Describe and explain Fitts and Posner's' phases of learning and explain how you would structure practices to enhance performance.

emphasis is on the performer understanding what needs to be achieved, so that initial simple plans of action can be followed and achieved to a certain level of play. This specific stage involves a lot of trial end error, so that the professional teaching can give positive feedback to the performer, in order to improve his/ her game. The successful strategies can be reinforced at this stage and unsuccessful should not be dismissed due to the fact that all experiences can be worthwhile. External feedback is also achieved via observing other performers at higher levels. For example a teacher may show a learning player, trying to get a grip on the basics, the swing of Tiger woods, so that the learner can manipulate it into their own swing. The skill is mainly performed in a closed environment with as little outside variables as possible so the performer can achieve the basics of the game.2) The associative phaseThis is the intermediate stage, and can take much longer than the Cognitive stage. During this stage the performer learns through many hours of practising in open and closed conditions as they try to develop their skill. For golf the performer will be most likely to practice in closed conditions, as it is not a team game, however for football it may be different.The cognitive feedback has been learned so that the different parts of the skill can be performed and co-ordinated together, therefore giving an outcome desired by a learner. Significant errors are detected and corrected with and without the help of exterior sources such as coaches and videos of their performance. The performer aims to refine the skill In this stage.This is the stage at which a large majority of performers never overcome, as the next stage is describes as ‘Automatic’, however most performers find that they excel and improve the largest amount in this stage (phase) as the most feedback is given.3) The autonomous phaseThis is the stage that high-level performers participate at. This is only ever achieved after much practice and experience, often taking years, some players never even manage to reach this phase. In this stage the performer is so elite that the skill is like nothing to them they perform it almost automatically or habitually. .A performer doesn’t leap from one stage to another it is more of a gradual transitional movement as they develop their control. I find that this can be best illustrated on a continuum, running from the first phase (cognitive) to the final phase, where the performer is highly talented (Autonomous): -1) Cognitive phase                  2) Associative phase         3) Autonomous phase                                  Beginner                                                              Highly Skilled                                                        Shown above is the continuum. However performers at the cognitive stage will have different structured practices to those who fall in the category of the autonomous phase. For instance, a beginner in the game of golf will practice trying to gain and acquire the proper grip and posture to hit the ball. A highly skilled golfer may structure practices to draw, fade, or gain extra spin on the greens. This would not be a suitable ambition for a beginner as he she would not be able to do it until they fell into the later stages.To structure practices for people at a Cognitive phase of learning the performer should observe another performer doing the correct skill. The person learning the skill should then try to imitate the skill. Whist they are doing this the performer should have feedback from an external source like a teacher or a coach, or in my case golf professional, depending on the sport the performer is aiming to acquire a skill in. The emphasis should be on understanding what has to be done and the vital parts of the skill should be achieved. The performer must be praised when good things are achieved to boost their confidence and notify that that part was accomplished well. These sessions should be quite short about 20-30 minutes; this is the average length of a golf lesson.To structure practices for people at Associative stage of learning you would need to have a long training period, which could be years, depending on the amount of time the performer is willing to spend trying to achieve through practice per week or even day. At this stage the performer may also try to create a training programme in order to become the perfect shape for their sport, e.g. for golf I try to increse my flexibility and upper body strength so as to increase my mobility through out my swing path.Structured practices for people at the Autonomous stage of learning. In this stage coaching should Be in small groups in order to gain the most benefit as there will only be small errors in the skill which may otherwise be missed and wont be highlighted and improved upon. Praise is not usually given in this phase of development as it is a tactic used to make the golfer or other sport performer feel better, and that they are being acknowledged. Word count = 1,068