Personalising Teaching and Learning IN SPORT

Publicly, there is a belief that Teachers’, Trainers’, Coaches’ and Instructors’ (TTCIs) level of present or past technical proficiency correlates directly with teaching competence. Ergo, elite performance skills produce elite teaching skills. In my experience, this is not a universal truth. The TTCIs I learned most from were not exclusively from elite performance nor professional sport environments. Certainly, all possessed good technical levels, but not all of these TTCIs had an exceptional background in performance. One thing they had in common however, was a predisposition to personalise teaching and learning. For this reason, I have endeavoured to provide a deeper dive into what I believe are gold standard features associated with personalising teaching and learning in sport pedagogy.

Again, my intention, is not to preach from an imaginary pedestal but to present an articulate and, at the same time, thought-provoking synopsis.

Personalising Teaching and Learning in Sport Pedagogy: The Gold Standard

Personalising teaching and learning in sport pedagogy may appear straightforward. It is not. Real life challenges coupled with an indifferent attitude to teaching, from some TTCIs, often result in learners receiving a perfunctory, one-size fits all experience. When this happens, some learners find tasks too difficult, lose motivation, disengage and their potential to learn is diminished. Others find tasks too easy and suffer the same consequences. In contrast, when TTCIs make individuals the focus of the learning process, differences that personify learners are recognised and provided for; due to the relationship between individually, tailor-made performance plans and associated, bespoke learning experiences. This connection fundamentally underpins personalising teaching and learning in sport pedagogy, facilitating learner motivation, learner engagement and ultimately, learner achievement.

Using a personalised approach requires TTCIs to structure teaching and learning by way of a five-phase, recurring cycle: 1. Assessing Existing Performance, 2. Planning for Improvement, 3. Developing Performance, 4. Evaluating Success and 5. Assessing Developed Performance.

1.     Assessing Existing Performance

Diagnostic assessment of the existing level of learner performance across all performance contexts (technical, tactical, physical, psychological, environmental and equipment) instigates the process of personalising teaching and learning.

TTCIs’ knowledge of human movement, (specifically biomechanics, physiology and skill acquisition) validates objective assessment confirming the level of learners’ competence against fixed performance criteria and/or outcomes. Historically, live observations of existing performance, viewed from different angles, were commonly employed. A multitude of video analysis software products are now available to TTCIs. This perpetually evolving technology continually improves the reliability of objective evidence. However, a key feature of personalising teaching and learning is TCCI’s appreciation of additional subjective evidence gathered by listening to learners’ assessment of their existing performance, including any applicable kinaesthetic feedback.

Observing and assessing performance. Photo by Brendan Reeves Photography.

TTCIs’ communication and relationship skills are important when discussing objective and subjective diagnostic assessment evidence with learners. Mutual trust and respect are crucial for purposeful, shared dialogue between learner and TTCI. Rapport is a key feature across all five phases. Accordingly, within a personalised approach to teaching and learning TTCIs continually strive to build and maintain a robust, professional relationship with learners.

Supportive, two-way communication also reinforces the divergent and personal nature of the learning process. One-way communication, where learners are recipients of information and are told what TTCIs see in their performance, is not representative of a personalised approach. Nor is the use of closed questions. Yes or no responses have little value. Often, learners react, when in truth, they do not understand the question and subsequently opt for fifty-fifty guesswork in order to satisfy the TTCI with a response. Conversely, strategic, open questions play a critical role in structuring reciprocal dialogue between learners and TTCIs. To the uninformed, delivering personalised teaching and learning assumes an inevitably high volume of inefficient dialogue between TTCIs and learners. The assumption is incorrect. TTCIs guard against excessive talk by pre-planning efficient use of questions. Minimising talk and maximising activity are central to sport pedagogy best practice.

Example Questions Enabling Two-Way Communication

Question

I have watched you and your performance level is good. What do you think you do well?

What were you feeling during your performance?

What parts of your performance do you wish you could do better?

What part of your performance is a priority for you to improve?

How can I work with you to achieve your long-term objective?

"Minimising talk and maximising activity are central to

sport pedagogy best practice." 

The assessing existing performance phase is completed when learners and TTCIs mutually agree on an evidence-based long-term objective with a measurable outcome.

2.     Planning for Improvement

Learners are individuals; among other characteristics, they possess different motivations and different personalities. They learn differently too. Some favour listening and explaining (auditory learners), some prefer to observe and create images in their head (visual learners), some want to read instructions and take personal notes (reading/writing learners) and some, learn best by sensing and reacting to the feel of new movement patterns (kinaesthetic learners). It is also worth noting there may be preferences that remain undocumented by educational researchers but are relevant for some learners.

Personalised learning at Les Houches, Chamonix Valley, February 2026

Establishing learning preferences is an essential component of personalising teaching and learning. It is not an easy task. Learners are often unsure of their preferences and they rarely fit into any one category. TTCIs recognise this and, via a series of pre-planned questions, construct a discussion on circumstances surrounding learners’ previous successful learning experiences. In due course, TTCIs and learners are able to concur on individual learning preferences best suited for the achievement of specific, measurable, short-term, key results; the performance building blocks of the long-term objective agreed at the end of phase one.

Decisions regarding time scales also need to be confirmed in the planning stage. There is no single formula for this. It is situational; a long-term objective for a teaching professional and novice golfer may typically be located in a season-long time scale of six months with key results to be achieved at pre-decided intervals within that period. For an instructor and a recreational skier, the time allocated to achieving a long-term objective may typically be over six, three-hour, daily lessons during a week’s holiday. Again, achievement of key results is positioned at pre-decided intervals.

3.     Developing Performance

When personalising teaching and learning, developing performance centres around answering three questions: what to teach, how to teach and how to organise learning?

What to teach is determined by evidence gathered in phases one and two. Thus, the content of sessions is personalised towards activities that strategically address learner achievement of a long-term objective and associated key results in one or more of the six performance contexts. Content decisions are generally TTCI led, although there may be occasions when negotiation is appropriate and learners are invited to contribute to content selection.

Employing productive teaching styles; those that allow learners to personally build knowledge, is a big part of how to teach. This pedagogical approach allows TTCIs to customise task-orientated environments that reinforce individual learning preferences, facilitate learner independence and allow opportunities for greater socialisation among learners.

Conversely, there are instances when TCCI directed, reproductive teaching styles are suitable. Repetitive, technical drills have the potential to develop performance through kinaesthetic (learner) and external (TTCI) feedback. For some learners, this type of activity can be appropriate at cognitive, associative and even autonomous stages of learning. It is important to note that directed learning is also valid when safety is an issue. Decisions regarding how to teach are justified by pedagogical expertise and therefore inevitably, are TTCI led.

Not all learners are enthusiastic. Some make comparisons between personal lack of progress and the contrasting, successful experiences of other learners due to a dominant ego-orientation that offsets the importance of task mastery. When this happens, there is a corresponding loss of learner motivation.

Naturally talented performers can also lack enthusiasm for learning. Usually, their inherent ability enables rapid, initial progress until they eventually plateau. Again, there is consequent loss of motivation because now, as with other learners, it takes effort and application to produce any performance improvement. There may also be a subsequent drop in performance, again in comparison to other learners. This does not sit well with natural talent.

Unenthusiastic learners tend to shift blame to external factors, such as the TTCI and fail to fulfil their potential. In adopting a personalised approach to teaching and learning, TTCIs avoid making direct or indirect comparisons between learners.

The organisation of learning is managed and led by TTCIs who create strategic, yet flexible, sequential frameworks for learning that coordinate session content with teaching styles and learning preferences within specific performance contexts. Frameworks are composed of (or a combination of) Warming Up, Drills, Performance-Related Practices (PRPs), Free Play, Contrasting Activities and Cooling Down. All six are appropriate across all levels of performance and all performance contexts. Within a personalised teaching and learning framework, the largest portion of time is allocated to Free Play with the majority of session duration distributed across PRPs and Free Play.

• Warming -Up gradually raises body temperature/heart rate while (re-)familiarising muscle groups to sport specific movements as learners get a feel for the environment/conditions of the day. Can be TTCI or learner led.

• Drills (sometimes referred to as Introductory Activities) are a targeted, repeated action made simpler because learners are required to execute movements in isolation and not in more demanding full performance contexts. Appropriate at all phases of skill acquisition, drills build confidence through feedback and are often set up (or revisited) as part of gradual build up or whole-part-whole scaffolding of performance development/reinforcement. However, deployed in isolation, they do not demonstrate learning. Generally, TTCI led.

• PRPs are a significant step in the process of learning because of their proximity to performance features of personal short-term key results and associated long-term objectives. Within performance-related practices TTCIs create tasks and disguise these as problems for learners to solve. The problems are presented in a way that learners are not conscious of the true developmental purpose of the tasks. There is potential for quicker learning and consequently less boredom and loss of interest from learners as they accelerate to phase three skill acquisition because, in trying to find solutions to the problem set by the TTCI, less thought is given to consciously controlling movements. Instead, learners have to personally focus on perceptual cues, decision-making and the consequent adapting of their movements.

Productive teaching styles allow for multiple solutions where learners construct their own knowledge. Evaluating the success of different solutions is an important part of the learning process. It is always learner led. TTCIs do not make value judgements. Again, TTCIs use open questions (similar to those used to underpin diagnostic assessment conversations) to support learners through personal knowledge creation.

• Free Play (sometimes known as Performance-Related Play) is the situational arena for the demonstration of learning. TCCIs are responsible for ensuring the environment selected for free play challenges learners on a personal level but still provides a platform upon which they can demonstrate successful performance. Success achieved within earlier parts of a learning framework can quickly disappear when learners regress because the environment chosen is too easy (or more likely, too demanding) for their current level of performance. Rogue motor patterns appear as learners subconsciously become lazy or, default to survival mode. In addition, the wrong environment has a negative impact on learners’ psychological performance; usually demonstrated as an over-confidence or as a loss of confidence.  

Learner led free Play is an important vehicle for all learners in the learning process because of its capacity to enable autonomous and consistent performance within the unstable and unpredictable situations associated with open skills. Even in closed skill settings where movements are repeatable and precise, learners need to feel they have been set free with sufficient opportunities to perform and play on their own terms, and in the face of failure, independently, or with the support of other learners, draw from personal experience and subsequently work out what to do in order to perform successfully.

“Especially at the level of development, the role of the coach is to give freedom”. Arsene Wenger’ Chief of Football Global Development, FIFA.

• Contrasting Activities are strategically positioned to take place after PRPs and Free Play but before the end of session cooling down. The clue is in the title; TTCIs set up random activities that bear no relation to the main emphasis of the session. There is a focus on (seemingly) pointless activity that offers a break for learners by shifting attention away from achieving short and long-term, personal performance priorities. Contrasting activities also enable TTCIs to draw on the concept of disguised learning where without knowing, learners are intentionally exposed to other sensations and alternative perspectives, within a different performance context.

• Cooling-Down happens at the end of the session and is a period of slowly decelerating levels of physical activity combined with strategic stretching to reduce body temperature/heart rate and to protect the build-up of lactic acid and potential injury to muscles after exercise. Cooling Down time also gives TTCIs opportunities to ask open questions to establish what learners have taken from the session. Two examples are: what did you do well today and what do you think needs more attention in your performance? Good practice dictates that learners are given thinking time and the opportunity to discuss their thoughts with other learners. The TTCI’s role at this point is to listen and to take on board what is said.

  
  

Group discussion at the indoor snow centre in Wuhan, China

4.     Evaluating Success

The success of personalising teaching and learning is evaluated through a process of shared reflection. Learners’ answers to pre-planned questions, initiated by those designated as part of Cooling-Down, are combined with TCCIs’ formative assessment of learner performance. The effectiveness of professional rapport between TTCI and learner, carefully fostered through all phases, is directly proportional to the validity of both parties’ reflections; mutual respect produces candid responses.

Professionalism is required to ensure learners’ comments and TCCIs’ observations are documented as soon as possible after each session has finished. Immediacy results in the gathering of reliable evidence which leads to informed decisions regarding subsequent content, teaching styles, learning preferences, organisation of learning and choice of environment. Analysis is down to personal TCCI preference; often taking the form of action points that emerge from a written summary and/or a numerical self-rating of TCCI and learner performance against a selection of best practice criteria.

5.     Assessing Developed Performance

In reality, phases two, three, and four coincide because (the process of) personalising teaching and learning does not occur in a straight line. Learners’ journey to autonomy and consistency is one that ebbs, flows, twists and turns. Understanding this, TTCIs and learners adopt a flexible approach. In those moments, when learners are easily achieving or substantially failing to achieve key results previously targeted in planning, TTCIs’ insightful use of formative assessment supports shared evaluations regarding any necessary resetting of long-term objectives and/or key results and/or time scales. In addition, prompt two-way communication between TCCI and learner, in alignment with individual learning preferences and productive teaching styles, provides accurate and coherent feedback further vindicating the need to reset.

The cyclical nature of personalising teaching and learning resumes after summative assessment confirms that the long-term objective has been achieved. At this point, another cycle begins seamlessly, with the evidence generated in achieving the long-term objective, used to formulate a personal plan to support the continued development of learner performance.

Take-Aways

• Agree evidence-based tailor-made performance plans that connect with bespoke experiences for individual learners.

• Build relationships with learners and among learners. Rapport and two-way communication are key features across all phases.

• Pre-plan for: session content and organisation, teaching styles, learning preferences and the wording and timing of questions to fit individual learners.

• Successful performance within Performance Related Practice is an indication of learning. However, learning is demonstrated by way of successful performance in appropriate Free Play environments.

• Personalising teaching and learning is not homogeneous. It is messy. To justify any necessary resetting, use formative assessment with related feedback.

• Evaluate the success of personalising teaching and learning by a combined analysis of both TTCI and learner reflections.

The perfect 'Free Play' environment in Rusutsu, Japan led by PSIE Trainer Harry McFadden.

About the Author

Stuart Forsyth is a retired Senior Lecturer from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. As a Teacher-Educator, Stuart was also affiliated to the University’s Physical Activity for Health Research Group. His research activities investigated high school students’ motivation for physical education.

Stuart was a member of the Scottish Executive Ministerial Review Group for Physical Education and is a former Chair of the Scottish Qualifications Authority Physical Education Panel. Before taking up his post at the University of Strathclyde, Stuart was Head of Physical Education at a large, secondary comprehensive school in Stranraer, Scotland.

Stuart combined his physical education career with coaching junior soccer players and junior golfers. He also spent many winter weeks teaching people to ski in the Aosta Valley, Italy and Yllas Ski Resort, Finland. A member of the British Association of Snowsports Instructors since 1999, Stuart joined PSIE in May, 2025.