Didactic Tips for Instructors

It is my personal experience that many riding instructors are good riders with great feeling and technical skills, but that these riders are sometimes unable to transfer their knowledge clearly to their students.  Often this leads to frustration (of the instructor, the rider and/or the horse). 

A good instructor is capable of explaining the WHAT, HOW and WHY of his training method.  A good instructor trains his students to ride for themselves and strives for independence in his students.   This is only possible when the instructor is able to explain the structure, reasoning and potential failures of his approach/training method. 

What the best way of teaching is, depends on the student. The instructor should therefore not only be able to explain the what, how and why of his training method in a way that is clear for himself, but the instructor must also posses the didactic ‘tools’ to present this information in different ways. The instructor needs to asses what type of student he is facing, what the background and prior knowledge of this student is and what learning style this student has. A good instructor can tailor-make his lessons to reach each student individually and can differentiate between students in group lessons. 

Unfortunately, most instructor training courses only spend a limited amount of time on didactics and mainly focus on generalistic theories. I have noticed that there is a great demand for ‘hands-on’ tips to improve teaching. That is why on APRIL 1st 2013, I will launch my Ebook with Didactic Tips for instructors, to make a few practical and creative didactic tips&tricks available to you!

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