Massage Educators

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Comment by Scott Bukovac 1 day ago

Combining SMEs with instructional designers - I am not sure if you are meaning combining them into the same person... or just simply putting SMEs together with Instructional Designers. Both are possible. Basically this idea goes along with the concept discussed below which advocate the training of subject matter experts (i.e great therapists) on some of the ideas of adult education and instructional design in order to improve how they deliver their course material. This also very much depends on what format (F2F, blending learning, on-line, etc). of the course they are delivering.

Comment by Noel Norwick 1 day ago

It seems "you" are reinventing the wheel.
Re matching teaching styles to student learning bias or base on subject matter, I again suggest reading; research on development of professionalism suggests that it depends. For those truly interested in the subject, I suggest reading, Development of Professional Expertise - Toward Measurement of Expert Performance and Design of Optimal Learning Environments, edited by K. Anders Ericsson, Cambridge University Press,2009. And possibly the much lighter read, The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle, Bantam Books, 2009.

Comment by Susan G. Salvo 1 day ago

What about combining SMEs with instructional designers?

Is this possible?

Seems like a logical next step.

Comment by Lisa Mertz 1 day ago

Jan -- Dawna Markova was a major proponent of the VAK learning styles: http://3.ly/TCwD She was an Ericksonian hypnotherapist and childhood education specialist. One of her first published books, How Your Child is Smart, is based on her early work. In the 80s, she taught body-centered therapy based on Alexander, Feldenkrais, Rubinfeld, Erickson, Perls, Buddhist psycholog. She has trained massage therapy teachers.

Comment by Sandy Fritz 1 day ago

I have been aware of similar research on learning styles as Whitney. Education can get as trendy and any other process and these trends come and go. We need to pay attention so we do not become fixated. Learning is a process that involves multiple factors. One that has not been mentioned is reading. There are individuals that are not able to easily translate symbolic writing into understanding. It is not natural to read. It is a learned behavior and glitches in neuro processing can really make it a challenge to both read and understand what you are reading. I have dyslexia. Fortunately I can read and comprehend well unless reading out loud. I read in chunks moving down the page. I do not read from left to right even if I could figure out what is left and where is right. It is the writing of the language that is so frustrating to me. The computer helps a lot. There are many conditions that interfere with learning because of reading. I am very aware of this as I write textbooks. I am conscious of design, how information is chunked, multiple presentations of the same content and tone of the writing. Technology is now allowing textbooks to be read to people and the ability to listen and read at the same time can help comprehension . Reading tests can be a nightmare and many qualified people are prohibited from obtaining credentials because their brain just cannot process the meaning of the written questions. Again, it takes teacher training to understand all the different facets of learning.

Comment by Scott Bukovac 1 day ago

Having recently completed a Certificate in Instructing Adults at one of the local community colleges here, one of the on-going discussions was the use of SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) as teachers/instructors in programs. The overwhelming thinking of the students in the class (many of whom were already professional trainers and teachers with the corporate and academic world) and the instructors - is that it is totally unfair and most likely doomed to failure to have these people teach without any prior training. In many cases, the massage therapist that gets drawn into teaching "because they are good at it" and who are told "You are a great therapist... you should teach...." is in much the same boat as the SMEs described above. As we all know, massage therapy is part knowledge, part skill and part "art" - just like teaching. The unfortunate part is that the knowledge, skills and art parts for both do not intrinsically co-incide with each other. We need to be trained and supported to become good therapists, and we need to be trained and supported to become good teachers.

The learning styles models are a very simplistic way to model what in reality is a complex cognitive and behavioural process. In some senses, it serves the human need/desire to classify people/situations into whatever "box" it may fit into so that we know how to "deal" with them in the future. All of these models have intrinsic limitations and biases. It is vitally important that we understand these biases before putting a huge amount of weight into them.

I agree that it is tough, if not impossible, to structure every learning activity with every learning style in mind. However, I think what a learning style inventory can do is give the instructor some information as to how they might need to approach teaching a particular group, and the students some information about how they may be best to approach studying some topics. The catch with a lot of the older instructional design models, is that many of them are based around the learning style models for the classification of learners. Many of the newer models like that of Cognitive Load Theory are being based around psychological and cognitive science as their fundamental basis. It will be curious to see how this filters out into the massage therapy teaching community.

Comment by Whitney Lowe 1 day ago

I think the emphasis on learning styles has caused many teachers to put too much emphasis on this concept. Of course it's impractical to address each different learning style with every classroom activity. In addition, some recent findings have pointed to the idea that the emphasis on learning styles may be inaccurate and they may not be as important as we once thought. See this link for a discussion of these findings:
http://bit.ly/6qKeRP

I think a crucial piece that is missing in so much of our education is an emphasis on training teachers in instructional design. It is instructional design of each learning activity that is really at the core of whether or not that is a valuable learning process no matter the type of learning style of the student.

Comment by Darcy Neibaur 1 day ago

Jan I agree with you whole heartedly. Teachers are not trained and are just put in the classroom to flounder. Sad. I had some horrible teachers while in massage school. Hopefully that will change with Teach the Teachers at the 2011 World Massage Festival. www.worldmassagefestival.com

Comment by Jan Schwartz 1 day ago

Well I have no doubt that people learn thru some combo of VAK! Even Gardner's stuff requires the employment of hearing, seeing and/or touching. It's the 'styles' part I don't get--where does that come from and how is it determined? And how does that translate to teaching? If we follow the adage that we teach as we learn, then what happens if someone else has a different "style"?

I think it boils down to teachers being trained, learning, among other things, learning theories, which in my mind may have a bigger impact on students than trying to figure out someone's learning style.

Comment by Scott Bukovac 1 day ago

Jan.... a bit of research this morning turned up one publishedarticle, and many mentions of schools that do learning styles inventories, but no published results. The published article was by Don McQuillan out of New Zealand:

http://www.ijtmb.org/index.php/ijtmb/article/viewArticle/82/117

In this article he shows a pie chart which shows that of the students at the Otago Polytechnic massage therapy programs - approximately 42% were mixed kinesthetic, 34% kinesthetic, and the remaining 24% were visual / reader-writer/ visual-auditory. The only "catch" here is that I don't think the article indicated how this particular data was generated (ie. what questionnaire, etc.) This certainly does support the idea that many MT students are kinesthetically oriented (which makes sense), but it also points out that at least 24% strongly prefer a different learning style and that there is some 42% that are "mixed" kinesthetic (i.e. kinesthetic mixed with other styles).

Some interesting food for thought, huh? :-)

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