Coach Vygotsky's ZPD

One of my favorite things I learned while getting my ed degree at West Virginia State was Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development, or ZPD, for short. The ZPD aims to explain an observable educational phenomenon. There is a limit to what a student can achieve at every level, every student is different. The ZPD sets out to help us understand that a student can only achieve so much without help. This level of understanding increases with the assistance of a teacher, but there are still things that a student can not yet achieve.

The ZPD is crucial in the classroom because it helps the teacher create their curriculum, the ZPD is tied directly to motivation. If a task is too easy, the students are not learning anything, this is the first ring of the ZPD. In the same line of thinking, you do not want to give your students something that seems impossible. If a student feels like there is no way for them to be successful then they will likely shut down, wasting class time and hurting their motivation/esteem. Lessons in the classroom should fall into the middle section of the ZPD, where a student can achieve the learning goal with the help of a teacher. The student feels challenged, and must work hard, but is capable of making, and does make, meaningful progress through the guidance of the teacher. They are motivated by the measurable progress they are making while still being challenged with the new concepts.

The same concepts can be applied to the football field. To me, coaching is a branch of teaching. A lot of people separate the two, academics and athletics, but I feel like they go hand in hand. Academics have a higher success rate and prepares you more for the future, but athletics have value as well. It teaches life skills, teamwork skills, and physical fitness. Not to mention sports can be extremely beneficial to mental health by building self-esteem, giving students a chance to exercise, and helping them to build relationships.

We can use the ZPD and scaffolding concepts to help our athletes learn skills better. On the first day of practice, we really should not start with the hardest concepts of our position or scheme. Rather, we should start with the basics, master those, and then build into the more difficult concepts. By doing this, we help those athletes who do not know much about the position while we sharpen the abilities of those who do. Just be careful that your drills address both the ZPD of those who are new to the sport and those who are already experienced. To do this it may be better to make two groups of athletes, JV and varsity drill groups. You should design your drills to be challenging, but not set up your athletes to fail. Do not do things like pairing up a senior with an underskilled freshman. First of all, that is dangerous. The senior athlete is not going to learn much from pushing around a freshman in a drill, and that freshman is not going to have a good time and have a terrible time. Too many coaches get caught up in having a domination and superiority complex instead of trying to do what is best for their athletes. Keeping the ZPD in mind while you coach can help boost motivation.

When installing your offensive and defensive schemes take it slow and do not overload your kids. If you hand your kids a full playbook on day one and tell them they have to learn it, they will likely shut down. It may be better to use a technique called chunking that also relates to the ZPD. Chunking is taking sizable bits of information and installing it a little at a time. This helps the athletes to not feel overwhelmed, but also keeps them from feeling like they are not really accomplishing anything. On day one I would start with your base 2 fronts, blitz. and coverage. Design your defense to be built around those base plays, do not confuse your athletes.

The ZPD is really important when we take a look at motivation as it relates to our athletes. We have to challenge our athletes, but not make it seem like the goal is unachievable. It happens all the time in sports, a kid feels like they can not do it, so they quit. The coach does not help the student to achieve. Nothing makes me madder than when a coach does not take the time to help a kid because he is not a starter. That is not why we coach. We coach so kids can compete in a game they love, to give them an outlet, and at times to help them escape from poor living situations. Do not take a game that a kid loves and use it to make them miserable, instead, try to challenge yourself to design your schemes and implementation to help all of your athletes.