The PaddlerUK magazine December 2015 issue 5 | Page 20

PADDLERUK 20

Relevance
On discovering these I looked at my own
journey in learning. Immediately the relevance
and specifically my frustrations going through
school were evident. I wanted to learn but did
not feel the need to. I loved the ‘doing’ and still
to this day I learn best when I am doing and
engaged.

Entering further training and reflecting on what
I do as a coach has certainly helped with the
‘making sense’ of me as a learner. What aids me
a learner has been the intrinsic motivation to
succeed, the strong community of those
around me and the ability to put learning into
practice via making judgements (whether this is
on assessments or training sessions). This
ability to gain feedback and verbalise my
thinking with peers and learners has been an
amazing journey and one that I believe has had
an impact on those that I coach.

When I think back to coaching sessions and
learning situations now I wonder whether one
or more of these areas was missing from the
learner.

Relevance – training sessions

I found the text enlightening around the ‘want’,
having a high intrinsic motivational factor where
it is so powerful that students are likely to gain
success because this ‘want’ is so strong.What is
important is ensuring that there is also a ‘need’.
When working with paddlers that have accepted
that there is a ‘need’ to achieve then these have
had degrees of success.This is due to there
being individual ownership of the ‘need’.

Paddling is a doing activity and most paddlers
do not have any issue with the doing part. The
reference though to the trial and error as well
the repetition was the bit of interest.

During a recent coaching episode where I was
observed it was noted that this trial and error
and time for repetition was something that I
should focus on. This can often be a struggle in
short contact or episodic sessions.

I reflect back on my early delivery and now
recognise the process that I went through. I
would aim to run whatever the course was a
variety of times in short succession before
feeling that I had a strong secure product. This
led to plenty of trial and error along the way,
however once at this stage it gave plenty of

reflection and allowed a secure platform to
adapt and move the course on. This of course
gave plenty of opportunity for feedback. I was
struck by what Race states, “The quicker the
feedback, the better it helps learning” and this is
something that we should take note of.

The last three principles are around the
cognitive understanding. The analogy that
comes through is one of ‘digesting’. This ability
to turn whatever it is into something that can
be used is a very powerful one. Just because we
say we have it or we understand is a bit like
eating something that doesn’t fuel us. There is
information going in but we don’t get the
benefit from it. This ability to turn the
information into something useful that can be
repeated, articulated to someone else or used
to make judgments truly measures the success
of the learning.

For example do you conclude training sessions
with any discussions? Are these group discussion
or smaller groups such as pairs? This could make
the difference in ensuring that everyone has to
be involved in the conversation and allowed
peer review, feedback and the ability to vebalise
the learning.