1. ART Training Scheme Module 1 - Teaching Bell Handling
Teaching a Skill
ART Training Scheme
Module 1 - Teaching Bell Handling
This presentation gives an explanation into the factors which are important when learning a skill.
The aim of the presentation is to enable the teachers of bell handling to understand these factors and be able to make use of them with their learners in the tower.
At the beginning the learner has no skill.
They don’t know what to do or how to do it.
It is the teacher’s task to take learners from this unskilled position through the learning process until they develop each skill and eventually become proficient.
© ART Charity No

2. What will I find out? Instruction in four ‘levels’
The importance of the feedback loop
The “whole-part-whole” approach
Benefits of intensive training
Reaching the automatic stage
Bell handling is a physical skill.
It is not an easy skill to learn.
It is quite often the case in ringing that some learners never really get to the stage where there bell handling is competent. This is a great disadvantage to them and frequently holds back their ability to progress to method ringing.
There has been a massive amount of research into how skills are built over the last 30 years. The money for this research has mainly been provided by the Olympic Movement.
The PRINCIPLES of skill development are transferable. That is they apply to every situation where a new skill is being learned from horse riding, to tennis, to learning to play a musical instrument or learning to write.

3. Four levels of instruction
Verbal instruction
Demonstration
Prompting - physical/verbal/visual
Physical assistance
Regardless of the type of skill, the basic levels of instruction are, verbal instruction, demonstration, physical prompting and physical assistance.
Verbal instruction is the most common form of teaching and is used at all levels of skill development right from the beginning.
Demonstration When verbal instruction is too difficult for the learner to comprehend verbally demonstration is used.
This is very much the case in teaching bell handling where the use of demonstration is routine.
Demonstration can be used to illustrate faulty handling, giving visual feedback allowing the learner to see their faults.
Physical prompting helps when verbal instruction and demonstration are not working.
The tutor can just gently tap the hand performing the action at a critical moment using a simultaneous verbal prompt. This sense of touch arriving at the brain will heighten awareness of the hand concerned which will improve the ability of the learner to focus on what is required. Allowing the learner to shadow the tutors hands is a form of physical prompting
Physical assistance is when the tutor actually helps the learner to perform the movement and is used when physical prompting is not sufficient to achieve the performance required. an example might be if the tutor actually puts his hands on to the learners hands to ensure that he makes his back stroke pull long enough and gets his hands down low enough at the end of the stroke. This DOES NOT mean taking over the action and doing it for the learner. This would deprive them of any feedback from the rope. .

4. I think I get what you mean
The Thinking Stage
I think I get what you mean
????
Explanation
TEACHER
Demonstration
I’ll have a go!
At the beginning the learner has to work out what to do in his head.
The Teacher uses verbal explanation and physical demonstration to help him build a picture of what it is that they should do to reproduce the movements required.
The teacher must be very careful as to the language which is used with the new recruit.
The Teacher should be wary of the word “pull” consider accelerate/decelerate/faster/slower.
Be wary of them being told to “hold” which implies an unrelenting action. Rest in the hand –may be more appropriate

5. Getting a Mental Picture
Teacher
Explains and demonstrates
The learner
Gets the idea
And has a go!
Once the learner thinks he knows what to do he makes his first attempts at the action.
To begin with his movements will not be accurate, rather they will be uncoordinated and unrefined.

6. Feedback from the Teacher
Oh dear!
I didn’t mean it to be quite like that!
Ah! Now I can see what I need to do
What was not right!
How to get it right!
Need further demonstration?
I’ll have another go!
The learner uses FEEDBACK to help him refine the mental picture of what he needs to do to improve future attempts of the movement.
As the brain is having to cope with new ideas it easily gets overloaded therefore further demonstration may be needed to enable the learner to strengthen the mental picture of the movements required.

7. The Feedback Loop The Learner gets feedback from:
Muscles and joints
Eyes
Ears
The Teacher’s voice via the ears
Feedback is used to modify movements
The learner repeats the exercise and gradually:
Co-ordination improves
Movements are refined
It is the feedback as to how accurate or inaccurate his or her initial attempts at the correct action which will help the learner modify the movements to make them more accurate next time.

8. Skills are best learned with the approach
WHOLE-PART-WHOLE
Complex skill
Smaller easier to learn skills
Small skills combined
Full action experienced
Smaller skills reinforced
Research shows that a complex skill (such as bell handling) is best learned by learning all the component parts of the whole movement in isolation. Once learned they are combined to form the whole action.
To enable the learner to develop the feel of the activity the whole action should be combined as soon as the learner has a “rough approximation of the action”, at this stage it is to be expected that the movements will only be roughly accurate.
The learner should then be returned to repeat the individual parts of the whole action, practising them in isolation to give emphasis to each one in turn.

9. Applying WHOLE-PART-WHOLE
To teaching bell handling:
Demonstrate the whole action
Teach the smaller parts individually
Learner will start to develop:
Basic correct technique
Co-ordination
Memory of the movements
This circle, of practising the smaller parts of the action and then returning to the whole activity continues until the skill is fully developed.
The teacher should constantly move the learner between the whole action and its various components.
In this way the brain has to constantly work out and adjust what to tell the muscles to do to move the joints to make the rope behave in the desired manner.
This constant recalculation improves learning.

10. When teaching REPEAT AS NECESSARY
Start to combine both strokes as soon as the new ringer has a “rough approximation” of the whole movement. Expect ...
Poor co-ordination
Inaccurate movements
Return to practise the smaller parts individually
Focus attention on improving inaccurate movements
Improve co-ordination
Improve technique
Return to both strokes
Gradually co-ordination and accuracy will improve
REPEAT AS NECESSARY
Gradually co-ordination and accuracy will improve.

11. Research clearly shows intensive training LEADS TO FASTER LEARNING!
Intensive training is:
Concentrated
Frequent
Another factor which has been shown by research to lead to quicker learning is intensive teaching.
Intensive means both concentrated and frequent.

12. Intensive Training leads to quicker learning
More is retained between sessions
Less time between sessions for “physical memory loss”
The ideal ...
Separate bell handling lessons
5 -10 sessions close together
The knowledge that skills are best built intensively and not based on a weekly training session challenges the method used in many towers for training their new ringers.
As a teacher a new approach is required.
Teachers have sometimes been over heard to say that they cannot find the time for 5-10 intensive sessions.
However, the opposite is probably nearer the truth. If a learner is taught on a weekly basis, where more is forgotten between teaching sessions progress will be slow and consequently it is easy for the learner to become discouraged, feeling that he is failing to make progress.
It is possible, with a quick learner to have the new learner attend a practice session one week, then to give him the intensive course and to have him come to ring in rounds on practice night the following week.

13. Conventional Training?
Teaching handling in short bursts solely on practice night cannot provide the right environment

14. I really have got it at last
The Automatic Stage
Ah!
I really have got it at last
The brain thinks it has got it right
The movement is stored as a “pattern” in the automatic part of the brain (cerebellum)
The movement is learned
It won’t be forgotten
It will be difficult to change
Once the learner perceives his performance as acceptable the brain no longer attempts to modify the movements but stores them away in the automatic part of the brain. (cerebellum) in the form of a ”template” which will be remembered.
The learner no longer has to think about what he is doing.
The everyday example of this is learning to ride a bike. Once learned it is never forgotten.

15. Give plenty of opportunity to practise accurate movements
They will become Automatic (learned)
The teacher should ensure that once the movements are good the learner has plenty of time to repeat them helping them to become established for the future.
Vertical hand stroke pull
Both hands down low at the end of the backstroke
Hands close together as they transfer onto the sally
Hand transferred directly onto the tail end on leaving the sally.
All these features will lead to good bell control

16. Don’t let your learners repeat inaccurate movements
They will become Automatic (learned)
If a teacher allows a learner to keep repeating inaccurate actions without feedback it is likely that the inaccurate actions will become habit.
Elbows not bending on the downward movement of the handstroke.
The rope is thrown forwards
When the hand is transferred from sally to tail end the arms are not low enough.
The rope will become floppy bell control will be poor.
The hands are wide apart as they move up to catch the sally.
Bell control will be reduced.
The hand transferring off the sally is too slow, it moves in a wide arc and does not join with the other hand at the bottom of the stroke.
The learner is unable to take rope in in order to change speed. This is a major handicap and will lead to poor bell control later.(it is sometimes known as “stroking the cat”!

17. Make sure the correct movement is stored!
And finally …
Make sure the
correct movement is
stored!