1. The Learner: Pre-instruction Considerations
Chapter 6

2. Effective Communication
In your future professional path:
With whom will you need to communicate?
When will you communicate in the learning process?
Why will effective communication be important?

3. Effective Communication
Communication is the greatest single factor that impacts a learner’s ability to understand new concepts and achieve movement proficiency
Messages must be clear, concise, & match the developmental level of the learner
However, learners are all unique in how they receive new information and make sense of it

4. Effective Communication
The practitioner must provide meaningful instructions that take into account:
Learning styles
Individual differences
Level of motivation

5. Learning Styles
Individual preference for receiving and processing new information
Greater achievement when instructional and learning styles match
Dunn and Dunn’s model (1975)
Processing preference
Global vs. analytical learners

6. Global Learners
Need to see the big picture first then focus on the details
Show the whole skill before breaking it into pieces to learn

7. Analytical Learners
Do better with sequential instruction that culminates in the final product
Breaking the skill into pieces and then combining to the whole is best

8. Perceptual Mode Modal strength Four perceptual modes:
Preferred perceptual mode through which a learner takes in information
Four perceptual modes:
Visual
Kinesthetic
Analytical
Auditory

9. Examples of Cue Words and Strategies

10. Accommodating Learner’s Style
Utilizing only one presentation style denies learners comparable opportunities to understand the information presented
Know your learning style – tends to influence teaching style
Use eclectic approach when working with groups

11. Practical Application
Choose any skill and describe your teaching strategies that would accommodate all four styles of learning
How would you help a learner in PT?
In the classroom?
In the training room?
In the cardiac rehab facility?

12. Review Question
If effective communication occurs when messages are clear, concise, and match the level of the receiver, what is the significance of matching presentation style and learning style?
Pick two learning styles and list cues words and teaching strategies to match the learning styles.

13. The Learner
The learner is the central focus for the practitioner, therefore the practitioner must consider:
Present stage of learning
Learning style
Past experiences
Motivation
Abilities

14. Past Experience & Transfer
When the learning of a new skill or its performance under novel conditions is influenced by past experience with another skill or skills
From the learning setting to a target context/new environment
PT lab to the home
Doing a target skill under a different situation
Taking a jump shot practiced in isolation to doing the jump shot over an outstretched arm of a defender
Instruction in basic skills to later be combined to form more complex skills
Teaching elementary students how to throw to later be combined to throw to a player at a base
Making a difficult task easier for initial practice: combined serial skills in a skating routine would be separated for initial practice

15. Types of Transfer
Positive
Facilitates
Negative
Hinders
Zero
No effect

16. Theories of Transfer Identical elements theory
The more identical elements shared by two skills, the greater the positive transfer from one to the other
Transfer appropriate processing theory
Positive transfer would be expected when practice conditions require learners to engage in problem-solving processes similar to those experienced during the criterion task (or authentic situation)

17. Fostering Positive Transfer
Analyze the skill
Examine the following to determine the degree of similarity between two skills:
Fundamental movement pattern
The strategic and conceptual aspects of the game or task
Perceptual elements: what visual search strategies are similar? Walking down a busy street vs. walking down a clinic hallway
Temporal and spatial elements: similarities in how skills are done through time and space

18. Fostering Positive Transfer Cont.
Determine the cost-benefit tradeoff: unless similarity between skills, no sense doing the activity
Point out similarities and differences: how is a volleyball serve similar to a tennis serve?
Make sure that skills referred to have been well learned: transfer won’t occur if the analogy isn’t well learned

19. Fostering Positive Transfer Cont.
Use analogies: helps create a mental image
Maximize similarities between practice and performance/competition
Consider the skill level of the learner: beginners transfer more readily than intermediate or advanced learners

20. Assessing positive transfer
After instruction, design a transfer test that allows learner to apply the content taught
Experience with one skill to learning another skill (e.g. Bench press on Cybex machine to Dumbbell Bench press)
Performing a skill in one situation to performing it in another context (e.g.practice setting to game setting)

21. What causes negative transfer?
When an old stimulus requires a new but similar response
Change in spatial location of movement
Heat/AC switch in different location on a new car
Change in timing characteristics of the movement
Learning how to hit from one coach and then having another coach tell you to hit a different way
Changing the rhythmic pattern of the skill
Negative transfer effects are temporary; more often seen in early stages of learning

22. Why do negative transfer effects occur?
Practice develops a specific memory representation
This representation is the preferred way to perform (deep basin)
When a familiar situation requires a slightly different movement, problems occur (phase shift is hampered)
Another reason is cognitive confusion

23. Practical Application
How would you maximize positive transfer and minimize negative transfer in a learning situation?

24. Motivation to learn Highly motivated learners:
Devote greater effort to learning a task
Are more conscientious during learning sessions
Are more willing to practice for longer periods (even outside of the learning setting)

25. Motivation
Most motor learning situations have an achievement orientation towards goals
Success is judged by:
Improvements to performance
Improvements in performance when compared to performance of others

26. Ways to increase motivation
Explain why it is important to learn the skill
How is this skill relevant in daily life?
Fitness benefits? Use in ADLs? Health benefits?
Create a positive, supportive learning environment that is challenging yet realistic
Provide opportunities for success
Involve learner in the goal-setting process
Construct goals that are relevant and process oriented

27. Abilities and Learning
The underlying abilities inherited by the learner will predispose them to success or difficulty in various learning situations
High levels of underlying abilities will predispose to better chance of success
For those who do not have the underlying abilities:
Performance goals should be realistic, perhaps less rigorous
More specific practice opportunities towards a goal should be provided

28. Practical Application
How might you motivate an injured athlete, a person doing rehab, a ninth grader who doesn’t like PE, to participate in the learning situation?
Why is motivation a pre-instruction consideration?
Why should underlying abilities be considered during pre-instruction planning?