An initiative by our Coach Developers, approved by both the Coaching Certification Committee and the Board of Directors, this will be a great pilot project to see how we can facilitate coaching workshops while being far away from each other in the time of COVID and after.  

With a country so vast like Canada, it makes sense to educate, evaluate and develop our coaches remotely. This is what the pilot project is all about, adjusting to the challenges we are facing of being far apart, the cost of hosting and taking part, and of course time to travel. 

“This will be a great learning experience for us. Not just in reviewing our material, but on how we can both teach the courses in person and online in the future. COVID might be the initiator, but really, this just makes sense to continue doing in the future.” An excited Executive Director (Volunteer) for Table Tennis North, Thorsten Gohl, who is also the Chair of the Coaching Certification Committee for Table Tennis Canada.

There are many more positive outcomes from this. We already started a full review on our entire Coach Development pathway, reshuffled some of the content to not just make it “blended learning” friendly, but also revise old content and make it appealing for future generations. Making sure that the transition from each stream make sense and that they support each other. This includes an online evaluation process for Table Tennis rules for our Community Coaching and Introduction to Competition stream. And we are very excited about this, working closely with our Officials Committee on this project as well. 

Marles Martins, Technical Development Manager for Table Tennis Canada will be the facilitator for the course on October 17-18, 2020, while the co-facilitation will be happening both in the Yukon with Kevin Murphy and in the Northwest Territories with Thorsten Gohl. We will have support from Master Coach Developers as well, that will join in remotely from British Columbia and Ontario. 

The course is spread over 2 days, including mostly technical aspects of the sport. There will be 3 follow up online workshops happening that each take 1.5-2 hours. Those are classroom activities and fit perfectly into our blended learning plan. All coaches will need to finish some multi sport components, submit 2 evaluation videos and do a club umpire exam to get certified as Introduction to Competition coaches. 

“This pilot project is really exciting because we will have the opportunity to test out our new blended learning initiative (online for theory, in class for practical sessions). We have been working hard to provide our coaches the access they need to their certification pathways despite the isolation caused by the Pandemic. This initiative will help us to accomplish that goal and keeping all safe at the same time.” Marles Martins

Table Tennis Canada is looking forward to this pilot project and we will provide more information and outcomes from this event in the near future. Stay tuned!!! 

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our Technical Development Manager Marles Martins.