Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 1

Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball

Abby Mills
Bridgewater College
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 2

Introduction

A hit in volleyball is one of the more popular motor skills of the game. This skill is one of

the more complicated ones due to the many steps and the outside components. The ability to hit a

volleyball for a kill is one of the most essential keys to winning a game. Without this skill, a

team will have a hard time earning points. People often view it as very exciting and intense when

a person hits the ball for a kill.

Teaching Context

How to hit a volleyball is oftentimes taught to students in their middle school physical

education classes. A basic volleyball curriculum is somewhat introduced in the late elementary

school level, but revisited in the middle school years to combine and apply their skills into a

game like situation. In middle school Physical Education students are often in classes of 20 to 30

students so I will need to have two nets up with two carts filled with volleyballs. Being at a in

between age for sports in middle school, there is a wide range of skill levels within the classes.

There will be several students who are at the novice stage, students in the intermediate stage and

hopefully many students at the advanced stage. Most of the students who fall into the advanced

stage have played volleyball competitively at some point.

Task Characteristics

A hit in volleyball is also called a spike or an attack. In this action the offensive player

will attack the ball using an approach in an attempt to make the ball hit the opponents side of the

floor for a point also called a kill. I will be teaching my students the correct way to perform the
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 3

task of hitting a volleyball. The volleyball spike is a gross motor skill because it requires

movements from large muscle groups both with the upper and lower extremities of the body. The

upper extremity muscles are used with the arm swing and the arm follow through. The lower

extremity muscles are used with the footwork of the approach and with the explosive jump

motion. A discrete skill is one whose beginning and end points are clearly defined (Coker,

2014, 7). A volleyball spike would be considered a discrete skill because a player begins the

motion with the first step and swinging backwards of both arms once the setter has released the

ball and ends the motion after landing back on the ground with the follow through.

This skill is an open skill because the setting is an unpredictable, ever-changing

environment (Coker, 2014, 8). In order to attack a volleyball the setter must set you a ball. In an

ideal situation the setter could consistently place her set in the exact same spot every single time,

but this is very unlikely. The setter receives the ball from a passer who is attempting to pass the

ball from the opponents hitter. If the pass is not perfect, the setter has to chase the ball causing

the setter to change the positon of the set. Even though the set may still be close to the perfect

spot of where the hitter likes the ball, the hitter still has to adjust his or her feet and shoulders to

line up with the ball. Also when hitting a ball at the net there are often blockers jumping at the

same time as you. These blockers are there to take away spots on the court form the hitter. If

the blockers are correctly doing their job, the hitter must adjust his or her swing to try and avoid

the blockers hands.

With the five main components of information processing, we are to only focus on three:

perception, decision making and execution. Perception is the ability to identify the stimulus or

environment assembled from a variety of sources. The identifying stimulus for the hitter would

be the release of the ball from the setters hands. Once the stimulus has been identified, the hitter
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 4

must make a decision of whether a response is needed and if so, what response is necessary to

make. Once the setter has set the ball and the hitter knows the ball is coming to him or her, the

hitter must decide to that they need to begin his or her approach. The hitter also needs to decide

the speed of his or her approach based off seeing the sets height and speed. Lastly the hitter

needs to decide where the set is going to land. This is a tricky decision to make because it takes

lots of practice to be able to recognize where the set will land. The final stage of information

processing is execution which involves the brain telling the rest of the body to make the motion

through neurons. There is no movement in the execution stage.

The breakdown for the spike of a volleyball is identifying all the underlying motor

abilities required for the motion. The underlying abilities include control precision, multi-limb

coordination, rate control, aiming, explosive strength, trunk strength and dynamic flexibility.

Control precision the ability to make highly controlled adjustments with your movement. If the

set is not perfect, one would have to adjust their approach to meet the ball at its destination but

do so with body control and awareness of ones body. Multi-limb coordination is extremely

prevalent in a volleyball spike because one must simultaneously swing their arms back while

taking their approach and then swing their arms forward to hit the ball while jumping in the air.

Rate control is ones need to make adjustments to their approach based on the speed and height

of the set being given to them from the setter. Aiming is important when spiking because the

player must try to avoid the opponents blocker while at the same time trying to hit open spots on

the opponents court. Explosive strength and trunk strength are crucial for the spike. The hitter

must take a fast and explosive approach to build up to an explosive jump in the air and then use

their trunk strength to hit the ball with power. The use of ones dynamic flexibility is present with

the need to make repeated, rapid flexing movements of the arms and legs.
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 5

Learner Characteristics

When in middle school most of the students will be between the ages of twelve and

thirteen. At this age the students previous experiences will vary drastically. Some students will

know absolutely nothing about volleyball, some students will have a general idea and basic

knowledge of skills and others will know how to correctly perform volleyball skills and will be

able to implement them in a game situation. When it comes to body types and personalities,

middle school is somewhat an awkward stage. Middle school is the years of when puberty starts

to hit. I will have to incorporate different ways to teach all levels of learners. Since I have two

nets, I will be able to split up students based on abilities. I will have all students striving for the

same goal of successfully hitting a volleyball, but I will challenge the more advanced groups

who easily completed the goal in different ways such as hitting different spots on the court or off

speed shots like tipping and rolling. Due to the different levels of students skills, I will have to

do a good job of motivating all students to continue to work on their improvement. All of these

differences within the students makes the teachers job more difficult to teach skills.

Attention plays a huge role when it comes to spiking a volleyball. Each hitter is

influenced differently by attention capabilities. With limited attentional capacity multiple tasks

can be successfully performed simultaneously provided that, when combined, they do not exceed

the attentional resources available (Coker, 2014, 39). When spiking a volleyball, one has to pay

attention to the environment surrounding him or her. This environment includes the ball, the

setter, the opponents blockers, the opponents defense, your teammates telling you where to hit,

the crowd, and sometimes your coach yelling at you. Oftentimes with all of this needing

attention all at once, one of these needs will be significantly affected. For example, during your

approach you are trying to listen to your teammates telling you where to hit, the height and speed
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 6

of the set, where the opponents blockers are and where the opponents defenders are you might

hit into the block because you cannot focus your attention to all of these things at once and give

them all the same amount of attention.

Hitters are able to focus their attention on their approach and the set of the ball due to the

Multiple Resource Pools Theory. With this theory players are able to focus all of their attention

on different items if they come from different processing spaces. Attention is also a factor as the

complexity of a skill increases. As the environment or task increases in complexity, the

attentional demands will undergo a corresponding increase, reducing the amount of attentional

space available for additional tasks (Coker, 2014, 40). As a concept of a task of the task itself

gets harder, the student will need to focus more attention to it. This is especially present when a

student is first being taught how to hit a volleyball. The students are unable to focus their

attention on anything else but the proper footwork and the ball itself in order to successfully hit

it. Teachers can helps those students who are just learning how to hit a ball by only sharing a few

cues with them to start and providing feedback when correcting them on the skill.

Selective attention is the ability to attend to or focus on one specific item in the midst of

countless stimuli (Coker, 2014, 42). Selective attention is prominent when teaching young kids

a new skill because people tend to focus their attention to cues and ideas that are important and

interest them. This concept then carries over to attentional focus of a person. As a teacher, we

need to be able to attend to all of our students with different attentional focuses. Some students

have a narrow attentional focus while others have a broader one. When teaching my students

how to spike a volleyball I would need to make adjustments to my teaching styles based on the

attentional focuses of my students.

 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 7

Arousal levels are important factors to look at when teaching how to spike a volleyball.

Arousal is a general physiological and psychological activation of the organism that varies on

continuum from deep sleep to intense excitement (Coker, 2014, 46). Being that I am working

with middle school students, my students will most likely be hyperactive with high arousal

levels. I will need focus my students and draw students to the task at large. I will do so with cues,

fun activities, and confidence boosters. According to the U principle, every person has an

optimal level of arousal for peak performance. Higher arousal levels are required for hitting a

volleyball because it is a gross movement. Trait anxiety, an individuals propensity to perceive

situations as threatening or nonthreatening is a factor of arousal (Coker, 2014, 47). With higher

arousal levels comes a narrower attentional focus. So if a students arousal level is too high, he or

she will not take that much information in because their attention is so narrowed on one specific

aspect of the attack. In a game like situation if a players arousal is too high he or she will not be

able to affectively scan the environment for blockers and defenders when hitting the ball. As a

teacher and coach, we need to figure out how to help our players reach their zone of optimal

functioning so they are able to have an optimal performance. In practicing this skill, I will have

my students in more game like situations with lots of things drawing their attention away from

the goal such as loud fans and screaming coaches. Once they become more skilled, I will

incorporate blockers into the lesson so it will require students to work on not having too high of

an arousal to be able to see all of their surroundings on the court. This will allow for them to

work on finding their zone of optimal functioning and figure out how to stay there. I will lead

them to this finding with lots of different scenarios so they are able to practice in many settings.

Since memory involves ones ability to benefit from their past experiences, it is very

helpful when teaching someone how to spike a volleyball. The three types of memory are
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 8

sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory. Sensory memory is the point at

which information enters the nervous system through the sensory system (Coker, 2014, 112).

This type of memory has a large capacity and intakes every stimulus that is present within the

surrounding environment. Once the stimuli have been registered, they filter into the short term

memory. The short term memory is a set of interacting information- processing components that

actively stores and manages information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks (Coker,

2014, 112). This type of memory is very limited, holds information for 20-30 seconds and has a

capacity of around 7 items. If the information in this stage is not rehearsed, it will be lost. So

when teaching how to hit a volleyball it is important to keep practicing the motion and reciting

the cues so it will be placed into long term memory. Long term memory is characterized as

having a seemingly limitless capacity and duration (Coker, 2014, 113). A type of long term

memory is called procedural memory which is memory about information retaining to motor

skills. Memory here is acquired through overt behaviors and learning by doing. When teaching

how to hit a volleyball it is important to channel information into the students procedural

memory.

When teaching how to hit a volleyball there are several ways I will appeal to the students

memory. I will be constantly telling them the cues and having them recite it to allow for it to set

in the students long term memory. We will also be doing lots of repetition to channel the

procedural memory in their brains. When placing the students in game like situations over and

over again it will allow for practice of putting the blockers and the defenders placements on the

last play into short term memory and eventually into long term to remember their tendencies.

Placing this memory into short term will allow for better success on the next attack.
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 9

Every student is motivated different, especially at the middle school level. When teaching

a volleyball spike I need to attend to all the different types of motivation of my students. Intrinsic

motivation is when the student is motivated through his or her own internal rewards. Students are

motivated through their own love for the volleyball game and their enjoyment of hitting a

volleyball. For different people there are different perceptions of success for hitting a volleyball.

Some people are task oriented meaning they base their success on their personal improvement.

These students will think they have become successful by completing the task to the best of their

ability. Others are ego oriented meaning they base their success on social comparisons. These

students will think they have become a successful volleyball hitter if they are doing it better than

other people in the class. As a teacher we can improve our students motivation through creating

a justification, providing success, building in enjoyment, instituting a goal setting program and

positive reinforcement. When practicing the skill I will create drills that will appeal to all the

types of motivation within my students. For the task oriented motivators, I will provide them

with a goal to reach and for my ego oriented motivators I will modify this drill so the students

can have small side competitions within themselves without there being a clear winner or loser

within the class.

Knowing your students stages of learning is important when teaching a motor skill. The

first stage of learning is the cognitive stage. In this stage the learner will attempt to understand

what he or she is supposed to do when hitting a volleyball and will try understand the goal of the

task. The student will also try to develop a plan of the necessary movements required to hit a

volleyball. Here the students are slow, clumsy and will attend to both the relevant and irrelevant

cues of the task. The second stage of learning is the associative, intermediate or practice stage. In

this stage the student will further the development of their plan for completing a hit. Also, the
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 10

student will begin to refine his or her movements and recognize errors. The student tends to

greatly reduce effort, create efficient movements and begins to have muscle sense. The third

stage of learning is called autonomous or fine tuning stage. Here the student will fully develop a

plan of how he or she is going to spike the volleyball. The student will have very efficient

movements, less attention required to perform the skill and his or her movements are carried out

in longer sequences. The student is able to create a full and fluid motion of an attack and are able

to do it consistently. Knowing which stage your student is in allows for you to better help them

by providing the correct feedback and how to help them move onto the next stage of learning

how to spike.

Since most of my students will be at the cognitive stage of learning, I will have to spend a

lot of time on the broken down aspect of the volleyball approach. I will need to use some slow

motion practice, but not a ton because it will mess up their timing for when I incorporate a ball

into the mix. These students will require a lot of feedback with a large emphasis on positive

feedback to make sure they do not lose confidence. Personal error detection will be at a

minimum, so I will be having to do most of the error correction. I will try to mix up the groups

sometimes to have the autonomous learners with the cognitive learners so feedback can be

shared between classmates. Practice stage learners and autonomous learners will not have an

issue with the goal at large. While I will still have them go through the breakdown of the

approach, it will be very easy. Meeting the goal requirements will be easy for them as well so I

will encourage the students to work on different shots and hitting different spots on the court. I

will also allow for unspoken competition between students. Friendly competition will encourage

improvement from the proficient hitters and keep them from getting bored throughout the lesson.
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 11

Each student that you are teaching will have a different style of learning. There are five

main preferences of learning: instructional environment, emotionality, sociological,

physiological and psychological. Instructional environment is a preference to sound, light,

temperature, and class design. When teaching how to spike a volleyball I would like the gym to

be at room temperature so my students feel comfortable. I would also like to have a low to

medium number of students in my class so I am able to give more specialized time to individual

students for their benefit. For emotionality learners their preference this would include

motivation, persistence, responsibility and structure. Some of my students need to be motivated

by me in order for them to make efforts at performing the skill. These students prefer for the

lesson on how to hit a volleyball to be very structured so they know exactly what they need to be

doing at all times. I will give the students structure by telling them exactly what we are doing at

the time and what will be happening next.

Students who prefer a sociological learning style like to work individually, in pairs, with

their peers and in varied relations. These students will benefit from hitting a volleyball back and

forth with a partner to comprehend the movements needed. They will also excel if they are

receiving feedback from their peers and working together with several of them to successfully hit

a volleyball. For this learning style, I will keep all types of learning stages in the same groups so

there is feedback being shared among classmates. Physiological preferred learners need a regard

to perception, intake, time and mobility. These students like to have lots of time to learn the skill

being taught so I will increase my allotted practice time. They need helpful ways to better take in

the information they are being given so I will provide them with the 4 cues to properly hit a

volleyball. Lastly, the psychological learners prefer to be taught based on analytic mode,

hemisphericity and action. These students like to be told details about the skill then moving to
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 12

the big picture of performing the skill entirely and vice versa. Also they need information to be

presented to them based on their either right or left brain dominance. In my demonstration I will

be explaining the skill verbally to the students and then be providing a visual demonstration of

myself completing several successful volleyball attacks. It is important as teachers to understand

our students learning styles so we can adjust our instruction to better help them learn the skill. In

order for my students to excel and perform the volleyball spike to the best of their ability, I need

to accommodate by teaching to the ways in which they learn best.

The progression of my students abilities will be different based on their own learning

pace. Abilities are genetic traits that are prerequisites for skilled performance (Coker, 2014,

15). The extent to which my students will be able to potentially develop as a proficient hitter in

volleyball is dependent on their possession of the specific and necessary underlying abilities. Not

everyone has the same abilities so I need to work with what abilities my students do have and

strengthen those. I will do so by adhering to my students abilities that they do possess. With the

claim that people inherit general motor skills, some students will be at a higher level of general

motor skills while other students will be at a lower level. I will need to spend more time working

with the students who do not possess high levels of general motor skills in a more focused way to

ensure that they are understanding the skill to the best of their ability. Since I have two courts, I

can split up the students based on high levels and lower levels of generalized motor skills or I

can have all the levels of abilities integrated throughout the courts to allow for sharing of

information. If I were to split up high and low levels on separate courts, I will be able to start

both groups out with the same activity, but make sure that the high level group is continued to be

challenged throughout the activity by adding components each time. With the lower level group,
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 13

they might be solely challenged with just the beginning activity I present to them, so will spend

most of my time on their court giving feedback and making corrections.

Goal Setting, Assessment, Arousal and Transfer

Not only will the students set personal goals for themselves, but I will set goals for them.

By the end of the first lesson, the students should create 7 successful approaches to a tossed ball

out of 10. They will be able to make contact and get the ball over the net on 3 of the 7 correct

approaches to the ball as well. From this goal, students will be able to challenge themselves

based on their abilities in the game of volleyball. Students will also be able to create competiton

among themselves and their classmates to see who can get more successful approaches. A long

term goal for the students will to be to continue to improve their number of how many successful

and correct approaches they can get to the ball in 10 balls and how many they are able to get over

the net. By the end of the course, the goal of the students is to be able to have 10 successful hits

over the net all with the correct approach technique. The students will build up to this goal

through completing several drills such as hitting lines off a live setter and self-toss or teacher-

tossed hitting lines. The students will receive lots of practice before they are assessed on the class

goal. As a teacher, I will encourage my students to reach the class goal and to continue to create

challenges within themselves to strive to be the best hitter they can be.

As a teacher, I will be assessing my students on their ability to complete the class goal

previously discussed. I will assess my students through coordination and control, error detection,

visual attention, consistency, and knowledge and memory. Novice students tend to lack a sense

of coordination and control over their movements, whereas experts tend to have more

coordination and control. I will be able to assess whether they are experts of the task when they

gain such body control and coordination throughout the whole approach and the swing. Error
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 14

detection is when students are able to know that they are making incorrect movements within the

motion. If students are able to catch themselves doing these errors and somewhat correct their

mistakes on the next approach, I will know that they are becoming experts at attacking a

volleyball. I will ask my students what visual cues they are attending to when completing their

approach to gain a sense of whether they are attending to the correct visual cues or not. If the

students are experts, their visual attention should be focused on the height, speed and distance of

the set, where the open spots are on the court, spatial awareness between their starting point and

the net and the opponents blockers and defenders. With the goal being to have the correct

footwork for an approach 7 out of the 10 times a ball is set to them and being able to hit the ball

over the net into the court on 3 of the 7 correct approaches, I will look for consistency from my

students. I will assess their consistency based on if they are able to complete the goal several

times with 10 different sets of balls. I will lastly assess my students based on knowledge and

memory. I can assess this either through simple verbal quizzes or hand written quizzes. I will ask

questions having to deal with the cues of hitting a volleyball and how this skill will be applied in

game like situations. If they are able to correctly answer these questions, I will be able to

consider them expert volleyball hitters.

The transfer of skills for multi-sport athletes is can be both positive and negative when it

comes to hitting a volleyball. Positive transfer occurs when a learners past experience with one

skill facilitates learning a new skill or using a skill in a different context (Coker, 2014, 153).

Students who have played baseball with the throw will have positive transfer with the overhead

swing in volleyball. Positive transfer will also occur for students who swim and are proficient at

the freestyle stroke due to the similarities in overhead technique with the volleyball hit. There

will also be a slight positive transfer for basketball shooters with the flick of the wrist. In a
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 15

volleyball spike, when making contact one makes a similar flick of the wrist in order to give the

ball backwards rotation to stay in the court. Negative transfer occurs because experience with

one skill hinders or obstructs learning a new skill or performing a skill under novel conditions

(Coker, 2014, 153). If a student plays basketball and is proficient at the layup, he or she will have

negative transfer when it comes to the footwork. The basketball lay-up footwork is a two-step

approach while the volleyball approach is a three or four step approach. When shooting a lay-up

a player jumps off one foot, while when taking a volleyball approach a player jumps off two feet.

With this prior skill from the sport of basketball, one might struggle with their transfer of skills

into hitting a volleyball. Zero transfer occurs because experience with the first skill has no

influence on the second (Coker, 2014, 153). Students who have played sports such as field

hockey and golf will not be able to transfer their skills over into hitting a volleyball because the

techniques are not similar. As a teacher, I will need to teach for transfer of these skills that my

students possess. I will do so by making connections to their previous sports, identifying the

most important features of the task, understanding what type of learners my students are, and

teaching lead-up skills. Having students who are able to transfer skills from previous sports they

have played will make their experience in learning how to hit a volleyball.

Having your students reach the optimal level of arousal is key for success when hitting a

volleyball. Since hitting a volleyball is a gross motor skill, it will require high levels of arousal.

With high levels of arousal often comes narrowing of the attentional focus. I will need to create

drills that will provide my students with the opportunities to find their optimal level of arousal

according to the U- principle. I can do so by the ideas I had previously listed to find their optimal

level of arousal and through game situations when my students become more proficient at the

volleyball attack. In these game situations I will create a tense, competitive and demanding
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 16

environment where I will constantly be testing my students abilities to remain in their optimal

arousal levels.

How the Motor Skills Will Be Presented

Step 1:

Hi class! I hope you all had a good weekend! Today we are going to be learning the

volleyball spike. The volleyball spike is the most common and effective way to score points in

the game of volleyball. Not only is the volleyball the most effective way to get a point in

volleyball, it is also the most exciting. The feeling of going up and spike the ball straight down

on your opponents side of the court and hearing the crowd roar in excitement is one of the

greatest feelings in the world. By a show of hands, has anyone ever hit a volleyball before?

Awesome! By the end of the class today, you will be able to successfully complete 7 approaches

out of the 10 balls tossed to you and will be able to hit the ball over the net 3 out of the 7 times

you perform a correct approach.

Step 2:

There are 4 cues to hitting a volleyball. First, you want to start in a staggered stance with

your dominant foot forward and your weight on your front foot. Your first step is with your non-

dominant foot to open up your body to the court. Your next two steps are the most important

steps of the approach. You will then make a quick step with your dominant foot followed by a

short quick step with your non-dominant foot that should create a shoulder width stance. At the

same time as you are making your last two steps, you need to simultaneously swing your arms

back. This footwork that I just explained is called the approach because you are approaching

the ball from the setter. Once you see the ball set you will begin your approach footwork. From
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 17

your shoulder width stance, you being your jump. When jumping you want to jump off two feet

and straight up into the air. Be careful, a lot of people have a hard time not jumping forward

when jumping to hit the ball, so really focus on this step. As you are jumping, you also need to

be simultaneously swinging your arms forward in a position as if you are shooting an imaginary

bow and arrow. Once arms have been swung forward and you have jumped into the air, you will

make contact with the ball with your dominant hand. When making contact with the ball, you

need to flick your wrist downward in order to make the ball have a downward rotation to stay in

the court. After contact, you need to follow-through with your arm swing. With the follow-

through, you will land on two feet and finish with your swinging arm hitting your opposite leg. A

helpful way to remember the four cues is through these four letters: A, J, C, F (Approach, Jump,

Contact, Follow-through)

Step 3:

So once again, youre four steps are approach, jump, contact and follow-through. Your

first cue is the approach. Remember that when completing the approach, you are taking a total

of three steps. The first step is by your non-dominant foot, your next step is by your dominant

foot and your final step is a short quick step with your non-dominant foot to create a shoulder

width stance. While taking these steps it is important for you to remember to swing your arms

back simultaneously. Your second cue is the jump. From this shoulder width stance you will

jump off two feet, straight into the air while bringing your arms forward at the same time. Your

third cue is contact. While in the air you want to contact the ball at the highest point you can

reach and remember to flick your wrist. Your fourth cue is follow-through. After making contact

with the volleyball you need to remember to follow-through by having your hitting arm touching
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 18

your opposite leg and landing solidly on the ground. So always remember these four letters when

hitting a volleyball: A, J, C, F.

Step 4:

Now I am going to demonstrate hitting a volleyball. It is important for you to pay close

attention. Since I am right handed I will be starting my approach with my right foot in front of

my left with most of my weight on my front foot. If you are left handed do the opposite of what I

am saying, so you will start with you left foot out in front. Okay, so now I will be taking my first

step with my left foot followed by a step with my right foot. While I am doing this, notice how I

am bring my arms back in a swinging motion at the same time? This is a very important step to

remember because this is how you build up your arm speed for your swing. Now I am going to

take my final step with my left foot and notice how this step is short and quick? It is also to build

up speed, but this time it is to build up speed to jump high and explosively into the air. So as I

jump into the air, I swing my arms forward at the same time and then hit the ball at the highest

point I can reach. Can everyone raise their dominant hand into the air as high as they can?

Remember this feeling because that is how your hitting arm should look and feel when you

contact the ball. Pay close attention to when I contact the ball, see how my hand is rolling over

top of the ball and I am flicking my wrist to create a downward rotation of the ball. Does anyone

know why downward rotation is important? It is important to ensure that your hit stays in the

court. Now that I have made contact with the ball, I need to make sure that I follow- through. My

hitting arm needs to come all the way down and across my body to touch my opposite leg. I also

need to make sure that when I land, I land safely on my two feet. Now that I have demonstrated a

broken down volleyball attack, I will show you 5 full speed volleyball attacks so you will get the

picture of what it should really look like.

 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 19

Step 5:

By raising your hands, who can tell me the cues for hitting a volleyball? What foot do

you start forward with your weight on for your approach? How many feet are you supposed to

land on when you finish your jump? Where does your arm go when you are following through?

Now I want everyone to close their eyes and imagine themselves hitting a volleyball over the net

and into the court like I had previously demonstrated for you. With your eyes still closed, I want

you to picture yourself at each of the cues and performing them correctly. Lastly, I want you all

to imagine spiking a ball onto the other courts side and seeing the crowd coming up onto their

feet and cheering for you. Open your eyes, can anyone tell me the four cues of hitting a

volleyball one more time?

Step 6:

Since this skill is both high in complexity and high in organization, I will using the

repetitive part method as my form of practice. With the repetitive-part method, the learner is

provided with opportunity to have a better understanding of the timing and the integrations of all

the steps for the skill as a whole. For this practice method with a step learned, the learner adds it

to the previous part(s) and practices them together (Coker, 2014, 200). I will start by teaching

the approach, then I will add in the jump with the approach, and will add in the contact with the

follow-through. Now that I know you all know the cues, let us begin practicing! I everyone to

line up on the end line for me and spread out so you are an arms length away from your

neighbors. We are going to break down the approach without the ball. Everyone get into the

starting position with your dominant foot forward and lean forward so your weight is on your

front foot. I will go around and correct those who are having trouble with the starting position.

Once I see that everyone is in the correct starting position, I will then tell the students to start
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 20

their approach footwork and back arm swing in slow motion and again help those who need it.

Each time after completing one approach, the students are to return to the end line to start their

next one. After completing 20 slow motion approaches with the proper back arm swing, I will

tell the students to complete 20 game speed approaches with the back arm swing. I will have the

students show me that they are able to complete 7 correct approaches out of the 10 attempts with

back arm swing before they are allowed to add in the jump. Now that all of you have completed

7 successful approaches out of 10 we will begin to incorporate the jump aspect of the attack.

Your footwork and arm swing from the approaches you just completed will not change just

because we are adding in a jump! Remember to jump off two feet and land on two feet. Make

sure you are swinging your arms forward as you jump to get into the contact position. I will

have my students go back to the end line and start their approaches with jumping. Once the

students have completed 10 slow motion approaches with jumping, they will complete 10 game

speed approaches with a jump. Once again the students must show me that they are able to

complete 7 successful approaches with jumping out of 10 attempts before they are allowed to

add in the contact aspect of the attack. Since most of the students have never hit a volleyball

before, I will have them do an approach with a jump and catch the ball at their highest point in

order to gain the feeling of how it will work with a live toss from a setter. Now that you all have

showed me that you can do the proper footwork and jump, we will begin to add in a ball! I know

you all are excited, but we will not be hitting the ball just yet! For now I want you all to just

focus on getting the feeling of having your hitting arm fully extended and knowing when to

make contact with the ball at the highest peak. We are going to be doing a drill called hitting

lines so I will need you to split yourselves up into 4 groups and each group will go stand on the

left side of each half court where the outside hitter would hit from. Once you and your group gets
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 21

to the designated spot, raise your hand and wait for further instruction. Great! Now I want one

person to be the tosser who will be tossing balls to the hitting line. Once you hit, you will

become the tosser for the next person in line. If you were the tosser, you will go and retrieve the

ball of the person you tossed to and return to the end of the line. Always remember that just

because we are adding in a new element, your footwork does not need to change. Try to catch the

ball at the highest point possible. I will allow the students to have around 15 attempts each

before they are to show me that they can complete 7 successful approaches with catches out of

the 10 balls tossed. Once the students have done so, they will practice hitting the ball over the net

with the correct follow-through. Great job! Now for the fun part. Now off the tossed ball, you

will take real swings in attempt to get the ball over the net and in the court. I know that this will

be tricky, but keep a positive attitude and give it your best! Since our goal for the class is to be

able to have 7 successful approaches out of the 10 balls and be able make contact and get the ball

over the net and into the court on 3 out of the 7 correct approaches, the students must be able to

complete this before moving on to a more challenged part of the skill.

A distributed practice would be the best option for teaching how to hit a volleyball. In

distributed practice, rest component between sessions or practice attempts is equal to or greater

than the practice component (Coker, 2014, 235). When properly hitting a volleyball over the net

and in the court several times in a row, the students will become exhausted very quickly. There is

a lot of big muscle movements, quick and rapid movements of the legs and arms, and jumping

involved in hitting a volleyball so the energy demands are high. Due to there only being two nets

up in my gymnasium, students would get many breaks between their 10 balls because there isnt

enough space. These breaks will definitely be equal to the practice time and sometimes even

greater. Due to the students being relatively young, a distributed practice would be good for
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 22

them because it would all for better focus when it is their practice time and it is more motivating

as a learner. Even though hitting a volleyball is a discrete skill, I still feel that having a

distributed would be beneficial and productive.

When teaching the approach footwork I felt that having the students practice the three

steps in slow motion was appropriate and necessary. Having the students first time trying to get

the footwork down and the timing that goes along with it in full speed would be very

discouraging and unproductive. I only had the students in slow motion for a short amount of time

because I didnt want it to throw off the essential components of movement for the volleyball

spike. Once we started to incorporate the volleyball, I was unable to have the students practice

in slow motion. Slow motion practice of the full volleyball attack with a ball being set would be

very impractical and unhelpful for the learning of the skill.

Throughout the practice error detection will be made by me and by the students

themselves. Error detection is the students ability to identify and correct his or her own errors

throughout the skill. When learning the skill I will be the one detecting errors, but once I can see

that the student has somewhat of an idea of the skill and how to do it I will allow for him or her

to detect and correct their own errors. Throughout the rest of the lesson I will be using the

technique of delayed error detection. With this I will wait for the students to detect and correct

their own errors and if they dont I will step in and tell them of the error and show them ways to

fix it.

Motivation is key when practicing how to hit a volleyball. I will motivate my students

through positive saying such as good job, keep up the good work, and excellent hit. I will

also encourage my students to motivate each other. They can do so by cheering for their fellow

classmates, providing positive feedback and creating side competitions. Students will often
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 23

create competitions among themselves and with other classmates. Oftentimes students will be

motivated by challenging themselves to improve and competing against their last score of correct

attacks to attempts. Competition is also oftentimes created among classmates. Friends will

challenges and motivate each other by seeing who can do better. While this is a friendly

competition, it is one of the most motivating techniques for students.

Practice Structure

With my practice plan that I had previously stated, I would have my students involved in

a constant practice. A constant practice is when you rehearse only one variation of the task

during a set period. Because my learners are in the cognitive phase I would want to start with

constant practice. The volleyball spike we are practicing is closely matched to the target skill and

in an environment that is similar to the target context. I will be having the students hitting from

the same spot of the court every time and off the same type of set. Once the students become

proficient at the volleyball spike, I will start to add more varied practice styles. Varied practices

will consist of hitting to different spots on the court such as line and cross and off of

different sets that will land at different places on the court.

For my practice plan I will also be having it in a blocked style of practice since we are

only focusing on one skill. A blocked practice is when one skill is practiced for a certain period

of time before you begin learning a new skill. Since my students are still in the cognitive phase

of hitting a volleyball, it will be best for their improvement to know what is coming every single

attempt during practice. Being able to predict what is going to happen with every attempt will

allow for better improvement within their Generalized Motor Program (GMP). Once my students

become proficient with their volleyball attack, I would create a practice that is more randomly

structured.
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 24

My practice is related to my task characteristics because students have a lot of practice

time and a lot of chances to develop their information processing skills and their underlying

motor abilities. My practice really focuses the process of decision making because students are

working on recognizing the tendencies of the set. Underlying abilities that are being highly

focused on are consistency, explosive strength and rate control. Students are getting lots of

repetitions to improve on their consistency of getting at least 7 successful approaches out of 10

attempts. Explosive strength is practiced also through all the repetitions by improving body

awareness of the correlation of arm speed and a quick approach to create an explosive jump

leading to an explosive hit. Rate control is present by having other students tossing to the hitters.

Obviously these tossers will not throw a perfect toss every time, therefore the students will have

to work on making adjustments to their attack based on the speed and the height of the toss.

All types of learning styles will be able to succeed from a constant and varied practice

type because it appeals to visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners. My demonstration will appeal

to the visual learners. My verbal explanations will appeal to the auditory learners. The actual

practicing of the volleyball spike will appeal to all the kinesthetic learners in the class. While

most of my students are at the cognitive stage, I will have a select handful of students who are in

the practice stage and the autonomous stage. Even though I only have one practice plan for all of

these different stages of learning, it will be effective for all students due to self-challenging. The

novice students will be working hard to just meet the minimum requirement of the class goal,

while the practice stage and autonomous would be striving to get a perfect 10 approaches out of

the 10 tosses.

Practice Feedback
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 25

There are two types of feedback I can provide to my students as a teacher:

intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic feedback is response-produced information that is also available

to learners through their sensory systems both during and as a consequence of performance

(Coker, 2014, 266). This feedback is feedback that can be learned on their own through vision,

hearing, proprioception, and touch. In my practice, students will be able to tell if they have made

good contact with the ball if there is a popping sound. They will be able to see whether or not

their hit was successful based on if the ball landed in the court or not. They will be able feel

whether or not their approach was quick and their jump was explosive. Another way to provide

feedback to students is through extrinsic feedback which is oftentimes called augmented

feedback. Augmented feedback is information received from an external source that

supplements the learners own sensory information (Coker, 2014, 266). This is where I come

into play and provide specific feedback to my students. Augmented feedback is provided in two

ways: knowledge of results and knowledge of performance. When I give feedback on the

knowledge of results, I am providing feedback on the outcome of the skill. I will not need to give

much knowledge of results feedback because it will be obvious to my students whether the hit

was in the court or not. I could provide knowledge of results feedback by telling them the speed

of their hit in MPH. Knowledge of performance will be providing my students with information

on the quality of the movements completed within the skill. An example of knowledge of

performance feedback would be if I were to correct the hitters arm swing speed or if I were to

adjust the length of their steps on their approach. The feedback I provide to my students will be

very productive and encouraging towards their improvement.

As my learners progress from novice to autonomous learners, the content of my feedback

will shift. Since I am working with mainly novice volleyball hitters, I will start by focusing on
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 26

program feedback and then move towards parameter as students become more proficient.

Program feedback is when you reinforce how to do the skill itself. Parameter feedback is

reinforcing power, speed and force for the skill. I will also be providing my students with both

visual and auditory feedback. I will give visual feedback through showing them what they are

doing wrong through a demonstration. If we have the money for the equipment, I could record

the students performing the spike and then play it back for them. Auditory feedback will be given

through all feedback being provided. I will be giving prescriptive feedback rather than

descriptive feedback. Prescriptive feedback is when the practitioner offers a suggestion as to

how to correct the problem (Coker, 2014, 276). Prescriptive feedback will give the learner

specific points to focus on for improvement. If my student was having issues with not being able

to jump high enough to hit the ball at a higher contact point, I could say try to swing your arms

back faster and have a quicker forward arm swing to really boost yourself up into the air.

While feedback is an important factor when it comes to teaching how to hit a volleyball,

one must take into account the frequency of the feedback. Feedback should be in summary form.

As the teacher, I should not be providing feedback after every single attack attempted by the

student which would inhibit his or hers ability to error detect. I need to allow for my students to

make these changes themselves. Since my students will be hitting a set of 10 balls every time, I

would want to wait to give the feedback after they finish their set rather than stopping them in

the middle. When giving feedback I do not want to overload him or her with information and

potentially create panic within the student. I want to focus on one or more feature of the

movement at a time. When my students are practicing the attack, I would only want to tell them

to focus on rapid arm swings and jumping straight into the air rather than telling them to work on

several movements of the attack at once.

 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 27

Along with monitoring the frequency of your feedback, you must also attend to the

precision of your feedback. When dealing with cognitive learners one does not want to provide

feedback with too much precision. You want you feedback to be general, but still focused on the

skill at large. Once the learners have moved into the more advanced stages of learning and the

skill has become more refined, more precise information will be greatly beneficial for the

learners given that they understand the meaning. Timing of the provided feedback is also crucial

when giving feedback to students learning a skill. Providing delayed feedback is more effective

than instant feedback for most learners. Delayed feedback is when the teachers waits to provide

feedback until the end of the set and waits to see if the student will correct him or herself first. At

the end of the 10 balls, I would wait to provide feedback for the student to see if he or she is able

to detect their own errors.

One very effective way to provide feedback is through a technique called the feedback

sandwich. In doing this the teachers wants to begin by reinforcing the positive aspect of the

performance. Next, the teacher will inform the student about what specifically needs to be

changed within their movements. Lastly, the teacher will encourage the student to keep working

hard and doing his or her best. After the student has finished his or her set of 10 hit attempts I

could use the sandwich technique to give them feedback. Billy that was a great job of getting

the ball into the court and way to use the proper footwork for the approach! For your next set of

10 I want you to work on your explosiveness in your jump. Some ways to help you improve this

is to have rapid arm swings backwards and forward to boost yourself up into the air. Keep up the

work and keep striving for improvement! You are almost there! I believe that this technique is a

very effective way to give feedback to your students.

Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 28
 Teaching How to Hit a Volleyball 29

Works cited

Coker, Cheryl. A. (2014). Motor Learning and Control for Practitioners, 3rd Ed.

Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway Publishers.