Instructional Design and Basketball

I am back after a break while I was trying to balance work and life.  At times through our lives, we all have to take time-outs.  The buzzer has sounded, and now my time-out is over.

Speaking of time-outs…I signed up to be the Assistant Basketball Coach for my daughter’s basketball team.  I know you’re probably wondering what basketball has to do with instructional design (ID).  Well I have the real-life example of dual-purpose learning.  Dual-purpose learning simply means using what you learn on the job in other aspects of your life.

As I started preparing for the season, my unconscious competence kicked in.  Before I knew it, I was using the ADDIE model without even knowing it.  Let me quickly explain.

ANALYZE—I started to conduct learner analysis…What age are the girls? What are their skill levels?  I know I’ll have some experienced girls and some that have never played.  I also read about the types of “tasks” that they should be able to do at this age range, as well as how those “tasks” should be performed.  The other thing I did was to think about the constraints.  What were those things that could become barriers to a successful season?  I came up with the following constraints: 1) lack of skills development, 2) bad attitudes, 3) poor fitness levels, and 4) lack of effort.

DESIGN—I began to think about what I wanted to accomplish by the end of the season.  I wanted them to be able to learn while having fun.  Those were my terminal objectives.  At this point, I began meeting with planning the season.  Each practice requires a well-structured and different “lesson plan” with specific learning objectives.

The design of the basketball season includes the following:

·       Adoption of the SAFE (Skills, Attitude, Fitness, Effort) philosophy

·       Focus on certain skill areas (“competencies”) to improve on by the end of the season

·       Results-based learning based on clearly identified goals.  Each girl will have a fitness goal, individual skill goal, and a team goal.

·      Incentives and rewards for goal accomplishment

DEVELOP—This is the fun part and is where I am now in my “instructional design” process.  I am in the process of purchasing supplies for the incentives program and writing practice plans.   I’m choosing the right drills (“instructional methods”) to align with the skills being taught.

IMPLEMENT—The season hasn’t officially started, although we have started having open gym.  I am looking forward to working with the Head Coach in actually conducting well-structured practices beginning in the next week or two.

EVALUATE—My strategy for evaluation includes checking-in with the girls to see how they feel (Level 1) about how practices.  Are they having fun?  I will keep notes on where they started based on assessments during the first practice (pre-test) and how they’re doing each week (post-tests) (Level 2).  We will be able to see how they’re learning once we start playing games (Level 3).  The test will be to see how they end the season (Level 4).  Are they a better player?  Has the team improved?  Did they have fun and learn???

I’m looking forward to this season.  I’m equally excited about being able to transfer what I’ve learned to help adults learn to have an impact on the development of several young ladies.  Wish us luck!