ye INNOVATION ABSTRACTS $23"

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Gt Published by the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development
a With support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation

 

 

 

 

 

COACHING MATHEMATICS AND OTHER ACADEMIC SPORTS

It was one of those gorgeous autumn afternoons: a deep October blue sky contrasted with the brilliant
golds and crimsons of the trees, the dazzle of the sun moderated the crispness in the air, and the spirit of the
Homecoming crowd brought the stadium to vibrant life. It was a perfect day for football--and hardly the time or
the place to be meditating about teaching. But that’s where I first began to wonder . . . to wonder why the foot-
ball coach seemed to have so much more success with his team than I had with my mathematics class. A
strange thought, it was.

After the game, I decided to ask the coach the secret of his success. And then I talked with other col-
leagues in music and drama. It was an odd collection of consultants, but they had one thing in common: they
all coached students. They did not just teach; they coached. And they all seemed more successful than I, who
merely “taught” students. Why?

For one thing, these coaches worked a lot with students on an individual basis. To be sure, they also dealt
with students in groups--a team, a choir, a cast--just as I dealt with students in a class. But the crux of their
work was individual coaching, something I rarely did. When I did work with students individually, it was more
or less a miniature version of what I did in the classroom everyday: explain theory, work problems, ask a few
questions.

One big difference was that I rarely asked my students to perform, other than on infrequent hour tests.
The coaches were always asking their charges to perform under observation--to run plays, to sing arias, to act out
roles in rehearsals prior to their big tests. And another big difference was how the coaches dealt with student
performance. They carefully reinforced correct performance--one step at a time. They pointed out wrong
stances, flat pitches, inappropriate inflections. Then they had students practice repeatedly until one behavior
was correct before going on to another.

What did I do? I showed students how to work problems, whole problems, with several steps carefully or-
dered in logical sequence. If the students nodded, I assumed that they understood and went on to other prob-
lems. Imagine a football coach himself throwing passes and running plays with precision throughout practices
while his players watched him--and then leaving them on their own and expecting them to do the same things
just as well on the day of the game!

I quickly realized that I might not have time to coach all my students individually all the time. Some
talented ones seemed to do pretty well without frequent attention, so I focused my efforts on those who were
barely “making the team’--my team--academically. I invited them--no, that’s not the word--I urged them, and
even required some to come to my office for one-on-one coaching sessions. Sometimes I opened these sessions
with a brief example to illustrate a concept. More often, I posed a problem and had the student work it on my
blackboard. I was careful to provide reinforcement for correct and proper procedures. I provided guidance only
as necessary, and I pointed out inappropriate behaviors--one at a time. Then I had the student correct that
behavior and practice on similar problems until I felt sure that the technique in question was mastered. I
discovered that even the better students sometimes needed to correct little mistakes of which they had never
been aware. In addition, I tried to ask questions that allowed the student to organize and summarize, rather
than to do these things myself.

It was challenging work, and it was harder work than I had been doing; but it seemed to pay off in terms
of learning. Grades on tests improved, and the response from students was quite favorable. I realized that I
was putting into practice some principles that I always knew were valid: positive reinforcement and immediate
knowledge of results. Somehow these had gotten lost in the shuffle of dividing courses into weeks and days
and in the process of covering material “efficiently.” .

There was an interesting carryover into my daily classroom activities. I found myself asking more ques-
tions in class and asking questions more effectively. I was consciously mixing coaching strategies with my cus-
tomary presentation strategies. I was viewing students more as individuals than collectively as a class. I also
began to reduce the time between examinations and to give more short quizzes. (Eventually, in one course I re-

 

@ Program in Community College Education, The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712