"Touches"
“One of the fastest ways to make a kid lose the passion for anything is not getting them involved,” says two-time USA Hockey Olympian Guy Gosselin. If you want an athlete to stay engaged in practice, they need to get a lot of touches. "Touches", for those less than athletically inclined out there, refers to contact with the ball/puck/whatever. You need to scoop a grounder, take a face off, catch a pass, throw a pass, rip a shot, save a shot. You need the ball/puck/thing around you to stay engaged. In the classroom, we see the same thing. The traditional "direct instruction" lecture, where I stand in the front of the room and grace my students with a 45-minute monologue that demonstrates my mastery of the content yields very few touches. Students sit in a passive state. Only the most motivated will stay engaged and learn. How important is it to give your students touches? Again, let's frame it in the context of sports: ...