosing quantity over quality. Going forward, as far as the session was concerned, this wasn’t an issue as I was able to recognise this and adapt. However, from a grading point of view it was more of an issue. Looking back the session plan had all the basics needed on there such as aims and objectives, health and safety, warm up, cool down, main session, equipment etc but the main body lacked detail. I do recognise that this is an area to improve upon for myself as I have a bad habit of thinking “I know in my head what I want to do, I don’t need to write it down”. I need to get into the mindset that I’m writing the plan for someone else to follow and that will then force me to go into more detail. The feedback from my tutor also said I should have made the objectives measurable and that I should have included how I was going to make the session differentiated for the learners. This again is something I had in my head but should have included on the plan as though someone else is