Adopting the Role of the Learner

Cognitive learning is based on how students process new information in a way that makes it meaningful to them. Fitts and Posner (1967) describe this as a three stage theory to cognitive learning. These three stages include cognitive, associative and autonomous. The cognitive stage is when the student is given verbal instruction on the task in hand which includes the student to use personal perception and decision making how to perform the skill correctly. The second stage, associative being when the skill is repetitively performed to correctly perform the task.

And the final stage when the performance can be altered due to both positive and negative influences. This includes stress, distraction, advice or motivation. Social learning theory is based on how students perceive others when relating to performance skills. James et. al (2003) describes social learning as observing and copying their actions. An example of this is a coach demonstrating a skill move in a session and the class having to copy that movement as they perceived it. However, James et. al (2003) continues by explaining that not only is this related to coaching.

An example of this theory outside of coaching could be that a child may see a professional football player on the television argue with a referee and they would see this as the right thing to do being a role model. It is also possible to combine the two theories creating the Social Cognitive Theory. This theory includes that the amount of attention, retention, reproduction and motivation can affect learning. (Bandura, 1977) he states that if not enough attention is put in, learning will not take place or not be as efficient due to not enough information taken in. he amount of practice will also play a role due to if the students did not have enough time to practice the skill, they would not be able to perfect the skill and have a lower performance level. And the level of motivation also plays a part in this theory. If the student is not motivated to practice the skill, the level of effort will also decrease and will also prevent further learning to take place. Looking at both social and cognitive theories, they seem accurate as it is true that learning can take place via verbally and democratically.

These can be implied into coaching episodes either one or the other or together. For example, a coach could give an oral explanation how to perform a skill and present a demonstration how to perform the described skill. However, Bandura’s Social Cognitive theory is more accurate as it also includes other outside factors that could affect learning, in the environment and the student personally, therefore, creating more of an accurate outlook on education. A coaching episode was prepared.

The coaching episodes aim for the group was to, work as a team to try and work out different ways of completing multiple tasks without instruction. As the participants were mostly working out how to accomplish tasks themselves, many more social theories were associated to the session. The session was planned, the coaches knew that one or more of these theories had to be included and focused on. When choosing to work on social learning, a list of team building activities were chosen to work on teamwork and discover ways to complete tasks through communication.

Knowing that most of the group participated in team sports at fairly high levels, this would also be a test for team cohesion working as a task cohesion team. Weinburg and Gould (1995) quotes task cohesion as “members of a group work together to achieve a common goal” for example, a team playing against another would work together as a team towards beating the opponent and winning the match. In the session, the teams would be working together to complete the task before the others. There are six main theories of learning styles.

These include behaviourism, constructivism, connectivism, situated learning, social constructivism and activity theory. Due to the choice of activities, the social theories would be in place in the coaching session. These include constructivism, self-definition model and Connectivism. Bruner (1960) explains constructivism is the theory that people construct their own understanding and knowledge of a task that reflects on their own experience. This means that when learning a new skill, the student would take what they already know and understand and relate to the new task at and and try to make the two relate to each other. For example, the penalty kick in both football and rugby require similar movements as it includes a run up and kicking a ball at a target, however, in rugby, the target is much higher and with a different ball. This theory was used in the session in the second task when the teams had to move a baton the quickest way possible to one end of the playing area to another. This can be related to the 400m relay race. The group had the option to perform the task as the sport, but chose other ways than related to the sport.

For example, one group stood in a line and passed it all through the team until it reached the end of the line and one participant sprinted to the end of the playing area. This theory is also known as Bruner’s Discovery Learning Theory (1960). The self –definition theory is closely related to the coaching episode. Kendzierski and Morganstein (2009) created the theory that if a task is set without instruction how to accomplish the task, depending on the person’s personality and background, a different outcome would be achieved. They tested this by comparing two groups of sportsmen how they undergone a task set.

One group were sportsmen who took part in team sports, and the other took part in individual sports. They tested this by getting the group to hold hands with each other tangled up with each other and they had to find the quickest way to un-tangle themselves. They were not told how to complete the task and the team sports team completed the task first. They state that the reason for this was because there was a lot more social cohesion between the team as they were able to talk to each other and offer instructions while the individual sports team did not talk to each other as much.

The reason for this was because the team sport group had the personality to work better in a team, while the individual sportsmen were not. This is related to the coaching episode as the same task was presented to three different groups, however, teams were mixed of team sports and individual sports but it was noticed that the participants who took part in individual sports were more of the quiet ones. Connectivism is the theory that each individual processes information differently to create a unique learning style due to their behaviour and views on the situation. Greig et. l (1989) explains that; “A learner’s individual characteristics and learning behaviour, connected with views on how they prefer to receive and process new information, are considered to be their individual learning style” (Greig et. al. 1989) This means that each individual will process given information and may create a different outcome to others due to how they take in and process it. An example of this theory taking place in the coaching episode was in the first session. As the group had to un-tangle each other whilst still holding hands, the coaches noticed that each group had their own way of completing the task.

One group decided that in order to achieve the group objective, individuals would have to walk underneath the linked arms while another had the idea to crouch down and step over each others arms. Is could be questioned that the groups had different ways of doing this due to their mood and personality. The final and third group was not too keen on holding each others hands which made the task not as fun for them and rather than frequent movement, the group talked about how they were going to complete it rather than jumping into doing it.

This used up time and they completed the task last. This shows that each group had a different view of perceiving the task at hand with a different outcome. When relating all these theories and learning theories to the coaching episode, the cognitive learning theory was integrated into the session as the coaches only verbally described the task at hand while the groups had to think how to complete the task. Relating back to Fitts and Posner’s three stage theory to cognitive learning, this could be based on all three parts of the session.

Stage one was that the coaches explained how to set up each task and what the outcome was to be. The second stage is that the groups then repetitively practiced the activity, working as a team until they perfected the objective efficiently. Finally, they then were given praise by the coaches, guidance to using another strategy to complete the task and comparing their own result with other groups to create the competitive motivation to beat the other teams.

The reason why these theories were applied was because it would give the individuals and teams the opportunity to look at a task in many different ways and compare themselves with other results from other groups and improve their ability to work as a team and involve social communication to learning. The delivery of the session was a strong point to the session. Barker et. al. (2007) explains that one skill a coach must have is the communication skills to organise the group to ensure they are all working towards the same goal and correctly and each individual understands the information given to them and can learn from it.

The coaches inside the coaching episode showed a good demonstration of this in action as once instructions given; all participants were able to take part in the activities straight away without wasting time. This gave them enough time to do all three activities with enough time. Another strong point to the session was the fact that the participants enjoyed the session. Cassidy et. al (2004) suggests that the more enjoyable the session is, the higher the success rate is in the group. They continue by taking part in an enjoyable session, the athletes will be more motivated which will engage them more into complete the task at hand.

An example of this, during the holding hands game, it was visibly clear who was the more motivated team as they were laughing, talking to one another as well as being the first group to complete the task. However, there are many other variables that influence learning. For example, if a group of people are put together with their friends, there are to be too motivated by working with their friends and will not focus on the task set and most likely talking. On the other hand, there were also a few negative points to the session.

The second part of the session, the baton pass, was taking place, the group managed to grasp how to complete the task very quickly. In order to provide progression to the session, the coaches should have made the session harder. By doing this, the group could have had the opportunity to think a bit more how to complete the task when more rules would be made to make the task harder to achieve. Rules that could have been applied was that each team had to hold the baton at the end of the playing area also or the baton had to cross the playing are more than once.

Rather than this, the coaches left the task as it was, letting the groups experiment how else the task could have been achieved. Another weak point to the coaching episode was the planning. There was no real outcome or objective to the session. Robinson (2010) explains that each session plan needs to have session objectives in order for the coach to be able to reflect on during the session to see if they are being achieved. Intentionally, the coach’s objectives were to use social interaction theories to work out multiple ways to complete a list of tasks.

In conclusion, the session went very well as it included many different social learning theories for the participants, and they enjoyed themselves as well as engaging into the activity and working together as a team. On the other hand, no real session objectives were stated and some of the tasks became too easy for the participants to figure out the answers also there weren’t a time limit set By doing this, this would give the groups more time to experiment and have more time to think about what they are doing before and during each activity.