PDFE #14 "Structuring Practices - Part Practice"

On Monday, November 14th, our class learned how to juggle through two different methods - whole and part practice. Whole practice is learning a complete skill all at once. Part practice is dividing up the skill into sections so that the complex task is simplified for enhanced learning. Once each part is learned, they can be combined for the complete skill, or each new part learned can be added to the previous part until the complete task is learned.

In the lab, we divided up into pairs. One person learned juggling through whole practice, and the other learned through part practice. Each person had four blocks of 8 trials each, with a one-minute break in between each block. At the end, each person would take an 8 trial retention test. The whole practice performer was handed three balls and supposed to learned to juggle through trial-and-error. The part practice performer  broke juggling into three steps. Each time they learned a step, they would add it to the previous step until the entire skill was learned.

For juggling, part practice definitely worked better. By separating the complex task of juggling into three simple tasks of throwing and catching a ball, the participant was able to master one simple skill at a time before they moved on to a more difficult task. However, the whole juggler was forced to jump straight into the complex task and had a hard time figuring out the individual steps to juggling.

Based on the text, the fact that part practice worked better for juggling did not surprise me. Juggling has so many aspects to it that just looking at it performed is overwhelming. In order to learn the timing of throwing and catching the ball, it makes sense to have to slow down the juggling by splitting the task into multiple parts. While part practice is not effective for every skill, it certainly is helpful for juggling.

Other factors that could have influenced the results were natural ability, focus, pace of learning, hand-eye coordination, and excitement level. Any of these factors could have either slowed the learning process or distracted from learning, which would influence the results. In order to truly determine whether whole or part practice is more effective for learning how to juggle, a more controlled environment is needed.

PDFE #11 "Stages of Learning"

On Friday, November 19, 2010, I observed the lacrosse class taught be Coach Williamson at 9 am by the intramural fields. The purpose of this class is to teach students the basics of the game of lacrosse, including general rules, basic skills, and offense/defense strategies.

For the 30 minutes that I observed the class, Coach Williamson made the students warm-up, stretch, practice shooting, simulate clearing, and practice one-on-one defense. I followed one student's movement so that I could fill out the observation rubric in 15 second intervals. Overall, the students spent 48% of the time in an activity, 17% of the time listening to instruction, 2.5% of the time in equipment management, and 32.5% of the time waiting.

Although the percentage of time waiting and listening to instruction are high for an activity, the setting encourages more of a learning atmosphere than a purely active atmosphere. Coach Williamson had to explain some of the drills they were learning, and on several occasions, had to stop the players to make corrections. Also, since the students are beginners, they took longer doing some of the drills. During many of the clears and one-on-ones, player would drop the ball, which contributed to longer wait times for the other players.

However, Coach Williamson could have also encouraged more activity by teaching drills that included the entire class, not just two people at a time. The clearing drill was the best because the entire class participated and was fully active throughout the drill. Similar drills not only keep the whole class active but also encourage teamwork. While the percentages were appropriate for the setting, a few adjustments could be made to optimize the amount of physical activity.