The Crafted Conversation: 23rd of September, 2024

Week commencing: 23rd of September, 2024

Weekly Crafted Concept

We live in an ever-increasing world of measurable actions/items/standards.

In elite sport, in performance sport or even school sport with the disposable budget income, metrics and data-driven analysis gave become the language of performance. At elite level, these metrics inform recruitment of players, scouting, the loan club choices of the highest level clubs, training load and practice design.

In education, we hold pupils to account by academic profiling models which utilise big data analysis to predict outcomes along the standard deviation of results, so that we can ascertain targets for both the pupil and the teacher. These, in some cases, even inform teacher pay and progression because of the ability to measure against value-added by the interim instructional period between testing and externally examined outcomes.

We are harvested for data via our social media algorithms, Amazon purchases, and YouTube consumption. Our devices listen to our interactions and feed us targeted advertisements.

And now programmes, tools, and Artificial Intelligence allow for the seamless analysis of all of these measurable actions.

Data is our world as we now know it. Yet…we remain human beings, primed for connection, emotion, feeling, and sociality.

Responses to these facts are twofold:

1. A helplessness and passivity, “that’s just how it is now”

2. Observing opportunity for advanced performance, “how can we adapt to this?”

Adaptive or mastery/process driven approaches require the performance architect to:

1. Accept the reality of data in our lives

2. Explore opportunities with curiosity

3. Test and sample responses and performance behaviours

4. Iterate and adapt

5. Accommodate new processes

Our brains are plastic. Mouldable. Possess the ability to flex. Malleable. So, thus, is our intelligence - with effort and open-mindedness.

In order to do so it is the innately human ability to connect which is highlighted as the binding agent which supports the accommodation of the objective metrics apart of our professional lives into our performance narrative.

We become adaptive when we seek feedback and connection to plan, test, and add vibrancy and colour to the performance experience. What use is a fantastic spreadsheet of data if it cannot be extrapolated to the nuances of the changeable, organic, breathing world around us? Who cares about your xG, predictive grade output, or top speed if we cannot learn and grow together through learning and instruction, exactly how those metrics feed the story of performance in our setting? And how that story has been shared through values of generations and teams of individuals who surpassed us?

Learning = (environment + design) x observation & feedback

Data provides the observation and feedback which loops back to environment and learning design.

The two are synchronous and cannot achieve true performance without the other.

The difference is, we now have more observations and feedback to accommodate.

Curious Craft: Application to The Classroom

1. Proactively seek multiple assessment opportunities to ensure that tracking is observable in pupil progress, measured against the outcome metric used in your environment (Fischer Family Trust, CEM, etc)

2. Explore how these raw metrics fit the performance narrative and stories of your department

   1. annual average outcomes

   2. individual success stories

   3. teacher-led initiatives or teacher role models of the past

3. Define your learning environment and establish behaviours which match the expectations of that narrative

Curious Craft: Application to The Coach

1. Define your learning environment and establish behaviours which match the expectations of that narrative

2. Explore how these raw metrics fit the performance narrative and stories of your team/training group/individual athlete multi-disciplinary team

3. Create stories of performance which marry the observable metrics you use (speed, distance covered, strength and conditioning targets, xG, possession).

The Crafted Conversation

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