MEGAN SPARKS' SPORTS LEADERSHIP AND COACHING SHOWCASE
I chose sports leadership and coaching as my concentration for my Master of Arts in Education degree. I am passionate about the ability in which sports can play in the how youth develop. I enjoy using sports as a way to develop a coach/teacher relationship with students that can motivate them to build life skills and excel in school. Many of the classes I took for this degree allowed me to gain knowledge and create projects that can directly be applied to helping develop these relationships as well fostering students' mental and physical health. The following showcase displays some of the work that I am proud of and which I found extremely applicable to my career goals. The first 5 sections are single concept ideas while the later examples are more comprehensive pieces of work.
Motivating Athletes
Motivation is a key component of success in all aspects of life: schools, sports, jobs, and healthy life styles. This essay uses concepts about the ways to externally and internally motivate athlete. In the essay it can be seen how my group took a team struggling with motivations and applied concepts learned to suggest methods for improvement. The ability to identify motivation issues in school and sports settings as well as being able to address issues can help students become more internally motivated for life and more successful in their efforts.
Nutrition for Athletes
The most common trait thought necessary for a highly skilled athlete is often considered their specific sport skill ability and strength. However, it is also important to remember the impact that nutrition can have on an individual's performance. Nutrition can involve daily eating habits, post work out snack for proper recovery, and supplements to assist with daily nutrition. These two documents are handouts I put together to assist my athletes with nutrition decisions. These documents can be used as reference guides for athletes after they have been through a nutrition training. It is important for athletes to understand how protein, carbohydrates, sugar, vitamins, and more can effect the development of their health, strength, and energy.
Dynamic Warm Ups
Current research is leading coaches and athletes away from the traditional static (holding a stretch) warm up. Instead in recent years it has been suggested that dynamic (stretching in movement) warm ups are the proper way to warm up. Dynamic stretching allows athletes to activate a large range of muscle groups at one time as the stretches mimic actual sport specific movement. Static stretching focuses only individual muscle groups. It also helps get athletes heart rate up, blood moving, and reduce injury. I have created the document below as a resource for ice hockey coaches and players. The warm ups suggested address the muscle groups specific to ice hockey to all athletes to warm up properly.
Preventing Injuries
Injuries can damage athletes motivation, season, and career. There are a variety of ways that injuries can be prevented; give recover time, stretch, and build muscles. The following document was created to education ice hockey players on common injuries as well as providing strength and conditioning exercises to help develop muscle tone to attempt to reduce injuries. I can use this document both in planning practice sessions as well as educating my athletes. This is just one more component to use to help make sure my athletes are well-rounded and focusing on more than just skill development.
Hazing Prevention
Hazing and bullying alike have been the hot topic in many of today's high school and college sports and extracurricular programs. Hazing can be detrimental to individuals self-esteem and does not work to improve team communication. The following is a letter to a school board to address the importance of having a hazing policy as well as suggestions for the policy. One important part of hazing education is to define what hazing is, what activities it might include, and alternate team building options. By educating our coaches and athletes we are making sure they can be on the look out to any issues as well as developing appropriate team building ideas.
Youth Recreation Program Plan
I live in a small town that has very limited options for youth recreation. For children between the ages of 3 to 7 years old the only option is t-ball. And even from ages 7 to 12 there are only short volleyball, basketball, and football options. Everything else is at least a 30 minute drive as well as the closest fitness facility for adults. Because I believe in the positive impacts of recreation at all ages, I often dream of developing a small scale recreation program in town. Using many of the skills I learned about creativity and sports administration, I created an inclusive youth recreation program plan. This plan includes many things such as safety needs, coaching training, programs times to best fit age groups, programs offered, and more. And finally, using the concepts of transformational coaching to address the whole athlete's development rather than the need to win at all costs, I created a program focused on positive youth development.
Classroom Management
Classroom management can be a determining factor in the success of a teacher's lessons. Even well developed lesson plans can become failures if the classroom is not managed. The same can be applied to an athletic team. While this document showcases my year-long classroom management plan, much of the information can be applied to an athletic team. In both instances rules and expectations need to be set up from the start. From there a teacher's or coach's ability to engage and motivate students will help create a positive atmosphere. Even with these two pieces set into place, there will always be behavior issues that have to be addressed. This can include student recognition of behavior, meetings with student and parents, and follow up consequences.
Literacy Case Study
Similar to motivation, literacy can impact success in all aspects of life. Even in sports literacy can play a part, for example can my athletes read the brochures I have developed for them. The idea that literacy can be taught in all areas of school (and even in sports) is a concept that I would really like to include in my future teaching and coaching plans. The following case study demonstrates the skills I have learned in understanding key literacy needs, being able to informally and formally assess students for literacy needs, and developing programs to meet at-risk areas.