Different ways of learning

[RITFencing]

One thing I have noticed in fencing as well as the rest of my life (notably in any sort of academic atmosphere) is that many people learn things differently. Some function better in large groups, some flourish in one on one attention, some respond better or worse to various educational styles, people have different attention spans, some people need to be moving, some people need to talk about things, others just need to listen/read... the list could go on for ages.

Fencing, however, seems to be rather cookie cutter in its approach to instruction. We have group classes and private lessons. Different clubs or coaches may handle things slightly differently (some very differently), but even then, with a few exceptions, the same coach tends to use roughly the same style of instruction with each student.

Have other people noticed this problem? What do you tend to do when you have students who really do not work well with your current style of teaching? Do you try to change things up or send them off to another coach, or do you attempt to force them into your mold? What kinds of success rates do you have? For that matter, do you find it very difficult to keep a wide repertoire of teaching styles?

As a side note, this also speaks to me of a larger problem in the world of fencing instruction, one that I also found in college: Coaches (and their students) seem to be far more concerned with knowledge of fencing than knowledge of pedagogy. I am not saying that fencing ability/knowledge is unimportant (far from it) but I do feel that the abilities to pass that knowledge on to fencers, to create a good environment/culture in club, motivate athletes and teach them to think for themselves are all vital as well in becoming a top level coach.

Of course, I could be wrong. I am not a high level coach, though I am decent enough giving foil and epee lessons. If anyone out there thinks that I am just on the wrong track entirely, well, tell me about it and why you think that way.

[darius]

Some function better in large groups, some flourish in one on one attention, some respond better or worse to various educational styles, people have different attention spans, some people need to be moving, some people need to talk about things, others just need to listen/read... the list could go on for ages.

Fencing, however, seems to be rather cookie cutter in its approach to instruction. We have group classes and private lessons. Different clubs or coaches may handle things slightly differently (some very differently), but even then, with a few exceptions, the same coach tends to use roughly the same style of instruction with each student.

The group classes and private lessons are merely the number of peers. Sure, some students do very well in group instruction (like to blend in w/ peers?) or very well in private lessons (like attention?), but teaching methods are more varied and can be applied to both settings.

In a private lesson, you can change the lesson time / amount of time devoted to each action for somebody with a short attention span, or spend lots of time talking about an action before doing it (for people who learn verbally), or create a problem situation for somebody who learns experientially to solve. For every possible student, there should be an ideal method of teaching - the trick is to find what speaks to them.

A group lesson is more constrained by the fact that you need to reach multiple people, so can't be quite as tailored.

What do you tend to do when you have students who really do not work well with your current style of teaching? Do you try to change things up or send them off to another coach, or do you attempt to force them into your mold?

I try to find a way to speak to the student. Sometimes it's not intuitively obvious -- they might have a sensory disorder or learning disability which affects their ability to learn something in my preferred way of teaching. Others might feel differently, but I feel that I have an obligation to help them learn as much as possible, unless it's somehow disruptive to everybody else.

As coaches, we need to be concerned with pedagogy; the fencers, not so much. They don't have to know how we do the motor development, because they want to concentrate 100% on the actual doing.

darius

[RITFencing]

Darius,

Great post as always. One thing I forgot to mention was the much greater flexibility available for private lessons in how each can be tailored to a student. I had also meant to ask how many coaches try to take advantage of that fact and how they do so, as well as how people overcome the corresponding limitations of group classes.

Also, I had been meaning to ask whether people find that it is better to try and incorporate fencers who have a personality that clashes a great deal with existing club members or the overall culture of the club or send them off to another place which might be able to fit them better? Is it possible, in many cases, to get that student to fit in, or is it bearable or even beneficial somehow to have that clashing element?

As coaches, we need to be concerned with pedagogy; the fencers, not so much. They don't have to know how we do the motor development, because they want to concentrate 100% on the actual doing.

This, however, I am not so sure I totally agree with. I think that fencers should be concerned with pedagogy and educational methods, if not to the same extent as coaches, then just to know what learning tools are best for them and to be aware of what teaching styles work best on them.

[Allen Evans]

The fact that most coaches don't know much about pedagogy probably influences how much the students learn, or know. Even at this point in my career, my understanding of coaching pedagogy is mostly intuitive, and picked up in bits and pieces. There are huge gaps in my education which I'm always trying to fill.

How would you introduce pedagogy into a lesson/class in such a way that the student 1) understands what is being taught and 2) gets value from it?

Allen Evans

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by Allen Evans

The fact that most coaches don't know much about pedagogy probably influences how much the students learn, or know. Even at this point in my career, my understanding of coaching pedagogy is mostly intuitive, and picked up in bits and pieces. There are huge gaps in my education which I'm always trying to fill.

How would you introduce pedagogy into a lesson/class in such a way that the student 1) understands what is being taught and 2) gets value from it?

Allen Evans

I would think that #1 is the concern of pedagogy and #2 is the concern of fencing specific knowledge.

That may be too much of a dichotomy, but I think it's mostly correct. Getting students to understand what is being taught is what good educational methods are for, and making sure that what is being taught benefits the student is what good fencing knowledge is for.

As far as the specifics of what techniques for what students, that's what I was asking about in this thread, really.

[jBirch]

On the notion of different ways of learning...

When I was learning to teach, we learned of a number of different models, depending upon the tools that we were playing with. The following classifications may prove helpful:

There are "reflectors" and "actors". Reflectors need to think about what they're doing while "actors" will just try it out and think about it later.

There are "visual", "audible", "tactile" and "emotive" learners. Visual learners need to see it. Audible learners need to hear it. Tactile learners need to do it. Emotive learners need to feel good before, during and after they're doing it.

There are the Pavlovian-style operant conditioning models, where students move towards positive experience and away from negative experience. What is a negative/positve action is defined by Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Assaulting a lower level (physical pain, hunger, thirst, fatigue) will be regarded as a punishment, while butressing a higher need will be regarded as a reward. The most effective rewards are those which satisfy an immediate need, while the most effective punishments assault a perceived "secure" need.

Freud talks about transference and how the student/coach relationship and the student/student relationship mimics the child/parent or sibling-sibling familial relationship and that a student will react towards the coach in roughly the same way that they will react to the same gendered parent.

We also talk about democratic, autocratic and laissez-faire styles of instruction. With democratic teachers searching for a group consensus and information discovery, autocratic teachers dictating the lessons to the student and laissez-faire teachers waiting for the student to come to them with questions.

There's also socratic and didectic styles of instruction. The socratic method consists of the leader asking questions and prompting answers from the group while the didectic method relies on the leader imparting information to the group at large without much back and forth.

All of these, of course, are tools and ideas that help the teacher communicate effectively with the students. What they communicate, and why they communicate are still intrinsic values of the individual doing the instruction and the specific pedagogical philosphy that underlies their curriculum. Really good teachers can switch amongst these skills at will and to maximal effect with the individual student. Spectacular teachers structure systems that allow each student to best maximise their learning, regardless of the student's specific requirements.

Hope this helps.

James.

[RITFencing]

James, that was a brilliant reply and exactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much.

[jBirch]

On pedagogy:

There's a lot of thoguht in North America, at least, of an independence from a formal (rigid) pedagogy. We tend to think of ourselves as blending many different pedagogies into our own, individual and unique style. We also tend to think that the old school ideas are antiquated and irrelevent. So we take a little from pedagogy A and a little from pedagogy B and call it a fencing program.

But better coaches realise that there are "schools" of instruction and that, once begun, a student really is better learning one specific "style" of fencing. French fencers use the distance and elegance styles. Soviet style fencers use a hard, athletic style. Etc...

The selection of a system is relatively important to the coach and the club (and often dictated by the pedigree of the local coaching staff) but of little relevence to the student. Unless a student is interested in coaching or in getting substantial exposure to other styles, I don't think that explicitly teaching them what their pedegogy is and how it works, is a productive use of class time.

Athletes need to spend their time training, not thinking about training. Coaches (and potential coaches) are the ones who should be thinking about training. Obviously this means that at some point in a fencer's career they need to be exposed to a mental framework for coaching. But it's not something that should be taught (IMHO) from the beginning.

Best Regards,

James.

[keith]

Originally Posted by jBirch

There's a lot of thoguht in North America, at least, of an independence from a formal (rigid) pedagogy. We tend to think of ourselves as blending many different pedagogies into our own, individual and unique style. We also tend to think that the old school ideas are antiquated and irrelevent. So we take a little from pedagogy A and a little from pedagogy B and call it a fencing program.

But better coaches realise that there are "schools" of instruction and that, once begun, a student really is better learning one specific "style" of fencing. French fencers use the distance and elegance styles. Soviet style fencers use a hard, athletic style. Etc...

I think you are confusing system and pedagogy - you can use any pedagogical system (let us say, problem based/discovery/didactic for the current discussion) to teach any system of fencing.

So there are two quite separate issues for a given fencer;

Which is the most appropriate pedagogical system.

Which is the most appropriate fencing style.

Not sure that actually helps

[jBirch]

Originally Posted by keith

I think you are confusing system and pedagogy - you can use any pedagogical system (let us say, problem based/discovery/didactic for the current discussion) to teach any system of fencing.

So there are two quite separate issues for a given fencer;

Which is the most appropriate pedagogical system.

Which is the most appropriate fencing style.

Not sure that actually helps

Hey Keith,

The way I was taught the meaning of "pedagogy" is a specific progression of learning.

So, the French would start, say, with the classic foil first, then epee to train an epeeist. The foil lesson would start with basic footwork, then en garde, then thrust, then lunge, then parry 4, then parry 6, then c6, then disengage, then beat, etc... Then you'd move into the epee specific actions, with stop hits, attacks to the low line, etc...

The modern North American pedagogy would start with epee first, basic footwork, then thrust, then stop hit, then prise de fer, etc...

Within each of those pedagogical progressions would be the specific nuances of the style. Do you do a p4 with pronation or supination? Supinated en garde? Lunge with a dominating hand or a ceding one? What do you do with the off hand? etc...

You could have (as I sorta do in my club) a North American pedagogy with a classical French style.

The key is that there is an underlying philosophy and body of inductive lessons that fall from that philosophy that makes up what I've always thought of as a "pedagogy".

Make sense?

James.

[keith]

Originally Posted by jBirch

Hey Keith,

The way I was taught the meaning of "pedagogy" is a specific progression of learning.

I'd agree. But in fencing we tend to confuse 'schools of fencing' (with apologies for the term) with pedagogy.

So if I may parody;

The French approach is formal and didactic. The focus is on learning an array of mechanical actions; the three Rs of fencing(?). The student will wake up one morning and achieve spontaneous synthesis.

Of course the Germans are much more systematic and actions are embedded in series; each hit generates a problem and a tactical solution.

Now the Italians are much more artistic, here the emphasis is on the student discovering their own solution and this generates a confidence and expression in their fencing.

... and no one cares about the Soviets anymore .

Thing is there are ways of teaching that are independent of what one is trying to teach.

[sabregrrrl]

Originally Posted by jBirch

Hey Keith,

The way I was taught the meaning of "pedagogy" is a specific progression of learning.

So, the French would start, say, with the classic foil first, then epee to train an epeeist. The foil lesson would start with basic footwork, then en garde, then thrust, then lunge, then parry 4, then parry 6, then c6, then disengage, then beat, etc... Then you'd move into the epee specific actions, with stop hits, attacks to the low line, etc...

The modern North American pedagogy would start with epee first, basic footwork, then thrust, then stop hit, then prise de fer, etc...

James.

Or you just do like we do at our club and bypass those two weapons entirely and go straight to sabre

[Rick Thompson]

Athletes need to spend their time training, not thinking about training. Coaches (and potential coaches) are the ones who should be thinking about training. Obviously this means that at some point in a fencer's career they need to be exposed to a mental framework for coaching. But it's not something that should be taught (IMHO) from the beginning.

This is true for many athletes. However, there are those that learn best when they understand the reason for what they're learning. As a coach, I try to discern the best means of teaching (and motivating) each student.

[Hauptman]

Originally Posted by Rick Thompson

This is true for many athletes. However, there are those that learn best when they understand the reason for what they're learning. As a coach, I try to discern the best means of teaching (and motivating) each student.

That is such an important point, Rick!! Different people learn in different ways and it is up to the teacher to find the best method and not blame the student for not learning!

In psychology you might see the same comparison between cognitive and behavioral therapy. Cognitive is always the ideal, but some people are not going to really grasp the ideas thoroughly enough to make a difference, or don't have enough consistancy of self-awareness to self-monitor. In that case just go with behavioral strategies such as simple repetition, or reinforcement techiniques.

Some people do better when they DON'T think too much.

[AaronK]

I would only bring up a few points:

If you are wondering why more Fencing Coaches (appear) to be involved with the understanding of fencing rather than the teaching of it...consider that you are probably overhearing coaches talk to their students- who probably have little interest in HOW they are being taught, but are highly invested in WHAT they are learning. Fencing "theory" is a common language between coach and student. Teaching "theory" may not be as relevant or engaging for the student as it will be the coach. Two coaches may have a conversation about teaching, but I think it unlikely that you are going to overhear that conversation unless you happen to be at a coaches workshop, clinic, camp, etc.

I think it is not generally a good idea to compare "individual lessons" with "group lessons"- teaching each of those requires skills that may overlap, but in my experience you can have an excellent lesson coach who couldn't teach a group class how to make a simple attack.

Though it may appear that group classes are less flexible with the methods of teaching or pedagogy- I would argue that isn't the case. The application of a particular teaching method may be easier for a coach to control in a lesson- and may not be readily apparent in a group setting.

Group classes require just as much "tailoring" as the individual lesson. Of course it may be easier to adapt certain teaching strategies to a population that isn't as diverse...the needs of a homeschool fencing group that includes kids 6-12 is different than a group of recreational adults who are 30+. Those classes may use similar skills, but if your teaching strategies are based on teaching groups of 14-18 year old elite competitors- you may loose a lot of students (both in terms of not reaching them effectively as well as on the business end). In a large or diverse class you must find strategies that include as many different approaches as possible- teaching across a broad range is not the same as teaching to the middle.

I also completely agree with the statements along the lines that the students' need to understand their own learning style is not necessary. In fact some students may actually get in the way of their own learning the more they know or the more they think they know. The ideal student does take charge of their own learning- but there are those students who learn in spite of themselves (as well as students who learn in spite of their coaches).

[Don Badowski]

I'm reminded of an article I read many years ago in a science magazine about two types of people who make good fighter pilots and how they learn. In brief...

The Natural Born Stick N' Rudder Man - This type of pilot has a natural feel for flying the moment he sits down. His progress is very quick at the beginning, but then tapers off as more and more things are added in, such as navigation, multiple engines, gunnery, rader, formation, tactics, etc.

The Information Processor - His progress is very slow to begin with, often to the point of their instructors wanting to give up on them. But as time goes on, they are able to handle the added tasks much better than Stick N' Rudder Man, and are able to deal with multiple things happening at once.

When I got into coaching I thought about how our fencers are like these fighter pilots. Some take to the sword with ease, but as time goes on and we add in tempo, compound attacks, strategy, they have a harder time of it. Others might take longer getting the feel of the sword, but in the end they handle the complexity of fencing better.

[InFerrumVeritas]

Originally Posted by Don Badowski

I'm reminded of an article I read many years ago in a science magazine about two types of people who make good fighter pilots and how they learn. In brief...

The Natural Born Stick N' Rudder Man - This type of pilot has a natural feel for flying the moment he sits down. His progress is very quick at the beginning, but then tapers off as more and more things are added in, such as navigation, multiple engines, gunnery, rader, formation, tactics, etc.

The Information Processor - His progress is very slow to begin with, often to the point of their instructors wanting to give up on them. But as time goes on, they are able to handle the added tasks much better than Stick N' Rudder Man, and are able to deal with multiple things happening at once.

When I got into coaching I thought about how our fencers are like these fighter pilots. Some take to the sword with ease, but as time goes on and we add in tempo, compound attacks, strategy, they have a harder time of it. Others might take longer getting the feel of the sword, but in the end they handle the complexity of fencing better.

I agree that these are two types of students, but there are several other types. Being good when you start does not mean that you will eventually stop being good, etc.

[CaptChris]

Hi,

There are many different views of pedagogy throughout the world. Two of the more common views are VAK; Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic as well as MI; Multiple Intelligences.

These have been used in schools for many years and there is a quick and easy way to see what kind of learner you are. Unfortunately the process is a little more complicated if you are a coach and wish to discover what kind of teacher you are!

I have a simplified quiz which you can take to find out what kind of learner you are, however I'm not 100% certain how to attach it to a message! Sorry.