Ok so I have done a lot of thinking for my model this week, taking into account the comments from Gary and Gerry last week. So heres what I am thinking now.
Professional Context
Coaching Field Hockey, specifically goalkeepers. NCAA Field Hockey. I would like to focus specifically on the development of goalkeepers within the sport. As I am getting into coaching I realize there isn’t much in the way of guidelines on how to develop coaching sessions or curriculums.
I am wondering whether to focus the Goalkeeper Development Curriculum on High School level or Collegiate level....however, here what I got so far....
System- NCAA Collegiate institutions
Suprasystem - Field Hockey
Subsystems - Players and Coaches
Information Channels - Email and Blackboard
Subsystem Interface - Training Sessions
The Need
Need to develop a coaching curriculum for designing and developing goalkeeper’s performance. There is no current standard for developing a Field Hockey Goalkeeper’s curriculum in the Field Hockey team. New coaches coming into the program, who are unsure of how to develop a curriculum, will create a lack of constancy for the goalkeepers. By providing a standard they will be able to create and design a curriculum which will assess, analyze and develop all the needs of goalkeepers in field hockey. This will then be consistent with all goalkeepers and coaches ensuring that nothing is left out.
I will have to look a bit more in detail about specific current outcomes and the required outcomes.
Prioritize the Needs
What does it cost to meet the needs? -To meet the needs will require a lot of time from coaches. It will cost money to provide the right facilities and use the correct equipment. Time spend on developing goalkeepers is less time spent on developing players.
What does it cost to ignore the needs? - Without meeting these needs coaches may be missing out vital development areas with the goalkeepers. This can result in poor performance during games, goals being scored, games being lost and ultimately National Championships not being won.
Front End Analysis
Analyze Problems - Find out what is happening - goalkeepers are not performing at a high standard for all skill.
Identify the Causes - Find out why they are not performing - They are not receive the correct training.
Identify Solution - How to get them performing well - Develop a training program that includes everything.
Innovation of change
My model as an innovation for changing the development of Field Hockey Goalkeepers may or may not be difficult. It may take some convincing that the benefits are worthwhile. Once someone is set in their ways for coaching it may be very difficult to change what they have done for years. However, having the chance to design the teaching curriculum for field hockey goalkeeper gives me the opportunity to prove my case and try my model out.
To help implement the change the projected outcome should be brought to the attention of the coaching staff. They should be informed of all the changes going to be made and be aware of the process at all times.
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Ash - Some thoughts: Having been a former goalkeeper on my high school soccer team and on a small club team, I have an interest in what you have to offer here. The challenge for you, in my mind, is whether the model should focus on a talent-based or program-based approach. For example, you may find value in developing a model that focuses on "what a coach should do with the talent they have been given". This focuses more on the instructional development of any given talent, no matter what level of raw talent that walk onto the field of play. Or you could focus on "how to match the standards in the model with seeking talent worth developing". This points more to looking at the front-end aspect more heavily than running the talent through the instructional mill.
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect to consider is whether the model could be generalized to any form of goaltending, suggesting that the model will emphasize certain fundamental cognitive, physical, or affective abilities as the primary basis of all goaltending skills as a "trans-skill". This has been the basis of my parents' music instruction, where the emphasis has always been on music reading skills and physical technique independent of the musical style, e.g. Jazz, Classical, popular, etc. My premise here is that I believe that traveling the road to achieving high level competence in field hockey goaltending will require a foundation of sorts, and then on top of that will the aspects of goaltending unique to the sport of field hockey, such as the rules of opposition player penetration that differ from, say, soccer or ice hockey.
From the coach's perspective, you could lay out some relatively broad aims for goaltender development that point to things like comprehension of offensive strategies, the physics of ball trajectory, the physiological limitations of the human body as a tool for obstruction, the variability of reaction times and fast twitch response in human athletic performance, etc. These are all generalizable to other sports involving goaltending (at least where there is a ball in play). Then given these aims, you could lay out some goals and objectives that point to levels of desired competence in each of these aspects, then exercises and activities that develop these skills, methods of implementing the skills in various venues such as supervised practice, unsupervised practice, non-physical practice (such as video games that improve reaction time or strategic thinking against an oncoming offense), and then methods for evaluation that point to specific objectives much like the IBSTPI self-evaluation (which could include achievement of strengths as well as remediation of vulnerabilities, such as the ability to stop shots that are above the stick hand shoulder or some other known vulnerability).
The end result would be, hopefully, something more than just "tips for coaches" but a system that will provide an architecture upon which a coach may drop in their own set of circumstances and then make informed decisions about where to afford resources.
Last, the one thing I say to friends who ask me for tips on how to bowl (ten pins) is that I tell them two things to do to do it right (shoulders facing pins, thumb forward), then I say that if the results didn't work out right, then they did one or both of the techniques wrong (turned shoulders, turned thumb). For a Saturday night recreational experience, it's easy enough to help someone enjoy the sport without feeling helplessly clumsy. More than anything, I hope your model helps players to identify the areas they can focus on to improve on their own, even without the presence of a coach. Romi's text said something about process orientation that leads to the kind of learning that can be transferred to other learning situations - I think it was about Bruner. I am all for that. - Steve