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I grew up in a family that loved the sport of baseball. My dad had played it when he was younger, and my mom played softball. As you could probably expect, I entered the game of tee-ball at a young age and never looked back. As I grew older, I needed to transition from tee-ball to coach-pitch to Little League and so on. A smooth transition from one league to the next required me to transfer the skills that I had learned in the previous league to the one I was moving on to. For example, I started out by learning to hit a baseball off of a tee. Once I had "mastered" that motor skill, I could now try to hit the ball as it moved slowly towards me during coach-pitch. The transferring from hitting off of a tee to hitting a ball moving towards you is a difficult transition for many kids because now the child must react and time the swing rather than swing at a stationary object. Although the movement pattern is almost identical, the transfer of learning may be fairly low for some children between these two tasks. However, many older children, young adults and even professionals practice hitting baseballs off of a tee because it has shown to transfer over to the live game so well. With the right coaching and feedback, hitting off of a tee can be a great way to learn the proper mechanics of a swing without trying to worry about reacting to a moving object.

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No, of course not, but it can definitely improve performance of a skill. When I played baseball, I always strived for perfection. I wanted to get a hit every time I stepped up to the plate, strike every kid out when pitching and never make an error in the field. Although this is not attainable, I learned that practicing often, as well as the correct way, led to better performance. I may not have directly known this at the time, but variability in practice leads to better performance in the skill. For instance, we learned about blocked and random practice and their effects during the acquisition phase and on retention and transfer. Blocked practice leads to better performance during the acquisition phase, while random practice will lead to better retention and transfer of a skill. An example of this that I experienced in practicing baseball is fielding ground balls. I could field 10 right in front of me, followed by 10 forehands and then 10 backhands, or I could field 30 groundballs in which those three variations are done at random. I would perform better during practice if I were to practice the former, but my retention and transfer of the skill would be better if I practiced the latter. I may not have known this per se, but I always wanted the coaches to surprise me where they were going to hit it because it was more similar to a game situation. For novices or young kids trying to learn the correct technique to field each one the right way, blocked practice may be preferred, but in most cases, random practice is more beneficial.

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The pitcher winds up and delivers; here comes the pitch and strike one. A lot happens within a few short seconds when standing in the batter's box preparing to hit, especially as you get older and pitchers get better. In order to be successful as a batter, one needs to be able to identify, process and decide extremely quickly. The concept of hitting in baseball relies heavily on the stages of information processing. The first stage is the stimulus identification stage, which in this case would be recognizing the baseball being thrown toward you. The second stage is the response selection stage, so deciding whether or not to swing the bat. This stage involves a factor known as stimulus-response (S-R) alternatives. In the case of baseball, this could represent the number of pitches that a pitcher could throw. As you could probably guess, the more pitches that a pitcher can throw effectively, the harder it is to hit. It is based on the concept of S-R alternatives and choice reaction time. According to Hick's Law, choice reaction time increases by roughly a constant amount each time the number of S-R alternatives doubles. Being able to recognize which pitch is coming as it is approaching you is a huge advantage for the batter because you do not have to react so late. I had a difficult time with this when I first started facing off-speed pitches, such as curveballs and sliders. I could not recognize the spin of the ball, and therefore, would need to decide last second if I wanted to swing or not. The third and final stage of information processing is the response programming stage. It is the preparation and initiation of the response, or the load and beginning of the swing that occurs at this stage. Some factors that determine success at this stage is the accuracy and timing of the movement as well as repetition. Practicing the timing while in the on-deck circle is a common strategy for baseball players because it helps make some of those factors play more in their favor.

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In addition to playing the field and hitting at the plate, I also played one of the loneliest positions in all of sports-- pitcher. Transitioning from Little League to Babe Ruth League is a difficult one for many pitchers because the mound moves from 46 feet away from home plate to 60 feet away from home plate. The strike zone seems so small from far away compared to pitching in Little League. Obviously, the strike zone did not change size, but the distance that the ball needed to be thrown changed. Fitts' Law and the concept of Index of Difficulty can help explain this difficult transition for many pitchers. The Index of Difficulty is determined by two variables, the amplitude of the movement and the width of the target. Since the distance thrown, or amplitude, increased and the width of the target, or strike zone, remained the same, the Index of Difficulty would increase as a result. This indicates that the movement is more difficult to perform. It is also related to Fitts' Law, which states that there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy. Many pitchers at this level will try to slow down their movements and thus throw the ball slower in order to throw strikes. Perhaps, in a way opposing Fitts' Law, this strategy is often unsuccessful because the movement is no longer natural and fluid as is required when pitching the ball. On the other hand, going from Little League to Babe Ruth League as a batter was an advantage because the hitter had more time to adjust his/her swing and react to the pitch that was being thrown.

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I have since hung up the cleats, from playing the game of baseball at least, and switched to coaching as a way of giving back to the sport. Through my experiences playing and with the material in this class, I have learned some good and some not so good ways to coach young kids and adults. Providing feedback in the right way and at the proper time for kids trying to learn the game can be very beneficial for their learning. For example, the sandwich approach, in which reinforcement is stated first, followed by what was done wrong and finally some motivation to continue, can be a good strategy to provide appropriate feedback. Additionally, I had a coach who would very rarely provide concurrent feedback, or feedback during performance. He would wait until shortly after the performance, like when we all got back to the dugout, to correct the error. I found this use of feedback to be beneficial because I would focus almost all of my attention on what I just did wrong and lose my focus on the task at hand when coaches gave concurrent feedback. Also, presenting kids with prescriptive knowledge of performance, which is explaining how to fix what was done wrong, is a great way to present augmented feedback, especially when dealing with novices because they often do not know what they did wrong. Since I have only been an assistant coach thus far, I am generally the motivator and positive reinforcer, but I also give some critical feedback when I find it necessary. What I have learned most through playing and coaching is that there is not a one size fits all for providing feedback. Although there are more preferred methods of giving feedback, each person is different and responds to feedback in different ways.