The biggest mistakes teachers make when teaching pitching

Q: What are the biggest mistakes teachers make when teaching pitching?

The biggest pitch-teaching mistakes are: starting with slides instead of structure, over-coaching charisma, grading by gut instead of rubric, calling on volunteers (always the same students), and skipping peer judging. Fix any one and results jump. Fix all five and the unit transforms.

The story

Teachers who teach pitching well aren't necessarily the most charismatic; they're the most structural. The five mistakes that consistently sabotage pitch units are starting with slide design (slides are the last 10%, not the first), over-coaching charisma (which excludes shy students by design), grading by gut (which feels unfair and is), only calling on volunteers (which calcifies the same dynamic), and skipping peer judging (which leaves students dependent on the teacher's reaction). SideHustle LIVE Labs avoids most of these by structuring the 90-minute Labs format around teams, rounds, and Funny + Fundable scoring. It has run as one-time activations at Mars Hill, the University of Oklahoma, Penn State, Xavier, and the University of Wisconsin. For the foundational teaching method see how to teach pitching to high school students. Structure beats charisma in teaching just as it does in pitching.

What it means

If your pitch unit is producing the same three confident students every year, the problem isn't the kids; it's the structure. Audit your unit against the five mistakes. Fix the worst one first. Repeat next semester. Within a year you'll have a different set of students raising their hands.

Try it

• Play free at playsidehustle.com
• See us live: Sept 25 at Pershing Hall in Austin. luma.com/playsidehustle
• Email team@playsidehustle.com