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PubMedDate not supplied

ROPES: an experiential learning activity for leadership skills.

The cluster of activities called ROPES is borrowed and modified for teaching from OUTWARD Bound, the renowned outdoor management training program. ROPES uses experiential learning situations in which characteristic problem-solving tasks encourage the participants to stretch their personal limits and to learn teamwork. In doing so, trust, self-confidence, and communication and leadership skills develop through accomplishment of specific challenging activities. ROPES activities were found to be an effective method of instruction for teaching leadership in a senior nursing leadership course.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed2003

Robotic surgery: identifying the learning curve through objective measurement of skill.

BACKGROUND: The incorporation of new devices into surgical practice often requires that surgeons acquire and master new skills. We studied the learning curve for intracorporeal knot tying in robotic surgery. METHODS: We developed an objective scoring system to evaluate knot tying and tested eight attending surgeons during 3 weeks of training on a surgical robot. Each performed intracorporeal knot tying tasks both before and after robotic skills training. These performances were compared to their laparoscopic knots and analyzed to determine and define skill improvement. RESULTS: Baseline laparoscopic knot completion took 140 sec (range, 47-432), with a mean composite score of 77 (100 possible), whereas robotic knot tying took 390 sec, with a mean composite score of 40. After initial robotic training, times decreased by 65% to 139 sec and scores increased to 71. With more training, completion times and composite scores were improved and errors were reduced. CONCLUSION: Like any new technology, surgical robotics requires dedicated training to achieve mastery. Initially, even experienced laparoscopists may register an inferior performance. However, after adequate training, surgeons can exceed their laparoscopic performance, completing intracorporeal knots better and faster using robotics.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Overview of the educational scholarship track.

The educational scholarship track represented 1 of 3 tracks of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association/Health Resources and Services Administration faculty development initiative. Two cohorts of participants (N = 38), selected via a peer-review process, took part in a series of three 2-day workshops presented over an 18-month period designed to assist experienced pediatric faculty in becoming more proficient educators. The program was developed through an iterative needs assessment process and consisted of 7 major areas of study and skill development: principles of adult learning; teaching skills; feedback and evaluation; the workshop as a teaching and faculty development tool; curriculum development, implementation, and evaluation; research in medical education; and scholarship and promotion. At program completion, 35 scholars rated themselves on their pre- and postprogram competencies, demonstrating improvement in most areas. Scholars were required to lead educational workshops and reported having led a total of 118 local and 64 regional or national workshops as part of their program participation. There are objective indications that scholars in this track were successful in furthering their careers in medical education.

Ambulatory Care↗
PubMed2006

A preliminary evaluation of two behavioral skills training procedures for teaching abduction-prevention skills to schoolchildren.

Although child abduction is a low-rate event, it presents a serious threat to the safety of children. The victims of child abduction face the threat of physical and emotional injury, sexual abuse, and death. Previous research has shown that behavioral skills training (BST) is effective in teaching children abduction-prevention skills, although not all children learn the skills. This study compared BST only to BST with an added in situ training component to teach abduction-prevention skills in a small-group format to schoolchildren. Results showed that both programs were effective in teaching abduction-prevention skills. In addition, the scores for the group that received in situ training were significantly higher than scores for the group that received BST alone at the 3-month follow-up assessment.

Child↗
PubMed1987

Participation motivation of Australian children involved in organized sport.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the participation motives of Australian youth involved in a number of sports, determine any sport differences, and compare the results with North American findings. Four hundred and four male and female youths from 8 to 18 years of age and from five sports participated in the study. Subjects responded to a 27-item sport participation motive questionnaire. Responses indicated that the most important reasons for participation in sport were 'to improve skills,' 'be physically fit,' 'compete,' 'learn new skills; and 'to be challenged.' These reasons were similar to North American findings except for the absence of 'fun' in Australian data. Male and female responses were similar, thus supporting previous research. However, significant differences emerged as a function of age and sport. Younger participants endorsed extrinsic and social motives to a greater degree than older participants. Swimmers considered 'having fun,' 'being with friends,' 'action' and 'excitement' as all of significantly less importance than participants from other sports. Factor analyses suggested four dimensions of participation motivation. These were labelled 'team/achievement,' 'situational,' 'status' and 'fitness.' Factor structures varied in several important instances compared with North American data. This study generally supports previous North American findings, but does suggest cultural differences in participation motivation as well as sport and age differences.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Phonological skills are important in learning to read Chinese.

A 4-year longitudinal study was conducted to examine the relationship between Chinese children's phonological skills and their success in reading. Initially, 100 Hong Kong Chinese children were tested on visual and phonological skills at the age of 3, before they could read. The findings showed that prereading phonological skills significantly predicted the children's reading performance in Chinese 2 and 3 years later, even after controlling for the effects of age, IQ, and mother's education. The main reason for this relationship is that phonological knowledge helps children to use the phonetic component in Chinese characters.

Child↗
PubMed2006

Parallel stages of learning and recovery of skilled reaching after motor cortex stroke: "oppositions" organize normal and compensatory movements.

Forelimb/hand motor cortex injury in rodents and primates causes impairments in skilled paw/hand movements that includes a period of movement absence followed by functional recovery/compensation. Although the postsurgical period of movement absence has been attributed to "shock" or "diaschisis", the behavior of animals during this period has not been fully described. Here, rats were trained to reach for single food pellets from a shelf and then the vasculature of the forelimb region of the sensorimotor cortex contralateral to the reaching limb was removed. A control group received a posterior parietal cortex devasularization. Frame-by-frame video analysis of reaching behavior showed that the stages of the acquisition of skilled reaching and the stages of recovery after motor cortex stroke were similar. The animals sequentially learn three relationships or "oppositions" between a body part and the food target. The oppositions are invariant relationships but each can be achieved with movements that can vary from reach to reach and between rats. A snout-pellet opposition organizes the movements of orienting, a paw-pellet opposition organizes limb transport and grasping the pellet in the digits, and a mouth-pellet opposition organizes limb withdrawal and the release of the food into the mouth. The three oppositions and the movements that they recruit were disrupted after motor cortex damage, but not parietal cortex damage. The oppositions were reestablished after stroke in the order in which they were acquired prior to stroke. Enduring impairments were more noticeable in transport and withdrawal oppositions. That the stages of recovery from motor cortex stroke parallel those of initial acquisition are discussed in relation to contemporary explanations of diaschisis and the contribution of motor cortex to motor learning.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2002

Learning how scientists work: experiential research projects to promote cell biology learning and scientific process skills.

Facilitating not only the mastery of sophisticated subject matter, but also the development of process skills is an ongoing challenge in teaching any introductory undergraduate course. To accomplish this goal in a sophomore-level introductory cell biology course, I require students to work in groups and complete several mock experiential research projects that imitate the professional activities of the scientific community. I designed these projects as a way to promote process skill development within content-rich pedagogy and to connect text-based and laboratory-based learning with the world of contemporary research. First, students become familiar with one primary article from a leading peer-reviewed journal, which they discuss by means of PowerPoint-based journal clubs and journalism reports highlighting public relevance. Second, relying mostly on primary articles, they investigate the molecular basis of a disease, compose reviews for an in-house journal, and present seminars in a public symposium. Last, students author primary articles detailing investigative experiments conducted in the lab. This curriculum has been successful in both quarter-based and semester-based institutions. Student attitudes toward their learning were assessed quantitatively with course surveys. Students consistently reported that these projects significantly lowered barriers to primary literature, improved research-associated skills, strengthened traditional pedagogy, and helped accomplish course objectives. Such approaches are widely suited for instructors seeking to integrate process with content in their courses.

Biology↗
PubMed1992

Procedural learning of cognitive and motor skills in psychotic patients.

Two kinds of procedural learning, viz. learning of a sequence of simple motor responses and learning to solve a rather complex problem (Tower of Hanoi), as well as declarative learning (word list learning) were investigated in a group of psychotic inpatients (n = 67) and a control group of non-psychotic psychiatric inpatients (n = 19). Within the psychotic group, correlations of the task variables with positive and negative symptoms were explored. There was no difference between both groups in motor procedural learning. Psychotic patients were less efficient than controls in solving the Tower problem, but both groups again showed an equal amount of procedural learning. Consistent with the literature, however, a clear difference between both groups was found in declarative learning. The memory tasks did not correlate significantly with psychotic symptoms. These findings are interpreted as another indication that automatic information processing in psychotic patients is intact. The results are discussed with reference to neuropsychological research on procedural learning in neurological patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Callosal and cortical contribution to procedural learning.

Acallosal and callosotomized subjects usually show impairments on tasks requiring bilateral interdependent motor control. However, few studies have assessed the ability of these subjects to learn a skill that requires the simultaneous contribution of each hemisphere in its acquisition. The present study examined whether acallosal and callosotomized subjects could learn a visuomotor skill that involved a motor control from either both or a single hemisphere. Eleven adult patients, six acallosal and five callosotomized, participated in this study. Seven of these patients had epileptic foci located in the frontal and/or temporal areas and one of the acallosal patients showed bilateral prefrontal atrophy following surgical removal of an orbitofrontal cyst. The performance of the experimental subjects was compared with that of 11 matched control subjects, on a modified version of a serial reaction time task developed by Nissen and Bullemer (Cogn Psychol 1987; 19: 1-32). This skill acquisition task involved bimanual or unimanual key-pressing responses to a sequence of 10 visual stimuli that was repeated 160 times. A declarative memory task was then performed to assess explicit knowledge of the sequence. None of the experimental subjects learned the task in the bimanual condition. Patients with frontal epileptic foci or orbitofrontal damage also failed to learn the task in the unimanual condition when they were using the hand contralateral to the damaged hemisphere. All other subjects, including the acallosal and callosotomized patients with temporal foci, learned the visuomotor skill as well as their controls in the unimanual condition. In spite of the absence of transfer and interhemispheric integration of procedural learning, some of the acallosal and callosotomized patients were able to learn the sequence explicitly. These findings indicate that the corpus callosum and the frontal cortical areas are important for procedural learning of a visuomotor skill. They also confirm the dissociation described by Squire (Science 1986; 232: 1612-9 and J Cogn Neurosci 1992; 4: 232-43) between the declarative and procedural memory systems and extend this dissociation to processes involving simultaneous bihemispheric co-operation.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Understanding consolidation through the architecture of memories.

Following its encoding, a memory undergoes consolidation. It may be possible to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms supporting consolidation by considering the complex architecture of a memory. Any behavior can be split into multiple components. For example, when learning a new skill we simultaneously learn the movement and the goal of that movement. Each of these components has a distinct representation within a memory. The "off-line" processing of each component may follow different rules, providing an explanation for the variety of performance changes supported by consolidation. By viewing a memory as a representation with multiple components, it is possible to bridge the gap between the behavioral changes, which define consolidation, and the biological mechanisms that support those changes. This is partly because different memory components can be mapped onto different neural circuits. With an increased understanding of consolidation, it may become possible to modulate these off-line processes to improve psychiatric and neurological rehabilitation.

Animals↗
PubMed1992

Use of rhythm in acquisition of a computer-generated tracking task.

This research assessed whether rhythm aids acquisition of motor skills by providing cues for the timing of those skills. Rhythms were presented to participants visually or visually with auditory cues. It was hypothesized that the auditory cues would facilitate recognition and learning of the rhythms. The three timing principles of rhythms were also explored. It was hypothesized that rhythms that satisfied all three timing principles would be more beneficial in learning a skill than rhythms that did not satisfy the principles. Three groups learned three different rhythms by practicing a tracking task. After training, participants attempted to reproduce the tracks from memory. Results suggest that rhythms do help in learning motor skills but different sets of timing principles explain perception of rhythm in different modalities.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Changes in auditory cortex parallel rapid perceptual learning.

Learning perceptual skills is characterized by rapid improvements in performance within the first hour of training (fast perceptual learning) followed by more gradual improvements that take place over several daily practice sessions (slow perceptual learning). Although it is widely accepted that slow perceptual learning is accompanied by enhanced stimulus representation in sensory cortices, there is considerable controversy about the neural substrates underlying early and rapid improvements in learning perceptual skills. Here we measured event-related brain potentials while listeners were presented with 2 phonetically different vowels. Listeners' ability to identify both vowels improved gradually during the first hour of testing and was paralleled by enhancements in an early evoked response ( approximately 130 ms) localized in the right auditory cortex and a late evoked response ( approximately 340 ms) localized in the right anterior superior temporal gyrus and/or inferior prefrontal cortex. These neuroplastic changes depended on listeners' attention and were preserved only if practice was continued; familiarity with the task structure (procedural learning) was not sufficient. We propose that the early increases in cortical responsiveness reflect goal-directed changes in the tuning properties of auditory neurons involved in parsing concurrent speech signals. Importantly, the neuroplastic changes occurred rapidly, demonstrating the flexibility of human speech segregation mechanisms.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2000

Preprogramming and control activity of bimanual self-paced motor task in Parkinson's disease.

OBJECTIVE: The authors investigated programming (Bereitschaftspotential or BP) and control activity (Skilled Performance Positivity or SPP) of a bimanual, sequential, skilled motor act in off-therapy Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. METHODS: We recorded Movement Related Potentials (MRPs) in 12, non-demented, off-therapy parkinsonian patients and in 17 control subjects who were performing a skilled, time-locked motor act, which was not routine in their everyday life but had to be learned: the Skilled Performance Task (SPT). BP, SPP and correct performances were evaluated in grand average waveforms and in sequential blocks. RESULTS: The analysis of correct performances showed that accuracy in PD patients was significantly lower than in the control group and this accuracy did not improve throughout the blocks. A significantly low level of performances was associated with an increased BP amplitude (P<0.05) and decreased SPP amplitude (P<0.05) in PD patients. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that skill motor learning is impaired in non-demented unmedicated PD patients. We discuss the view that PD patients may allocate more attentional resources, as suggested by the increased BP amplitude, the decreased SPP amplitude and the low correct performances, in order to perform a new skilled motor act.

Aged↗
PubMed2003

Evaluating surgeons' informed decision making skills: pilot test using a videoconferenced standardised patient.

BACKGROUND: Standardised patients (SPs) are effective in evaluating communication skills, but not every training site may have the resources to develop and maintain SP programmes. OBJECTIVES: To test whether videoconferencing technology (VT) could enable an interaction between an SP and an orthopaedic surgeon that would allow the SP to accurately evaluate the surgeon's informed decision making (IDM) skills. We also assessed whether this sort of interaction was acceptable to orthopaedic surgeons as a means of learning IDM skills. METHODS: We trained an SP to represent a 75-year-old woman considering hip replacement surgery. Orthopaedic surgeons in Chicago individually consulted with the SP in Philadelphia; each participant could see and hear the other on large television screens. The SP evaluated the surgeons' advice using a 23-item checklist of IDM elements, and gave each surgeon verbal and written feedback on his IDM skills. The surgeons then gave their evaluations of the exercise. RESULTS: Twenty-two surgeons completed the project. The SP was > or = 80% accurate in classifying 20 of the 23 IDM skills when compared to a clinician rater. Although 12 (55%) of the orthopaedic surgeons felt that some aspects of the technology were distracting, most were pleased with it, and 19 of 22 (86%) would recommend the videoconferenced SP interaction to their colleagues as a means of learning IDM skills. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that VT allows accurate evaluation of IDM skills in a format that is acceptable to orthopaedic surgeons. Videoconferencing technology may be useful in long-distance SP communication assessment for a variety of learners.

Adult↗