The Feedback Behind Matt Ryan’s Success.

What do you do if you’re Matt Ryan and your team has missed the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season?  You step out of your normal offseason routine and seek feedback on ways to improve your ability to throw the deep ball.  

On Friday during our professional learning, Pat Quinn spoke about the use of the feedback cycle and the steps to maximum core instruction:  

TRY SOMETHING – GET FEEDBACK – TRY AGAIN

Increase the Rate of Learning o The more times you go through the feedback cycle, the more your students will learn. o Aim for going through the feedback cycle 10-20 times per subject per day.

According to ESPN staff writer Vaughn McClure, when Ryan visited  Tom House and Adam Dedeaux of the acclaimed 3DQB training facility in Los Angeles, he received feedback on four key areas: functional strength and conditioning, mechanics and motion, mental and emotional management, and nutrition.  Ryan spent six weeks training with Dedeaux and House. The sessions were spread over a sixth-month period and were four to five days a week for three to four hours a day.

As teachers, we may need to step out of our normal day to day routine and plan for ways to give our students feedback.  When we organize students for learning, we are free to monitor and provide feedback to our students.  Additionally, we can provide opportunities for students to give each other feedback as well.  Ways to organize students for learning can include:

Partner Discussions	Grouping for Active Processing	Paired Practice
Structured Grouping	Cooperative Projects	Peer Response Groups
Group Reflecting on Learning

Here is a great resource from the compendium on Organizing Students to Interact.  

McClure goes on to state that Ryan firmly believes there's a noticeable difference in his deep ball, and not just because he's stronger."I think it's a combination of things," Ryan said. "I think it's getting your feet right, working on positioning of where your feet want to be. How I've trained this offseason, I've worked really hard on it. I don't know about [distance], but it just feels good coming off, and certainly putting it in good spots for our guys."

It sounds like Mr. Ryan was given some pretty powerful feedback! Imagine what this type of feedback could do for our students and their learning.