A point of emphasis for all teachers in our school this year has been “checking for understanding” with our students. As teachers, we are trying to move away from a strictly lecture format, with the instructor asking at the end of the period, “OK, did everyone get that?”; And with the students thinking to themselves, “No, I have no idea what you are talking about, but I am not about to let everyone know I am confused.” By the time the final test rolls around, be it the MAP, EOC or any other standardized test, it is too late to check and see it they have “gotten it” or not.
As a coach, it is extremely important that we are doing a great job of teaching important concepts, and that we have ways to “check for understanding” with our players. We do not want to wait until our final “test”, our contest Friday night, to see if our players have understood a particular concept, play, or defense. If our players have not “gotten it” by that time, game time, then it is too late.
Coach Keith Grabowski, Offensive Coordinator at Baldwin Wallace University, had an excellent post last week discussing the Retention of Learning and the “Learning Pyramid”. In it, he details various ways to improve meetings, play insertion, practice and drill time. I would like to share and piggyback off of a few of his ideas. In preparation for Spring Practice, Coach Grabowski had these thoughts:
“With our coaches the message was to make meeting time as interactive as possible and to move away from lecturing and having their players read bullet points off a Power Point (lowest retention rate of learning). Instead, I wanted them to move towards using dynamic content whether that was Power Point diagrams with animations, still shot step-by-step illustrations with coaching points, film or preferably a combination of those things. I encouraged our coaches to make the meetings as interactive as possible: Ask questions, have a player demonstrate, have them all stand up and show exactly the footwork or hand placement we expect. Don’t just allow the players to be passive learners.”
Yesterday, I used a play from Coach Grabowski’s playbook in my Advanced Strength and Conditioning Class. We were evaluating video tape of their Power Clean technique. I used film from our previous class day, which I had exported to Hudl. As each student’s clip came up, they were given the instruction to “Coach themselves and the rest of the class, focusing on 1) Power Position 2) Explosion Phase and 3) The Catch.”
We normally would do this in our Lecture Hall where it is a little more conducive to this type of teaching method, but it was being used. We had to “monitor and adjust” and set up a film viewing station in our weight room. Here is a clip showing one student-athlete going through this process. The quality of the film is a little rough, but you can see and hear what is going on:
Coach Grabowski also discussed the benefits of making a screencast (or screen recording) of a presentation:
“I also encouraged them [coaches] to use our editing system to prepare video walk thru – essentially a screen cast of them talking through a play and giving coaching points. I like this method for an install because your comments as a coach are saved and accessible for player review later, whereas if you just talk through video in a meeting, once the meeting is over, there is nothing for the player to refer back to.”
My post yesterday , Making a Screen Recording, details how to make a screencast, or screen recording.
Coach Grabowski also took this philosophy out to the practice field:
“I also believe that our coaches do a great job organizing and preparing their practice drills and periods to be efficient and effective. As the learning pyramid shows, this has a 75% retention rate. The biggest area I encouraged both our players and coaches to improve on was having the players coach each other. I want every player not involved in the drill to be coaching and helping his teammates. I want the players to develop a coach’s eye for proper technique. I want them to understand and be able to see exactly right versus almost right.”
“To facilitate this I asked our coaches to follow a simple procedure:
1. Name the drill they are working and give the exact coaching points (being very efficient with language) that they are looking for.
2. The players should then be looking for those coaching points being executed by their teammates if they are waiting their turn.
3. They should also work to use the precise language that the coaches use. In all we do, we want to be able to communicate a coaching point in one to three words.”
You can see my thoughts on organizing practice drill work at this post: Running an Effective Drill
By implementing technology and insisting on interactive teaching and coaching methods from his coaches and players, Coach Grabowski is “checking for understanding” on a daily basis in the Baldwin Wallace football program. Which instructional methods from the Learning Pyramid are you using to teach your student athletes in the classroom, in the weight room, or on the field?
Thanks to Coach Grabowski for providing a daily dose of great information via his blog: Coach and Coordinator. You can follow Coach Grabowski on Twitter @CoachKGrabowski.
Questions and Comments are always welcome!
Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com
In my first season as a coach at the University of Central Missouri, during one of our first staff meetings, our Head Coach, Terry Noland gave us some advice. His instructions regarding how to effectively run a drill were not only good advice to a young coach with eight years experience (me), but lasting concepts that have served me well for over thirty years.
Please consider sending one of your favorite drills to Coach Weber (
A question about football drills from a young coach got me thinking about practice scheduling, drills, fundamentals, and ultimately a concept and term that I learned from a colleague while at the 
