6 Tips To Be A Better Teacher – Best Stolen Ideas – Part 1

“A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are.” -Ara Parasheghian

One of the favorite questions I ask every coach I interview is: ‘What is the best thing you have ever learned or stolen from another coach?‘
Check out these 6 tips to become a better teacher:

1. It all starts with being organized and prepared
2. Keep things simple
   • Keep things simple and only run a few plays and then practice them over and over again until you have perfected them. The details are important. RUN LESS PLAYS!
   • Be great at 1 or 2 things vs. being good at 6 to 8.
   • Having a very simple playbook – and letting the kids name the plays so they can remember them
3. Whatever level you are coaching at – get to know the coaches at the next level, and ask them about expectations for new players – then implement some of these standards and let the kids know you are doing it to prepare them for the next level
4. When teaching skills – break everything into 3 steps. Using this you can see progress every practice, not just at the end of the year:
   • Practice walking through it. You can do this without even including a ball at first.
   • Practice with slight opposition
   • Practice in game-type setting
5. Talk softly around kids – Instead of yelling so the kids can hear you – train them to listen by talking softly
6. Showing is much more effective than telling – use video recording of the athletes on an iPad or phone so they can see the corrections you are making (in their mind they almost always think they are doing it correctly already)

Teach ’em up! Next week we’ll look at lessons learned on character development.