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Massage Educators

The purpose of this group is to invite massage educators to network and dialogue regarding issues related to massage therapy education.

Members: 323
Latest Activity: Jun 2, 2016

Discussion Forum

Massage Therapy Instructor's Online Continuing Education Course

Started by Ariana Vincent, LMT, MTI, BCTMB Jun 2, 2016.

Research for Health 1 Reply

Started by Ariana Vincent, LMT, MTI, BCTMB. Last reply by Noel Norwick May 26, 2014.

Golden Opportunities For Massage Therapy Instructors

Started by Ariana Vincent, LMT, MTI, BCTMB May 6, 2014.

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Comment by Boris Prilutsky on August 1, 2010 at 11:34am
Dear colleagues,

I am happy to invite you to join my group:” Medical and Sports Massage” including FREE Medical and Sports massage lessons. Not alot of practitioners in the US are familiar with Russian Medical and Sports massage as it was proposed by a Russian physician professor of medicine Anatoly Sherback . I'm happy to offer you information about this methodology as well as some additional information about me. I hope that our friendship will be pleasant and mutual beneficial. I believe in sharing knowledge. In such a case you will be able to learn from me as well as I can learn from you . If after reading information about medical and sports massage, or viewing lessons you will have any question I'm encouraging you to make comments or initiate discussion topic . In such a case my replies will be available for many to read, as well as your replies. Looking forward for great relationship.

Best wishes.
Boris
Comment by Scott Bukovac on July 30, 2010 at 2:44pm
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 on July 30, 2010 at 2:33pm
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 on July 30, 2010 at 2:14pm
What about combining SMEs with instructional designers?

Is this possible?

Seems like a logical next step.
Comment by Lisa Mertz on July 30, 2010 at 12:03pm
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 on July 30, 2010 at 12:01pm
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 on July 30, 2010 at 11:48am
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 on July 30, 2010 at 9:46am
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 on July 30, 2010 at 8:52am
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 on July 30, 2010 at 8:24am
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.
 

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