INTERSKI BREAKTHROUGHS:


VETERAN EDUCATOR JOAN HEATON ON THE EVOLUTION OF STUDENT-CENTERED TEACHING By Peter Kray


carried into Interski 2015, one instructor A


in particular will find a lot to like. Tat’s because the association’s approach to teaching continues a commitment to student- centered teaching that she helped to define. Joan Heaton is a teacher trainer and education consultant for New York’s Windham Mountain Resort Snow Sport School – as well as an instructor in the school’s adult program. In a snowsports career spanning nearly four decades, she’s helped instill and promote an emphasis on the teaching skills at the heart of PSIA- AASI’s student-centered lessons. An academic who taught in the physical education department at Te City College of New York, Heaton created ski courses for physical education credit at the college, then joined PSIA and began integrating her academic acumen at Mount Snow, Vermont.


Her efforts in the early ‘80s to bring teaching skills, learning styles, feedback, and class management to a lev- el of importance on par with “skiing skills” helped revo- lutionize snowsports instruction in the United States. Here, she talks about the evolution of student-centered teaching – arguably one of PSIA-AASI’s most important contributions to the profession of ski teaching.


What is the background behind student-centered teaching?


Coming into the ski world from academia in the late 70s and early 80s was an interesting experience for me. It was a time when it was thought that if you could ski, you could teach skiing. “Hot feet” was the main criterion for anyone to become a ski instructor; and I found this to be quite an interesting phenomenon. In academia, we know that if a person is able to perform a motor skill and also possesses the needed teaching skills, teaching that skill can be achieved quite effectively.


Also, if


the teacher has the needed teaching skills and has a working understanding of the motor skill, teaching that skill can also


64 | 32 DEGREES • WINTER 2016


s PSIA-AASI builds this season – and beyond – on the educational momentum its National Team


Joan Heaton


be quite effective. I didn’t agree that just having hot feet should be the main criterion for teaching skiing. And, of course, the wedge christie I was doing at the time didn’t place me anywhere near hot feet!


I had a message to bring to the ski world from academia. And, interestingly enough, the message I brought was so needed by the organization that the powers-that-be listened. I introduced “Te Teaching Skills of Teaching and Learning Styles, Feedback, and Class Management” at Eastern Division Examiner Training. I am thankful to PSIA legends like Barry Brock, Jim Garstang, Freddie Anderson, Ray Allard, Shawn Smith, Horst Abraham, and Jerry Warren, who not only listened to me but moved me into various situations where I could share this “game-changing” message with our members. In 1979, I wrote my ‘benchmark’ article, “How Do I Teach? Tat Is the Question!” and it was published in our national


COURTESY OF JOAN HEATON.


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