Rink Text Ch 2 (Q3 + 4)

3. Children can learn motor skills on their own or with the assistance of a teacher. These skills are learned by interacting w/ their environment, experimentation, or imitation. Good instructions can be one of the best ways to teach a student a motor skill. Teachers need to have a safe and reliable environment. They should also give children plenty of time to experiment, such as just letting student kick a soccer ball around on their own for 5 minutes, to learn personally. A good teacher will teach with demonstrations and good instructions because some students learn better from imitation than others. Others might benefit from a paragraph written about performing a specific motor skill.
4. There are different ways that motor skills should be taught. A closed skill such as shooting a free-throw, is always going to be the same. The player has the same control and they can use the exact same time, foot position, and even the same form every time they perform the skill. There are no variables from the environment to worry about. An open skill on the other hand can be carried out differently because other players will influence how it is carried out. Serial skills are performed once, such as throwing a shot put in track n field, in which there is a discrete beginning and end. This skill is similar to a closed skill because the person doing it has 100% control and tries to replicate the exact form every time. Instructs for this skill are more black and white. A discrete skill such as dribbling is a sequence of serial skills performed back to back. When teaching discrete skills such as dribbling, practice and more practice is the best way to learn these types of skills, so the athlete will become fluid in the motor skill.