Defining Skills Levels

[VGB]

According to many posts of Vince and John, I am sure they'll agree we might (should) look into studies about other throwing sports at what age athletes top out. I assume we all know the answers. So how about learning from the others here, too?

There’s a difference in the subjects Bernd, and it is a fundamental problem with casting instruction as well, in that the lines between learning and performance have been blurred.

Along with others, I’ve looked at learning instead of top end performance. There are distinct differences between competition and fishing objectives. Competitors are trying to refine performance in a narrow range of objectives in a highly constrained task, anglers have a much wider range of objectives and constraints. For sure there are similarities between the sports but there are also significant disparities in what we are trying to achieve.

From the literature, it appears to me that fishing casting instruction has focused on performance, cloning the techniques of top end casters, instead of focusing on the learning process that lead to the top end performance. Alternatively, we may offer a quick fix to get people fishing quickly that is performance limiting in the short term. Most other coached activities recognised the distinctions between learning and performance about 50 years ago and are playing catch up.

Regards

Vince

[VGB]

I’m sure, Vince. It’s a process of rinse and repeat. What I was eluding to earlier is at some point there is another huge jump. Not all leaps are the same distance and up the ladder there is a big one.

We are probably agreeing Paul, and it makes me uncomfortable I still think that your leap is cognitive though.

Have a great break, apart from eating and drinking I might manage some more canal piking. The chalklands are on amber alert for groundwater flooding, so the chance of annoying grayling is quite thin.

Best for the season

Vince

[Paul Arden]

I still think that your leap is cognitive though.

I think so too.

Why would flooding affect the chalkstreams? I assume they don’t discolour, or burst their banks? Or is it that you’d need an amphibious vehicle to get there? Couldn’t you borrow one?

[VGB]

The Avon does discolour now but it originates in greensand but the biggest problem is run off from the saturated surrounding farm land. Groundwater flooding is a bit different, the water table is raised so your the water comes up through the floor of your house and flooding can happen at the top of hills, not just in the river valleys.

It’s a risk now because we have had over 12 weeks of above average rainfall and the acquifers and boreholes are full to the brim, the winterbournes started running in the first week of November, February is more normal. Fishing wise, the banks are underwater and the push on the river makes it impossible to wade.

The pike fishing has been fun though, it’s been a while since I went regularly. All the kids check for Santa in the mornings, I check the river levels and weather forecasts

Regards

Vince

[Bernd Ziesche]

Hi Vince
You seem to like the Fitts and Posner model in regard of teaching motor skills (3 levels mainly based on performance level).
How about those, who like to set up age groups for teaching motor skills (done in many other sports)?
Paul, seems to believe he has not peaked yet, casting wise (performance wise). It seems fair (to me) to summarize, that it was often said, we can be brilliant casters all our way into high age.
But how about learning motor skills? Should there be (or are there) different levels based on age?
Regards
Bernd

[VGB]

Hi Bernd

You seem to like the Fitts and Posner model in regard of teaching motor skills (3 levels mainly based on performance level).

The Fitts and Posner model is a means of assessing stages of learning it is not a teaching method.

But how about learning motor skills? Should there be (or are there) different levels based on age?

The model is behavioural not age based and I would expect that we go through the same process regardless of age or the particular motor skills activity. Do you have anything specific in mind?

Regards

Vince

[Stoatstail50]

Should there be (or are there) different levels based on age?

Fits and Posner is about cognitive demand and its effects.
However, any practicing instructor is going to be aware that there are matters of brain plasticity and fine motor development at the younger end of the age range and functional decline at the other. These map over the Fits and Posner stages of learning no problem.

[Bernd Ziesche]

Hi Vince,
Reading the headline of this thread and your initial quote of what Mark said about a need to define groups/skill levels first, I thought this thread is about how to define different levels.
Sure you can use the F&P model and built such groups. Paul said you can have all those 3 levels for beginners, advanced and professionals. I agree. That aside you could also take that model to split into groups.
Or you can find other measures for splitting into groups.
If and if how we split becomes part of how we teach and thus is part of our method of teaching in my point of view. In other sports age based groups are common.
So I was asking how you guys think about this in fly casting and fly fishing.
Or maybe you have other ways?
Regards
Bernd

[VGB]

Hi Bernd

What Mark said was:

These threads get twisted out of shape because it’s never really made clear whether we’re talking about teaching beginners, recreational casters, instructors or competition distance casters.

F&P doesn’t really define groups, it’s a measure of where an individual is in the learning continuum, with some indicators to help you judge where they are.

Personally, I work with casting objectives because most of the people I get to see are struggling or novice anglers. There are potentially a huge number of potential objectives but in practice for me, they are based around local angling skills. If I can get to the point where a student can define that they want to learn X skill because of Y motivation, I’ve got a good handle on what comes next.

Paul can bundle up these objectives into larger groups because of the long term structure of his lessons but I don’t think that is typical for many instructors, most of my lessons are one offs, or with large gaps in between lessons. I’m not sure that the beginner/intermediate/advanced works across the board. Where would you class a CI that has never done Speys or can’t cast 100ft, are they beginners?

The objectives that I usually work with may be individual or a couple of skills bundled from roll, overhead, double hauling, presentation casts. The students are typically cognitive learners that are novices, or autonomous skills that are poor and engrained, usually self taught from various sources.

In other sports age based groups are common.

That’s usually based upon physical characteristics and I don’t see a need to separate by age, unless the students are very young or even more decrepit than the average instructor

In short, I think grouping by objectives might offer some efficiencies for teaching large numbers of students but it’s not something I do, it’s too much like hard work and leads to demonstrations, which as Mark has pointed out is shotgun teaching.

Regards

Vince

[Stoatstail50]

I think that if we split into age groups, which I agree would be perfectly reasonable btw, we would still see a distribution of casters across the different stages of learning.

Age in particular can be limiting in other ways. So, experienced casters with severe arthritis, blind in one eye or with early Parkinson’s are not always coming to a lesson to learn in the way that we would normally describe as a progression through the Fitts and Posner stages. It is quite different.

I sat in a cow field by a river at a club day this year, next to a man in a wheelchair who could barely hold his rod steady in his hand. He told me where he’d seen a big fish and that he was going to get a casting tune up at the open day and then go catch it. Awesome….I didn’t teach him anything….