Wellness in the Classroom S23 Portfolio | Matt Brown

 

KINS 158: Motor Learning and Control

 

Reflection on Instructional Change

The primary undergraduate course that I teach, KINS 158: Motor Learning and Control, is focused on the principles and physiology of how we move and learn to move. Importantly, many of the concepts and philosophies I teach regarding learning movement has its origins in cognitive learning. For example, one of the important principles to enhance motor and cognitive learning is called practice distribution effects, which essentially refers to breaking up practice/learning sessions into smaller chunks of time with tangible breaks in between. This will lead to better consolidation of memories, and ultimately, better retention. I have had a difficult time to apply this principle during my KINS 158 lectures, despite knowing (and even teaching) this principle, due to the amount of content that needs to be covered over a semester. However, discussions during the Wellness in the Classroom FLC helped provide a catalyst as providing these breaks shouldn’t just be seen in the light of enhancing learning but also student well-being. I decided to start small and break up my lectures with a break that I called a Wellness Break. I used nostalgic 90 second clips from commercials I grew up watching called “Body Break” with Hal and Joanne (https://www.youtube.com/@BodyBreak) that provided straight-forward stretching and/or physical exercises that could be done in the classroom.

At this point in time, I am unclear how much this practice influenced student learning or not, but in theory, it should definitely help some. I believe that even if these Wellness Breaks didn’t substantially improve student learning, it was obvious to me, through student participation and anticipation, that they enjoyed these breaks. After a few weeks of doing the Wellness Breaks,  there were a few classes where we were ~35 minutes into a 50 minute lecture, and the slide for the Wellness Break would come up and I would hear students say something such as “I didn’t think there would be one today”.

Overall, I think the Wellness in the Classroom FLC has a very well-balanced structure and design of activities and assignments. I personally felt that activities that had a reading or video to prompt discussion amongst participants and instructors was the most influential. It was great to hear all the different strategies that other faculty do or have implemented, whether successful or not. Also, it was great seeing demonstrations of different wellness strategies by the FLC instructors, as this provided different tools we could use in our pedagogical toolbox. Overall, the assignments were not overwhelming and provided meaningful tools (ex. 1-page posters) and/or reflection.

 

Figure 1. Screenshot of first-ever BodyBreak (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDkW4kruadg)

Figure 2. Lecture Slide of Wellness Break from KINS 158: Motor Learning and Control

Figure 3. Picture of KINS 158 students engaging in a Wellness Break from 05/04/2023

Moving Forward

Overall, I only implemented a small fraction of what we learnt (and could implement) during the Wellness FLC into KINS 158. Physical wellness is only 1 dimension of wellness, so providing these Wellness Breaks is primarily focused on a single wellness dimension. I think I would like to find other strategies for small breaks focused on different dimensions of wellness even if improving physical wellness can have secondary effects on emotional and other types of wellness.

I believe to do this effectively I will need to find ways to link wellness breaks to course material and/or applications of what we are learning in the course to the given wellness strategy. Also, to be able to implement this in the future, I will need to find ways to reduce the collective amount of material I cover over the course of the whole semester but more realistically find ways to chunk my lecture material into maximum 10-minute mini-lectures.

Faculty Biography

I am an Associate Professor (tenured) in the Department of Kinesiology. I obtained my BSc (Hons.) in 2008 and MSc in 2010 in Kinesiology and Physical Education from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. My BSc and MSc research was focused on the effects of dopamine medication treatments on upper limb movement and motor symptoms in individual's with Parkinson's disease (PD). I received my PhD in Kinesiology specializing in Neuroscience in 2015 from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. My PhD thesis was focused on using electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate how somatosensory information is used in the control for upper limb movements. I completed my training as a post-doc in 2017 at the Krembil Brain Institute at Toronto Western Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. During my post-doc, I continued my research in investigating how different areas of the brain interact for the control of upper limb movement using a variety of techniques including EEG, TMS, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in both healthy and clinical populations.

I primarily teach Motor Learning and Control at the undergraduate (KINS 158) and graduate (KINS 258) levels. I am also the co-coordinator of the Department of Kinesiology Graduate program. In addition to teaching, I have an active research program in the Sensorimotor Adaptations and Control Neurophysiology (S.A.C. Neurophys) Lab that investigates: 

• Using non-invasive brain recording (i.e. EEG) and brain stimulation (i.e. TMS) techniques to investigate different brain areas and mechanisms that contribute to using sensory information (i.e. somatosensory) for motor control (i.e. upper limb movement);
• Investigating changes in sensorimotor control in clinical (i.e. Parkinson's disease) and athletic populations;
• Developing novel techniques (i.e. brain stimulations, exercise) to induce plasticity changes in the nervous system for sensorimotor control; 
• Determining the effectiveness of potential rehabilitation or treatment strategies (i.e. brain stimulation) for clinical populations with sensorimotor deficits.

I love to play ice hockey (and really almost any team sport), enjoy reading fiction, particularly fantasy, novels and chug maple syrup (jk).

 

This work was supported by the CSU Office of the Chancellor, Sacramento State Division of Academic Affairs, and Sacramento State Student Health and Counseling Services.