1. Coaching in the Classroom and
Teaching on the Court
Matt Hixenbough
Lynn Mittler
MICDS

2. Overview
• Explain concept
• Discuss general approaches
• Provide individual strategies and examples

5. GOALS?

6. David Shaw- Stanford Football

8. Growth Mindset
• While it seems like folks
believe this in athletics, many
don’t in academics: I am bad
in math….

9. Growth Mindest

10. Growth Mindset

11. Growth Mindset
“You can see how the belief that cherished
qualities can be developed creates a passion for
learning…The passion for stretching yourself and
sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not
going well, is the hallmark of the growth
mindset. “ (7).

12. Growth Mindset
“The idea that one evaluation can measure you
forever is what creates the urgency for those
with a fixed mindset” (29).
“Why is effort so terrifying? Great geniuses are
not supposed to need it. It robs you of all your
excuses.”

13. Growth Mindset
“The low-effort syndrome is often seen as a way
that adolescents assert their independence from
adults, but it is also a way that students with
fixed mindsets protect themselves” (58).

14. Growth Mindset
“The growth mindset does allow people to love
what they’re doing—and to continue to live it in
the face of difficulties…In a fixed mindset,
everything is about the outcome. If you fail—or
if you’re not the best—it’s all been wasted. The
growth mindset allows people to value what
they’re doing regardless of the outcome” (48).

15. Growth Mindset
“’For me the joy of athletics has never resided in
winning,” Jackie Joyner-Kersee tells us, ‘…I derive
just as much happiness from the process as from
the results. I don’t mind losing as long as I see
improvement or I feel I’ve don’t as well as I possibly
could. If I love, I just go back to the track and work
some more’”(98).
“Those with the growth mindset found setbacks
motivating. They’re informative. They’re a wake-up
call” (99).

16. Growth Mindset
“When students were praised for effort, 90
percent of them wanted the challenging new
task that they could learn from” (72).

17. Growth Mindset
“Growth-mindset environment in which people can
thrive involves:
• Presenting skills as learnable
• Conveying that the organization values learning
and perseverance, not just ready-made genius
and talent
• Giving feedback in a way that promotes learning
and future success
• Presenting managers (teachers) as resources for
learning” (141).

18. Growth Mindset
Questions students can ask themselves:
• Are there ways I can be less defensive about
my mistakes?
• Can I profit more from the feedback I get?
• Are there ways I can create more learning
experiences for myself?

19. G.R.O.W. Model
“Real leadership development is
neither intellectual nor academic,
neither is it knowledge based nor
technical, all of which are sourced
from outside the person. The
origins of the best coaching are all
about eliminating our internal
obstacles and drawing out the
untapped bank of riches latent
within each human being” (178).

20. G.R.O.W. Model
Goal setting for the session as well as for the long term
What do you want?
Reality checking to explore the current situation
What is happening?
Options and alternative strategies or course of action
What could you do?
What is to be done, When, by Whom, and the Will to do
it.
What will you do?

21. G.R.O.W. Model
Why is this important?
• “The single universal internal block is unfailingly the same variously
described as fear of failure, lack of confidence, self-doubt, and lack of selfbelief” (18).
• “One of the best things we can do for them is to assist them in surpassing
us” (18).
• “We build self-belief when we make decisions, take successful actions, and
recognize our full responsibility for both our successes and our failures”
(18).
• “For people to build their self-belief, in addition to accumulating successes
they need to know that their success is due to their own efforts. They
must also know that other people believe in them” (19).

22. G.R.O.W. Model
How to help? By asking questions.
• How to know when to ask questions and when to just tell
someone what the right answer is:
• “If time is the predominant criterion in a situation (e.g., in
an immediate crisis), doing the job yourself or telling
someone else what to do will probably be the fastest way.
• If the quality of the result matters most (e.g., an artist
painting a masterpiece), coaching for high awareness and
responsibility is likely to deliver the most.
• If maximizing the learning is predominant (e.g., a child
doing homework), clearly coaching will optimize learning
and retention” (25).

23. G.R.O.W. Model
Asking questions demands more of the athletes; they must become aware of
the situation and take responsibility.
• “Responsibility demands choice. Choice implies freedom” (31).
•
“The leading cause of burnout was ‘little personal control’” (31).
•
“Offering someone choice and control wherever possible in the workplace
acknowledges and validates their capability and their self-esteem” (32).
•
“I am able to control only that of which I am aware. That of which I am
unaware controls me. Awareness empowers me” (34).
•
“When we truly accept, choose, or take responsibility for our thoughts and our
actions, our commitment to them rises and so does our performance” (37).
•
“Feeling truly responsible invariably involves choice” (37).
•
“Every time input is provided the responsibility of the coachee is reduced”
(42).

24. G.R.O.W. Model
Through this process, our goal is to empower students/athletes to believe in
their ability to make a good choice and execute it.
•
“Self-belief is not met by prestige and privilege, which are more symbolic than
substantial. It is built when someone is seen to be worthy of making choices.
Promotion without genuine empowerment and the opportunity to express
potential is counterproductive. While telling negates choice, disempowers,
limits potential, and demotivates, coaching does the opposite…They want
their work to be of value and have meaning and purpose” (111).
•
“Our primary objective must be to understand what the performer/learner
needs in order to perform the task well, and to ask, say, or do whatever it
takes to help him meet that need” (127).
•
“Getting accurate feedback from the result of her action causes automatic
self-correction without effort or strife. Letting go of trying to force the
correction (the focus is now on the accuracy of the observation) allows the
correction to take place effortlessly and subconsciously. The player’s total
ownership of the correction is maintained” (128).

25. G.R.O.W. Model
Reality Questions:
• The demand for an answer is essential to compel
the coachee to think, to examine, to look, to feel,
to be engaged.
• The questions need to demand high-resolution
focus to obtain the detail of high-quality input.
• The reality answers sought should be descriptive
not judgmental, to ensure honesty and accuracy.
• The answers must be of sufficient quality and
frequency to provide the coach with a feedback
loop.

26. G.R.O.W. Model
Overcoming Barriers:
• “The greatest barrier without a doubt is not the inability to coach
but the inability to give up telling, to give up what you have done
before in each circumstance, to give up your old habitual
management or teaching behavior.”
• “Most people have a long history of being told by parents, by school
teacher, and by their first bosses, so naturally they expect to be told
and may find it strange being asked for their opinion. Another way
of looking at the resistance is to consider what they are really
resisting; it is, of course, becoming more aware or more responsible
and the consequences of both” (149).

27. G.R.O.W. Model: Coaching Colleagues
“California researchers in the early nineteen-eighties
conducted a five-year study of teacher-skill development
in eighty schools, and noticed something interesting.
Workshops led teachers to use new skills in the classroom
only ten per cent of the time. Even when a practice
session with demonstrations and personal feedback was
added, fewer than twenty per cent made the change. But
when coaching was introduced—when a colleague
watched them try the new skills in their own classroom
and provided suggestions—adoption rates passed ninety
per cent. A spate of small randomized trials confirmed
the effect. Coached teachers were more effective, and
their students did better on tests.”

28. Coaching Colleagues

29. Coaching Colleagues
The 7 Qualities of Effective Feedback
• Intend to support
• Understood as subjective perception
• Delivered in the moment
• Presumes innocence without judging
• Describes observed behaviors and impacts
• Authentic, candid, yet compassionate, to build
trust and respect
• Stimulates mutual learning and accountability
leading to inspired action

30. Goal Setting
• The result to which effort is aimed
• Do you focus on the first part or the second
part?

31. Goal Setting
Keys according to Locke and Latham
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Clear Plans
Feedback
Commitment
Task complexity
Situational constraints

32. Goal Setting
• A Star is Born, New York Times May 6, 2006
• Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt
• “Deliberate practice entails setting specific
goals, obtaining immediate feedback and
concentrating as much on technique as on
outcome”
• Studied soccer, surgery, piano, writing, stock
picking

33. Classroom application
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Intro sentence
Thesis
Paragraph
Paragraph plus outline
Multiple Paragraphs
Full Essay

34. Feedback
• John Hattie- Visible Learning Laboratories,
University of Auckland
• Enhancement on students (Top 10 of over 130
traits studied)
• Over 1000 academic studies to support the
importance and benefit of feedback

35. Education of Discretion
• Thomas Jefferson
• “If we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education”

36. Doctor v. Surgeon

37. Basketball Analytics

38. Classroom analytics

39. Be best at what you do most
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Can’t be equally good at everything
Can’t cover everything
Must be a reason for everything you do
Only thing we have in common is time

40. Be best at what you do most
• Hoops
• History
• Dribble
• Pass
• Shoot
• Reading
• Analyze
• Write

41. Stonecutter

44. What do Wayne Gretzky, Yo Yo Ma,
and Charlie Wilson have in common?
• Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker, Aug 2 1999
• “A practical minded obsession with the
possibility and the consequences of failure are
more important than technical skills or
intelligence in being successful. What this
attitude drives you to do is practice over and
over and over again, until even the smallest
imperfections are ironed out”

45. On the court

46. In History Class

47. Video Analysis

48. Video Analysis

49. Video Analysis
“Most coaches stop practice when they see
something negative, but I want to challenge you
to stop play when someone does something
positive…In essence, you are positively
imprinting desirable actions, behaviors and
performances” (83).

50. Video Analysis
“You have to be very careful about what and
how you criticize because the last thing you
want is for your players to fear failure. If they do,
they won’t play to their potential, and they will
focus only on avoiding failure” (100).
“Body language and tone of voice
also count as criticism” (103).

51. Dealing with adversity

52. Adversity reveals character

53. What if the key to success is failure?

54. How do you define grit?
• “a passion for a single mission with an
unswerving dedication to achieve that
mission, whatever the obstacles are, however
long it might take”

55. Classroom- Willie Crenshaw- Court

56. Character Traits

57. Character Skills
• Performance
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Hard Working
Competitive
Positive
Focused
Accountable
Resilient
Confident
Energetic
Disciplined
Motivated
• Moral
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Unselfish
Honest
Respectful
Appreciative
Humble
Loyal
Trustworthy
Encouraging
Socially Aware
Caring

60. How do we gauge success?
• Determine your own metrics
• What is your timeline?
• Anyway to measure or do you rely on
anecdotal evidence?