PDFE #7: Personal Ability Inventory

Personal Ability Inventory:
Multi-limb coordination-4
Control Precision-3
Response Orientation-5
Reaction Time-5
Rate control-4
Manual Dexterity-2
Finger Dexterity-5
Arm-hand steadiness-3
Wrist-finger speed-5
Aiming-2
Explosive Strength-4
Static Strength-2
Dynamic Strength-3
Trunk Strength-4
Extent flexibility-4
Dynamic Flexibility-3
Gross body equilibrium-3
Balance with visual cues-4
Speed of limb movement-5
Gross body coordination-3
Stamina-4
Movement rate-5
Motor timing-4
Perceptual timing-2
Force control-4

5 Skills I can perform with a high level of proficiency:
1. Soccer penalty kick
2. Typing on a keyboard
3. Threading a needle
4. Balancing on a ropes course
5. Playing air-hockey

Ideal Ability Profile for Playing Air-hockey:
-reaction time
-rate control
-arm-hand steadiness
-aiming
-motor timing
-force control

Discussion:
I think there are a number of ways that a person who is not naturally skilled at playing air-hockey can improve their performance.  One of the most important factors needed in order to be good at air hockey is reaction time. The puck moves very quickly across the playing surface and a player needs to be able to react quickly to deflect shots and prevent goals.  However, some players may not have a good reaction time, so in order to compensate for this, they should work on accurately anticipating where they think the puck might go based on body positioning and arm speed of their opponent. If the player is able to predict where the puck is going to travel, they won't have to react as quickly to get there. Another area an air-hockey player needs to be good at is aiming.  The slot the puck can slide into is very small and the puck is moving so quickly that it can be difficult to aim for that tiny opening.  This is an area that I am not very good at and I ranked myself as a "2" in that category, especially under conditions where quick choices and speed are necessary along with accuracy.  In order to compensate for a lack of natural ability in this area, I instead use force control.  If the puck is sometimes moving very forcefully towards the goal and sometimes bouncing around more slowly, if is difficult for the other player to determine what type of shot is coming next.  They are unlikely to be able to guard their goal against every different type of shot so even if your aim isn't perfect, you can still distract your opponent and score on some of the less accurate shots.

PDFE #6: General Motor Ability

For this PDFE experience, we did a lab to test and see if any one person has a general motor ability (the ability to perform the best in every movement activity).  To test this, we got into a group of 6 and performed a variety of balance exercises. The 6 exercises were the stork stand (balancing on one foot), the diver stand (balancing on two feet with arms flexed), the heel stand (balancing on two heels in ready position), the sideward leap (jumping side to side on alternating feet and touching ankles), bass stepping-stone (jumping forward on alternating feet and then turning around on one foot), and book walk (balancing a book on the head while walking).  In that order, the results for our lab were:

Meredith: 3,1,6,2,3,2
Amanda:  5,2,5,3,6,5
Lindsay:   1,3,4,1,1,3
Robert:     4,5,3,5,1,1
Bethani:   6,6,2,3,3,4
Jeff:         2,4,1,5,3,6

As indicated by our results, some people did better than others overall, but everybody had a range of scores which means no person excelled on every single activity. The person who did the best in our group overall, Lindsay, had a background in ballet which helped her on her general balance abilities, but even she scored 4th places on one of the activities.  Based on this information, I think people do not usually have a general motor ability.

PDFE #5: Reflection

This reflection is over the power point about how undergraduates need to make themselves as marketable as possible for future graduate school options or careers.  As a senior currently applying to graduate schools and reading back through this power point, I feel that it is does a really good job at identifying options students have to take full advantage of their college experience.  One of the main points I took away from the power point is that students need to set their goals early and then always bear those goals in mind as they do what it takes to work towards them.

My goal for next year is to be in a physical therapy graduate school program.  In order to achieve this goal, I have kept my college GPA well above a 3.50.  I also have studied for and taken the GRE which is the test required by all of the schools.  I worked three internships in different PT settings and had a variety of academic honors, academic clubs, and service experiences.  I also did a study abroad in Costa Rica and I work in the Athletic Training Office at Berry. Based of these experiences, I feel like I worked hard to make myself a viable candidate for graduate schools and hopefully my hard work will pay off as I start to hear back from the schools in the next few months.

Another aspect I liked about this powerpoint presentation is that it recognizes that college is important for more than just academic experiences.  Employers want to know that their future employees are not only smart, but also able to communicate and present original ideas so things like getting involved and building relationships are just as important as good grades.  In fact, all of the graduate schools I am applying to require an interview as part of their admission process so they can make sure students are capable of holding an intelligent conversation as well as studying from a book.  The choices that students make as they go through college (and also beyond that into graduate school and in their jobs) will determine the kind of opportunities they receive later in life so it is important that they try to experience everything possible.

PDFE #4: Interview

For this PDFE experience, I interviewed George Ryan Hipp on September 27th in the Cage. George Ryan is an Athletic Trainer at Berry College, but he is hired through Advance Rehab, a rehabilitation clinic in Rome.

Question: How long have you been a trainer?
Answer: This is my second year working as an AT at Berry.  Before I was working at Berry, I worked as an AT at different local high schools.

Question: Where did you do your undergraduate studies and what was your major in?
Answer: I attended Berry College for five years as an undergraduate. While I was there, I got my Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology.

Question: How did you become interested in Athletic Training?
Answer: While I was at Berry, I started working with Ginger Swann, the head Athletic Trainer. I really enjoyed my experience working with her and so I decided that I wanted to pursue that career.

Question: Did you ever consider any other career besides Athletic Training?
Answer: I always wanted to do something in the health field. When I was first entered college, I was a pre-med major, but my grades were not good enough. I also thought about being a therapist, but then when I started working in the AT office, I found that my true passion and interest was with athletes.

Question: What is your favorite thing about working as an Athletic Trainer?
Answer: I really like the population of people that I work with. Athletes are a highly motivated group of people and they really want to get better. Normally, when you tell an athlete what they need to do to rehabilitate, they are going to work really hard and give you their best effort.  You don't always see that kind of determination in every population.

Question: What is your least favorite thing about working as an Athletic Trainer?
Answer: One of my least favorite things about the job is the inconsistent schedule.  Every week, practice times can get shifted around or athletes will have to re-schedule their rehab times.  Also games can happen on any day of the week at almost any time and its hard to plan ahead.  It's also hard to stay on top of paperwork and other administrative duties because there is almost always someone practicing or an athlete who needs help and you have to cover that before you get your paperwork done.

Question: What is the hardest part about the job?
Answer: The hardest part about the job is that there is just never enough time. You have to try and learn to find the best balance possible for all of the tasks required, but even then, you sometimes just can't get it all done. At that point, you have to prioritize and decide what really needs attention right away and what things you're going to have to let slip for a little while, for better or for worse.  No one ever wants to not be able to give every detail of a job their full attention, but in this job, there just is not enough time for that and you have to be able to let things go.

Question: What are your long term career goals?
Answer: Eventually, I would like to go back to school and earn my PhD.  Then I would like to be able to teach, either in college kinesiology classes or in AT classes.

Question: What are you doing right now to work towards that goal?
Answer: I just recently took the GRE so I can start applying to graduate programs. Right now, I am researching the programs that will best be able to help me reach my career goals as well as fit in with my other life demands and scheduling demands.

Question: What advice do you have for an undergraduate aspiring athletic trainer?
Answer: One of the most important things to learn how to do in college is time management. That is a skill that you will need to use for the rest of your career, no matter what job you take.  Also, students need to make the most of every opporunity and just try to learn as much as possible because a lot of lessons that you can learn and use in a job are taught outside of the classroom.

Group Meeting #3: Meredith, Lindsay, and Caitlin

Our meeting was on September 23 in the Cage Lobby. It began at 2:30 PM.

Agenda:
Old Minutes: Before beginning, we approved the minutes from the last meeting.
New Minutes: During this meeting, we went through and filled out our collaborative project plan.

Step 1: Identifying Group
The members in our group are Meredith, Lindsay, and Caitlin.

Step 2: Identifying Project Topic:
The title of our proposed topic is Motor Development and Balance with Age.  During this project, we want to look at how balance skills develop and change in people as they age.  Some of the questions we are going to attempt to answer are:  What are appropriate balance activities for children at different ages?  What physical processes are happening as we balance? Does balance change after an injury like a stroke or a car accident and how can this information be applied in a future career as a therapist or other exercise-science related major?

Step 3: Developing Plan of Action
The resources we plan to use for this project include people (such as our parents), websites, and books (library books as well as our textbook).  Methods we plan to use to gather information include interviews, online research, and book research.  Before our next class meeting, Meredith is going to type this information up and post it on the blog while Lindsay and Caitlin begin to locate possible resources for the project.  We plan on designing the slide show and writing the project summary together as a group.  During the presentation, we will take turns presenting the material we feel most comfortable with although we all planned to be prepared to answer questions about any of the material.

Our next meeting will be next Thursday at 2:30 in the Cage Lobby.  Our meeting today concluded at 2:45 PM.

PDFE #3: Movement Preparation

For this PDFE, I observed the college intramural soccer games.  The games happened on Sunday, September 19th from one o'clock in the afternoon until around dinner time.  The temperature was over 90 degrees and the games lasted 24 minutes (two 12 minute halves with a short break in between).

Reaction Time:
At the beginning of the soccer game, one team kicked off the ball from the mid-field line.  The other team was not allowed to enter the circle and put pressure on the ball until the first team touched it.  The first touch was the initial stimulus and the amount of time that it took between the touch and the other team to run into the circle is called reaction time.  Some reasons for why the reaction time causes a lag is because the person must see the information, send it the brain, the brain must process it, and then send an impulse to the motor nerves to begin moving. All of this adds up to cause a slight delay in response time.

Hick's Law:
An example of Hick's Law with little uncertainty (only one response choice) is when an offender went on a break-away and was one-on-one against the defender. The defender only had one response choice: to try and steal the ball from the offender. It did not take them long to decide what to do. However, in another scenario, a defender was also guarding a break-away, except this time it was with two offenders. Now, the defender had to make a choice about what to do. She could either defend the player with the ball, defend the other offender, or try to intercept a pass between the two.  All these choices made the defender indecisive about what was the next best step so her reaction time was slower.

Psychological Refractory Period:
An example of the psychological refractory period is when an offender went on a break-away and was one-on-one against the goalkeeper.  The offender pretended to shoot the ball to the right so the keeper dived towards the right. However, the offender actually still had the ball and proceeded to shoot towards the left side of the net.  The goalie was unable to get to the ball because she had to process the second stimulus and then get up and try to dive in the opposite direction.  This takes a longer amount of time because she had to try and switch her momentum mid-dive and there just was not enough time. The delay in reaction to the second stimulus is called the psychological refractory period.

Anticipation:
An example of accurate temporal anticipation is when a player threw the ball inbounds toward a teammate. The teammate was able to read the curve of the ball and jump at just the right time so she connected with the ball as it came toward her and was able to head it further upfield.  An example of inaccurate spatial anticipation is when an offender saw the open sideline ahead of her and thought that her teammate would kick the ball into this open space. She sprinted down the field but her teammate ended up kicking the ball in the other direction so the girl had to sprint back to where she came from. This inaccurate anticipation caused her to lose both time and energy.

PDFE #2: Movement Classification

Context

For this assignment, I observed a high-school cross country event.  There were a total of 7 different races, separated according to skill (ex. men's and women's varsity, men's and women junior varsity, general race, etc).  In total, there were around 3000 high school runners from local high schools.  The race was held at Berry College, in and around the Clara Bowl next to the Ford buildings.  Races began at 8:00 in the morning and continued every 45 minutes until 12:45 pm.  Every race was a 5K (or 3.1 miles) and the weather was sunny and warm.

One-Dimension Systems

Running a race is primarily a locomotor skill.  The objective of the race is to complete the 3.1 miles so the primary purpose behind the movement is to travel.  However, before the races, the runners also stretched their muscles so they would not injure themselves which involved some stability (especially for standing stretches such as the quadriceps stretch or the single knee to chest stretch).  Running a race almost entirely involves gross muscle groups.  The runners are moving their entire bodies at once, emphasizing large muscles groups like the quadriceps, the biceps, and the abdominals.   One example of a time they might use their fine motor skills is in the muscles of the eyes.  These muscles use quick, short, controlled movements so the runners can scan the course and check their progress relative to the other runners.   Running is an example of a continuous skill.  There is no definite beginning or end because the legs continuously move one foot in front of the other in a cycle.  The arms also swing back and forth, one after the other, in a continuous cycle so the entire movement is a continuous skill.  Running the race is relatively closer to the motor end of the cognitive-motor continuum.  The course is already mapped out so the runner just needs to stay within the fencing and keep running, involving little thinking.  However, the movement is not an entirely motor skill because some strategy is involved.  The runner needs to decide about whether they will run an equal speed the entire time or conserve some energy so they can do a final sprint at the end.  They also need to decide if they want to sprint at the beginning to get in front of the pack so they won't get caught behind people or if they want to wait and try to work their way up later in the race.  The race involves elements of both closed and open environmental predictability.  The environment is closed because the race is mapped out in a constant pattern and the runners can see this course and walk over it before they begin the race. They also practice running 3.1 miles often so they know approximately what time they should aim for.  Examples of open environmental elements include the weather conditions, the field conditions, the number of other racers, and when the other competitors decide to make a final push.  Because of these mix of factors, running a race probably falls close to the middle in the closed-open environmental continuum.

Two-Dimensional System

1.  White-water kayaking-body transport, object manipulation, environment variation, context variation
       In white water kayaking, the body is actively moving as the kayaker rows and adjusts the core to the movements of the kayak.  The kayaker also manipulates the oar.  There is environmental variation because the water is moving and carrying the kayak as it flows forward.  There is also context variation because the kayak sometimes travels through smooth water and sometimes it goes through rapids or over small waterfalls.
2.  Flipping through channels on the TV-body stationary, object manipulation, no environment variation, no context variation
      While flipping through channels, the person is just sitting and watching so the body is not moving. They are using the remote so there is object manipulation.  The environment is not moving so there is no environment variation.  Also, the context of the environment remains the same so there is no context variation.
3.  Driving a car-body stationary, object manipulation, environmental variation, context variation
    Because the person is just sitting in the seat, the body is stationary. The driver manipulates the steering wheel.  The environmental is variable as the car moves forward across the road and the cars around the driver shift position. Also the context of the car changes as it moves, possibly from city to suburbs or from heavy traffic to empty roads.
4.  Hiking through a farm-body transport, no object manipulation, no environment variation, context variation
   The person is traveling through the woods so they are moving their body. They are not manipulating any object (unless they are holding a walking stick or binoculars).  The environment has no variation because the fields remain the same across the distance.  The context of the field changes as the person changes their relative positions to their surroundings and hikes through different types of vegetable patches.