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Evidence-Based Practices that promote effective skill acquisition. Prepared by James Drew, Dulles High School. THE TALENT CODE. GREATNESS ISN’T BORN. IT’S GROWN. HERE’S HOW. By DANIEL COYLE. SKILL.
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Evidence-Based Practices that promote effective skill acquisition Prepared by James Drew, Dulles High School
THE TALENT CODE GREATNESS ISN’T BORN. IT’S GROWN. HERE’S HOW. By DANIEL COYLE
SKILL “SKILL IS A CELLULAR INSULATION THAT WRAPS NEURAL CIRCUITS AND THAT GROWS IN RESPONSE TO CERTAIN SIGNALS.”
DEEP PRACTICE PART I
THE SWEET SPOT • DEEP PRACTICE IS BASED ON THE PARADOX THAT STRUGGLING IN CERTAIN TARGETED WAYS, WHERE YOU MAKE MISTAKES, MAKES YOU SMARTER. • THE EXPERIENCES WHERE YOU ARE FORCED TO SLOW DOWN, MAKE ERRORS AND CORRECT THEM TURNS INTO SKILL. • IT’S THE STRUGGLE THAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE! • CONTRARY TO THE INTUITION OF “TALENT”, PRACTICE IS THE WAY TO FORGE ABILITY. • “THINGS THAT APPEAR TO BE OBSTACLES TURN OUT TO BE DESIREABLE IN THE LONG HAUL.”
INSTALLING NATURAL BROADBAND • EVERY HUMAN MOVEMENT, THOUGHT OR FEELING IS A PRECISELY TIMED ELECTRICAL SIGNAL TRAVELING THROUGH A CHAIN OF NEURONS. • MYELIN IS THE INSULATION THAT WRAPS NEURONS AND INCREASES SPEED, STRENGTH AND ACCURACY OF SIGNALS, AND • THE MORE A CIRCUIT IS FIRED, THE MORE MYELIN OPTIMIZES THE CIRCUIT, AND THE MORE FLUENT, STRONGER, AND FASTER MOVEMENTS AND THOUGHTS BECOME.
TWO AXIOMS OF MYELINATION: • ALL ACTIONS ARE ELECTRICAL IMPULSES FIRED ALONG CHAINS OF NEURONS. • THE MORE WE DEVELOP A NEURAL CIRCUIT, THE LESS WE ARE AWARE WE ARE USING IT. • THE BEST WAY TO BUILD A GOOD CIRCUIT IS TO FIRE IT, ATTEND TO MISTAKES, THEN FIRE IT AGAIN, OVER AND OVER. STRUGGLE IS NOT AN OPTION: IT’S A BIOLOGICAL REQUIREMENT. • WHEN WE USE THE TERM “MUSCLE MEMORY”, WE ARE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT NEURAL CIRCUITS.
PRACTICE MAKES MYELIN • OLIGODENDROCYTES ARE THE CELLS IN THE BRAIN THAT WRAP AROUND THE NEURONS MULTIPLE TIMES TO CREATE A LAYER OF INSULATION, OR WHITE MATTER. “WE ARE MYELIN BEINGS.” FOUR PRINCIPLES: • FIRING THE CURCUIT IS PARAMOUNT • MYELIN IS UNIVERSAL • MYELIN WRAPS; IT DOESN’T UNWRAP. • AGE MATTERS. 30-50-5%
THREE RULES OF DEEP PRACTICE RULE 1: CHUNK IT UP • Part 1: Absorb the Whole Thing • Take the task as a whole – one big chunk – a mega-circuit. Listen to it. Imitate it. See the big picture. • Part 2: Break It Up into the Smallest Possible Chunks • Make small fragments. Memorize them. Then, link them together into progressively larger groups. • Part 3: Play with Time • Slow it down, then speed it up to learn the inner architecture. “It’s not how fast you can do it; it’s how slow you can do it correctly.” “Experts practice more strategically.”
THREE RULES OF DEEP PRACTICE RULE 2: REPEAT IT • Repetition is invaluable and irreplaceable, with some caveats: • Stay in the sweet spot: the edge of your abilities. • 3 – 5 hours of daily deep practice is the human limit. • World-class skill requires 10,000 hours of deep practice (3 hours of deep practice per day for 10 years).
THREE RULES OF DEEP PRACTICE RULE 3: LEARN TO FEEL IT • “To avoid the mistakes, first you have to feel them immediately.” “An out-of-tune note should bother you…a lot.” • Experts describe their most productive practice with the following descriptive words: attention; connection; build; alert; whole; focus; mistake; repeat; tiring; edge; awake. • The following words were never used as descriptors: effortless; natural; routine; automatic; and never, genius.
IGNITION PART II
TALENT HOTBEDS • A break-through success often was followed by a massive boom in talent. • South Korean golfers on the LPGA • Russian women in the WTA. • Brazilian soccer stars • Curaçao Little League Baseball Champions • Brontë sisters • Meadowmount Music Academy in the New York Adirondacks • Next possible talent hotbed: Venezuelan Classical Musicians – Gustavo Dudamel
A TINY, POWERFUL IDEA • Progress is not determined by aptitude or hours of practice, but by long-term commitment to the task. • Perception of self: “I am a musician.”
FLIPPING THE TRIGGER • I want X later, so I better do Y like crazy right now! • Primal Cue: triggers motivation, fueling energy and attention toward a goal. • Most effective primal cues involve future belonging to an esteemed group. • “Those people over there are doing something terrifically worthwhile.” • It’s usually visual. • Pursuing a goal, having motivation, predates consciousness
SCROOGE PRINCIPLE • The unconscious mind holds mental energy until primal cues trigger its release. • Most talent hotbeds are junky, unattractive places. Nice, pleasant environments tent to shut off effort. • Parental-Loss Club: Julius Caesar, Napoleon, 15 British Prime Ministers, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Clinton, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Gandhi, Newton, Michelangelo, Bach, Handel, Keats, Byron, Dostoyevsky, Emerson, Melville, Nietzsche, Twain. • Orphans’ Primal Cue: the world is not safe.
PRIMAL CUES • Of the eight fastest men in the 100-meter dash, none of them were firstborn, only one was born in the first half of his family’s birth order, and the average was fourth in families of 4.6 children. • Primal Cue: you’re behind – keep up. • Ignition and Primal Cues: • Skill requires deep practice; and • Deep practice requires vast amounts of energy; and • Primal cues trigger huge outpourings of energy.
TALENT HOTBEDS AND PRIMAL CUES • Talent hotbeds possess more than just a single primal cue. There is a complex collection of signals – people, images and ideas – that keep ignition going for weeks, months and years that skill-growing requires. • Examples: • Soccer players from São Paulo, Brazil • Renaissance artisans from Florence, Italy • KIPP Academies throughout the USA. • Septien Vocal Studio in Dallas, Texas • Spartak Tennis Club in Moscow, Russia
THE NATURE OF THE SWITCH • It is either “on” or “off”. • It is usually triggered by words. • High motivational language is not what ignites people. (“You are the best!”) It’s the opposite. Not reaching up, but reaching down, speaking to ground-level effort and affirming the struggle. • Not empty praise; praising effort at improvement.
IGNITING A TALENT HOTBED • USING THE PRIMAL CUES: • “You belong to a group.” (Paying attention to each detail, which creates group cohesion.) • “Your group is together in a strange and dangerous new world. (Creating change through collaboration.) • “This new world is shaped like a mountain with the goal at the peak.” (Earning privileges through effort.)
MASTER COACHING PART III
MASTER COACHES • Are not preachy or eloquent. • They are careful, deliberate cultivators of myelin.
UCLA’s JOHN WOODEN • No speeches, no punishment laps or praise. • Rapid-fire drills • Exquisitely-planned practice sessions (daily2-hour staff planning meetings). • “Looks like shooting-from-the-hip.” • Short, punctuated, targeted imperatives given to specific players at appropriate times. • 6.9% compliments; 6.6% statements of dissatisfaction; 75% statements of pure information. • The “Wooden”: M+, M-, M+ in about 3 seconds.
WOODEN STUDY CONTINUED • “Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens – and when it happens, it lasts.” • “The importance of repetition until automaticity cannot be overstated.” • “Repetition is the key to learning.” • “His success was a result less of his character than of his error-centered, well-planned, information-rich practices.”
FOUR VIRTUES OF MASTER COACHES • KNOWLEDGE, RECOGNIZE, CONNECT • NUMBER 1: THE MATRIX • Master coaches have spent several decades of learning a vast grid of knowledge. Biographical arcs are similar: promising talent, failure, and attempts to figure out why. • NUMBER 2: PERCEPTIVENESS • Master coaches have an unblinking gaze, taking in lots of information all at once. They know what each student needs: equal parts of whipped cream and *#@^.
FOUR VIRTUES OF MASTER COACHES • NUMBER 3: GPS REFLEX • Master coaches give lots of information in short bursts: “Do X, now do Y.” • Not patience, but probing, strategic impatience: “You got it. Good. Now do it faster.” • NUMBER 4: THEATRICAL HONESTY • Larger-than-Life personality. Salesman for your craft. Flair for the dramatic.
The Talent Code Daniel Coyle