Becoming the Best PT Teacher that I can be

On March 23, 2015, our class had an instructional design (ID) workshop. Here, we experienced creating objectives, determining teaching and evaluation strategies, and identifying the resources to use for our assigned students/patients.

During the composition of my ID, I realized the importance of knowing my learners especially their needs. As a future physical therapist (PT), my student/patient’s needs are crucial in determining my teaching strategies and the content of my activities. Aside from that, knowing my students/patients can also prevent redundancy; instead of teaching them again the concepts/skills they already know, I can build up on those or introduce a new concept/skill to help maintain their attention during the teaching session.

The workshop also taught me the importance of having “S.M.A.R.T.” – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time–bound – objectives. These characteristics help ensure that my objectives can be easily accomplished by my students/ patients. As a future PT, I should always consider these characteristics in order to prevent frustration or disappointment of my students/patients later on. Moreover, I learned to keep my objectives to a minimum and arrange them in such a way that they will build up to one end goal, which, for my case was the psychomotor learning of exercises. This type of incremental strategy will help maximize my students/patients’ learning and reinforce to them the skills/lessons I will teach.

Lastly, the most valuable thing I learned during the workshop is the significance of perseverance. I have to admit, I had a difficult time forming my ID and I had to do many revisions before I can make a relatively good output. As a future PT, I understood that great works come from those who persevere. I should never give up. Honestly, the workshop made me reflect as to why am I doing my ID – for the betterment of my students/patients. The activity humbled me to practice more especially on objective writing so that I can improve myself and become the best PT teacher that I can be.