Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better Free PDF

Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better Hardcover

Author: Visit Amazon's Doug Lemov Page | Language: English | ISBN: 111821658X | Format: PDF, EPUB

• Description
• Book Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better Free PDF
You can download Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better Hardcover Free PDF for everyone book mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link

Amazon.com Review

Amazon.com Exclusive: Q & A with Authors Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway, and Katie Yezzi

What would you say are the few biggest misconceptions around practice?

Though we’ve found there are actually more than a few misconceptions about practice, here are three:

• Myth 1: Practice to improve your weaknesses. Not true. You should in fact focus on practicing strengths. You’ll get stronger results this way.
• Myth 2: Stop practicing when you achieve competence. Nope. What marks champions is their excellence at something—they may have weaknesses, but their strengths are honed and polished to the level of brilliance. The value of practice begins at mastery!
• Myth 3: Practice is dull. Wrong. It certainly has a reputation for being a bleak necessity and the primary provenance of children laboring over trombones and basketballs. But in fact, practice is fun, exciting, and ideal for adults.

How do you suggest people incorporate the right kind of practice into their daily lives?

There are many ways. One concrete idea is to practice with a partner. Find a peer who cares as much as you do about some key aspect of your work and schedule ten (fun) minutes, three times a week, to work on the skills you’re both interested in developing.

What does each of you practice in your professional or personal lives?

Doug: I practice a lot with my kids. They’re athletes—soccer players and skiers, especially. It’s my goal to help them be good at something they care about. And though I played soccer in college, I think back with sadness at how much better I wanted to be and how much time I spent trying to get better on my own when, in retrospect, I was wasting my time. I learned how to handle the ball only long after college. And so, in addition to wanting to help my kids succeed at the things they love, I want to model for them how to get better at things throughout their lives, so they never have to feel that. One bright spot, one thing I think was very helpful to them as soccer players, is the two-footed drill. I started having them do it when they were younger to get them natural and fluid at two of the core building blocks of soccer—being able to use both feet and being in the habit of redirecting your first touch. In the two-footed drill, we pass the ball back and forth, but you have to receive the ball with one foot, transfer it to the other foot on the first touch, and pass it back with that foot—in one fluid motion. Always two feet; always two touches. And the focal point is the speed of the foot-to-foot process. Once my kids got it down, we just kept doing it, over and over. We do it every time we warm up, so they are fluid, natural, and automatic. It’s definitely made them much more fundamentally sound at the game. It’s also allowed them to allocate their brain power to thinking about what to do with the ball when they get it in the game, since they’re pretty automatic at receiving.

Erica: In my professional life, what I find myself practicing most are the presentations that I have to give in front of large audiences. In preparing for a presentation, after I have created and revised my materials, I carefully script my talking points. I then practice delivering the presentation quietly to myself; when I am ready, I ask a colleague to watch a small section and give feedback on any part that is new or particularly challenging for me. My final step the morning of the presentation is usually to practice in front of a full-length mirror. The first time I did this (after getting over feeling incredibly awkward) I learned so much about my non-verbal communication. I saw myself shifting my weight frequently from foot to foot, and I realized that signaled a lack of confidence to my audience. Every time I practice with a mirror, I learn something new about what I am signaling to my audience. In my personal life I practice with my kids, but not in the traditional sense of the word. My oldest son is only four, so he is still too young for the consistent practice of a particular sport or hobby, but he and his little brother are not too young to benefit from practice. For example I realized recently that our bedtime routine (from brushing our teeth to heads asleep on pillows) was taking entirely too long. So I planned how to streamline it, explained it to them step-by-step, and we practiced it a few times around 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. That first night, they were excited about the new “Bedtime Club,” and we followed all the steps to a tee–cutting bedtime in half. We then practiced it consistently for a week or so, and now everybody in our house feels a little less stress in the evenings.

Katie: I try to practice difficult conversations that I know I need to have with colleagues or the parents of the students in the school I lead. I usually practice with my managing director, and that almost always includes me taking notes as he models what that conversation might sound like. In particular, I write down key phrases in outline format to ensure I remember the key points and make them clearly. I run through what I want to say a couple times in that moment, and I usually do it again as I drive home. Then, I review my notes right before I have the conversation. Practice definitely helps me to stay calm and confident when emotions are high. In my personal life, I play and practice Ultimate Frisbee. I’ve played for over 20 years, but what I practice most are the basic skills of throwing and catching. I notice that it makes a huge difference in my pass completion during games if I have practiced completing passes before playing. That kind of practice makes me more focused and more confident.

Review

"Learning to practice, this book vividly illustrates, takes time and effort, trial and error. It won't happen tomorrow. But even a small movement in the direction of more practice will reap benefits...." (The Washington Post's 'Class Struggle' blog, October 2012)

"Practice Perfect is a valuable read for everyone who wants to help their employees grow and excel through practice." (Examiner.com, October 2012)

See all Editorial Reviews

Direct download links available for Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better Free PDF

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (September 19, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 111821658X
• ISBN-13: 978-1118216583
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Foreword by Dan Heath xi

Preface: Why Practice? Why Now? xv

Introduction: The Power of Practice 1

RETHINKING PRACTICE 21

Rule 1 Encode Success 25

Rule 2 Practice the 20 29

Rule 3 Let the Mind Follow the Body 32

Rule 4 Unlock Creativity . . . with Repetition 36

Rule 5 Replace Your Purpose (with an Objective) 40

Rule 6 Practice “Bright Spots” 44

Rule 7 Differentiate Drill from Scrimmage 48

Rule 8 Correct Instead of Critique 52

HOW TO PRACTICE 55

Rule 9 Analyze the Game 58

Rule 10 Isolate the Skill 62

Rule 11 Name It 66

Rule 12 Integrate the Skills 68

Rule 13 Make a Plan 72

Rule 14 Make Each Minute Matter 76

USING MODELING 83

Rule 15 Model and Describe 86

Rule 16 Call Your Shots 87

Rule 17 Make Models Believable 92

Rule 18 Try Supermodeling 95

Rule 19 Insist They “Walk This Way” 96

Rule 20 Model Skinny Parts 99

Rule 21 Model the Path 101

Rule 22 Get Ready for Your Close-up 104

FEEDBACK 107

Rule 23 Practice Using Feedback (Not Just Getting It) 109

Rule 24 Apply First, Then Reflect 114

Rule 25 Shorten the Feedback Loop 117

Rule 26 Use the Power of Positive 121

Rule 27 Limit Yourself 126

Rule 28 Make It an Everyday Thing 128

Rule 29 Describe the Solution (Not the Problem) 130

Rule 30 Lock It In 133

CULTURE OF PRACTICE 139

Rule 31 Normalize Error 143

Rule 32 Break Down the Barriers to Practice 148

Rule 33 Make It Fun to Practice 154

Rule 34 Everybody Does It 159

Rule 35 Leverage Peer-to-Peer Accountability 162

Rule 36 Hire for Practice 165

Rule 37 Praise the Work 169

POST-PRACTICE: MAKING NEW SKILLS STICK 173

Rule 38 Look for the Right Things 176

Rule 39 Coach During the Game (Don’t Teach) 180

Rule 40 Keep Talking 183

Rule 41 Walk the Line (Between Support and Demand) 185

Rule 42 Measure Success 188

CONCLUSION: THE MONDAY MORNING TEST 193

Appendix A: Teaching Techniques from

Teach Like a Champion 205

Appendix B: Sample Practice Activities 229

Notes 241

Acknowledgments 245

About the Authors 249

Summary of Rules 251

Index 255

This is a wonderfully useful book for anyone teaching themselves or anybody else to do anything.

The book is loaded with practical ideas as the authors break down every aspect and angle of the learning process into forty-two very manageable steps or "rules," presented in forty-two brief chapters.

These rules can be applied in so many areas of life: not just school or music or sports but also for business and almost any kind of skill. I especially appreciate the many points having to do with the intelligent and effective use of modeling, drill, and feedback. There are lots of good ideas for planning practice sessions and for breaking down skills into manageable baby steps. This could be helpful for new teachers, as much of the mystery is taken out of teaching and learning. Students are likely to develop mastery, along with the bonuses of confidence and healthy self-respect.

Long sections of the book are really devoted to training teachers. Those who are only training students or themselves may not find those sections as useful. Still, there is so much to digest and experiment with in this book. Playing with these ideas is fun and brings new life to both teaching and learning.

The book often quotes the wonderfully inspiring words of top basketball coach John Wooden. There are also lots of references to coauthor Doug Lemov's own book, "Teach Like a ChampIon," another source of good ideas, mainly for classroom teaching.

The book concludes with two helpful appendices: (1) Teaching Techniques from "Teach Like a Champion"!and (2) Sample Practice Activities.

My one criticism of the book (4.

For several decades, Anders Ericsson and his associates at Florida State University have been conducting research on peak performance, and he began to attract attention after the publication of a Harvard Business Review article, The Making of an Expert (July/August 2007), he co-authored with Michael J. Prietula and Edward T. Cokely. They observe, "Before practice, opportunity, and luck can combine to create expertise, the would-be expert needs to demythologize the achievement of top-level performance, because the notion that genius is born, not made, is deeply ingrained. It's perhaps most perfectly exemplified in the person of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is typically presented as a child prodigy with exceptional innate musical genius. Nobody questions that Mozart's achievements were extraordinary compared with those of his contemporaries. What's often forgotten, however, is that his development was equally exceptional for his time. His musical tutelage started before he was four years old, and his father, also a skilled composer, was a famous music teacher and had written one of the first books on violin instruction. Like other world-class performers, Mozart was not born an expert--he became one." With rare exception, the research suggests that peak performance requires at least 10,000 of highly disciplined ("deep, deliberate, sharply focused") practice under expert supervision in combination with being in the right circumstances at the right time.

All this serves to help introduce Practice Perfect, the latest of several excellent books whose authors or co-authors discuss the meaning and significance of revelations for which the research of Ericsson and his associates is primarily responsible and duly acknowledged.

Book Preview

Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better Download

Please Wait...