Comprehensive Group Project Template


EXS 297 | Motor Behavior

Part I 

Hypothetical Situation: Our learner is in the ninth grade, who is 6’3”, and 215lbs. He has been playing basketball
competitively since the age of six. He shows much compassion for the game, he is determined to make the varsity team
this year. His high school team is in a highly competitive section of the state. Being a ninth-grade freshman on a varsity
level team in this section is not very common. His basketball skills are above average for his age. With the height and
weight of most seniors he has a good chance of making the team. He plays a small forward but can move to a shooting
guard, or even a center if the team is running short on tall players. For him to make the team he has hired these four
practitioners that are highly skilled in the skills he needs to work on in order to improve to the autonomous stage and play
on the varsity team. The skills he will be working on this summer leading up to the fall try-out are, passing, shooting,
dribbling, and the defensive slide.

Skill: Shooting

Part II

Principles, Open | Closed

Skill: Shooting

At the beginning of instruction shooting would be taught in a closed environment to get the cues of the skill
down and understand what to do. But in this case, since we have a 9th grader who is trying out for varsity, I would set up
practice in an open setting. I would use an open setting because he would have to be able to shoot off a dribble and be
able to shoot while he is being defended closely on varsity. For practice, I would set up cones all over the court (some
inside the paint, some inside the 3-point arc, and some right outside the 3-point arc) and have the learner perform a shot
fake and then dribble to the cone and shoot a shot. This way the learner is getting the idea of being on the move and then
shooting off a dribble. Once the learner gets that down, I would then add a defender to the mix- I would have the defender
guard the learner relatively close so he gets the idea of how to shoot with a defender guarding him closely. This way with
practice, if the learner needs to adapt his shot in any way he can do so before the try out and he will succeed when the
time comes to perform the skill.

Stages of Learning (Fitts and Posner’s 3-Stage Model)

Skill: Shooting

When the learner is in the cognitive stage of learning for shooting in basketball, they will be given the best
practice that helps them narrow down the cues and movement patterns, for they likely have never had prior experience
with shooting a basketball. This will be done with high reps of the skill, broken down cues, a plethora of prescriptive
feedback, and including plenty of positive reinforcement and motivation- to keep the learner’s spirits up. As the learner
progresses into the associative stage of learning, they will move into more difficult shots and some aspects of shooting
that could happen in a game- such as shooting off a dribble or shooting when a defender is guarding them. This adds
more challenge to for the learner. Once the learner heads to the autonomous stage, they then at this point are just
keeping up on practice and trying to challenge themselves with harder drills. When the learner is in the autonomous
stage, they have mastered the skill.

Whole practice | Part practice

Skill: Shooting

Shooting a basketball would be taught in whole practice because the skill is low in task complexity. There aren’t
many aspects to the skill, so there is no sense in breaking the skill down. Also, with teaching a 9th grader, who can already
play basketball, there is no logical explanation as to why the skill should be broken down into part practice. When teaching
the learner how to shoot, I just want to reiterate the cues of shooting- bend knees, eyes on the basket, elbow in at 90
degrees, and to have a proper foul through. If the learner is performing these cues, then they should have a pretty high
success rate when shooting.

High Contextual Interference (random practice) | Low Contextual Interference (blocked practice)


Skill: Shooting
When trying to better yourself at shooting, I believe the best practice would be to use more of a blocked
approach. I think that if you are shooting the same shot 20 times in a row, you are going to build muscle memory which is
beneficial to the learner. Performing multiple shots on the court roughly 20 times for each shot will show the best results
because the learner gets to build that muscle memory, they can know how much leg power they need to use and they
understand the distance from them to the basket. Once the learner is comfortable with that, I would then switch to random
practice of shooting from random spots on the court. I would switch to random practice because in this situation, a 9th
grader trying out for varsity, he is going to need to be able to shoot from anywhere on the court and realistically you aren’t
going to shoot from the same spot more than once or twice in a real game. 


Feedback:

(Error Feedback / Correct Feedback) | (Descriptive Feedback / Prescriptive Feedback)

Skill: Shooting
In the situation that a 9th grader is trying out for varsity basketball; I would use more of an error feedback and
descriptive feedback approach. I would use those because the learner is old enough to learn how to handle criticism and
they want to get better at the skill, so they need to know what they did wrong in order to do so. The learner is also in the
late associative/early autonomous stage so they can most likely point out what they did wrong, they just need the
guidance to let them know how to fix it and what they need to do to not make that mistake again. I would also occasionally
throw in correct feedback simply because hearing what you’re doing wrong all the time doesn’t really motivate you. For
example, if the learner’s shot was a line drive at the basket I would ask them what they think they did wrong, and if they
couldn’t figure it out then I would tell them that it was because they didn’t use as much legs as they needed to and that
they need to add more legs to the shot to get a good arc on the ball. When they made the adjustment, I would then tell
them how well they adjusted and to keep up the good work.