Discuss how the organisation of practices and the style of teaching affect the learning of motor skills.

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Gemma Brayne

Discuss how the organisation of practices and the style of teaching affect the learning of motor skills.

A motor skill is an action or a task that has a goal and that requires voluntary body or limb movement to achieve the goal. There are many different styles that can be adapted by coaches to teach a learner to accomplish this goal.. When a coach presents a new skill to a learner they must decide the best way to transmit the knowledge that they have.. The four types of guidance are visual, verbal, manual and mechanical. Visual guidance is widely used when teaching motor skills because during the cognitive phase of skill learning visual guidance helps the learner develop a mental image of what they need to do.

The main type of guidance types chosen depends on the personality, motivation and ability of the performer. The nature of the skill being taught also has to be considered. It is vital that demonstrations must be accurate and should hole the learner’s attention. They should be repeated but not be too time consuming. Play as video clip of motor skill in slow motion may help the learner to pick up the skill. This type of guidance is used mainly at the start of a teaching skill.

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Verbal guidance should be used with the visual guidance to explain what is happening as they run through demonstrations. When a coach uses verbal guidance the coach must make sure they don’t talk too much as the performer might lose interest and get bored. Asking the learner questions might help personal development and build up confidence and test understanding. It isn’t very effective if used on its own.

Manual or mechanical guidance can reduce fear in dangerous situations e.g. wearing armband when learning to swim. It gives some idea of kinethesis awareness of the motion. The intrinsic feedback received could ...

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