This afternoon the snowboard sessions were a little thin and the team already had all the topics covered, so I thought I would take the oppurtunity to see what the skiers were talking about. I had heard from Tony of the AASI (American snowboarders) that they share all of their methodology between all disciplines, so I opted for the American ski pedagogy session about decision making throughout the lesson.
The Americans use the ODA (Observe, Decide, Act) model to help lead their decision making during a lesson. They try to avoid coming into lessons with pre-planned structures and techniques and instead use questions and guest-led goals to decide lesson content and structure. The ODA model helps structure what information the questions are searching for, as well as how to approach next steps with the acquired information. Everything from guest mentality to snow conditions is considered in making teaching and technical decisions.
This kind of teaching relies heavily on experience to work, as only time can help in accounting for all these various factors. However, the ODA model gives a good basic framework to help accelerate the acquisition of this key decision-making skill.
