The Kinesiology Department at Cal State East Bay has more than 800 majors offering both BS (Bachelor of Science) and MS (Master of Science) degrees. Cal State East Bay is part of the California State University system which is the nation’s largest and most diverse university with 23 campuses and over 400,000 students.
The Kinesiology Department at Cal State East Bay focuses on high impact practices both in the classroom and with a variety of co-curricular programs including student research and internship opportunities, as well as our Biomechanics’ Dartfish Mentor and Professional Development Program. The Dartfish Mentor program was created to assist students with the learning curve of using a video analysis program, Dartfish Motion Analysis, in an undergraduate biomechanics course. Students would spend much time learning the program instead of effectively applying the program as a tool for movement assessment and explanation.
“Dartfish allows our students to be creative and learn and explore how the human body works and moves“.
Aaron Blevins, Lead Dartfish Mentor at Cal State East Bay
Since 2013, Cal State East Bay has used Dartfish as a platform to illustrate and explain biomechanical concepts in an undergraduate biomechanics course taught by Dr. Vanessa Yingling (lecture) and Shannon Webb (laboratory).
“Learning to use Dartfish to explain and demonstrate Biomechanical principles was a lot of fun and incredibly useful moving forward as a fitness professional. I’ve often seen this kind of software used in social media posts by professionals I follow, so in sharing my own informative posts about lifting, this makes it much clearer and professional”.
Biomechanics Student.
The Dartfish Mentor and Professional Development Program
The mentoring program historically included both assisting biomechanics students learn the program, as well as working on projects utilizing Dartfish. Past projects included work with USA Fencing, the Cal State East Bay Baseball team, content for National Biomechanics Day, and training videos on Dartfish analysis tools for biomechanics students.
The Dartfish Mentor and Professional Development program was organized to provide tutoring for current Biomechanics students. Introducing any technology into courses is a challenge both ensuring student proficiency with the program while also using the tool to understand the course content. Students have different technical abilities, exposure, and access to technology. The mentors gain valuable 21st Century learning and thinking skills such as critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, communication skills, creativity and innovation skills, collaboration skills, as well as life skills including resiliency, accountability, adaptability, personal responsibility, people skills, and self-direction.
Pivot to Distance Learning
When students and professors were in person, they were using the desktop version of Dartfish and MyDartfish Mobile has been an option for students since 2019. As the pandemic resulted in our university pivoting to online instruction, the course relied completely on the mobile device solution for video analysis. The integration of the Dartfish Mobile App prior to the pandemic afforded students a hands-on learning experience during fully online courses.
“One of the greatest advantages to all of this is the ability to have the app on the student’s individual handheld device (iPhone/iPad/Android device)
during the pandemic!”
Shannon Webb, Lab Instructor – Biomechanics
A mobile license was assigned to each student. They were able to record and edit videos from their mobile devices. The mobile program is connected to Dartfish TV where students uploaded their video assignments for review.
“I really enjoyed the class as a whole and loved working with myDartfish app.
Biomechanics Student
The “Tool of the Week” videos
During the “shelter in place”, the mentoring approach was redesigned to add a Tool of the Week model to incrementally expose students to all tools of MyDartfish Mobile. A peer mentoring network was designed so all biomechanics students were supported remotely by a mentor who guided students through their use of the software.
Each week, one mentor provided a tutorial dedicated to one of the Dartfish tools that was posted on Dartfish TV. The biomechanics students then used their knowledge of the program to complete 2 major video assignments:
- Squat Analysis
- “Mash-Up Video (explanation of 2 related biomechanical concepts)
These projects highlighted students’ ability to biomechanically analyze human motion and refine their professional abilities to disseminate information. This ranges from fundamental movement patterns to projectile motion, linear and angular kinematics as well as kinetics, torque, muscle and bone adaptations, and so much more.
“The Tool of the Week vids and mentoring were very successful. I definitely saw students progress in the quality of their videos as the semester went on and was super happy that some students asked questions when they needed help/clarification on the material. This gave me the opportunity to help deepen their understanding and spark some ideas”.
Dartfish Mentor Spring 2021
Qualitative impressions of this the incremental approach to teaching the program with small peer mentored groups was positive. The approach assisted student learning and application of Dartfish Mobile in the biomechanics course.
By giving the students a solid understanding of each tool and its usage in relation to biomechanical course content, they gain additional skills through real-life practical application.
Dartfish Mentor
“I like how each video made the students focus on a particular tool so that by the time their mashup project was due, they were experts using the program.”
Dartfish Mentor Spring 2021
National Biomechanics Day
National Biomechanics Day is a worldwide celebration of Biomechanics in its many forms for high school students and teachers. Each year, the Kinesiology department at Cal State East Bay organizes programs to reach out to local high schools within the area to celebrate and further teach others about biomechanics and its roots in kinesiology.
This year, the mentors used this as an opportunity to showcase Dartfish and demonstrate biomechanical concepts to students and teachers! The project was conceived and implemented remotely. The mentors created content that aimed to encourage further exploration of kinesiology and biomechanics. The video focuses on the projectile motion of Stephen Curry’s 3-point shot.
“We believe that utilizing Dartfish will enhance visual understanding of concepts that may be foreign to this population. In turn, we hope this inspires those students to consider Kinesiology and Biomechanics as a major of study”.
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