The One Where He Tries to Hit His Driver...Again

Three weeks ago, I started a challenge to teach myself how to hit my golf driver straight while only using digital resources to do so. Click here to check out my first post to follow from the beginning! Starting out, I had a hard time figuring out where to begin. I had no professional or expert to tell me to look at beginner, intermediate, or advanced resources, so I had to dive in and simply go with whatever I perceived my problem to be. Needless to say, I did not experience much success by blindly picking and choosing what instruction to go off of.

Fast forward a couple weeks to where I decided to start from scratch on my overall technique. I decided that instead of starting part way through, it would be more beneficial for me to rebuild by driver swing from the ground up, which I thought would eliminate the faults by learning proper movements and foundations rather than through the compensations or band-aids I was applying by guessing what my issues were. This post goes into more detail about what I found and what steps I was taking to fix my swing.

My main goal became two mini goals. The first thing I had to do was learn how to hit the ball straight to the left, then I would more easily be able to make the changes I needed to hit straight forward. The video below highlights what I took away from these lessons and demonstrates what I will continue working towards to eventually achieve my original goal.

At the end of it, I was unfortunately unable to learn my skill on my own. I still am not able to consistently hit the ball straight like I was hoping for, although it happens more often than it was previously. However, I did gain other valuable insight during my time exploring networked learning. If I were to compare my networked learning to traditional in-person lessons, I think I would see a much greater level of achievement with in-person lessons. In that environment, I would get appropriate and instant feedback about what I was doing correctly and incorrectly. By trying to self-educate, I was constantly having to stop, rewatch or reread, and try to analyze my own practice without the proper background knowledge to let me know what aspects I was looking for. As Bransford et at. (2000) suggests, my vision as a novice is not experienced enough to notice the features and patterns that an expert would pick up on, causing me to potentially overlook my own flaws that would inform me which specific aspects of my technique I should be fixing.

Although I did not ultimately achieve the goal that I had set out to do, I would definitely participate in this style of learning again. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to dive down the rabbit hole and let my curiosity take me across all of the different resources available via digital media, and I thought that being able to conduct research and practice at my own pace and in my own space was very calming. I do think that I would take time to reach out to professionals every so often to set checkpoints for myself and verify that I am moving in the right direction. That expert opinion was what I believed to be the missing link between failure and success. If I were to employ this type of learning in my own classroom, I would set it up similarly where the students would have the independence to venture off and explore while still having me there as the map to make sure they arrive where they need to be regardless of what path they take to get there.

References:

Banko, N. (2023, June 1). Driver swing [Video].

Banko, N. (2023, June 15). Golf hook [Video].

Banko, N. (2023, June 25). Hitting my driver straight [Video]. https://youtu.be/hbBS2rhIXAQ

Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L., & Cocking, R.R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind,

experience, and school. National Academy Press. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368.