Problem/Background

How can we design a lifelong learning approach to tennis that appeals to players at all levels—from recreational to Division 1?

In this project I worked with a client to solve a problem using learning design. My client was StarrMark Academy (SMA), a tennis academy based in Bethesda, Maryland that serves junior tennis players (aged 3-18) across the DMV area. The problem my client identified was the burnout seen among young players, particularly during their high school years, when players decide to quit tennis, losing a source of community and a valuable healthy form of exercise.

To build background, my clients told me stories and theories on the causes of burnout. The first was about changing priorities, in which students decide that other areas of their lives are more important, and therefore choose to divest their energy away from tennis, towards their social lives, academics, etc. A third observation was the growth of academic and athletic obligations in the junior year of high school—applying to college, having a high ranking, and getting recruited—which coincide and end up overwhelming students. A third observation was about perfectionism and negative self-talk, in which students are harsh on themselves and accentuate their shortcomings, failing to see their growth and aptitude in the sport, leading to constant discouragement.

These three observations from my clients aligned with the literature on burnout, which link the phenomenon to three different categories: depersonalization (failure to feel personally connected to the sport), physical and mental exhaustion, and a lack of personal accomplishment. The possible interventions in the literature aimed to tackle these sources of burnout through three approaches. The first is person-directed, aimed at teaching skills and changing mindsets. The second is organization-directed, aimed at changing the work culture, social environment, and expectations. The third is a blended approach, which uses organizational resources and structure to reshape the organization while also providing person-directed interventions.

My Approach

Informed by the literature and my clients, I designed an initiative that would adopt the blended approach. The whole initiative exceeded the scope of a single semester, but the first branch of it would be a series of workshops aimed to address the causes and solutions to burnout. The initial workshop, held at Georgetown, invited high school players from SMA and their parents. The workshop featured a college player panel, with Division 1 athletes from Georgetown University and Morgan State University, who spoke on specific themes that I wished to address related to burnout and balancing academics with athletics. The second half of the workshop featured two learning activities. The first was designed to use storytelling to develop emotional awareness on what motivation and burnout feel like for a player. The second was designed to teach players to identify and rank their priorities, with the goal of more coherent time management. These interventions were all designed using the techniques introduced in class from Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe.

This whole initiative introduced me to the idea of organizational learning, which I was not familiar with before, and which I would like to learn more about in the future.