The Science of Learning

When it comes to the science of learning many things have reiterated for me a lot of principles I have tried to use throughout my professional career. The three fundamental questions what works, when does it work and how does it work. Though when talking about instructional design these principles apply to all aspects. I use these when it comes to researching topics and to express to athletes that I work with that just because you read it on the internet doesn’t make it scientific and backed by real research. The key for me now adays is trying to sift through all the opinion pieces that everyone has. This is very true when it comes to sport performance. These are the same three questions I tried to find the answers to especially when it comes to sports supplements. Additionally, I have had on multiple occasions had to try to reeducate and convince people that what they were taught by someone else or have thought to be true, was in fact not true and actually the opposite based on scientific research. This reiterates for me the use of backwards planning and starting with your desired outcome and working that outcome all the way back to the beginning to create your learning standards and environment. Over the years I have learned how when applying instructional design at the educational level we should be focused on the proses of guiding curriculum development and at the instructional level we should be focused on design instruction. Additionally, when talking about test performance and did learns learn what you want them to learn is the difference between the use of retention tests and transfer tests. With retention tests being your basic can you remember what you were supposed to remember test. While the transfer test allows for learner to demonstrate a deeper understanding through the use of trouble shooting, redesign, prediction, and conceptual questions. The key components when constructing your test however are to make sure that the results you get are valid (appropriate score), reliable (same score every time), objective (gives same score for all scores), and referenced (gives interpretable score). This makes me think of the measures I use to determine if the workouts I have my athletes do are effective and getting the desired outcomes I’m looking for. When it comes to strength, I look for 1 rep max weight lift in certain exercises. Then before I have them start the program I get their beginning 1 rep max and then compare it to their final 1 rep max to determine improvement. Then for my conditioning I look at times for running a certain distance and resting heart rate again pre and post program. Depending on the time frame for the next competition I will also use a mid-evaluation to determine if I need to adjust program to meet the athletes need. Basically always remember to trend results, adjust one thing then determine if the outcome got better, stayed the same, or got worse. If it got better it worked, but if it stayed the same or got worse it didn’t and now you need to adjust something else to because that was not the problem or solution to your desired outcome. Another, key point I would like to talk about it is prior knowledge and how it is the single most import thing in learning. That being said I think the use of pretests in most settings when it comes to learning have gotten away from them, and though having a baseline of where the learn currently is at is so crucial. It seems like it gets pushed aside for time constraints and because of that sometimes the most basic things are assumed and overlooked. Lastly, if you take anything away never assume anyone's baseline (in anything), always find the baseline and build from there. I think this is where a lot of coaches and educators get frustrated, because as we all have heard I told you 100 times and your still not doing it right. Is it intentional on the learners part, usually not, or were a lot of things assumed and they still truly don't know what your trying to teach them because its just way over their heads.