Supplementing the Learning Experience

Supplementing the Learning Experience Chapter 8

Objectives • Discuss instructional techniques that movement practitioners can use to supplement people’s learning experiences and assist them during practice sessions • Explain the concepts of attentional control and arousal regulation and describe how practitioners might assist learners with each • Discuss the value of balancing practice and rest periods during and between learning sessions (continued)

Objectives (continued) • Explain the function of instructions and demonstrations and discuss the principles to keep in mind when providing these forms of assistance • Describe the advantages and disadvantages of guidance procedures • Discuss several techniques of physical practice and mental rehearsal that people might use during skill learning

Preview A young child asks a skilled performer to help him learn to water ski. The skilled performer knows what it feels like to ski correctly, and she remembers how difficult it was to get over the hump during initial learning. (continued)

Preview (continued) • What instructions should she provide? • Should she demonstrate the skill for him to observe? • What other types of instructional assistance should she provide? • When should she let him attempt the skill on his own?

Overview • Instructional techniques for supplementing learning • Creating an open and nonthreatening atmosphere • Methods for helping the learner achieve a general idea of the learning task • Physical and mental rehearsal techniques to use during skilled instruction (continued)

Overview (continued) • Issues instructors should address when attempting to create a learning atmosphere in a nonthreatening manner: • Creating optimal arousal • Balancing practice and rest • General learning of a task • Physical and mental rehearsal

Opening Communication • Describe a good instructor. • Movement practitioners should outline what needs to be said and done. • To increase learners’ receptivity, movement practitioners need to familiarize learners with the instructional process. • When learners know what to expect, they are more willing to take risks that lead to substantial improvement in performance. (continued)

Opening Communication (continued) • Familiarization establishes open communication rather than fear between the instructor and the learner and allows for maximum effectiveness during instruction. • The learner is the best person to determine how much information is needed at one time, but he or she must feel comfortable conveying such information.

Directing Attention • Attention is limited and becomes more so when a learner is anxious. • Attentional focus involves focusing on the most relevant sources of the task or information at all times.

Direction of Attention • External focus—cues or information in the environment • Internal focus—attending to personal thoughts and feelings (may be narrow or broad in the amount of information)

Breadth of Attention • Narrow focus—attending to a small or narrow amount of information at one time • Broad focus—sensitivity to a large number or wide range of cues at the same time

Directing Attention • The challenge is for practitioners to know what the optimal focus (task-relevant cues) for each learner and task should be. • Research in open skills suggests that the focus should be on external or environmental information. • The depth of attentional focus changes throughout the movement. (continued)

Directing Attention (continued) The practitioner must know relevantcues to direct the learners’ focus and allow learners to develop attentional control. • Open skills are performed in an environment that is unpredictable or in motion and requires performers to adapt their movements in response to dynamic properties of the environment. • Closed skills are performed in an environment that is predictable or stationary and allows performers to plan their movements in advance.

Managing Arousal When anxiety is high and the learner feels performance is being evaluated, ineffective movements may result. • Anxiety—uneasiness or distress about future uncertainties; a perception of threat to self • Arousal—level of activation or excitement of the central nervous system (continued)

Managing Arousal (continued) To overcome both anxiety and arousal, the instructor may stress process goals (performance improvement based on the quality of movement) instead of outcome goals (result of the activity). (continued)

Managing Arousal (continued) • Practitioners can encourage the learner to set realistic goals, but practitioners must understand that what is realistic for one performer might not be realistic for another. • If learners feel that the demands of the task are attainable and realistic, they are less likely to be overly aroused when performing.

Balancing Practice and Rest • How do you determine practice schedules (days, time, intensity)? • Schedules are often predetermined in organized sports. • Research suggests that practice that is shorter and more spread out is more effective than practice bundled together and too long. (continued)

Balancing Practice and Rest (continued) • Massed practice—rest between performance bouts is shorter than the amount of time spent practicing • Distributed practice—amount of rest between practice bouts is longer than the amount of time spent practicing (continued)

Balancing Practice and Rest (continued) • For discrete skills, less rest may be better; performers need lots of repetition without becoming bored. • For continuous skills that cause fatigue, less rest between performances may retard performance. • Instructors must critique the physical demands of the tasks and plan practice schedules accordingly. (continued)

Balancing Practice and Rest (continued) Practical implications for practitioners scheduling practice are as follows: • For practice bouts that last a short time and are not affected by fatigue, learners should perform many repetitions of the task. • For continuous tasks that are potentially affected by fatigue, practice should be accompanied by sufficient rest periods.

Skill Presentation Techniques Introducing learners to the situation and helping them acquire an idea of the desired movement require the following: • Instructions • Demonstrations • Guidance

Instructions • Presented verbally and provide general information about the fundamentals of the skill, such as how, when, and cues • Are clear and concise • Include descriptors understood by the learner • Deliver instructions through only a couple of key points (short-term memory is limited) (continued)

Instructions (continued) • Short-term memory (STM)—memory system that allows people to retrieve, rehearse, process, and transfer information to long-term memory; believed to be limited in capacity and duration • Limited attentional capacity—belief that humans can concentrate on only a limited amount of information at one time; restrains the ability to process information

Demonstrations • Information is more easily transmitted by visual demonstrations than by verbal cues. • Instructors need to model desired performance and provide observational learning. • Demonstrations assist the learner in error detection. (continued)

Demonstrations (continued) • Demonstrations and modeling movements must be helpful and of interest to the learner. • Demonstrations must direct learners’ attention to the desired and relevant cues. • Research reveals that when beginners watch skilled performers before practice, they learn faster.

Guidance • Guidance procedures direct learners through the task (physically, verbally, or visually) by providing temporary assistance during early rehearsal. • Physical guidance could change the feel of the task or deprive the learner of the opportunity to correct errors. • Movement professionals must make sure that guidance does not interfere with the learner’s ability to perform in the target context. (continued)

Guidance (continued) • During active guidance, the practitioner manipulates the environment so that the learner assumes control of the movement in an otherwise independent fashion (e.g., spotting in gymnastics). • Active guidance promotes the development of the desired coordination pattern without the assistance of guidance and is beneficial in learning situations that contain an element of fear or place people at risk of injury. (continued)

Guidance (continued) Passive guidance is much more subtle than active guidance (e.g., physical therapist placing her hands on the patient’s hand to produce a new wheelchair movement). • It may modify the feel of the movement enough that when the learner produces the movement independently, it is different. • Decision-making processes may be different when learners are not required to control their movements. • It may diminish learner’s experience of being able to feel and correct performance errors.

Forms of Practice Practice makes perfect. Is that correct? Effectively designed practice is needed. • Simulator practice • Part practice • Slow-motion practice • Error-detection practice • Mental-rehearsal techniques

Simulator Practice • Mimics real-world tasks • Effective when the target task is expensive or dangerous, facilities are limited, or normal practice is not feasible • Must be realistic and have as many of the motor, perceptual, and conceptual elements of the target skill as possible (continued)

Simulator Practice (continued) • Transfers learning to the target skill • Amount of transfer, cost of a simulator, availability of facilities, and the learner’s safety may influence the use of a simulator

Part Practice Initial rehearsal for complex skills occurs in three phases: 1. Fractionization—the parts of a complex skill are practiced separately 2. Segmentation—part of the skill is practiced, then a second part is added until entire target skill is practiced 3. Simplification—the difficulty of the target skill is reduced in some manner (continued)

Part Practice (continued) • Would part practice transfer the skill positively to the target context? • The time spent practicing a part depends on the skill being learned. • Parts sometimes interfere with the whole and may work better for serial tasks.

Slow-Motion Practice • Used to simplify the learner’s practice of a target skill by having the learner slow down • Contrasts with the specificity-of-learning concept • May yield benefit as it relates to a generalized motor program (a motor program defines a pattern of movement rather than a specific movement and allows flexibility) (continued)

Slow-Motion Practice (continued) • Slowing the movement slightly may allow the learner to maintain more control over the movement and as a result reduce errors. • Slowing the movement too much may change the context of the skill.

Error-Detection Practice • Learner must be sensitive to information produced by movement and adept at interpreting feedback that arises from movements; awareness may be kinesthetic, visual, or auditory. • Error detection is difficult during performance and may impede performance. • Instructors must be able to assist learners in developing the ability to detect and correct errors in performance. The focus should be on performance-related cues.

Mental Rehearsal • A person thinks through or thinks about performing a movement in the absence of overt movement. • Mental rehearsal can produce results similar to those found for physical practice and is always better than no practice. • Mental practice is mental rehearsal in which the participant thinks about the cognitive and symbolic elements of the skill. • Mental imagery occurs when learners imagine or see themselves performing the skill. (continued)

Mental Rehearsal (continued) • In sport psychology, mental imagery has been viewed as a method of priming movements. For example, muscles are primed for action during mental imagery, and the extent to which priming benefits physical performance depends on the amount of physical practice or experience. • The challenge for movement practitioners is to find the most effective methods of linking mental rehearsal and physical practice.

Supplementing the Learning Experience