This issue features:
My TEDxCanberra talk
Essential Skills Course by the Australian Sports Commission
My TEDx Talk
TEDxCanberra held an Open Mic night on the 12th May, and all you had to do to sign up as a speaker was complete a short survey. I wasn’t expecting to be selected, but I did have an existing 3-minute speech which fit the criteria of the talk. On Wednesday night, I check my spam email folder and found that my application to be a speaker was successful. I had 24 hours to write and memorise my new speech.
After 5 years in academia, I was worried the speech wouldn’t be ‘sciencey’ enough - that without the methods or experimental design, it wouldn’t seem legit. I only had 3 minutes to share my idea, and I wanted to make them count. Thankfully, I was taught that a story which connects with the audience is far more important. I can give you the reference list later, if that’s what you really want.
If you have ever believed, or been led to believe, that you are not talented in sport and exercise because you don’t look or act as other experts…
I am here to challenge that.
The Essential Skills Course for Coach Education
The Australian Sports Commission has released an exciting new community coaching course!
Well, it’s exciting for me because I’ve always wanted to develop something like this, so it’s reassuring to know this was also high on the priority list for the Australian Sports Commission.
The modules that feature in this 3-hour course are perfectly tailored for the community coach. I would recommend it to every school, local club, and coach. Personally, I love the scaffolded approach to the education, beginning with safeguarding and understanding athletes, and then progressing to exploring learning environments, training design and communication. Finally, there is a self-reflection element which is designed for ongoing learning and self-awareness.
This is everything I could have hoped for in a community coaching course, and it even comes with a coaching plan template. In this template, coaches are encouraged to consider the implementation of this new information and how to begin or further their self-reflection.
Why do we need a course like this? Because the research around making good training environments and how to develop skill is dense. It’s complex. It’s an essay of jargon wrapped up in a bow of inaccessibility 🎀
The people who need this information most find the journal articles mind-boggling - I certainly do. Empowering the coaches in communities with the knowledge to develop and understand their practice should be our first priority.
Maybe we’ll even come to the day when I don’t have to introduce myself as a prac-ademic (a practitioner and academic) just to differentiate myself from academia but also remind people that I am still a coach. I look forward to researching, writing, and (hopefully) even publishing in a way that makes someone stop and write it down, carry those words around in their little coaches notebook, look at them on a rainy day and feel inspired.