Candidate: Reese Blackstone
Related Goal: Reese B: Train instructors to deliver all parts of a lesson appropriate to each swimmer based on their level, ability, age, and responsiveness.
*Adjust training based on what level is being taught
Training Activity 1:
- Need the level’s common issues and fixes document as a reference
LC chooses 2-3 common issues and reviews what their fixes are with the swim instructors that are present. Swim instructors can be in or out of the water.
Create groups of 3-4 people. Assign one person to be the instructor who will do 2 level appropriate skills. EX: Supported front glide and supported back glide for level 1.
Other instructors in the group can choose one of the 2-3 issues reviewed. They should behave as if they have that common issue. Instructor should practice the fixes reviewed before. Rotate instructors after the 2 skills have been taught. Move quickly each instructor should take 5 minutes or less.
Regroup and discuss what went well and what can be improved. Repeat all steps until the whole level’s issues and fixes have been discussed and practiced.
Training Activity 2:
- Need the level’s common issues and fixes document flashcards
LC should create groups of 3-5 people. Assign one person to be the instructor. LC should then distribute flashcards one to each additional instructor. Instructor will then do 2 level appropriate skills. EX: Supported front glide and supported back glide for level 1. Other instructors in the group should behave how their issue card tells them to. Instructors should respond accordingly to the behavior with the fixes. Move quickly through the skills. Shuffle cards redistribute and rotate.
Regroup and discuss what went well and what can be improved
Challenge:
Instructors should partner up and decide who is the swimmer and who’s the instructor. LC pulls “Swimmers” aside and tells them which level and common issue they should act out. Then all at the same time “Swimmers” act out the behavior and instructors guess the level and issue. First instructor to guess correctly wins. Switch roles and repeat.
Jeff notes:
We discussed how to write a challenge and what that looks like. WE discussed lateral thinking and word puzzles.
Jeff talked about how to create a challenge.
Challenges are specific and targeting a skill.
- Choose a skill
- Put a roadblock into that skill
- Make it interesting.
We discussed a few bad challenge ideas, and then settled on:
“LC writes a sample instruction to a class of any level on a white board or paper. Each instructor in the training must do the following:
- Read the instruction with ZERO inflection and tone; like a robot, or Raven from Teen Titans.
- Read the instructions again, with EXTREME enthusiasm and excitement and way too much energy.
Implicit learning would be that instructors should find a medium that works for them and is engaging, exciting, but not distracting or too ridiculous that the participants don’t pay attention. “
Action items:
Pick a few dates for running this training.
Identify the following things:
- Location
- Time
- Duration (about 30 minutes)
- number of participants; how many people should attend
- Who will lead it (reese)
- Expected outcome; how are we going to evaluate the success of this training
- Equipment or things needed to conduct the training.
Write an instructions page for future LC to use when they’re looking at the cut up cards and the sheets you created and we printed.
The language should target a Lesson Coordinator that hasn’t done the activity you planned yet and needs to read a short paragraph on how to run the training.