Didactics of Volleyball into the Educate Program for Coaches/trainers/technicians of Italian Federation of Volleyball (FIPAV)

Abstract

IntroductionThis study aims to determine whether the new acquisitions in the field of research on movement and the consequent impact on the paradigms of learning and teaching have been considered in theories and methods of volleyball training. In this section it analyzes the current state of the art of how and why the body and movement are central in the learning process, through methodological and didactic choices in teaching activities at whose foundation there is scientific evidence. Conceptual knowledge is embodied, that is mapped in our sensorymotor system. This not just provides the structure to the conceptual content, but characterizes the semantic content of concepts according to the way we function in the world with our bodies. (Gallese & Lakoff, 2005).Below is presented a brief summary of the main currents of thinking in the context of motor control and learning, in order to evaluate the resulting of teaching methods, and so to verify if the indications present in the educational documents that will be analyzed can be traced back to such theories. They are synthesized in Cognitive, Ecological and Dynamic approach.Humans have, in the brain, a series of motor programs, or sequences of commands that, in the central nervous system, coordinate the execution of movements. According to a first formulation, processing of information from sense organs, particularly proprioceptors, that allow the system to correct the movement at timing execution. The closed-loop motor control theory (Adams 1971) assumes that the movements are sufficiently slow to allow correction during implementation, based on the data from the feedback. The longer the execution time, the wider the opportunity to use the motor control circuits based on feedback.In other word, when motion is quicker of nerve impulses conduction, the movement is not susceptible of correction in progress and is programmed completely in the central nervous system due to the inability of the brain to process information and data below the time threshold of two hundred milliseconds according to open loop motor control theory (Schmidt 1985, Keele et al. 1986). Learning movement consists of developing cognitive structures, known as motor program, through information processing. These processes allow the opportunity to compare in real time, by closed-loop motor control, or later, by open-loop motor control theory, obtain results, triggering a process of adjustment and refinement of movement. Its structure is such that allows the performer to adjust the movement in order to meet the changing needs of the environment. In this way, the generalized motor program (Schimdt, Wrisberg 2000) joins the feedback and comparator between memory trace and perceptual trace, as occurs in closed-loop, and the innate properties of motor centralized program and the exceeding the limit of time threshold of two hundreds of milliseconds to elaborate, the perception, as occurs in open-loop. All of three motor control theory, open-loop, closed-loop and generalized motor program, are the basis of the cognitive approach.The ecological approach, opposite approach of cognitive one, does not consider necessary to use prescribing mental structures: the action is directly available to those who act in their own environment, the selforganization that do not require the use of a motor program. (Edelman, 1987). In this approach, learning is defined as an education of attention (Gibson, 1986). Learning means to optimize the processes of perception and develop the ability to dictate the specific stimuli.In the two these approaches presented here, the perception of the context is different and the learning process is defined differently. In cognitive approach, motor learning means to stabilize an efficient motor program according to special processing information. In ecological approach, motor learning is to seek the adaptability of the movement as resulting by the diversity of the environment and the specificity of the individual (Carnus & Marsualt 2003). …