Daily Performance Record
The Daily Performance Record is designed for the coach to keep an accurate record of the athlete's daily performances while learning a sports skill. There are several reasons why the coach can benefit from using the Daily Performance Record.
- The record becomes a permanent documentation of the athlete's progress
- The record helps the coach establish measurable consistency in the athlete's training program.
- The record allows the coach to be flexible during the actual teaching and coaching session, breaking down the skills into specific, smaller tasks that meet the individual needs of each athlete.
- The record helps the coach choose proper teaching methods, conditions and criteria for evaluating the athlete's performance of the skills.
Using the Daily Performance Record
At the top of the record, enter the coach's name, the athlete's name, and the snowshoeing event. If more than one coach works with the athlete, they should enter the dates that they work with the athlete next to their names.
Before the training session begins, the coach decides what skills will be covered. The coach makes this decision based on the athlete's age, interests and mental and physical abilities. The skill needs to be presented as a statement or a description of the specific exercise that the athlete must perform. The coach enters the skill on the top line of the left-hand column. Each subsequent skill is entered after the athlete masters the previous skill. Of course, more than one sheet may be used to record all of the skills involved. Also, if the athlete cannot perform a prescribed skill, the coach may break down the skill into smaller tasks that will allow for the athlete's success at the new skill.
Conditions and Criteria for Mastering
After the coach enters the skill, then decide on the conditions and criteria by which the athlete must master the skill. Conditions are special circumstances which define the manner in which the athlete must perform a skill; for example, "given a demonstration, and with assistance." The coach should always operate under the assumption that the ultimate conditions in which the athlete masters a skill are "upon command and without assistance," and therefore, does not have to enter these conditions in the record next to the skill entry. Ideally, the coach arranges the skills and conditions so that the athlete gradually learns to perform the skill upon command and without assistance.
Criteria are the standards that determine how well the skill must be performed. The coach needs to determine a standard that realistically suits the athlete's mental and physical abilities; for example, "perform a distance of 30 meters, 60 percent of the time." Given the varied nature of skills, the criteria might involve many different types of standards, such as amount of time, number of repetitions, accuracy, distance or speed.
Dates of Sessions and Levels of Instruction Used
The coach may work on one task for a couple of days and use several methods of instruction during that time to progress to the point where the athlete performs the task upon command and without assistance. To establish a consistent curriculum for the athlete, the coach must record the dates of work on particular tasks and the methods of instruction used on those dates.
Click on the icon below to open the Daily Performance Record in Microsoft Word.
