The first book I'd go to is Gallimore and Nater's You Haven't Taught Until They Have Learned–-much of what I wrote in the series draws upon this book or the earlier research by Gallimore and Tharp (which is included in the book). I think the next one I'd get is Wooden on Leadership, by John Wooden and Steve Jamison (Jamison was closely associated with Wooden and co-authored a number of books with him). It tells much of Wooden's journey, early life, and coaching philosophy, and is as complete a look at all of this as you'll find from Wooden. An additional bonus are actual excerpts (copied directly) from Wooden's journals, practice plans, etc.–they're sometimes hard to read, but are a great first-hand look at his life's source material. A shorter book, but still worthwhile, is Wooden and Jamison's The Essential Wooden: A Lifetime of Lessons on Leaders and Leadership.
I've listed the whole series below in order:
- Introduction – the difference between scrimmage and drill
- Efficiency of Wooden's practice–incredibly instruction-dense
- More about instruction dense practice (rehearsal) — positive vs. negative feedback
- More on Wooden's methods for correcting mistakes
- Wooden's planning for practices (rehearsals)
- How Wooden made his verbal instructions clearer and shorter
- Wooden's pedagogy and how he uses drill
- More about pedagogy and drill
- Teacher/student relationships — use of individual feedback
- Wooden's definition of success — his "pyramid of success"
- Conditioning: moral, mental, and physical — and how that relates to singers
- Wooden's off-season intensive research projects
- What great teachers have in common
I hope you'll take what you find valuable from the example of a great coach and teacher–and apply it to your own teaching. I know I have more work to do.
Time to take a break, so I'll begin again sometime in January. If you have suggestions for topics, please write!
Richard Sparks says
Evelyn Hazzard says