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Coaching others to coach
Coaching others to coach

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5.1 Exploring expertise further

In the following activity you will pursue your thoughts on coach developer expertise further.

Activity 5 Coach developer expertise 2: What insights can be gained from elsewhere?

Timing: Allow about 30 minutes

Read this short article (4 minute read time): Exploring coach developer expertise, by Ben Oakley and Alex Twitchen [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]

The purpose of this reading is to act as a further prompt to your thinking about coach developer expertise. To what extent would you agree with the argument and characteristics identified in the article?

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Discussion

In the absence of systematic studies of expertise among coach developers the article suggests a possible way of recognising and discussing expertise. You may have agreed or disagreed with some of the ideas in the article but learning from what expertise looks like amongst teachers has some merit, while an approach that focuses on professional judgement and decision-making is also useful. Figure 1 in the article, defining what authenticity might mean as a coach developer, is a further stimulus for your thinking.

Note: You will have an opportunity in Session 2 to share with others your ideas on the articles and videos you have viewed while working through this material. This will be optional, but hopefully you’ll enjoy taking part if you do choose to.

The last three sections have been full of ideas about what coach developer expertise looks like. The ideas range from the ‘surfacing beliefs’ discussion, to knowing when, how and why tools, techniques and ingredients should be used (in the chef analogy), to ideas relating to expert teachers and authenticity (Hattie, 2003). In the next section you’ll hear two experienced coach developers describe the learning opportunities they have drawn on to develop their own expertise.