Phases of a Lesson

By Terry McLeod

Spring 2002

Do you want your students to go home talking about how great their lesson was? Do you want to keep people excited about learning? Organizing your lessons using the following format can help keep the learning process engaging and exciting, especially in full day or multi-day programs. The ATS Teaching Model is used in conjunction with this type of lesson outline, as each of the seven points of the Teaching Cycle apply to all of the stages.

Not surprisingly the first thing to do with your class is to get them prepared- that is to say, Warmed up for what lies ahead. This means more than a few stretches and a gentle cruise down comfortable terrain which are valuable activities to warm up physically, but it’s also necessary to loosen up socially and mentally. Take the time to create a comfortable atmosphere with people who have just met new friends. Also get involved in the goal setting process of each person and help set expectations as to time frame and lesson format. By preparing people in all three of these areas you insure that they’re completely ready to go, and then you can move into the meatier parts of the day.

The Information stage is what most teachers and students consider the main focus of the lesson. This is when you present new movements and tactics, and explain the why and how of these new things. Be sure to start with simple tasks and build to more difficult ones so you give people an attainable path to success. Also strive for accurate practice and give individual feedback so that each student is clear on their current performance and what they need to focus on for improvement. Don’t move on to the next step in your progression if they’re not fairly solid with the last one.

In the Information phase you gave people some new skills and they’re now skiing better than when they started. By moving into the Challenge or Intense phase you’ll help them anchor those movements both physically and mentally. Taking students slightly out of their comfort zone narrows focus and heightens their awareness so that they better understand and retain the new information. Make sure you prepare people for this step. Let them know they will be moving past the edge of what is comfortable and that it is both intentional and temporary. It’s also extremely important that you use good judgement in how high to raise the challenge so that you maintain a safe environment for everyone. Don’t just go for the sensational adrenaline rush. You may choose to build into this phase by doing increasingly difficult tasks in the Information phase, or you may select different terrain to apply the new skills/movements that were developed. Don’t try to stay in this stage for too long, but think of it as the peak that your lesson builds up to.

After everyone has stretched his or her limits a bit, take some runs to ease back into the comfort zone and breathe a collective sigh. This is the Play/Adventure time and it can help people realize that being a little bit scared is ok, and learning really is a worthwhile activity. The goal here is to provide practice time for what has been learned, but to do it in an atmosphere of fun. Hidden trails, creative ways of moving the group around the mountain, and silly games can all be used here. There’s only so much information that can be retained in a short period of time, so moving out of the Information phase and into Challenge and Play can serve to anchor what’s been learned through a different application and/or mental outlook. Although you’re not really adding any new information, you’re still leading the group to understanding the material presented earlier but don’t confuse this with the Cool Down phase that comes next.

During the Cool Down you can briefly summarize what you did and reinforce the value that it has for each person’s skiing. If you’ve paced your information and feedback appropriately, students should be almost able to give a summary of the class themselves. Express the fun that you had during the lesson and that you look forward to seeing them again to continue the learning process. While the Cool Down does provide some closure to the lesson it should never imply closure to the learning process (as in “alright, now you’ve got it. You’re ready to cruise! Bye.). We all continue to work on our skiing, surely our students should be trained to do the same.

If you choose to organize your lessons around this model, be sure to divide the time appropriately. The Warm-up and Cool-down each account for about 10% of the total time. The Information phase uses roughly 40%, with the Challenge and Play/Adventure phases taking about 20% each. These ratios are only guidelines; please modify as necessary. You can also use this concept over the course of a multi-day program. For example, in the summer I coach the same group of kids from Monday to Friday and I try to build our information and exercises so it peaks around Thursday morning, then we taper off to our conclusion Friday afternoon.

Remember it’s difficult for most students to maintain the same level of intensity for an extended period of time (they’re rarely as motivated to learn as we are to teach), so winding them up and then letting them come back down can help them stay involved in the learning process. By keeping the lesson moving towards the next step – always building to something different – students will stay interested and excited, and when they go home they’ll tell their friends how much fun skiing with you was.