Increasing Attention and Engagement of Youth Players by Changing the Learning Environment
"You can't fill a cup that is already full; likewise, you can't pour from an empty cup either"
The two main problems that I often encounter in relation to youth practices, especially, at the under 12 level are:
Kids don’t seem to be engaged and attentive to the coaches; and
The skills being practiced seldom transfer to games
Why is this a problem?
If kids aren’t engaged and attentive in practice, they don’t tend to sit down and stay out of the way. Instead, they find ways to keep themselves entertained and have fun, even if it does come at the cost of disrupting things for others.
This results in coaches and other players getting frustrated and leads to disciplinarian methods in an attempt to regain control and order in the practice. More often than not, the coach is there sacrificing their own time to help the kids get better. Why can’t the kids just listen and learn?
It doesn’t help that come game day, everything that has been covered and taught seems to have magically disappeared, just like the tooth fairy.
I definitely don’t have the solutions, but I’d like to share my beliefs and attitude about this specific topic in an attempt to help us understand how we can solve this problem.
At the end of the day, the main objective of practice is to help kids learn the skills of the game so that they can perform better on game-day. (Not to be confused with the main objective of youth sports)
What do we need to know about the Learning Process?
If we want to help the kids learn, then we need to understand what is involved in learning. Learning is defined as the acquisition, retention and transfer of information. In order for learning to happen, all three steps need to be completed.
Acquiring information is quite simply being able to take in information, sort of like how you are doing by reading this post.
Retention is the ability to remember the information past the point of acquisition. In terms of sports, it means that players should be able to retain the information from one practice to the next and from one week to the next. This is where the first gap exists in youth sports.
Transfer is the ability to apply information across mediums. Taking the information from practice and applying it in games. Taking the information from this page and being able to apply some concepts in your practice. This is the second gap that is visible in most learning, especially in sports.
To understand the retention and transfer process better, let’s look at two different learning modes.
I came across the first one in an article written by David Perell. His article on How Learning Happens is a really interesting one. In it, he talks about “Survival Mode” learning. This is all about learning for secondary outcomes. Coaches who attend coaching clinics because they need the points to retain their coaching licences (as opposed to those who genuinely want to learn and grow) fall into this category. Most students who go to university to be able to get a job afterwards, also fall into this category.
Survival Mode learning can sometimes be effective, however, it tends not to be very fun. Perell talks about how he resented the learning process in schools because he was filled with anxiety created by exams, essays and the dangling carrot of a diploma at the end of it.
The second mode of learning is “Exploration Mode”. Scott Young explains this as learning for the sake of itself. You choose to learn because you want to. You may never use the skill and/or it won’t necessarily help you in your career, but you do it because you want to learn. This type of learning tends to be a lot more fun.
As Naval Ravikant describes it, this type of learning leads to specific knowledge, which is attained by pursuing something that feels like play to you but looks like work to others.
It is characterised by a certain curiosity, an open-mindedness, a willingness to seek new information. Explorative learning starts with inspiration. An idea or thought captivates you and you want to know more. It is akin to a fire being kindled under you, it drives you and pushes you forwards.
Think about the explorers that first left their lands in search of new lands elsewhere. That’s an example of explorative learning. They weren’t driven by fear but by a curiosity of what lay out there. It’s in the same lines as a kid as he plays in the garden observing a butterfly or any other insect. That’s explorative learning.
Explorative learning doesn’t start with the building blocks and then kindles curiosity. It inverts the process and starts with curiosity. It becomes like an itch that needs to be scratched. The building blocks will come later.
Think about all your friends who are obsessed with certain TV shows or sports. They probably didn’t start by researching all the characters on Love Island and then get obsessed with the show. They probably didn’t research the rosters of their favourite teams or study all the statistics first.
No, they fell in love with the show first. They fell in love with the game, with the team first.
I still remember the rosters of the 1998 Brasilian World Cup Team, the Invincible Arsenal Squad from 2004, the 7 Seconds or less 2007 Phoenix Suns and the Windy City Chicago Bulls from 2010.
I fell in love with these teams.
I remember an excitement watching the flair of the Brasilian team, the skill of Ronaldo (not that Ronaldo, I’m talking about the original), the amazing free kicks of Roberto Carlos.
I loved the Gunners man… The flair of Thierry Henry, the skill of Dennis Bergkamp, the speed of Ashley Cole, the dominance of Patrick Vieira and Jens Lehmann. I fell in love with football.
What about those Suns? Steve Nash pushing the ball and playing with a carefree attitude, running pick and rolls with Amare Stoudamire. Raja Bell and Leandro Barbosa knocking down 3’s. I didn’t care about Kobe. Nash inspired me to play.
I used to be in class and was looking at the rosters, learning about the players, their backgrounds, their upbringing, wanted to know their dates of birth, their stats.
The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. I went out and practiced free-kicks. I stood like Henry. I bought Nash’s jersey and passed the ball as he did. I didn’t care about scoring. Nash was a passer and a very good one too. I wanted to perfect my passing. These guys made me love sports.
If you light a fire in the right place in the forest, all you need to do is get out of its way.
Isn’t that what learning should be like? An insane, obsessive desire to want to know more?
Isn’t that what we want from our players? For them to stay back after practice and get some more reps? For them to go out to the playgrounds and practice their skills? For them to play the game that we all love, whatever that sport might be
Explorative learning is fun — Think about that time you heard a catchy song on the radio. You listened to it again, and again, and again. It got stuck in your head. You knew the lyrics. You’d probably sing it in the shower or in front of your friends. If the song really connected with you emotionally, you went and looked at what else the artist has done. You listened to those songs. If the fire kept being fed, you started looking at the inspiration behind those songs. The rabbit hole just kept getting deeper and deeper.
That’s explorative learning. It’s fun and it doesn’t even feel like learning.
This type of learning can be found all around us. Most of us don’t even recognise it as learning, but it is! We’re acquiring information, retaining it and will be able to transfer it when needed. That’s learning.
Regardless of whether you’re in Survival or Explorative mode, there are some principles that help facilitate learning. Jim Kwik, a brain and memory coach who helps people unlock their learning potentials shares some FAST learning principles in his book, Limitless.
Forget
“The mind is like a parachute. It works best when it’s open”
In order to learn, we need to be open to learning. You can’t fill a glass that’s already full. We need to empty our minds and entertain the idea that there’s more out there we don’t know.
This is one reason why kids are the best learners. They don’t pretend to know anything and are interested in everything.
As we get older, we begin to form ideas based on our experiences and knowledge. We often think we know more than we actually do. We developed a fixed mindset and put a lid on our learning potential.
2. Active
“Learning is not a spectator sport”
Along with being open to learning, we need to be consciously present. Most learning happens in the conscious mind. When we are active and participating, not only are we better able to acquire information, but we will also be able to retain that information.
Think back to school or college. The lectures we received in the classroom was passive, but when we went home and completed our homework or assignments, we were active. We were present and we were better able to understand certain concepts. This is why the idea of a tutor works well too. They help you stay present during the learning process.
3. State
“Information plus emotion equals to long term memory”
The anticipation and high emotional states help us retain information and transfer it into our long term memory. We tend to remember our firsts. We remember our first kiss, our first time driving, our first pet, our first house etc.
For most people, the first time they do something they have high anticipation and this helps them get into an ideal emotional state for retention.
You can probably hear a song today, and it will take you back ten years to a time that you had a sleepover with your friends. It was because you were in a higher emotional state.
4. Teach
“When you teach, you learn it twice”
I remember dreading class presentations and group projects. I knew my lecturer was going to throw me a curveball question. I knew that I was going to have to know my stuff inside out or I’d look bad in front of the class.
As a result, I really learned it. When you have to teach something, you look for the arguments against what you’re presenting, which further helps you understand the concept. When you have to teach, you are actively trying to see the big picture from multiple angles.
Teaching helps with the acquisition, retention and transfer of information
We’ve looked at two learning modes and four principles of learning so far. I’m going to tie this together by looking at how the brain develops.
In the book, No-Drama Discipline, author Daniel Siegel explains that the brain can be looked at as two separate parts, the upstairs and downstairs brain.
The first part to develop is the downstairs brain. It comes pre-loaded with the essential information that the child needs to survive. It is highly instinctual, reactionary, and automated. The downstairs brain is constantly processing multiple pieces of information, however, cannot stay on one long enough.
If you have ever been around kids, you’ll probably notice that they tend to get distracted quickly, they can’t focus their attention for too long on one thing. They are apt to throw tantrums at any given time for not getting what they want. This is because they haven’t developed the abilities to do so.
The upstairs brain is the control centre where the thinking happens. Complex problems can be solved here, situations analysed and deep thinking all happen upstairs. Unfortunately, a considerable amount of effort and attention is needed to be able to address these problems. As such, the upstairs brain can only handle up to three pieces of information.
When a new piece of information is acquired and the downstairs receptionist thinks it’s relevant, it is sent upstairs to be processed. When that information has been analysed and automated, it is sent back downstairs. Now the task can be performed without conscious thought.
Think about when you first learned how to swim. You weren’t thinking about your pets, or the delicious dinner you were going to have when you went home. You were present at that very moment in the pool or the ocean. You were conscious about keeping your balance, kicking your legs and not sinking to the bottom of the half-metre pool you were in.
The upstairs control room was processing all this information and once that info had been automated, you were able to swim and talk to your friends, hold your breath underwater and do flips and so much more. You had learned how to swim.
Learning (the acquisition, retention and transfer of information) primarily is an upstairs event. By activating “exploration mode”, and using some of the learning principles, you can help young athletes get to the control room upstairs, where they will be more attentive, engaged and learn more.
In his book, Ultralearning, Scott Young introduces another principle of learning, directness.
Young contends that not only do you have to be focused and present when learning, but you also need to do things in context. This means that clarifying the objective is important before the learning happens.
To illustrate, I’ll use an example. I have been living in Austria for over three years now. German is the primary language spoken here. Therefore, I want to learn German.
But, what exactly do I want to learn? In this case, I want to be able to have basic conversations in the language with the locals. I want to speak the language.
The problem is when I first started my German course, we were learning verbs, pronouns, adjectives, spelling, pronunciations, articles and so much more (the general way that most language courses are taught, I think). The course defaulted to “Survival mode”. It started by giving me the building blocks, not by inspiring my creativity.
Most schools tend to do this.
Here’s the interesting thing though. My son is two and a half years old and he can speak three different languages. Sure, his pronunciation isn’t great, his sentence structuring isn’t the best. He can’t read or write or spell. He doesn’t know what an article or a pronoun is.
Yet, despite all that he can form coherent sentences that we understand in three different languages, which have different grammatical rules, might I add. No, I am not saying my son is a genius!! (well. . . maybe a little!)
What I am saying is, this is how kids learn everywhere. No parent stops a child from speaking and says, “the verb needs to be the second word in this case”. Rather, we encourage the child to speak and children adapt.
That is the principle of directness. Learning by doing the very thing that you want to be better in. Immersing yourself in the process, exploring and discovering. Letting your curiosity guide you, and finding the building blocks later.
I stopped attending the course, and instead over the last few months, I have immersed myself into more conversations. Since I’ve started doing that, I’ve noticed my ability to speak and have conversations in German has improved a lot. I still have a long way to go, but the rate of progress has definitely increased.
“Repeating a solution isn’t the same as solving the problem repeatedly”
We all have the internet on our phones. With a quick click, I have Google Translate ready to help me. So, when someone texts me in German, I can just input the message into the app and I have the solution in front of me. I have translated the message into a language that I can understand. I have not solved the problem. I have used a solution.
The change that I made is texting less. I now try to make more phone calls. I don’t have Google Translate there. So, I have to actively process what is being said, analyse it and then think of the words that I want to respond with.
This is an upstairs activity, so it takes time. It takes effort. It can be frustrating for the other person if they’re in a hurry. Sometimes, they will switch to English, and/or help me with the solution by finishing my sentences. They are trying to help. They have good intentions, but them solving the problem doesn’t help me learn. I am trying to explore. I am trying to solve a problem.
This is similar to coaching. We give our players the solutions and ask them to repeat them. We tell them what we want them to do — where to stand, when to cut, how to rotate in a drill. If we ask them a question, and no one responds or they think about it for too long, we respond ourselves and move on. It is easier and quicker to do that. it saves time (in the short term).
When I try and solve problems by going upstairs to my control centre, I am activating the neurons in my brain to search throughout for any pieces of relevant information. These neurons are connecting and linking pieces of information. They are mapping out the brain and placing signposts. These signposts become really useful for future attempts at retrieving information.
The difficulty in solving the problem is actually facilitating learning.
Of course, there is a balance needed. If the challenge of learning exceeds the skill level, then the learner can get frustrated. If the skill exceeds the challenge, the learner becomes bored.
When you and I engage in a conversation in a language that we’re both comfortable in, we don’t have to consciously think about what we’re going to say next. We don’t stumble on each other's words. We have been upstairs long enough in the learning process that the process has become automated. We are able to analyse the information and respond appropriately in an instant.
At the end of the day, that’s how we want our players to play. Playing sports is very much like speaking. It is more important to be able to have a conversation than being perfect with grammar, spelling and reading.
Yet, just like we teach languages in school by showing the students the building blocks, we do the same in youth sports. Kids don’t need the building blocks first. They need inspiration and curiosity first.
There is an argument to be made that some kids don’t know how to perform basic skills. Therefore, it requires coaches to teach them how to do so. If the idea of lighting a fire and inspiring kids hasn’t convinced you yet, there is still another chance for you to open that parachute.
“The mind is like a parachute, it works best when it’s open” — Jim Kwik
The words “skill” and “technique” have been used interchangeably for quite a while. However, in order for us to really understand skill development, we need to separate these words.
In the book, “21st Century Basketball Practice”, author Brian McCormick clarifies that technique is the motor component of an action. In other words, it is the movement patterns necessary to complete an action.
Skill on the other hand is the perception-action coupling. Perception is the process of “identifying information”, “processing information” and “selecting the action”.
If the technique of a jump shot involves the foot positioning, bend in the knees, ball in the shot pocket, arm back in an L position and the triple extension as the ball is released, then the skill is the process of identifying that the defense is two feet away, the shot clock is winding down and the teammate to the right is being closely guarded. Based on processing that information, an appropriate action can be chosen.
In sports, a technique only happens following the skills. The action comes following the decision-making process, and it needs to happen in an instant.
Identify the information
Process the information
Select the best action
Execute said action
According to Brian McCormick, traditional coaching focuses on the development of technique, whereas modern coaching focuses on skill development.
Observing practice sessions is one of the best ways to see what the focus is on. The use of blocked and constant practice segments is a staple of traditional coaching. These types of practices have been shown to have an improvement in the short-term. This means that by the end of practice, the kids seem to be able to perform the technique. They have the movement patterns of boxing out, shooting a lay-up or even executing a chest pass.
It makes sense why coaches would use these types of practice. After all, progress seems to be visual. The player’s improvements in the movement patterns have gotten better.
Yet, when the day comes around, the skills don’t seem to transfer to the game!!
“everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face” Mike Tyson
The principle of directness is clearly not in effect in these types of practice segments. At the end of the day, we want our players to be able to perform the skills in the game. The game is messy, chaotic, full of problems the players need to solve, obstacles that the players need to overcome and actions that the players need to make decisions on.
The technique is being developed, but the skill to perform the technique isn’t.
In a random or variable practice, there is more chaos, disorganization, mistakes and wobbling going on. There are more players who are going upstairs into the control room and consciously processing information, mapping out the territory. There are more opportunities to solve problems. Random and variable practices are a better representation of what actually happens in the game.
In fact, studies have shown that random and variable practices increase retention and transfer at a much higher rate than blocked or constant practices.
Why then, do we not use more of what works and less of what doesn’t?
One of the reasons is that blocked and constant practices are clean, organised and precise. They give the coach or the leader a sense of control. People watching admire the coach as they observe a well-organised coaching session.
The second reason is that it is difficult to measure and see improvements with variable and random practice. Players don’t tend to get better by the end of the practice. In fact, it may even be a couple of weeks before you suddenly realise that they seem to be performing a skill really well in the game.
The overnight success has been years in the making. The strike that finally breaks the stone is a result of the 100 strikes before it.
In the traditional method of coaching, practices are organised and structured. Kids are downstairs in the reception, passively learning and repeating solutions. This doesn’t facilitate learning.
In a research paper on learning, Janet Metcalfe stated that “when learners make mistakes which are then followed by corrective feedback and discussion the learning process is more beneficial than explicit instruction first”
If the two biggest issues we have in youth sports is that players are not engaged and attentive in practice and that the skills we teach do not transfer to games, then the solution should be to spend more time with our learners upstairs, where they can solve problems and are consciously active.
There is no guarantee of success, but we can increase the chances of success by making small changes within our coaching practices.
It all starts with lighting a fire under a learners curiosity and guiding them to use basic learning principles in their learning.