Coaching & Instructional Techniques
Stacey was carrying out the parallel park exercise on her lesson with me the other day. She has done this several times before so I was watching her do it on her own. The occasional car turned into the road during the manoeuvre and she dealt with this alright, checking to see what the driver was going to do and continuing to reverse when she realised he couldn’t get past and was therefore going to wait. As she steered the front end in towards the kerb the other driver was able to move on through. She started to straighten up too early so that the back end of the car was still pointing at the kerb. She steered quickly one way and then the other, losing her sense of direction and finally saying, ‘Can I have another go?’
It was at this point that I made a mistake in my instructional techniques and it is only with hindsight and on reflection that I am able to say this. I proceeded to talk Stacey through the next couple of parallel parks. I did this because I felt under pressure – we were in the last half hour of the two hour lesson; there were more cars turning into this road than a few minutes previously; and it was going to be quicker and easier to tell her myself than to let her have another go on her own. In other words, I suddenly switched from a coaching relationship, which is all about her and not about me, to one where I was the key figure. I didn’t consider how this change in my level of instruction would make Stacey feel; how it might affect her confidence.
This might all sound a smidge melodramatic; however, my aim is to focus on raising awareness and building responsibility in my pupils. By doing this they learn to identify their strengths and limitations in relation to their personality, the purpose of the journey, how they interact in traffic situations, and how they control the vehicle. That is, I use coaching techniques to address the Goals for Driver Education. In just a few moments I allowed Stacey to take a huge step backwards in her development as a responsible, safe driver and it would have been so easy to avoid this happening.
Talking to other ADIs over the years, I realise that my weakness is not uncommon. There seems to be a lack of ability to instruct to the appropriate level, especially when the appropriate level is ‘Prompted’. When we use the ‘Prompted’ level of instruction we are actually coaching because we use it to gauge the transfer of responsibility for a particular driving skill to the pupil. So we ask questions to prompt the pupil to carry out the appropriate action. We don’t tell them what to do, nor do we sit back in silence and see if they are going to do it; we ask questions, such as:
‘Where are you going to look?’
‘Do you need a signal?’
‘Where will you position?’
‘What gear will you select?’
‘Is it safe?’
These questions are aimed at encouraging the pupils to think for themselves, rather than learning by rote the actions they need to carry out. At the same time, you are checking whether you can transfer the responsibility more fully to them and move onto the ‘Independent’ level of instruction. The ‘Independent’ level of instruction involves more open questions and builds the pupils’ understanding, judgement and reasoning skills.
When we use the core competencies (fault identification, analysis and remedy), levels of instruction come into the remedial stage. Stacey had made some mistakes when carrying out the parallel park manoeuvre and asked for another go. I should have come in with the ‘Prompted’ level of instruction, instead of ‘Guided’.
Questions like:
‘Where’s the back end of the car now?’
‘Is it where you want it to be?’
‘Where’s the kerb?’
‘What can you see?’
‘How much do you need to steer?’
‘Which way are the wheels pointing?’ would have been far more helpful to Stacey than me saying, ‘Now steer towards me. Fraction clutch down. Straighten up. Etc.’ I could see in Stacey’s face that she felt no sense of achievement having parked the car within two car lengths, parallel to the kerb and no more than six inches away. She knew that I had achieved this, not she.
When using coaching to teach people to drive and addressing the GDE framework, we shouldn’t lose sight of the instructional techniques we already have at our disposal.
Firstly, lesson structure:
Recap
Objective
Main Points
Practice
Summary
Secondly, levels of instruction:
Guided
Prompted
Independent
Finally, core competencies:
Identification of faults
Analysis of faults
Remedy of faults
We use coaching to work with the personality of the pupil, so that, through questions, they can identify their goals for learning to drive and understand how their personality, values and opinions impact on the choices they make when driving, the way they manage risks, and they way they handle the car. Helping learner drivers to take responsibility for their driving is a critical part of teaching them to drive because it will increase their chances of remaining crash free. Getting the balance right with a solid lesson structure, appropriate levels of instruction and sound fault correction techniques, is the challenge that makes this job so interesting and rewarding.
Stacey was carrying out the parallel park exercise on her lesson with me the other day. She has done this several times before so I was watching her do it on her own. The occasional car turned into the road during the manoeuvre and she dealt with this alright, checking to see what the driver was going to do and continuing to reverse when she realised he couldn’t get past and was therefore going to wait. As she steered the front end in towards the kerb the other driver was able to move on through. She started to straighten up too early so that the back end of the car was still pointing at the kerb. She steered quickly one way and then the other, losing her sense of direction and finally saying, ‘Can I have another go?’
It was at this point that I made a mistake in my instructional techniques and it is only with hindsight and on reflection that I am able to say this. I proceeded to talk Stacey through the next couple of parallel parks. I did this because I felt under pressure – we were in the last half hour of the two hour lesson; there were more cars turning into this road than a few minutes previously; and it was going to be quicker and easier to tell her myself than to let her have another go on her own. In other words, I suddenly switched from a coaching relationship, which is all about her and not about me, to one where I was the key figure. I didn’t consider how this change in my level of instruction would make Stacey feel; how it might affect her confidence.
This might all sound a smidge melodramatic; however, my aim is to focus on raising awareness and building responsibility in my pupils. By doing this they learn to identify their strengths and limitations in relation to their personality, the purpose of the journey, how they interact in traffic situations, and how they control the vehicle. That is, I use coaching techniques to address the Goals for Driver Education. In just a few moments I allowed Stacey to take a huge step backwards in her development as a responsible, safe driver and it would have been so easy to avoid this happening.
Talking to other ADIs over the years, I realise that my weakness is not uncommon. There seems to be a lack of ability to instruct to the appropriate level, especially when the appropriate level is ‘Prompted’. When we use the ‘Prompted’ level of instruction we are actually coaching because we use it to gauge the transfer of responsibility for a particular driving skill to the pupil. So we ask questions to prompt the pupil to carry out the appropriate action. We don’t tell them what to do, nor do we sit back in silence and see if they are going to do it; we ask questions, such as:
‘Where are you going to look?’
‘Do you need a signal?’
‘Where will you position?’
‘What gear will you select?’
‘Is it safe?’
These questions are aimed at encouraging the pupils to think for themselves, rather than learning by rote the actions they need to carry out. At the same time, you are checking whether you can transfer the responsibility more fully to them and move onto the ‘Independent’ level of instruction. The ‘Independent’ level of instruction involves more open questions and builds the pupils’ understanding, judgement and reasoning skills.
When we use the core competencies (fault identification, analysis and remedy), levels of instruction come into the remedial stage. Stacey had made some mistakes when carrying out the parallel park manoeuvre and asked for another go. I should have come in with the ‘Prompted’ level of instruction, instead of ‘Guided’.
Questions like:
‘Where’s the back end of the car now?’
‘Is it where you want it to be?’
‘Where’s the kerb?’
‘What can you see?’
‘How much do you need to steer?’
‘Which way are the wheels pointing?’ would have been far more helpful to Stacey than me saying, ‘Now steer towards me. Fraction clutch down. Straighten up. Etc.’ I could see in Stacey’s face that she felt no sense of achievement having parked the car within two car lengths, parallel to the kerb and no more than six inches away. She knew that I had achieved this, not she.
When using coaching to teach people to drive and addressing the GDE framework, we shouldn’t lose sight of the instructional techniques we already have at our disposal.
Firstly, lesson structure:
Recap
Objective
Main Points
Practice
Summary
Secondly, levels of instruction:
Guided
Prompted
Independent
Finally, core competencies:
Identification of faults
Analysis of faults
Remedy of faults
We use coaching to work with the personality of the pupil, so that, through questions, they can identify their goals for learning to drive and understand how their personality, values and opinions impact on the choices they make when driving, the way they manage risks, and they way they handle the car. Helping learner drivers to take responsibility for their driving is a critical part of teaching them to drive because it will increase their chances of remaining crash free. Getting the balance right with a solid lesson structure, appropriate levels of instruction and sound fault correction techniques, is the challenge that makes this job so interesting and rewarding.
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Call 0800 058 8009
Mobile 07740174893 Email info@tri-coachingpartnership.co.uk |
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