Book Review-Coaches Guide to Teaching By Doug Lemov

I learned about Doug Lemov and his very successful program: Teach Like A Champion https://teachlikeachampion.org/ when I started teaching as an adjunct professor at the local university. I had some teaching experience when I was a graduate student, but I felt ill-prepared to teach as a professor. Typical of my MO, I searched for resources to help me with my own teaching development. I discovered Lemov’s book, Teach Like A Champion 2.0 and I used it to  guide me to understanding the latest innovations in teaching and how to engage the students and be more effective with them. TLAC is a fantastic resource because they leverage the video technology to show the readership good teachers in their elements, AND they tell you, in fine granularity,  WHY these videos demonstrate the best practices in teaching. They take great pains to teach the teacher and to dispel myths.

So it was with great excitement when I learned that Lemov would be publishing  a book on coaching. I had very high expectations for this book because of his stellar work as a teacher who teaches  teachers because  I had also read his previous book Practice Perfect (Lemov, Woolway, & Yezzi, 2012) (Here is my review of that book: https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2019/10/book-review-practice-perfect-42-rules.html) it was recommended to me by someone I have great respect for and I had heard Lemov speak on a podcast.  I expected the same thing, that he would coach coaches on how to coach. I was not disappointed. In fact, this book was far more than what I had expected.

One note that might be important, almost all the examples and situations that are cited in the book  comes from  the sport of soccer. This made sense because soccer is what Lemov coached. At first, I was a bit bothered, but as I thought about it, I came to believe this obstacle is a form of desirable difficulty to help me pursue applying the book to my coaching: by learning to extricate and integrate the essence of the book through the context of soccer and then translating the essence  to my own sport, I am using those same lessons I had learned from the book to improve my own coaching through the context of my sport.

The table of content is very simple. Six chapters listed and he did not break them down into the subchapters in the table of content, he didn’t even tell you what the chapter titles were. Very curious. I was a little disturbed by that initially, but as I was started reading, I found that not knowing the chapters or sections made me pay attention to what I was reading.  

The first chapter laid out the theoretical basis, the driving point for the rest of the book. The fundamentals of  the latest in cognitive learning.  The basis of everything is Cognitive Load Theory (CLT). Which gave us the concpets of Working memory and long-term memory. He employs CLT as the beacon for everything else in the book.  He also introduced the ideas of chunking, interleaving and spacing etc.  

I had bought the book when it was first published, I read through the first two chapters and then I laid it aside. In the intervening time,  I had read much of the literature on CLT and the related ideas. By reading these papers in its original incarnation gave me a better idea of the driving principles for this book, so that when I returned to reading the book, I was more aware of the ideas and concepts the book references.

The succeeding chapters explored topics like practice design, optimal strategies for feedback to the players, checking for understanding (CFU), developing an overall culture, and an expanded discussion on salient issues in developing both the players and the coaches. All the chapters are full of anecdotes and narratives from soccer. Lemov was deliberately precise and concise in linking the anecdotes with specific lessons within the book’s narrative. He also included Eastern Eggs in the side notes, guiding the readers to videos embedded in his TLAC website because he very much believes in the reader/learner witness real live lessons via video.

I particularly enjoyed the material on feedback and checking for understanding, these are important and readily applicable lessons that could be used immediately. The chapter on culture building was powerful in its implication on the overall picture. Indeed, the culture building is something that many have been searching for like the holy grail. Most references I have read regarding culture building have been somewhat incomplete at best and superficial at worst. Lemov’s chapter on culture building was task oriented but girded by profound empathy and belief in the mission of education and doing what is best for the people we coach. Indeed, the language Lemov chose to use in the book emphasizes the point that ultimately language is the key to communicating with players and that empathy should be the priority of all coaches, whether their ultimate goal is development oriented or results oriented.

The chapter on the issues in developing both the player and coach is a deep dive into the topics that were not extensively elaborated in the other chapters, most of those issues are worthy of a chapter by themselves, but the discussions were thought provoking and allows the readers to contemplate the broad implications of the issues.

This is a game changing book. I believe every coach, regardless of sport, should make this book an indispensable part of their library. The pages need to be dog eared with copious amount of written notes on every page, which Lemov had anticipated because the margins are deliberately wide for such note taking.

I love this book. I am working on thinking through the examples that are in the book and putting them in the context of my sport, an exercise which excites me to no end.

References

Lemov, D., Woolway, E., & Yezzi, K. (2012). Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better. San Francisco CA: Jossey-Bass.