Emotions, Motivation, Attention

In my career emotion, motivation, and attention play a key role. There isn’t an athlete I know who isn’t motivated to play their sport, emotional about winning or losing, and who at one time retained the rules of the game by paying attention.

Emotions are everywhere, in and out of sports, in work, school, our personal lives, they are consistently changing my the day, hour, minute, second. Emotions are unique and personal. Some people are phenomenal at hiding them and some people wear them on their sleeve. Emotion and cognition have been found to have an interdependence (Pessoa, 2009). When we are learning emotion plays a big role. If I’m in a bad mood I am not going to want to learn. When my patients are in a bad mood they are less likely to want to perform their rehab. When my athletes are in a bad mood they are at a higher risk of injuring themselves or their teammate. Our emotions tend to run our lives whether we want them to or not. My job, for both my athletes and patients, is to help put them in a better emotional place to be able to progress past their mood or maybe their emotional state cannot be altered and they need to take the day off.

I believe our motivation to learn is effected by how we relate and how we can utilize the information given to us. Thoms (p. 4) shares that “Adults are not impressed or motivated by gold stars and good report cards”. As adult learners Athletic Training students are motivated by knowing that one day they will utilize the information to treat patients and care for their athletes. Motivation is what keeps us moving forward and progressing. It encourages us to continue to learn and never stop asking critical thinking questions that allow us to grow into better clinicians.

When it comes to attention and memory I believe one of the most important aspects is being able to retain the information given to us. Attention is having the ability to selectively process information while working memory is being able to retain information in an accessible state (Fougnie, p. 1). Retaining the information that we learn is crucial in the Athletic Training field. If I learn how to evaluate and treat for an injury I need to remember that. It’s my job to remember that. One of the best ways, I think, to make sure students are retaining information is to have assessments. Perkins (2013) uses the example of Kenna Barger’s bungee activity to exemplify the assessment for understand strategy. Constructive criticism, like Barger uses, is something that everyone needs to learn to be able to handle in their lives.

As an Athletic Trainer I must have a greater understanding for how my patients, athletes and Athletic Training students feel, are motivated and what will help them retain the information I need them to remember. Through understanding, observation and assessment this can be done and done well.

Professional athletes know what it takes to be who they are. They have a deeper understanding of the emotional complexity that coincides with playing a sport and the motivation needed to show up and push pass your emotional state and do what you need to do to succeed. These are all things that as an Athletic Trainer I need to understand and be able to relate to in order help heal my athletes.

 

Fougnie, D. (2008). The Relationship between Attention and Working Memory. Retrieved from http://www.psy.vanderbilt.edu/students/fougnidl/Fougnie-chap1.pdf

Perkins, D. (2013). Making learning whole: How seven principles of teaching can transform education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Pessoa, L. (2009).  Cognition and emotion.  Scholarpedia, 4(1): 457.

Thoms, K. J. (2001). They’re not just big kids: Motivating adult learners. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED463720.pdf

Learning: How do we do that?

As children, I feel as though we don’t necessarily think about the way we’re learning or whether it is right or wrong for us. Children seem to have no boundaries anything can be the answer, thinking outside the box is natural for them. However, as Teal (2011) discusses adults learn based on situations and we learn for the moment and not so much based on a direct citation from the teacher. According to From Now On (2003) “the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language defines pedagogy as ‘the art or profession of teaching.’ ” Children are open-minded and do not see things the same way as adults. Children tend to learn from the dictation of their teacher. Word for word, verbatim what the teacher says, children soak up the information and memorize to build on. Adults take their life lessons and experiences and apply the material they are learning to better understand the material or take the material and utilize it in their lives at the time they are learning.

In the video about Piaget’s developmental theory by Davidson Films, Inc Piaget asks the question “Are we forming children who are only capable of learning what is already known?” I think this is the backbone of his theory. The video goes on to discuss how children are more likely to notice uncommon patterns than adults because they do not have a set concept in their head that the pattern needs to be a certain way. McLeod (2015) states the four stages: “1. Sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2), 2. Pre-operational stage (from age 2 to age 7), 3. Concrete operational stage (from age 7 to age 11), and 4. Formal operational stage (age 11+ – adolescence and adulthood)”. As we age we learn to process information differently. It’s almost a little ironic that as adults we are constantly being told to think outside the box and yet as children we are so open-minded we tend to think beyond the logic to find the answer. I believe this could be due to the formal operational stage where adults take their life experiences to process information. In life information is tossed our way daily, this information can come in many forms and how we understand this information happens three ways: logic, conceptual thinking and/or the understanding of rules.

As an Athletic Trainer, I use all three every day. I am with my patients through every step of the injury process; prevention through return to play and strengthening after. If a patient comes to me and I evaluate them I go through a series of questions and tests before I make a possible diagnosis based off their responses. Logic allows me to take information and have deductive reasoning based on that information. Rules and concepts are best paired with rehabilitation. Rules are the standard for anything and, in my opinion, are put into place (hopefully) to keep everyone safe. For athletic trainer’s rules come into place to keep our patients safe and to create a standard of care. I know if my patient has an ankle sprain receives treatment I am not going to tell them to put their ankle into a hot tub because that would be a contraindication and make their ankle worse not better. I like to think rules happen because there is logic behind them.

Concepts are a generalization of anything, the big picture have you will. For instance, ice on that swollen ankle is good is a concept. You can then break down that concept into detail on why ice is good for swelling to create a logic behind the concept, which in turn would allow one the ability to create rules about the concept. Concepts are great for Athletic Trainers because if we think about the concepts of healing our patients we can make them better through means that might not be mainstream treatments.

Every time we process information our brain neurons are firing. In fact, every time we do anything our brain neurons are firing. While there is not a lot of in-depth research on brain functions, we know the basics. When we learn, our neurons send information through pathways over synapses. These synapses are gaps between the neurons while they are microscopic in size crosses the synapse is similar to “crossing a deep ravine” (Tallis, 2015) for the first time. How we cross these synapses could be the start of the belief in learning styles. While learning styles have been debunked as being a necessity for teachers to focus on in terms of instructing a classroom I think it is important to understand that as humans we have likes and dislikes and if I am a person who enjoys learning by hands on and visual work I am probably not going to be as interested in learning material that comes from a pure lecture hall. Learning more about the wonders of how our brain works is such an important part of better understand ourselves, each other, and how to more efficiently communicate material to our patients or students. Programs such as The University of Southern Californias’ Human Connectome Project are just the beginning of digging deeper into the brain through imaging.

 

HumanConnectomeProject

 

 

References

Davidson Films Inc. (2010, June 21). Piaget’s Developmental Theory: an Overview (Davidson FIlms, Inc.) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX6JxLwMJeQ

FNO. (2003, September). Pedagogy Does Matter! Retrieved from http://www.fno.org/sept03/pedagogy.html

McLeod, S. A. (2015). Jean Piaget | Cognitive Theory | Simply Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html

Tallis, T. (2015, March 2). How We Learn – Synapses and Neural Pathways (BSL) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6atleMfZqQ

TEAL Center Staff. (2011). Retrieved from https://lincs.ed.gov/sites/default/files/11_%20TEAL_Adult_Learning_Theory.pdf

Wiki Site for EDU520

Wiki Site

In EDU520 three of my classmates and myself collaborated together to create a wiki site. Going into this project I was nervous about working with a group via only discussions online. I have worked with groups in person but never solely online so I was a little nervous about people doing their jobs and having it done on time. After a little confusion in the first week with one teammate and making sure we handed in our content to our website builder we got the hang of it. We didn’t run into major issues, in my opinion, and in the end we had great feedback from our classmates and professor about our wiki site. Our group worked well together and produced a great looking and functional wiki site.

USA Rugby – No Athletic Trainer = No Match

Alisha Pennington, owner of TheATVantage, works closely with USA Rugby out in California. In recent years USA Rugby has instituted a rule that all matche

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All sports, for every competition, at all levels should implement this.

Public Safety Athletic Trainers

Celebrating Athletic Training Month means celebrating all athletic trainers. This special group serves our real everyday heroes in Police, Fire, an

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It’s always nice to see ATC’s being recognized outside of athletics.

Most U.S. high schools lack athletic trainers

By Andrew M. Seaman(Reuters Health) – Many U.S. high schools don’t offer athletic training services and few employ full-time athletic trainers, acco

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Athletic Trainer’s: The Necessity to Mandate Them in all High Schools

This video is about implementing athletic trainer’s in all high school’s for the benefits of all athletes!

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It’s so important to have medical personnel in all schools, especially schools with sports. It’s required to have onsite medical personnel for conference, districts, regionals, and states so why should it not be required to have personnel at practices, scrimmages and games? Protect the athletes.

Digital Citizenship

With the rise of technology there are so many things to think about, a whole new world of information, responsibility and rules. Digital citizenship is when one utilizes the above nine elements to have access to technology and use it to the best of their ability. As we age and our lives change different elements become more important to us. For instance tonight my phone was stolen so Digital Security became of upmost importance. Without the high tech security of Apple products I would be much more worried that whoever stole my phone would have easier access to my personal information.

Digital Citizenship should be started at a young age in todays world. Adolescents need to learn the importance of digital literacy, etiquette, health and wellness, and law. As we age digital access, commerce, communication, security and rights & responsibility become more important. Children are already starting to utilize phones and tablets at such a young age that digital literacy almost becomes natural.

Literacy used to mean being able to read and understand books, however now with technology becoming more and more present in our lives teaching digital literacy is becoming just as important as reading and writing. According to digitalliteracy.us (2016) digital literacy is “the ability to use digital technology, communication tools or networks to locate, evaluate, use and create information.The ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers. A person’s ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment… Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media, to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments.” The internet is a great resource for all things and a productive resource for education. Schools need to start teaching digital literacy the same way they teach reading and writing. Combing the two together is a great way to do so, teach them to type on the computer, or read books using apps like kindle or nook. Utilizing the web for its ability is key in helping the youth population be more efficient and productive with their digital skills giving them the tools they need to succeed in the future.There’s an app for everything related to school and non school activities. Etiquette follows this by teaching youth the importance that what and how they say the things they put on line matter. Manners is something we learn as children and somewhere along the way we might forget a little how to use those very manners. Technology is a great tool for all aspects of life, an information center, a social connector, an outlet. No matter what we are using the world wide web for it is always important to keep it appropriate. With an increase in the use of technology at younger and younger ages it is becoming increasingly more important to teach our youth and ourselves about digital etiquette. Knorr (2011) came up with a list of seven rules to teach kids about online etiquette. One of her rules is the Golden Rule “Don’t say something online that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face.” This seems like one of the most important of the rules, a catch all rule. If people would remember this things like anonymity wouldn’t be for people to hide behind mean words and posts or the need for an urban dictionary to understand what they are saying. Digital etiquette is becoming a staple for parents and teachers to educate on just as much as basic manners.

“When people do not understand the privacy risks of their own choices, there is not only a business process failure, but also an ethical one” (Camp, 2015). I knew the basics about piracy and I was one of those people who would just scim over the privacy part of the be advised sections of apps and programs and think yeah yeah whatever and still get the product. I didn’t think to think about whether the program I was downloading had the capability to listen in on my capabilities or have access to the pictures in my phone. Camp discusses that companies should make it clear to users of programs what the risks are and they make the choice from there. I always assumed this was just mandatory, good to know that it’s not and that I need to start reading the privacy section of the apps I put on my phone.

References
Camp, L. J. (2015). Respecting people and respecting privacy. Communications Of The ACM, 58(7), 27-28. doi:10.1145/2770892

US Digital Literacy | US Digital Literacy. (2016). Retrieved from http://digitalliteracy.us

Knorr, C. (2011, May 5). 7 Rules to Teach Kids Online Etiquette | Common Sense Media. Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/7-rules-to-teach-kids-online-etiquette#

Blogging to Learn

 

Blogging for me has always meant people just ranting about their lives on the internet for everyone and anyone to read, an online version of Dear Diary. I started my Masters in Education program in October at Post University and began my first online courses. Since beginning my opinion on blogging/ utilization of social media has drastically changed.

 

Online Identity

My online identity started in middle school when MySpace was popular. An easy communication tool we thought we were cool for using because our parents “couldn’t use it”. This tool is what began the idea that just because you put it on the internet means other people can’t read it or be hurt by words. High school came with the still popular Facebook. Facebook is the cause of many of high schoolers suspensions as well as many adults being denied jobs. I was never taught the importance of my online identity until undergrad. I feel as though digital literacy is an overlooked part of the professional world. When I was in undergrad we had a graduate assistant almost not get hired because of a video he had on YouTube of him getting into an arm punching contest with a football player. That taught me to be more aware of what I am posting but I was never taught to be active on social media as a profession, I feel as though I was almost taught the opposite. The most important thing I learned was the importance of having a digital presence. I think, just as I wasn’t taught, young people are not taught the importance of having a good social presence for their future careers. We’re always taught to be careful what to post on social media and what not to post but were not necessarily taught what to post or the advantages of having good digital literacy. Queens University touches on this when they talk about how 34% of people admit to checking their coworkers social media profiles. I’m definitely one of those people. Anytime I go to show someone who someone is I use Facebook to show them.

The course I’m currently in; EDU520, has shown me that online identities are more about posting things that make you professional rather than not posting things at all to stay professional. By using sites such as WordPress I am able to connect my multiple social media sites into one, making it easy to search, follow and like my posts.

There are a few ways people can utilize their online identity: 1. personal only 2. a mixed personal/professional or 3. separate personal and professional. I definitely feel that in high school we are taught to stick strictly to a personal only identity but keep it professional and as private as you can get it. As we move onto college and our careers we learn to utilize either the second or third options. I like to keep a balance where my Facebook is personal only and not linked to any professional accounts but my Instagram and Twitter are linked to my LinkedIn and WordPress even though I utilize them to post professionally and sometimes I throw in a picture or tweet about my dog.

Use it or lose it so why not start in the classroom

“Even though the potential of blog use in increasing student interactivity and collaboration has been explored by many educators, the research conducted on the effectiveness of blog use in an educational context is still quite limited and is considered as a contradictory research area.” (Kilic, 2014)

Utilizing blogs in the classroom can be very useful. Toddlers are starting to use iPads and understand technology before they can speak full sentences so why not use it in the classroom. Students are online anyways so why not have them do their homework and study the same way they communicate with their friends and family everyday. Getting students active is a huge part of the struggle of educating in the 21st century. Educators are always trying to stick to the same ways but they’re not working anymore. Kids don’t want to read from books when they can read from their iPads. The way we’re teaching are youth is not preparing them for the future. We’re holding back the youth and need to stop being traditionalists and be open to being futurists.

I look forward to utilizing my education to grow my career and I’m excited to start incorporating technology into my present workplace!

References

KILIÇ, E., & GÖKDAŞ, İ. (2014). Learning through Blogging: Use of Blogs to Enhance the Perceived Learning of Pre-service ICT Teachers. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice. doi:10.12738/estp.2014.3.1987

Managing Personal vs. Professional Identity on Social Media. (2014, June 12). Retrieved January 11, 2017, from http://online.queens.edu/masters-in-communication/resource/managing-personal-vs-professional-identity-on-social-media%20