Occupational Therapy Doctorate Program

Our PY2s had fun practicing automaticity using the Cupid Shuffle during Dr. Hux’s motor learning lab! 💃🎉 Professor Meyer even dropped in because the PY1s thought we were having too much fun in the classroom next door. 😂

Behind the dance, this session bridged instructional design and motor learning theories with real-time clinical practice:

🧠 Cognitive Load & Motor Stages
We observed how easily a learner drops from the autonomous back into the associative stage of motor learning. Students experienced how task constraints spike cognitive load, forcing the brain from "muscle memory" back into conscious overthinking.

👥 Social Cognitive Theory & Self-Regulation
Instead of a traditional lecture, we used peer-to-peer modeling. This minimized performance anxiety and boosted student self-efficacy, providing the self-regulation needed to successfully execute the motor program.

Transforming abstract learning theories into dynamic clinical applications is like dancing !