Guiding: Creating Community and Connection Among Coaches

Dr Liam McCarthy (Leeds Beckett University), Dr Ian Cowburn, (Leeds Beckett University), and Dr Lori Gano-Overway (James Madison University)

Introduction

As practitioners supporting coaches, we recognize the benefits of and appreciate the value in encouraging them to learn with and from each other. In the Educator profile, the task of ‘guiding’ underscores the importance of building relationships with students, and supporting and inspiring individuals and groups to engage in the collaborative learning process. In this article, we draw attention to these ideas by way of offering an example from our own work. Although this is not located specifically within the context of supporting soccer coaches in and along their development journey, we invite you to consider the principles that can adopted and applied in your work.

What We Did: International Peer Sport Coaching Community

Acknowledging the importance of social learning within the lifeworld of sport coaches, we, as educators at higher education institutions in the UK (Leeds Beckett University) and USA (James Madison University), embarked on an educational adventure by implementing a peer learning experience within our respective practicum/internship courses. We invited the student coaches from both institutions to a closed social media platform (Flip) to provide them opportunities to share and explore issues emerging during their coaching experiences, as well as support one another as they puzzle through problems in practice. They were encouraged to post short videos describing an issue in their coaching that prompted surprise or curiosity. As coaches posted videos, they were prompted to watch others’ and use the comment function to 1) ask questions to help themselves and the coach deepen their understanding of the issue, 2) offer support in their experience of the issue, and 3) share resources to further understanding or begin to consider actions. As educators, we facilitated the exploration of issues and supporting one another by 1) sharing short videos on ways to ask good questions, 2) modeling question asking and support by posting our own comments, and 3) prompting coaches through our in-person interactions to engage in the online community. Over the course of the 12-week experience, coaches 1) shared a variety of issues for us to consider (e.g., struggles to provide meaningful feedback to all members of a team; adapting instruction based on individual needs; breaking up fighting teammates; lack of resources for equipment and facility time; burnout of the head coach; shooting accuracy unexpectedly declines for player), 2) varied in their skill to form and deepen their understanding of issues, and 3) exhibited high levels of support for one another. There were over 120 hours of engagement during the experience. In general, student coaches appreciated the opportunity to interact with others as it helped them gain insight into coaching practice while we as educators found the opportunity useful in learning what support each coach needed as they progressed throughout the experience.

Underpinning Ideas and Influences

We based our approach on concepts from the research and practice area of virtual exchange (VE; O’Dowd, 2023). Virtual exchange is an overarching term for approaches that engage learners in online collaborative learning with partners from different cultural background (e.g., USA and UK). In this project, we were particularly interested in using cultural differences (e.g., sports played/coached, perceptions of coaches/coaching, life experiences) as an opportunity to spark curiosity and discussion between learners, prompted by the reflections that each person shared. Additionally, VE aligns with a social constructivist view of learning, whereby knowledge is co-constructed through interactions with others (Vygotsky, 1978). We used a virtual approach because of the vast distances between our respective institutions, to broaden the potential for cultural difference between student coaches, and to develop skills for an ever more virtual world and labor market. However, it could just as easily be achieved in a face-to-face setting. We followed the principles below which could be adopted when working with coaches on programs or in clubs:

• Setting the environment: In virtual and face-to-face, setting the environment is an important first step. If you want people to share, give/receive feedback, and engage in discussion they need to feel it is an appropriate environment to do so. Here, we: 1) emphasizing and justifying our intentions (i.e., in soccer coaching we encounter difficult problems where there might not be a ‘correct’ answer, but by working together we might have ‘better’ answers than we did before); and 2) discussed the types of language we might use and how we engage in conversations around practice (e.g., judgment free, not value-laden).
• Setting groups: In our initial version of this VE, we only had one group of 21 coaches. However, we have reflected on the benefits of taking a different approach, particularly as we try to increase the number of coaches involved. This includes, 1) assuming difference is the place from which noticing, and conversation, can develop, we should aim to have diverse groups of coaches working together. That might be coaches of different sports (e.g., soccer, tennis), different locations (e.g., city, rural), or divisions (e.g., I, III), playing experience (e.g., college vs. recreational), and demographic factors (e.g., men and women). In doing so, it is hoped coaches would feel less pressure/judgment in sharing than they might with people in their exact same circumstances. Also, 2) To allow time and space to share, subgroups (e.g., 3-4) could be used, especially where being open about a coaching problem in a larger group might reduce willingness to participate. This approach also allows for groups to return to a problem in future weeks and discuss how the options have worked out.
• Setting the purpose and activities: We were clear about the purpose of sharing our problems of coaching practice – we share to engage in discussion and aspire for greater understanding of the issue, we value responses from alternate perspectives. When working face-to-face, asking coaches to note down some reflections before (or during) the session might be useful in articulating thoughts effectively for others.
• Facilitate and model engagement: After setting the activities, our job was to facilitate conversation by modeling the curiosity, questions, sharing, and discussion (alongside coaches) that we hope to see. Perhaps one of the most powerful ways of facilitating was to ask the perhaps ‘obvious’ question about a new sport, or the rules for a particular competition, to explore difference that was presented but might otherwise be regarded as understood.

Call to Action

Through our work in establishing and sustaining an online community of coach learning, we developed a greater appreciation for several ideas. First, centering the coaches’ issues within the learning opportunity while helping them to deepen their understanding of what is most interesting and important to them, was an effective entry point into developmental and collaborative workflows. Second, by observing how coaches engaged within the community and the nature of what they shared, we felt more informed about their cares and concerns and were better prepared to meaningfully support them. Lastly, not only can this experience promote coaches to learn more about their practice, it can also help them to become more self-regulated learners with greater capacity and capability for reflection.

References

O’Dowd, R. (2023). Internationalising higher education and the role of virtual exchange. Routledge.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.