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Appendix B — Teaching

The following two sections on teaching methodology have been adopted from the CI Study Guide dated March 31, 2016. Both sections were written by Dayle Mazzarella, MCI, a retired high school coach. The CI Study Guide’s focus is guidance to becoming a certified instructor. For those of you that wish to dive more deeply into effective teaching the following two sections are a great way to start. Additional resources on teaching/coaching can be found in the Resources Appendix F.

Teaching Tactics

In this section we will explore specific teaching tactics that may optimize results. While these tactics work especially well with a large student-to-teacher ratio they are equally effective in one-on-one lessons when the instructor becomes the partner. Much of the teaching information is borrowed from Tools for Teaching by Fred Jones, Ph.D. Two other helpful books are Practice Perfect by Lemov, and The Talent Code by Coyle.

Pairs / Partners

Extensive research demonstrates that properly working in pairs accelerates the learning process. This occurs because using partners creates more emotion, more repetitions, more reflection, and thus more active engagement on the part of the participants.

How to use Pairs

Check for understanding: Turn to your partner and take 15 seconds to review with your partner what you were just taught. Wait. Raise your hand if you and your partner said something to the effect of “the longer the line, the longer the pause”. Note: The student and instructor receive immediate feedback as to understanding. No one student is singled out and all students participate.

Partners Teach Each Other

We have gone through the 6 steps of how to make a roll cast.

• Partner A turn to Partner B and demonstrate and explain the 6 steps. You have 1 minute. Wait.
• Now Partner B turns to Partner A and explains and demonstrates the 6 steps in a roll cast to him/her. You have 1 minute.

Partners help in the correction of faults and in the process of creating more positive repetitions. This is “discrimination training” – knowing the difference between a good repetition and a not-so-good repetition.

The instructor is walking by a pair practicing a pick up and lay down drill. “Bill, your pick up is excellent, nice smooth acceleration; make sure you stop at 1 o’clock. Jim, hold your noodle back here at 1 o’clock; when Bill hits it with his rod, he’ll know he needs to stop.”

Now, leave that pair and go to the next pair. Jim is paying very close attention to where the rod should stop.

Partners use each other to verbalize and clarify learning through self-reflection. “Take 15 seconds each to discuss with your partner the most important thing you learned in the last half hour.”

Praise, Prompt, Leave (PPL)

The Process:

1. When you see the error, take two relaxing breaths and clear your mind.

2. Take a second look at the work, and ask yourself, “What is right so far?”

3. Choose two features of correct performance that would be most useful in serving as a springboard to the prompt.

4. Describe these two features in simple declarative sentences.

5. Describe what you want the student to do next in one or two simple declarative sentences.

Why use PPL?

1. Enables instructor to move more rapidly in large groups. Don’t get “stuck” with one pair!

2. Allows instructor to give frequent positive feedback.

3. Helps embed in the instructor and student the idea of sequential learning. Instructor needs to find the first error in the sequence, correct that error, and then move on.

4. Allows instructor to avoid referring to a negative action on the part of the student. This teaching tactic minimizes the negative and instead, focuses primarily on the positive.

5. Helps reinforce the idea of simplicity thus eliminating cognitive overload. Correct one error at a time!

Visual Instructional Plan (VIP)

The VIP acts as a recipe for the student. The VIP is a step-by-step sequential summary of the skill being learned. It is a note card for students to help them learn the task and be able to take it home.

Why use a VIP?

1. In group lessons this allows the instructor to better utilize PPL.

2. “Mary, check your VIP and look at Step 4; concentrate on stopping your rod at the1 o’clock position.” Mary now hears the step, reads/sees the step, and then practices the step.

3. The VIP allows the student to gain a degree of self-sufficiency not otherwise possible. In a group of 20 people, the lone instructor may only get around to each pair every 2 minutes. (PPL is required!) If all pairs have a VIP, they can work independently while waiting for the instructor.

4. When the student goes home, he or she is more likely to practice effectively if he/she has a VIP.

Structured Lesson Plans

The following lesson plan is a good model to follow whether teaching one person for 1 hour or a large group for 4 hours. All the steps should be followed whenever possible and in the order presented.

Setting the Stage (10% of the total time) Setting the Stage represents the “preliminary business” of the lesson, which precedes the presentation of new material.

Raise the level of concern: Why is the mastery of this skill of immediate relevance and importance? (motivation)

Review: What skills from yesterday and other previous lessons will we be using today? Perform them as a warm-up.

Goals and Objectives: What will we be doing today, and what will we attempt to achieve? Why? What will students be expected to learn?

Acquisition Explanation: (Less than 5% of the total time) Explain the nature of the skill and related conceptual material as well as the steps of skill performance in sequence.

Modeling: (Less than 5% of the total time) Demonstrate the entire skill and then the steps involved.

Structured Practice 1: (25% of the total time) Walk the group through the performance of the skill all together, one step at a time, in a highly structured fashion.

Structured Practice 2: (25% of the total time) Using the VIP, the student now reviews and teaches the task with another student – one step at a time. Teacher circulates and uses PPL.

Consolidation Guided Practice: (30% of the total time). The student begins “putting it all together” by smoothing out transitions between steps. The student repeats skill performance semi-autonomously with periodic monitoring and corrective feedback as needed. Instructor uses PPL to “work the crowd.”

Generalization and Discrimination: Variations of the skill should be learned, and predictable errors and misconceptions must be discriminated in order to prepare the student for thoroughly autonomous Independent Practice.

Independent Practice: (A VIP – Visual Instructional Plan helps.) Independent Practice assumes mastery to the point that the student can, in effect, be his or her own teacher. Thus, Independent Practice should only follow a demonstration of skill competency during Guided Practice. In addition, the student must be able to discriminate a good repetition from a poor repetition.

Structured Practice

Structured Practice is the most important part of the lesson. Teaching holistically is a good way to delay or even prevent learning. As an example, when we watch the typical roll cast instruction many students need to be continually reminded to tilt the rod to the side. Just as commonly, the student hurries his/her rearward lift so that the line flies behind them, or they tilt the rod back to 3:00, or they start too fast on their forward cast, or they don’t stop high enough on the forward cast. Or any combination of the above. The end result is a student practicing the cast with multiple faults, and the instructor pointing out the errors over and over - too often with little improvement. Using this methodology, by the time the student has a rod and line and starts the roll cast sequence they have tilted the rod to the side 42 times. Students have raised it to the D Loop position 36 times - slowly. Students have checked their hand/wrist/rod position 36 times. Students are developing myelin, incorrectly referred to as muscle memory. (A great book on this subject is The Talent Code by Coyle.) Students are imprinting success with few errors. The instructional effort is placed at the beginning of the teaching sequence instead of less effectively at the end. “Pay me now or pay me later.”

Maybe the best analogy for Structured Practice is the auto industry. After every step of the manufacturing process the product is checked for errors - imagine what would happen if they built the entire car and then checked for errors? The object of structured practice is to ELIMINATE FAULTS AS WE BUILD THE SKILL!

There is no substitute for practicing the delivery of your presentations. Practicing them often will build your confidence and hone your delivery. Doing so with a casting partner can benefit both of you.

Note: For a detailed look at Structured Practice in a group setting, refer to Mazzarella, D., Large Group Instruction, The Loop 2015.