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Practice Perfect
Rethinking Practice
Most classes or coaching sessions lead students to mediocre outcomes because the leader has participants encode failure, or practice the wrong way. There are two common mistakes that lead to this issue:
- The teacher does not check for understanding enough, and cannot provide precise feedback
- The teacher puts participants in situation where they will fail, saying, “Failure is the best way to learn.”
In order for students to encode success, leaders must design practice sessions where students are successful demonstrating the skill during most of the drill. As the practice occurs, the teacher must regularly check for mastery, provide feedback, and simplify the drill as needed until participants can quickly, and reliably perform the same task over and over. Once students can reliably demonstrate the skill, the teacher can gradually add complexity, repeating the process again.
‘Let the Mind Follow the Body’ implies that skills and thought processes can be so embedded in our neural pathways that we can perform them without conscious thought. When we don’t have to think about something we are doing, we free up our cognitive space to focus more clearly on what is happening in the moment.
Both simple, and complex processes can be made automatic. In order to move complex tasks to our muscle memory, break down the task into smaller steps, and one at a time, embed each skill through deep practice.
When designing a practice session, don’t think about the purpose of the activity, instead determine a set of outcomes you (or your students) should reach by the end of the drill. Then, transform these outcomes into objectives. A well written objective has 7 characteristics (5Ms + 2Rs).
The objective is...
- Measurable
- Manageable
- Made First
- Most Important
- (provides) Mastery Guidance
- Relates to previous and upcoming objectives
- (is) Returned to when mastery is lost
The term ‘Bright Spots’ is from Switch by Dan and Chip Heath
A scrimmage should be used as an assessment, and it helps you answer the question: am I ready for the game, yes or no? If no, what skills need improvement?
A drill allows you to focus on practicing one skill or a set of skills to encode success, and you test if the skills are integrated in a scrimmage.
Drills are more effective at skills building than scrimmages.
How to Practice
In order to know what to practice to become a master in your field, you need to ‘analyze the game’ by observing top performers, recording the skills, habits and mindsets that the top performers have in common, and then rank and write down those skills so you have your curriculum.
Use pithy, memorable names to refer to the skills or techniques you and your team practice. Promote and monitor this shared language on your team.
When preparing for a practice session use objectives to plan every minute, rehearse and make changes to the plan before you execute, and videotape and analyze the actual practice session.
When teaching someone a new skills, both model and describe what you are doing.
No one will believe a technique works if it is modeled in the ‘perfect’ setting, so model skills in an authentic, or better yet, the actual setting,
For the student’s first few practice runs, have them replicate the model exactly before adding their unique spin to the skill.
Model the final product as well as the steps it takes to get there.
Feedback
Build an organization where members practice using feedback by having very short feedback loops where people practice the new skill immediately, or commit publicly to when they will try the change.
Fast and frequent feedback is key for people to encode success.
Too much feedback is overwhelming. Limit the amount of feedback you give so the person listening can take action.
When giving someone feedback, avoid statements that begin with the word ‘Don’t.’ Instead, tell the person what to do differently, and how to do it.
Summarize the Feedback
- "Tell me what I told you."
- "Let's both check our understanding."
Prioritize Feedback
- "What's the most important thing we just talked about?"
Next Action
- "Tell me the next thing you're going to do."
- "What will you do the next time you encounter this challenge?"
Culture of Practice
- Make it a team activity
- Find fun in the objective
- Make it a friendly competition
- Leaders most model and engage in practice
- Ask for feedback as the leader
- Use language that is warm but insists that everyone will practice