As a graduate of The Open University's MA in Open and Distance Learning, I have spent much of the past year experiencing another form of professional education from the learner's side.
I have been completing the Senior Club Coach programme: a 12-month qualification involving three phases of assessment and worksheets delivered through Google Classroom, two intensive residential weekends at Loughborough, some online tutor contact and several poolside observations.
The experience has left me thinking about a familiar distinction in online education: the difference between delivering content and designing learning.
The course has been academically and professionally substantial. Its weakness has not principally been what was taught, but how the learning was designed, supported and socially mediated.
A strong and relevant curriculum
The programme addresses the right areas for senior swimming coaches:
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annual planning and periodisation;
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physiology and training intensity;
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individualisation;
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athlete profiling;
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technical and skill analysis;
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competition and race planning;
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coaching philosophy;
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professional development.
Its central intellectual demand is valuable. I have repeatedly been required to explain why I designed a particular set, session, microcycle, mesocycle or annual plan rather than merely demonstrating that I could produce one.
The programme also recognises that athlete development is not simply physiological. Its frameworks consider independence, resilience, self-regulation, emotional intelligence and support networks. The coach is presented not just as a technician, but as a person, practitioner and leader.
This is coherent, contemporary and professionally relevant material.
Authentic assessment—and a great deal of it
The assessments are rooted in genuine coaching practice. I have worked with actual swimmers, attendance patterns, injuries, competition data, race performances and amendments to an annual plan.
My final assessments have required me to use race-process objectives, athlete reflections, coach evaluation and individual race models. This is considerably more meaningful than responding to hypothetical case studies.
Authenticity, however, does not automatically make an assessment design effective.
Across the three phases, the work has sometimes become repetitive, administratively heavy and dependent upon interpreting ambiguous templates. Too much effort has been directed towards completing boxes rather than demonstrating a clearly scaffolded progression from supported learning to independent mastery.
I have frequently wondered whether the same professional evidence could have been gathered through a more integrated and concise portfolio.
Valuable face-to-face contact, concentrated into four days
The two weekends at Loughborough were among the strongest elements of the programme. They brought specialist expertise, energy and immersion. Interaction with tutors and other coaches was excellent.
Yet four long lecture days represent a very small amount of direct teaching within a 12-month programme.
The format also risked cognitive overload. A great deal could be presented during a day-long lecture, but presentation is not the same as processing, practising or retaining. Some participants appeared to rely on receiving the slides rather than actively making and organising their own notes.
There was also little initial exploration of who we were as learners. Our academic backgrounds, professional experience and existing understanding were not meaningfully established, nor was much guidance offered on how we might best learn from the programme.
A more effective design might have distributed some of the residential content across shorter workshops linked to each phase. Each workshop could then have been followed by practical application, peer discussion, tutor feedback and revision of practice.
That would have created a learning cycle rather than a sequence of delivery events.
Google Classroom as repository rather than learning environment
The online element was the clearest weakness.
Google Classroom worked adequately as a repository for documents, instructions, worksheets and submissions. It did not become a learning community.
Over the year, I experienced virtually no interaction with other members of the cohort. We did not routinely compare annual plans, interpretations of training zones, responses to injury, race models, athlete-management dilemmas or session evaluations.
This matters because coaching knowledge is highly contextual. There is rarely one universally correct training set, taper, annual plan or technical intervention. Professional judgement develops partly through hearing another experienced practitioner say:
“I would interpret that differently.”
“What evidence supports that decision?”
“How did the athlete experience it?”
“Was that adaptation genuinely appropriate?”
“What might another coach have done?”
Without those conversations, reflection risks becoming solitary and self-confirming.
The course materials themselves emphasised reflection, shared vision, connection and professional discussion. The delivery model did not consistently embody those principles.
I was fortunate to be completing the programme alongside another coach at my club. Our weekly discussions across the season were invaluable. There was, however, no comparable correspondence or sustained interaction with other members of the course.
For a senior professional qualification, that represents a considerable missed opportunity. I lost access to peer challenge, contrasting club environments, alternative coaching philosophies, shared problem-solving, informal reassurance and professional networking.
The platform supported administration. It did not adequately support collaborative professional learning.
Tutor observation: potentially the most powerful element
The poolside tutor visits were among the most professionally valuable parts of the course.
Observing a coach in practice makes it possible to examine communication, lane management, swimmer engagement, technical diagnosis, adaptation under pressure and the relationship between a written plan and its actual delivery.
Yet two or three visits can provide only snapshots.
Coaching performance changes according to the squad, the purpose of the session, attendance, pool space, proximity to competition and familiarity with the swimmers. Observation becomes developmental when it forms part of a cycle:
observation → specific feedback → agreed action → further observation → evaluation
Without repeat observation, it is difficult to establish whether feedback has altered practice.
The visits were authentic and useful. They did not amount to sustained mentoring.
The integration of theory and practice
One of the strongest aspects of my experience has been the continuous relationship between the course and my coaching.
Throughout the programme, I have worked with performance swimmers for at least four hours each week, often considerably more. I have been able to connect the coursework directly to individual athletes and to the realities of their seasons.
One swimmer broke his wrist and spent a month training in a waterproof splint, requiring significant adaptation and an increased emphasis on kick work. Another has managed a persistent shoulder problem. Others have required different levels of emotional support, autonomy, challenge and space.
The annual plan could not be treated as fixed. It had to remain a working document shaped by injury, attendance, progress, competition results and the needs of each athlete.
This is precisely the kind of individualisation that the programme seeks to develop.
However, much of that integration depended on my own initiative, previous experience and persistence. As someone with a master’s degree in education, I am familiar with reflection, learning design and the relationship between theory and practice.
A less experienced or less educationally confident candidate might complete the same paperwork without developing the same depth of understanding.
The practical integration was strong in my case. I am less certain that the course design reliably guaranteed it.
Developing judgement—or documenting it?
The programme has certainly required me to articulate my coaching decisions more explicitly.
I now possess substantial evidence showing:
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why I selected particular training intensities;
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why individual swimmers required different race models;
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how injury led to amendments to the annual plan;
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how athlete development includes personal as well as performance dimensions;
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why training outcomes must be evaluated rather than assumed.
That represents genuine professional development.
For an experienced coach, however, the programme may function less as initial instruction and more as a framework for organising existing knowledge. It provides a reason to document what one already does, a vocabulary for explaining decisions and external validation of senior-level practice.
All of that has value.
The difficulty is that the relationship between administrative labour and genuinely new learning has not always felt well balanced.
An experienced coach should finish a year-long programme with more than a completed portfolio. I would expect to leave with a demonstrably expanded professional network, stronger observation and feedback skills, greater confidence in complex decisions and substantial exposure to alternative coaching systems.
My documentation has certainly expanded. My professional network through the course has not.
What might a stronger model look like?
A redesigned programme would not necessarily require more content. It would require more deliberate learning architecture.
I would retain the authentic club-based assessments, specialist residential teaching and poolside observations. I would then connect them through:
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smaller, spaced online workshops;
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structured cohort discussion;
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peer review of plans and coaching dilemmas;
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regular tutor dialogue;
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clearer integration of the three assessment phases;
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repeated observation and feedback cycles;
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fewer, better-designed assessment templates;
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explicit induction into the learning process.
The essential shift would be from using the online platform primarily to distribute and collect work towards using it to create sustained professional dialogue.
Final reflection
The Senior Club Coach programme has offered relevant high-level content and authentic assessment rooted in real coaching practice.
Its strongest features have been its planning, individualisation and athlete-development frameworks, together with the requirement to justify decisions using real swimmers and competition data.
Its principal weaknesses have been fragmented delivery, a heavy dependence on independent worksheet completion, limited tutor contact and the near absence of cohort interaction.
Google Classroom has operated more as a submission platform than as a genuine online learning environment.
The course has tested my ability to operate as a senior coach and has helped me organise, explain and validate my practice. I am less convinced that it has systematically developed that ability through sustained mentoring, peer dialogue and collaborative challenge.
For those of us concerned with open, online and distance education, the lesson is familiar but worth repeating.
A collection of resources, assessments and submission points may constitute an online course.
It does not, by itself, constitute an online learning community.
The argument can also be sharpened into a shorter, more provocative OU-style thought piece with a stronger emphasis on learning design and social presence.