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087 - Why Smart Teams Win: 6 Stages of Learning Skills
89 Plays7 days ago
Most athletes are taught what to do — very few are taught how to think.
In this episode of Captains & Coaches, we break down how great teams develop athletes who can analyze situations, make adjustments, and lead under pressure.
Using a coaching-friendly lens on Bloom’s Taxonomy, this episode shows how players move from following instructions to owning the game — and why thinking athletes become the captains everyone trusts when it matters most.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Action.
Guiding Leadership Principles
00:00:01
Speaker
Leadership is meeting people where they are so you can take them where they need to go.
Podcast Introduction: Captains and Coaches
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast. We explore the art and science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond.
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm your host, Texel Quokin, and today it's all about learning and teaching. So right in the middle of kicking off our lacrosse season, so in my mind is getting the message across, installing the offense, introducing the drills, being able to remember things from practice one to practice five, which seems to be a constant theme and challenge for everyone.
Adapting Teaching Methods for Coaches
00:00:39
Speaker
So what I'm going to do is introduce learning styles. So every coach has had that moment where you explain a drill and you draw it up on the board. And then we say, all right, ready, ready, break.
00:00:51
Speaker
They go out and do it and they have no idea where to start, where to go, how to finish, and you have to re-explain the drill. It's not an effort problem. It's not an attitude problem.
00:01:02
Speaker
It's a learning problem. I encourage you, coach, to hold the mirror up. And that's what this is going to be all about. How are we teaching and presenting drills? Many of our athletes know what to do as soon as they remember it from last season, but you have a smorgasbord of new athletes come into your sport that they may not have any introduction.
00:01:23
Speaker
So this is also going to be speaking on the bandwidth where I have experienced athletes, I got new athletes to this sport, and we're all on the same team. And I have X amount of time to teach them, and everybody has to get it because we got to move.
Introducing Bloom's Taxonomy in Coaching
00:01:36
Speaker
If we're moving, we're learning.
00:01:38
Speaker
So how I'm gonna accomplish this is introduce a great tool that I discovered more than 10 years ago. It's called Bloom's Taxonomy. So I was traveling the world teaching seminars, teaching people how to teach people to lift weights and run fast. And one challenge I ran into was building our team.
00:01:55
Speaker
When we would bring on new coaches, they understood the information that we were teaching them, but then as soon as they had to step into the leadership teaching role,
00:02:06
Speaker
They, deer in headlights, they forgot that information. So then I had to really think about how I was not only teaching the information to individuals, I didn't want them to just do monkey see, monkey do and repeat after me. I wanted them to understand and embody the information so they could make it their own and deliver it.
00:02:24
Speaker
So that's when I really dove into adult education and found bloom Bloom's Taxonomy as a tool where you can write learning objectives. Okay, by the end of this lesson, you'll be able to XYZ. So started to write learning objectives and plan my lessons for the instructors, for the teachers, so they could then go out and and teach successfully. And then if they had questions, if people had questions for them, they knew the information to then connect to their experience,
00:02:54
Speaker
and answer those questions effectively and authentically versus just looking to me for that answer. Sometimes I didn't have answers. Sometimes I stepped in, but that was the the beauty of it. Then they could grow and learn from that and had another example or a story to teach and get across. This is Bloom's Taxonomy. And I've taken this throughout my educational career. So it's it's an awesome tool.
00:03:19
Speaker
So we're Why I view it now is when I'm teaching drills through the lens of Bloom's Taxonomy, I want to think, okay, in my practice plan, I'm writing, this going be our drill, or this segment is dedicated to riding and clearing and lacrosse. By the end of this segment, my athletes will be able to.
00:03:40
Speaker
so I'm writing learning objectives. I want them to remember, understand, apply. We're going to get into the... how the phases of Bloom's Taxonomy to help you write that practice plan or training program so then people can learn.
00:03:54
Speaker
And this is truly meeting athletes where they are. So also I'm going to give you questions that I ask athletes to see where they are mentally on this this pyramid that is Bloom's Taxonomy so I can meet them where they're at and keep them moving up the the pyramid.
Applying Bloom's Taxonomy in Sports Training
00:04:10
Speaker
All right, so it's it's how athletes go from being told what to do to now taking over and taking ownership of this drill. If I say, Hey, next up is this drill.
00:04:21
Speaker
They knew exactly where to go and then leaders lead. All right. Bloom's taxonomy. Awesome tool that I lean into today. I want you to think of this as mental progressive overload, progressive overload. That's a strength and conditioning term.
00:04:35
Speaker
Basically means do more than we did yesterday. You don't throw a kid under the bar with 300 pounds on day one. unless you're Derek Woodski, freak of nature, you don't give a freshman the keys to the offense right away.
00:04:47
Speaker
They're learning like like training and it it moves in levels. And great captains, they live at the top levels and they help meet kids where they're at and bring them up with you and help be a coach alongside coach. So let's walk through each of these stages like coaches. Okay, first stage, and this is a pyramid. I want you think about the base of the pyramid.
00:05:11
Speaker
This stage is remember. We're introducing, we're defining a drill. We need them to remember where to go and what to do. Do they know the play? This is you're drawing up plays on the whiteboard. Do they know the different positions and where to go?
00:05:27
Speaker
This is memory. We need them to hold on to this information for the next drill, the next day, the next week, and hopefully into game day. So I'm asking, can you name it? Can you recall it?
00:05:40
Speaker
And what's the sports? And I'm saying questions as I'm introducing this, not just telling and talking at them. I'm asking these questions. Hey, what's this defense called? What's the name of this lift? what do we Where do we finish on ah power clean?
00:05:55
Speaker
As an example, what's your assignment? What's your job? If you're a player one what are you going to do here? So i'm asking questions, not only just teaching, but making sure they're engaged during the the teaching and the the learning session.
00:06:09
Speaker
whatever it may be. And most athletes will never get past this. They are, this is often a role players. And, and this is why I love lacrosse where football is, Hey, do your job. You have your one assignment in lacrosse.
00:06:23
Speaker
If this happens, then I have one, two, three, four, five choices. So we're going to get into creative sports like lacrosse and basketball momentarily, but basically it has to begin with the foundation of remembering the names of place, the positions, where do we go and what is my job in this particular place?
00:06:41
Speaker
So they're they're running plays that they don't actually understand yet. They're running drills set up in execution that they don't quite understand why they're doing it or where it's connected to the game yet.
00:06:55
Speaker
So this is week one, week two of our preseason. We're just installing the names of the drills, and we need to remember the names of the drills, where to go, and then what to do.
00:07:07
Speaker
Once we establish and remember it and they can recall that information, then we level up into level two on top of that pyramid, which is understand. Do you know what this is supposed to do?
00:07:19
Speaker
This is connected here in this game. what or Insert the name of your sport. So now they can explain it. So they can, if a freshman is still lost, an older athlete on my team can explain what to do.
00:07:35
Speaker
And then as a coach, I can start to inject, hey, why this is important, why we're doing this. This drill mimics this opportunity on the field. um So we're aiming to now introduce a why. I don't have to introduce a why on week one or two. i can for my athletes that are returning, but my ah my younger guys or new guys the sport, that's just going over their head and they have no idea. They can't absorb or comprehend it.
00:08:02
Speaker
So I have to understand where they are and then give them the necessary information to succeed at that moment in time. I like to observe if we introduce a drill and my more advanced guys, they get bored.
00:08:15
Speaker
Maybe it's it's cool because it's a new drill, it's fresh, but all of a sudden, you know, a few minutes in or maybe round two when we do it again on day two or week two. and they get bored, now I start to inject the why.
00:08:28
Speaker
They understand what to do and how to do it. Now I'm going to make sure that they make the mental connection to where it is for the sport or their individual game. I usually save that why for when it stops being fast, it stops clicking, then I have a a higher level to get to.
00:08:47
Speaker
versus starting with why. I just need to make sure they know where to go and what to do. Then when it starts to slow down, hey, let me inject some life in this with why, and that's understanding how we do it.
00:08:59
Speaker
So that now my athletes start to see that purpose. It's not just, hey, this is cover two. This is cover two that takes away the deep ball, or this is why we're doing it, or this is where you're going to see cover two in a game when we're close to the goal line.
00:09:13
Speaker
So this is when the the game stops feeling random or drills stop feeling random and it starts to connect to the bigger picture of their sport.
Athlete Performance Analysis and Improvement
00:09:25
Speaker
So moving on up the pyramid, we have remember, understand, and then our next layer is going to be apply. Can you run it? Can you not only run it at practice, can we run it at the highest level of stress, which is game day?
00:09:40
Speaker
Can you run the play? Can you perform the lift? Can you execute this in practice? And most importantly, can you be trusted in your role come game day?
00:09:50
Speaker
This is where knowing turns into doing. This is where most teams get stuck. right I need a lot of athletes to just remember what to do. Those are my role players, but now we're applying it and my freshmen become sophomores. Now they step into this very important apply when they actually start to have a role on our varsity team.
00:10:11
Speaker
And then you'll see how this progresses up as their opportunity on the field progresses as well. So apply, incredibly important. This is highly effective and necessary when it comes to weight training. We need them to do the movements in an effort for their their consciousness to absorb the body without the ball, without the stick, without the skill,
00:10:33
Speaker
So then they can just go off and focus on where their feet are in their athletic position. So incredibly important for us to get here in the weight room so that we can master those minor, I call them fundamentals of the fundamentals.
00:10:47
Speaker
So then when we start to add the complexity of a ball or a stick or in an opponent, the stress of an opponent, they still move properly and change the direction with proper squat form, etc. So getting to apply in the weight room as fast as possible is necessary.
00:11:06
Speaker
But that sometimes depends on coordination ability and athletic ability. Expect a delay if someone's not as athletic for their skills to almost catch up after their body and athleticism gets to a good position.
00:11:20
Speaker
So um my this is where i really start to ask questions and see where they're at and apply. I ask them, hey, what happened on that rep? And if they can't tell me what their body did or what they were mentally trying to do and apply the coaching cues and information, then okay. Then we're we're still at remembering how to set up our hands, remembering how to set up our feet, and then doing that.
00:11:46
Speaker
That's where they're at. So then I also ask questions like, hey, what were you aiming for on that one? So now it implies that they were trying to focus and apply the information and aim for that particular spot on there.
00:11:59
Speaker
if they don't If they answer the question of like, I don't know, okay, we're still in our lower level trying to remember the setup and the execution. So I love to ask questions to identify where somebody is on their learning journey for skills.
00:12:16
Speaker
Alright, so apply very important for the weight room very important for sport fundamentals. That's the the beginning of our season here. And now as we get reps, and we're not able to think about where our hands are, we're starting to expand our competency within the sport, then we move up the the pyramid.
00:12:35
Speaker
This is level four, which is analyze. Can you tell what's wrong here? This is gonna be a lot of film room perspective, but we still need to and have test their ability to analyze when we're on the field in practice so we can accelerate their learning and development.
00:12:52
Speaker
This is where we know as our athletes progress, they're starting to get dangerous in a good way. So this is when athletes can say, hey, the rotation was late. They feel it was late and they can call out a teammate if they were missing their assignment.
00:13:08
Speaker
Very important. ah they're They were attacking the weak side. So they're able to maybe not move with their bodies, but they're able to see and feel what went wrong within the play.
00:13:21
Speaker
And their brain is not yet able to move fast enough to make that correction, but they saw the rotation. They saw the safety over top, or they saw the open receiver, but they just couldn't get the ball there.
00:13:35
Speaker
but they're able to to to see that, highly important. Now we're introducing some self-leadership, some self-coaching, great place to be, self-awareness, which is so valuable for athletic development, is starting to switch on in leadership. So this is where captains start to separate from the pack. And again, most people will stop at apply,
00:13:57
Speaker
I encourage that all my athletes are leaders, so we're aiming to get there, and that's why I feel so valuable questions. I'm still analyzing at Remember and Understand, but now I really am encouraging them to think and get to this level.
00:14:13
Speaker
Here's my favorite question, and we've talked about this on Dr. Yeager podcast. How did it feel? So if I'm asking a ah kid that's new to the sport, how did it feel? He's like, I don't know. What were aiming for? I don't know.
00:14:28
Speaker
Okay, but now it's a more advanced athlete. I say, hey, how'd that one feel? A little off. What were you aiming for? I was aiming for top left, but you know I just went over that crossbar.
00:14:41
Speaker
or for some reason it shot onto to the bottom left. Okay, well, let's get into our body a little bit, some interoception and make some corrections there. So I can give them either a setup or I can help them align their focus and their aim.
00:14:55
Speaker
So how did that feel? Very valuable question. Once we break through the apply position on Bloom's Taxonomy within our certain skills. So this is self-coaching and I also try to identify and if i I don't tell them, I love dead bugs, I love side pillars, I love a lot of movement assessments in my warmup.
00:15:17
Speaker
And if I see something, I don't tell them what I'm seeing, i ask them a question. you talk to me about class today were you up and about like describe your day to me so i can see if they were sitting down too much or if i have a football guy that's playing lacrosse and i'm seeing them them slow fatigued tired just not themselves hey what happened in the weight room today because they're still lifting weights football likes to pretend lacrosse is not a sport so then just hammers them in the off season so
00:15:52
Speaker
That's certain questions where I need to download that data. Maybe they didn't tell me what they did in the weight room, but I'm able to see there's something there. And then I ask them questions to to uncover that information. So we're starting to analyze and make connections, helping them make connections of their performance.
Athletes as Leaders and Innovators
00:16:10
Speaker
All right, so now moving up. not for everybody again as we get higher up here it's not for everyone don't have this expectation for all your athletes I can help lead them up and eventually hopefully after four years of development they can get here and this is evaluate can you decide what to change now it's not just noticing it's not just choosing or and and adjusting the aim it's we we should we We can make an adjustment of our foot position. Well, I'm going to try this. They're volunteering information versus me giving coaching cues to them to fix a technique.
00:16:50
Speaker
So it's not just adjusting aim, now it's, hey, I'm going move my hands on this, or I'm going put my elbow up on the the shot. Whatever it may be, they're offering the coaching adjustments and information versus open to having my feedback.
00:17:06
Speaker
So see the differentiation there between the analyze and now evaluate. it's It's choosing. I love this when it starts to get into choosing for the schematics and this is this is true leadership. I'm a defensive player. So now when my goalie starts to take charge or a a a captain on the field, a general on the field starts to make the the appropriate calls for what the defense is going to do.
00:17:33
Speaker
We should switch coverages. So they're giving feedback to the the coaches here. We need to I need to drop the weight on the bar so they're volunteering I hope they never hear that and but at the same time hey let's let's shoot for the moon um so this is higher game IQ and they're offering up things to change this is a difference between reacting and leading it they're they're putting that forth so questions I like to ask or position them to start to think this way hey the next time this happens in a game
00:18:10
Speaker
What do we want to aim to do? And that's a question versus me telling them, hey, the next time this happens in the game, we're going to and give them the answer. I start to ask these questions and get a feel and sense where they are. I can shape and correct that answer.
00:18:26
Speaker
Hopefully it's in line with my philosophy on defense there, right? Or we're starting to get them to understand the this game of chess that is sport, where we're thinking two passes ahead, two moves ahead, two plays ahead.
00:18:41
Speaker
And that way we get the the we're not reacting. We're acting. We're leading. We have the the team right where we want them kind of mentality. um So very common in in fighting sports, thinking two steps ahead, um two passes ahead. I can't recall the podcast we were talking about that probably one of the lacrosse ones however this is that evaluate stage where we're seeing where we are in the moment and I can think two steps ahead and hopefully my teammates are on that same level all right last and this is the tip of the pyramid of success I'm trying to line it up in the the camera with John Wooten's pyramid there this is create
00:19:25
Speaker
I assure you, not everyone will get here that plays for you if they do. This is such a fun and amazing experience for these creation sports like basketball and lacrosse and soccer, if you will.
00:19:40
Speaker
Okay, can you solve the problem without being told what to do? They're making that call on the field and it is something special. They make the adjustments on the defense, they change the play, or if the play that coaches call, they run it, it breaks down, the defense did a great job stopping it, now a dude is just going to dude.
00:20:02
Speaker
And that is an amazing thing to witness when they want the ball in their stick and they're going to score. And then this also exists within the leadership realm where they just they take charge. Instead of me leading the huddle and saying, hey, this is the message for today. We're going to focus on self-management, impulse control,
00:20:24
Speaker
Now they're taking charge. Hey, last game, we couldn't control ourselves. Our language, blah, blah, blah. And then they're stepping in and leading and setting the tone in the example for the day based off previous failures or things they did well. They're reinforcing good behaviors So this is they're they're designing their own solutions.
00:20:45
Speaker
So it's not just the athleticism, creativity, which is awesome. It's also within the realm of the the leadership amongst the the peers and the team. Beautiful to see. They take healthy risks.
00:20:58
Speaker
There is conflict and confrontation in a healthy manner because they feel if guys are stepping out of bounds for our team mission and goals, they're calling them out.
00:21:08
Speaker
They're getting creative with their their their leadership, the risks that they're taking. And that's what I'd love to see.
Owning the System with Bloom's Taxonomy
00:21:14
Speaker
All right. So wrapping this all up, this is Bloom's taxonomy. Most athletes are trained to follow. Great teams are built by athletes who can think.
00:21:25
Speaker
And the taxonomy shows us the difference between running a system and owning a system. Every great captain that I've had the experience to work with and play with, they lived somewhere on the top of that pyramid.
00:21:41
Speaker
They didn't just do what they were told. They knew why, they knew how, and they knew when to change it. That's how teams win, when it matters. And a captain really makes leaps when they start to meet their teammates where they're at and guide them up versus dragging them down for not being on their level, forgetting that that captain you once started somewhere on the bottom when you were first introduced to that sport.
00:22:07
Speaker
Something think about. Okay, so that wraps up. I love Bloom's Taxonomy. I think about when writing practice plans. By the end of this drill, will we we will be able to and then align that learning objective with remember where to line up on our clears. Understand why this drill is connected to our clears during the game and then apply
Podcast Closure and Sponsor Shoutout
00:22:29
Speaker
it. We're able to execute the clears not only in practice, but also come game time and then working up that ladder.
00:22:36
Speaker
All right, thank you for tuning in. If you wanna learn more about my mission and a course of action that I just wrote about connecting with athletes and making more of an impact with our guidance, with our cues, with our directions,
00:22:49
Speaker
Head to listen.captainsandcoaches.com to help raise your game. Shout out to our show sponsor, Train Heroic. I could not do this without you. If you're a coach looking for supplemental income to start your online training biz, Train Heroic is the app that every athlete loves to use. So head to trainheroic.com slash captains for a 30-day trial. See the back end. You can write your programs, hand it off to your athletes. You track their weights. You track their readiness, which is pretty cool.
00:23:19
Speaker
So all good things. Thank you that team. And thank you for tuning in. See you next time.