Doing and Learning

Dave Hopla did a plenary presentation at Learning 2006 on "Muscle Memory and Learning" that I found quite fascinating. I watched him complete 99 of 103 free throws while he made his presentation. He really engaged me with his comments about visualizing, practice and feedback. The following day I had the opportunity to participate in the Pit Crew Training available at Learning 2006. Both learning experiences engaged me, but in different ways.
Listening to Dave and watching him complete free throw after free throw really got my attention, he walked his talk! That made an impression on me. His presentation got filed in a part of my brain where "important information" goes. That is the stuff that I can recall with ease. Also in that part of my brain is a vivid "to do item", get out on the basketball court soon to practice what I learned from Dave - make it my own!
The 30 minute Pit Crew Training and two tries at doing the pit crew tire change against the time clock was a second learning experience. There were all sorts of lessons learned in that 30 minute training experience. The learning stays vivid in my mind. "Doing" accelerated the learning experience and lessons learned are vividly recorded for playback. One example of a lesson learned - accuracy vs. speed, I can see the pneumatic wrench in my hands and the sequence I learned for taking off and putting on the lug nuts on the front tire. The instructor talked about accuracy vs. speed. In our first "pit stop" against the clock I was focused on speed, and wouldn't you know it took twice as long to get those lug nuts off! The time on the first round was over 38 seconds. On the second round, with more focus and the first round feedback, I concentrated on accuracy. Time on the second try improved by 10 seconds. There were five of us all working together. What I describe here is only my part of the team experience. And what is important to share here in the Blog this morning is my reflection on how I learn by doing.