By Angelo Ross, PSIA-AASI Education Development Manager

At first glance, a snowsports lesson might look tidy and linear. To students, trainees, or staff observing from the sidelines, it may appear as though the instructor followed a clean sequence of steps—an orderly progression from greeting to warm-up to content delivery to debrief. Unless given a few peeks behind the coach’s curtain, it’s easy to assume that the plan was predetermined and executed smoothly from start to finish.

But teaching rarely unfolds that way.

For example, a duck looks calm gliding across a pond, but in reality, the duck is paddling furiously beneath the surface. The same holds true for instructors who are constantly managing decisions beneath the surface. Safety checks. Moods and motivations. Terrain and changing conditions. Time pressures. Developmental readiness. Cognitive load. Rest needs. Equipment considerations. Traffic patterns. Access to gates or terrain features. Weather. Engagement level. And the ongoing search through a mental Rolodex of relevant, attainable activities that could help the students in front of us move closer to their goals.

A good teacher rarely follows a script; they are constantly adapting.

Teaching as Partnership, Not Presentation

Every snowsports lesson is shaped by two sets of inputs:

1. Students’ motivations and goals
   
2. Students’ current stage of skill development, available time, resources, and environment
   

When instructors collaborate with students as opposed to presenting at them, we weave these inputs together and weigh them against our training, understanding, and experiences to shape what happens next. A student’s desire to improve at the sport, to explore steeper terrain, to feel confident with increasing speed and pitch are as important as assessing the snow conditions, their energy level, and their distractions from the “real world.” All of these variables reshape the path forward.

The PSIA-AASI People Skills and Teaching Skills require us to be constantly vigilant—and to work within these parameters.

For more information on this topic, check out “Not All Snowsports Lessons Are Created Equal”

A Realistic Pathway for Instructor Development

Snowsports instructors grow through stages that reflect both skill acquisition and teaching sophistication. A practical developmental arc might look something like this:

1. Inexperienced Instructors

New instructors benefit by copying reliable habits of more experienced instructors. Working closely with staff trainers, studying PSIA-AASI curriculum resources, practicing time- and field-tested foundational tasks, and—crucially—by experimenting with them and reflecting on their applicability. Try something, see what happens, and then debrief with mentors who can help recognize patterns and associate tasks with progress.

At this stage, trainers play an essential role by:

• Demonstrating tasks aligned with specific skill areas
  
• Categorizing these tasks clearly
  
• Providing a detailed enough toolkit new instructors can “copy” and adapt appropriately based on student needs

The goal here isn’t creativity—it’s clarity.

2. Developing Instructors

With time and experience, instructors begin to see how different activities serve different needs. They gain confidence mixing and matching tasks, adjusting terrain, modifying cues, and selecting strategies that fit both the student and the moment.

Choosing wisely based on prior experiences—both successes and failures—is a hallmark of this stage of teacher development. Competence here marks the beginning of true autonomy.

3. Masterful Instructors

Highly skilled teachers draw from years of study, reflection, and deliberate practice. They design learning environments that embody the best practices in teaching and learning. They read the room—and the terrain—in real time and can create novel activities on the fly that connect student motivation with developmentally appropriate challenges.

Their work looks effortless because it is supported by a deep structure:

• Understanding of motor learning
  
• Awareness of cognitive load
  
• Ability to choose and interleave tasks
  
• Skilled use of external cues
  
• Refined sense of what the student needs right now
  

These instructors aren’t executing a plan—they’re orchestrating possibilities.

Planning vs. Preparing: A Crucial Distinction

This teaching arc mirrors two useful ideas:

1. Copy → Choose → Create

New instructors copy what works.
Developing instructors choose among options.
Expert instructors create options.

2. Planning vs. Preparing

A plan is a fixed sequence of steps—followed regardless of feedback or receptivity. Preparation, however, is rooted in experience. It equips instructors with adaptable tools, frameworks, and insights that allow them to pivot based on the learner’s needs in the moment.

Preparation supports autonomy. Planning risks rigidity.

How Language Shapes Action: Lesson vs. Class

The words we use shape how we think, and how we think shapes how we teach.

We often refer to any block of time with students as a lesson. But what if we instead thought of it as a class—and the class as being composed of multiple lessons?

Schoolteachers operate this way because it reflects the iterative nature of learning. A class contains many lesson cycles, each consisting of:

1. Delivery of information and a check for understanding (“teach the lesson”)
   
2. Independent practice (“assign homework”)
   
3. Re-check for understanding (“check the homework”)
   
4. Decision point:
   
   • Move to the next lesson
     
   • Revisit the previous one
     
   • Provide more practice without adding new information
     

This structure naturally supports adaptation. It invites decision-making and focuses instruction on progress, not prescription.

Teaching as a Branching Narrative

When viewed through this lens, snowsports instruction is less like following a recipe and more like navigating a branching narrative—a “choose-your-own-adventure” structure familiar to anyone who has read those books or played modern video games.

Each decision point leads to a new pathway. Performance output and student choice open a new chapter. Each moment of understanding—or confusion—invites a different response from the instructor.

The best instructors aren’t those who stick to the plan—they’re the ones who can reshape the plan to meet the learner where they are with what they need. From this viewpoint, adaptation is a skill, a habit, and a mindset. It begins with copying what works, grows through choosing what fits, and culminates in creating what the student needs in the moment.

Masterful snowsports instruction is never truly linear on the inside, even if it looks as such from the outside. The art of teaching lies in navigating hidden complexity with clarity, curiosity, and collaboration, leading to progression that is nonlinear, dynamic, and individualized. Just like learning itself.