Edit: Due to a terrible internet company that has a monopoly in my town and refuses to give any quality upload speed (that continually is throttled), I am going to have to put this project/stream on hold. That being said, I am trying my best to figure something out to continue helping the community and I think I might just have something...
If you like free coaching from masters players, this thread is for you.
Hello everyone my name is MrLlamaSC and I'm currently a 1000+pts Master player/caster
Something I have noticed with a lot of people is that whatever they learn from coaching or watching stream commentary or whatever for some reason simply does not quite stick all the time.
After much discussion down below as well as with the chat on my stream, I have decided that the most efficient/effective coaching (at least in my opinion, feel free to disagree and let me know what you think) has been giving 2-3 goals for a person to focus on and have them only focus on those goals. I then repeat these goals on multiple occassions and at times even question the viewer so they can recall them as well to make sure the goals stuck in their mind.
I am going to be streaming a certain level of play every night Sun-Thurs at 8pm PST (10pm CST, 11pm EST, etc): Bronze-Silver Sunday Gold Monday Platinum Tuesday Diamond Wednesday Masters Thursday.
Although we can most all learn something from every replay analysis, the advice that I would want to give varies between leagues. I'm not going to get a bronze level player too worried about pulling off at 100 gas and then putting back on right when they scout a baneling nest going down. Instead I'd probably recommend they just leave the guys on gas and throw down the baneling nest to be safer since they have more important things to worry about.
You may think that I have a lot of replays, but I can always use more (burning through 15 replays a week is a lot) so I ask that you please continue to submit replays and there is a good chance you will be able to watch it within a week of submission (on your respective league day).
I know there are plenty of people out there who want free lessons because the one time I even briefly mentioned offering a free hour lesson to a guy in a small TL thread, I had about 11 people send me messages wondering if they could have one as well.
So I don't know how better to say it or spread it.
I am offering free replay analysis.
To submit a replay of your own I have a video on my channel stated how to submit a replay (posted below). But I'm going to make it even easier. You can simply just put the drop.sc here of a replay you want reviewed here (generally a loss but it can be a win too if you felt you needed improvement still), or in a comment on one of the episodes, and I'll get it sorted out. I just ask that you put what league you are in and who you are in the video.
If for some reason I have more than 3 replays a day, I will either do a random draw or a "whoever comes first" deal depending on what I feel is best.
How to Submit a Replay for the show:
NOTE: I know the video quality isn't 100% right now. I recently moved into a summer house in a town where the top internet package won't even exceed 1Mbps upload. For this I apologize and I'm going to continue looking for solutions.
Episode 10 and 11 are going to be trashed due to my internet being a HUGE pain and causing massive amounts of lag the entire game. I apologize and I'm going to have to once again look into the issue to try and get it sorted out...
You're going to offer free coaching via submitted replays live on your stream and commentate it like "Blue's Clues?" I'm concerned with the this-is-fucking-annoying factor involved here.
I'd say repetition is what makes an idea "stick." You'll have to figure out how to apply this to your videos since they seem like you're offering merely one 'session' of coaching per student.
It's nice that you're offering free coaching at all, but these are some of my ideas/concerns for/with your series.
On May 27 2012 22:13 JoeRasha wrote: Lets see if I understand this...
You're going to offer free coaching via submitted replays live on your stream and commentate it like "Blue's Clues?" I'm concerned with the this-is-fucking-annoying factor involved here.
I'd say repetition is what makes an idea "stick." You'll have to figure out how to apply this to your videos since they seem like you're offering merely one 'session' of coaching per student.
It's nice that you're offering free coaching at all, but these are some of my ideas/concerns for/with your series.
I suppose blues clues was a bit of a childish way to say it. It's not going to be blues clues, but I was just wondering if me highlighting situations where important decisions needed to be made, and then pausing to give you a sense of what's going on in the game and time to think would be helpful. It's kind of like in chess where the coach/book will setup a tough situation and then let the student try and figure it out before simply telling them what to do.
And okay I'll try to find a way to cover repetition over the limited time.
Completely off topic, have you reached out to any big leagues to do any casting? Listened to your voice and I can't say the same about every caster I've listened to, but you have the voice that could be worked into something amazing.
GL with this project and hopefully eventually, see you casting live events.
Hopefully some people with education backgrounds pipe in, but i think this is a great effort. It's always nice when people start asking the right questions instead of the same old ones that get us nowhere. You ask "how can we retain the stuff we learn better/more effectively" instead of "how can we get better"
I think you are absolutely on the right track to giving people more options and putting the choices on them. Whether you just pause to let it fester, or if you put them on the spot and force them to come up with the answer both are good imo. In addition it's important to give time AFTER to let it sink in. I talk to people all day at work on the phone about purchasing and selling a home, and a lot of the time I’m educating them on the process, and how a loan works etc. I can tell them exactly what they need to know, but if I don't ask them "does that make sense" or stop talking for 2-3 seconds after I talk, nothing really sinks in. It took me a while to realize this on my own, that just because you tell someone something, that doesn't mean they understand it. I am now a mentor at my work, and I have to train the new hires. So here are some basic things I've used outside of starcraft that I think could be applied here.
Focus on the basics first/Start small - when I'm teaching someone how to do my job. The first thing I tell them is 'Just make sure you say "thank you for calling, this is [NAME]" after that, just don't hang-up or swear at the customer. After they get that down, we move on to things like actually knowing what to say next etc. In SC, if you don’t make your first probe, then how will you learn to make your 2nd probe.. etc. It should be noted, that until the basics are fully understood, there is very little benefit from knowing what to do in a strange 1-off situation or in the late game. Repetition - Drive the point home, beat the dead horse, there is nothing wrong with repeating yourself, especially if the point being made is a key point. So I say again, it's ok to repeat yourself if the point your making is an important point to make.
Think from a different perspective This is kind of hard to explain because this one is very broad already.. but it should first be said that we often take what WE know for granted. When I'm explaining something to a new hire, I forget sometimes that they don't have MY background/knowledge, this really goes back to starting with basics. But I think this could also mean, thinking from your opponents point of view, or forcing the trainee to re-word the concept into their own words. Another way this can apply is if you obfuscate(make it more complicated/less clear) an issue for simply the purpose of forcing them to understand the basic underlying theme, instead of getting caught up on details (don’t lose the forest for the trees). For example.. if you scout collosus, as terran, you should get vikings, it really doesn't matter what ELSE they have. So when proposing this scouting info to a newb, you would say, you scout toss, they have expo, 2 forge, 5 gate, robo, collosus etc.. I don’t think anyone would be unable to say what to do if you just ask "what do you do if you scout collosus" + Show Spoiler +
Or like in math when teachers change the equation just a bit, but if you apply the basic concepts you learned at the beginning of the chapter you can figure it out..
revisit everything Most people won't remember something the first time. That's why we take notes in class, because then we are hearing it (1), processing it in our brain (2), writing it down(3), reading it as we write (4), processing it again as we read it (5), i might be exaggerating here but you get the idea. so repetition is definitely key, but also RE-READING your notes is just as important. If you have been working on probes/pylons for a week(not really enough time to learn probes/pylons, but w.e), and you decide to start working on your gateway timings being tighter, then after a week of focusing on gateway timings, your probes/pylons are surely suffering, so you have to revisit that and focus on that again. People learn from themselves You can tell someone until your blue in the face that they need to check zerg gas early (or terran or toss for that matter) but until they get wrecked by a 2rax, or roach/ling/bling all-in, they won’t truly understand the importance of it. I cannot stress how important it is to let people make their own mistakes. I can also not stress how hard this is. If any of you have younger siblings you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Ever watch them play a pinball machine? Or any video game for that matter. If you're like me it's painful to watch, you just want to push them out of the way and take over and SHOW them how to do it. Who does that help? Anyone who you're trying to help at SC2, has the tools to watch the best players in the world play from a First person vantage. I think if you're spec’ing a game, and there is a glaring mistake, it's fine to start the game over, but if it's a small thing it should just be noted, and addressed afterwards. If you let them rely on you too much for decisions/information they'll never figure it out on their own, which is really what it's all about, being able to make those hard decisions, and still macro, without anyone telling you what to do, right?
I may edit this for content, I will surely be editing for grammar. I really just wanted to post a few initial ideas to get the proverbial ball rolling.
On May 28 2012 02:18 thurst0n wrote: Hopefully some people with education backgrounds pipe in, but i think this is a great effort. It's always nice when people start asking the right questions instead of the same old ones that get us nowhere. You ask "how can we retain the stuff we learn better/more effectively" instead of "how can we get better"
I
I am a high school teacher and I can tell you that questioning is the most powerful tool we have to inspire learning and retention.
One commenter expressed concern that it was going to annoying and the reason that questioning is annoying for students is that they have to think, and thinking is not something people seem to be willing to do these days.
Logic is ceratinly a precious commodity in this world, and the most logical minds do well at starcraft. The problem is, we can all use logic and reasoning, but most people prefer not to because it is more difficult and they do not have the internal disipline to make the effort to improve.
No one gets very far in SC2 without lots of mental discipline.
Hopefully some people with education backgrounds pipe in, but i think this is a great effort. It's always nice when people start asking the right questions instead of the same old ones that get us nowhere. You ask "how can we retain the stuff we learn better/more effectively" instead of "how can we get better"
I think you are absolutely on the right track to giving people more options and putting the choices on them. Whether you just pause to let it fester, or if you put them on the spot and force them to come up with the answer both are good imo. In addition it's important to give time AFTER to let it sink in. I talk to people all day at work on the phone about purchasing and selling a home, and a lot of the time I’m educating them on the process, and how a loan works etc. I can tell them exactly what they need to know, but if I don't ask them "does that make sense" or stop talking for 2-3 seconds after I talk, nothing really sinks in. It took me a while to realize this on my own, that just because you tell someone something, that doesn't mean they understand it. I am now a mentor at my work, and I have to train the new hires. So here are some basic things I've used outside of starcraft that I think could be applied here.
Focus on the basics first/Start small - when I'm teaching someone how to do my job. The first thing I tell them is 'Just make sure you say "thank you for calling, this is [NAME]" after that, just don't hang-up or swear at the customer. After they get that down, we move on to things like actually knowing what to say next etc. In SC, if you don’t make your first probe, then how will you learn to make your 2nd probe.. etc. It should be noted, that until the basics are fully understood, there is very little benefit from knowing what to do in a strange 1-off situation or in the late game. Repetition - Drive the point home, beat the dead horse, there is nothing wrong with repeating yourself, especially if the point being made is a key point. So I say again, it's ok to repeat yourself if the point your making is an important point to make.
Think from a different perspective This is kind of hard to explain because this one is very broad already.. but it should first be said that we often take what WE know for granted. When I'm explaining something to a new hire, I forget sometimes that they don't have MY background/knowledge, this really goes back to starting with basics. But I think this could also mean, thinking from your opponents point of view, or forcing the trainee to re-word the concept into their own words. Another way this can apply is if you obfuscate(make it more complicated/less clear) an issue for simply the purpose of forcing them to understand the basic underlying theme, instead of getting caught up on details (don’t lose the forest for the trees). For example.. if you scout collosus, as terran, you should get vikings, it really doesn't matter what ELSE they have. So when proposing this scouting info to a newb, you would say, you scout toss, they have expo, 2 forge, 5 gate, robo, collosus etc.. I don’t think anyone would be unable to say what to do if you just ask "what do you do if you scout collosus" + Show Spoiler +
Or like in math when teachers change the equation just a bit, but if you apply the basic concepts you learned at the beginning of the chapter you can figure it out..
revisit everything Most people won't remember something the first time. That's why we take notes in class, because then we are hearing it (1), processing it in our brain (2), writing it down(3), reading it as we write (4), processing it again as we read it (5), i might be exaggerating here but you get the idea. so repetition is definitely key, but also RE-READING your notes is just as important. If you have been working on probes/pylons for a week(not really enough time to learn probes/pylons, but w.e), and you decide to start working on your gateway timings being tighter, then after a week of focusing on gateway timings, your probes/pylons are surely suffering, so you have to revisit that and focus on that again. People learn from themselves You can tell someone until your blue in the face that they need to check zerg gas early (or terran or toss for that matter) but until they get wrecked by a 2rax, or roach/ling/bling all-in, they won’t truly understand the importance of it. I cannot stress how important it is to let people make their own mistakes. I can also not stress how hard this is. If any of you have younger siblings you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Ever watch them play a pinball machine? Or any video game for that matter. If you're like me it's painful to watch, you just want to push them out of the way and take over and SHOW them how to do it. Who does that help? Anyone who you're trying to help at SC2, has the tools to watch the best players in the world play from a First person vantage. I think if you're spec’ing a game, and there is a glaring mistake, it's fine to start the game over, but if it's a small thing it should just be noted, and addressed afterwards. If you let them rely on you too much for decisions/information they'll never figure it out on their own, which is really what it's all about, being able to make those hard decisions, and still macro, without anyone telling you what to do, right?
I may edit this for content, I will surely be editing for grammar. I really just wanted to post a few initial ideas to get the proverbial ball rolling.
Thank you for really taking the time to help me out here. I think you hit on a couple big things that I can definitely use. One of the biggest things I think you mentioned was the make vikings for collosus scenario. If you're at a gold level and you see a protoss army with collosus, you're right. They don't need to be thinking about all the little details of how many sentries vs stalkers vs w/e and trying to get the perfect 2:1 ratio of vikings to collosus, at that point they really just need to learn to make collosus.
It reminds me of simply how education works in school. In elementary school when I learned subtraction, the teacher told me there was no such thing as a negative number and I shouldn't worry about subtracting 3-7. Of course this isn't true but then as I got older and understood subtraction better, they were able to introduce negative numbers. Then came imaginary numbers and etc... Taking out the big things first is definitely key and I'll try and utilize that in my casts. Since I'm running bronze to masters though, I'll just have to vary it based on what "grade" I'm teaching.
On May 28 2012 01:28 Merikh wrote: Completely off topic, have you reached out to any big leagues to do any casting? Listened to your voice and I can't say the same about every caster I've listened to, but you have the voice that could be worked into something amazing.
GL with this project and hopefully eventually, see you casting live events.
Thank you very much. I have tried once or twice but generally they want me to have more fanbase so right now I'm just working on building that. Eventually if enough people want to see me casting, they'll take note of that. Until then though, I do cast smaller things and lots of replays so you can still see me around
The way students remember things differs from person to person. Lectures and debates mean almost nothing. The best learning experiences involve them having clear iterative metrics with which to compare their ability, or being motivated enough to improve outright.
If you want to get people (particularly lower level people) to remember things, give them clear tasks to do. Best example I've seen of this is FilterSC.
Remember!!!!!
You are NOT teaching knowledge. You are teaching SKILLS. Explain how to do things, show how to do it, then let them do it. For linear thinkers, just teaching a build order works fine. For global thinkers you may have to approach virtually everything about a topic to get them to understand it.
On May 28 2012 02:46 Evangelist wrote: I'm a physics teacher atm.
The way students remember things differs from person to person. Lectures and debates mean almost nothing. The best learning experiences involve them having clear iterative metrics with which to compare their ability, or being motivated enough to improve outright.
If you want to get people (particularly lower level people) to remember things, give them clear tasks to do. Best example I've seen of this is FilterSC.
Remember!!!!!
You are NOT teaching knowledge. You are teaching SKILLS. Explain how to do things, show how to do it, then let them do it. For linear thinkers, just teaching a build order works fine. For global thinkers you may have to approach virtually everything about a topic to get them to understand it.
This reminds me of one I was going to say that I forgot. Focus on one thing at a time, maybe 2. Any more than that will just take away from the main thing you're going trying to improve.
I think that for the most part Evangelist is correct, you have to remember that this is a skill. But at the same time there is definitely knowledge to be taught as well. Sure these things can be found in other strategy threads etc, but it's so much easier to learn how you should prep/defend a 1/1/1 if you're ingame with someone who knows how to handle it, than to read generic writings from people who know how to do it. However, I also think that until your skills are perfected, there is almost no reason to learn the knowledge, that goes back to my start with the basics. If you can't even have enough econ/buildings/units to hold 1/1/1, then why does it matter which buildings/units you make?
To MrLlama, I wish you luck on your endeavors, i'll definitely add more if anything comes to me (not that i'm an expert, but I think i'm good at getting dicussion going, and asking questions to make people actually think) Also I don't think there is a better name for a caster than "MrLlama" it's fun to say, and llamas look funny, and ya. And ya that subtraction example is good. My examples are always bad, I've always been better at concepts than thinking of specific examples. I am one that almost never loses the forest for the trees, cause usually I could care less about the trees :-D + Show Spoiler +
(figuritively ofc, I am a huge fan of what trees do for us everyday in terms of converting Co2, to O2 for me :-D)
On May 28 2012 02:46 Evangelist wrote: You are NOT teaching knowledge. You are teaching SKILLS. Explain how to do things, show how to do it, then let them do it. For linear thinkers, just teaching a build order works fine. For global thinkers you may have to approach virtually everything about a topic to get them to understand it.
I'll have to think about how to incorporate this. As of right now I wasn't really planning on playing myself but more reviewing. I think some things will be very situation dependent (ex: fending off the 1-1-1) and finding someone to reconstruct the 1-1-1 at the same level so that I can defend it could take too long :/
thoughts?
Edit: I think for some things I could watch the replay, then go and play a game to show how to build to what to get or give them something to practice by show, but idk about the specifics
On May 28 2012 06:26 Haustka wrote: is this Butteryllama?
I'm pretty sure no...
Starts in 4 1/2 hours. Bronze-Silver today so send those replays in. (of course you can send any level in now, but they will be addressed on their respective days)
I didn't really do the questioning thing (I'll try that out next time) but I was able to use repetition and simplicity I feel that should be able to give each person a set of defined goals to practice.
I teach music and social studies. If there's a way to most effectively teach, it's definitely the questioning thing mentioned earlier. A great way to do it is to give the student/colleague a question, and then probe their answer by making them elaborate on it (because 9 times out of 10, it's not as complete as it could be).
Some other great questioning techniques:
- restating a given answer for clarity - asking a "Why" question every time to accompany a "What" question; for example: on what supply count/time should you build your first Bunker in TvP... okay, why is that? Can you think of two or three reasons? Students who can answer 'why' questions know the material much better than those who only know the 'what' facts. - DON'T RUSH... if the student needs time to think, give it to them. The goal is to learn, not be a good Jeopardy contestant.
On May 28 2012 14:11 Jazzman88 wrote: I teach music and social studies. If there's a way to most effectively teach, it's definitely the questioning thing mentioned earlier. A great way to do it is to give the student/colleague a question, and then probe their answer by making them elaborate on it (because 9 times out of 10, it's not as complete as it could be).
Some other great questioning techniques:
- restating a given answer for clarity - asking a "Why" question every time to accompany a "What" question; for example: on what supply count/time should you build your first Bunker in TvP... okay, why is that? Can you think of two or three reasons? Students who can answer 'why' questions know the material much better than those who only know the 'what' facts. - DON'T RUSH... if the student needs time to think, give it to them. The goal is to learn, not be a good Jeopardy contestant.
Yeah I'm going to have to figure out a way to work this into it. It's really tough because right now in bronze/silver I'm trying to tell them to do less. The big thing for a lot of those players is that they try to tech to everything and upgrade everything and get that broodlord/infestor army and stuff but really they would be so much better off if they just worked on droning better.
It just feels strange because I'm just saying "don't worry about this tech now. Don't worry about these broods here." and I feel like I want to give more replay analysis but they are already so far behind where they could be if they just had a large army, that it almost doesn't matter what they do at this point. Also if they ignore all the additional stuff later on and micro and stuff, they can work on just 2-3 things at a time instead of 50 and then improve a lot more.
On a different note, still looking for a couple more gold players. I had some good submissions from masters and higher leagues but not many golds submit replays so get on it!
I want to apologize for the poor fps quality in the first video. I have since figured out the problem and it will be fixed going into episode 2 and from here on out.
EPT
